As businesses across the healthcare industry recognize the digital sphere as a key source of customers, more and more of their marketing spend is going towards their website, social media, and digital marketing campaigns. But with new marketing channels comes a multitude of new data, metrics, and “digitalize” terms that even the most veteran healthcare marketer might struggle to make sense of. With so much information out there, it can be extremely hard to know what to focus on and what to ignore.
In order to help you navigate this towering “wall of data”, we’ll break down what the key terms and metrics actually mean – and where you should be focusing in order to ensure the best ROI for your digital marketing spend.
Coming to Grips With Your Social Media Analytics
When it comes to your organization’s social media presence, three types of metrics stand out: your followers, your engagement, and your conversion rate.
Followers
Your followers are the people who have actively subscribed to your content on that social media platform and who will see your posts on their feeds. Like traffic, the more followers or subscribers you have, the better. But there is a caveat in that the quality of your followers’ matters. There’s little use in having millions of followers on Facebook or Instagram if none of them are interested in ever buying your product. Instead, you want the vast majority of your new followers to be key decision-makers or influencers in your typical buying process. To learn how to identify and attract these people, read our blog post on buyer personas.
Engagement
In a world where brands can buy followers, engagement is a far more telling social media metric. If your followers are active and regularly engage with your posts through liking, commenting or sharing, then it’s a good indication that they’re a good match for your brand and your content is resonating with them.
While there aren’t many social media benchmarks specifically for the healthcare industry, the median engagement rate across industries for Facebook posts is 0.09%, while the median engagement rate for Instagram posts is 1.60%.
Conversion Rate
A key metric to pay attention to in any digital marketing campaign that uses Facebook or LinkedIn is your conversion rate. A “conversion” in the world of social media marketing is when a person who sees your post takes an action that you want them to take. This can be anything from clicking on a link to your website or landing page, subscribing to your feed, or actually buying one of your products. Your chosen conversion activity should depend on the type of campaign you’re running. For instance, if you’re aiming to build brand awareness in a new market, it makes sense to focus on building followers or encouraging shares; if you’re pushing a particular product or service, then you should probably focus on sales.
According to data released by Wordstream, players in the healthcare industry enjoy a relatively high conversion rate for posts made on Facebook, at 11%. If your conversion rate is significantly less than this, then consider tweaking your messaging or targeting to better suit your buyer personas.
Partner With a Digital Agency That Understands Healthcare
KBK Communications is a healthcare digital marketing agency that works with clients in medical manufacturing and healthcare supply chain distribution. Our specialized team understands how to leverage each digital platform, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, to grow and convert leads in the healthcare industry.
If you’re interested in growing your understanding of digital marketing, our team of industry experts has put together a digital marketing strategy certification course that will equip you with the tools you need to boost your digital strategy. Register here today to secure your spot.