Identifying Post-Pandemic Personas

Like most marketers, you likely make email marketing part of your marketing arsenal. As we move into the next phase of this historic pandemic, you’ll probably reach out to patients who fall into one of three categories:

1. “Ready to Go” – People who are eager to return to everyday life as quickly as possible, with no hesitation to visit doctors’ offices again
2. “Nervous but Necessary” – People who understand it’s time to visit their doctor, schedule a checkup, or follow through on a procedure, but might need some help feeling comfortable
3. “Not Yet Ready” – People who aren’t comfortable venturing into public yet, and might be harder to encourage to come in for care

Your hospitals and doctors’ offices are probably buzzing with new protocols to ensure patient safety, and you’ve probably started communicating them with patients. Before they come to your facility, follow these tips for clear, consistent email messaging that prepares them for their future visits.

1. Lead with Empathy & Accessibility

While the world slowly approaches “life as normal,” your patients are trying to navigate the right time to seek care for themselves and their loved ones. That’s why tone is so important.

Tone is part of your brand voice and should be documented in your style guide and trained among people creating content in your organization. Empathy is ever-important in healthcare, and especially in the midst of a pandemic. While email can sometimes feel like its own beast, it’s important to keep this empathy at the forefront as you create your email outreach messages.

As you’re considering your tone in post-pandemic messaging, think about:

• Who you’re trying to reach: What are they doing when they read your email? What state of mind might they be in? How much time do they have?
• How you message content on your website: Is your content friendly, calming, and approachable on your website? Follow the same guidelines in your emails.
• How you might define your brand voice in three words: Can you be conversational, but not too casual? Or professional, but not patronizing? Document your decision and share (and practice) among your team.

In a similar vein to empathy, focus on using plain language to speak directly to your recipient and reader. Anxiety and fear impact our ability to understand and absorb information and can even interfere with our decision-making abilities. This is magnified in email, as you’re often reaching your reader as they’re multitasking.

2. Make Content Digestible

Like your website’s foundational content and content marketing, content that’s easy to digest is better for all users. This includes common writing for the web best practices including:

• Accurate, descriptive headings
• Short, easy-to-read paragraphs
• Scannable bulleted lists
• Patient-focused (first person) language that speaks to the reader
• Active voice content, written in the present tense

Breaking content and topics into smaller “chunks” is an effective place to start. While your email shouldn’t attempt to cover 20 topics in one message, you might be covering three or four that need to be broken up appropriately so the email reader can quickly scan and digest the information on the screen.

3. Consider Other Media to Share Your Message

Remember that text may not be the best delivery vehicle for your information right now. Videos, infographics, blog posts, and question and answer articles are valuable approaches to delivering important messages.

Engaging video, for example, can be another extension of an empathetic experience: Invite a doctor or leader to share a video message that updates patients on what to expect upon their first visit back to your clinics. Videos are very mobile-friendly, and popular among many consumers, even in an email format.

Infographics are also a simple, streamlined way to deliver information that’s engaging and digestible. Even if you’re updating people on your sanitization practices in waiting rooms, an infographic can be a great way to share that information.

4. Maximize Your Content with Links

Long story short, don’t publish content in your email marketing that can’t also be found on your website. Instead, maximize your email messaging by including links to foundational content on your website.

First, not every patient may get your emails, or open your emails. More importantly, your website is likely driving an increased amount of traffic during and after the pandemic, so keep your website updated with new information across your:

• Patient and caregiver resources
• Service-line pages, especially those impacted by COVID-19 changes
• Patient portal messaging
• Homepage banners or featured homepage content

In your emails, link to those pages of content, or to your crisis resource hub, where the recipient can read more information at their convenience. Then, they’re in charge of their exploratory journey from there and may even convert by scheduling an appointment after reading.

5. Avoid Experimenting Right Now

Email marketing is a great place to experiment with audience segments, messaging, and A/B testing, but now may not be the best time to run a large experiment, such as adjusting your voice and tone.

As your team works with leadership to define important messages to share with patients as you invite them back to non-urgent medical care and appointments, transparency, honesty, and accessibility should be your key goals.

However, keep an eye on your open rates and engagement, as this could dictate how and when you send future messages as news evolves from your organization.

Need Help Getting Started?

If you’re gearing up your email marketing for the return of services to your health system but want help ensuring you’ve captured the right information, contact Geonetric. Our expert digital strategists and marketers can help you create messages that are patient-focused and written with plain language. Or, download our whitepaper on how to prepare for the post-pandemic rebound.

Sobering headlines and statistics about record unemployment numbers, slowing global trade, decline of gross domestic product, and unstable stock markets paint a picture comparable to the Great Depression. A recent SSRS and the Commonwealth Fund survey reports more than a third of Americans have seen some disruption to their income due to job loss, cut hours, or a pay cut. Of those, three percent have lost their health insurance.

In this uniquely challenging (and ever-evolving) situation, optimizing your marketing efforts can help ensure your messaging resonates with consumers who have financial concerns.

Remember the Last Recession…

The 2008 economic contraction had a different cause and took place under different circumstances than we’re experiencing today. But what lessons can we learn from the last recession that can help us now? How did the 2008 financial crisis impact healthcare organizations, providers, and consumers?

According to Advanced Billing & Consulting Services (ABCS), the 2008 financial crisis taught us:

• The healthcare industry may not initially feel the impact
• Demand for certain treatments decreases, somewhat alleviating the shortage of qualified healthcare workers; in 2008, some retired returned to the workforce
• Patients may delay elective surgery and medical care for minor, nonemergency conditions to save money needed to spend on necessities
• Outpatient care, considered “usually more consumer-friendly and affordable… when compared to more traditional inpatient settings,” may expand

ABCS references a study of Great Recession trends from the American Academy of Family Physicians that looked at consumer behavior. Patients were more likely to:

• Have higher overall stress levels
• Experience anxiety about their abilities to pay for care
• Cancel their appointments
• Skip preventive care and develop new health issues as a result
• Lose access to employer-sponsored or private insurance coverage due to job loss or furlough

Knowing your audience and their pain points is one of the most critical aspects of effective communications. While you’re writing, developing or refreshing marketing personas, or other tasks, use the above findings to inform your understanding of your readers.

…And Look to the Future

A lot has changed in digital marketing and content strategy best practices in the last few years. Healthcare organizations, providers, consumers, and marketing departments are much different than they were more than 10 years ago.

The following tips are informed by what’s happened in the past and tweaked to most effectively reach audiences of today. Bear in mind that the 2020 pandemic is a rapidly changing situation and your marketing efforts need to adapt with the same agility.

Let Empathy Guide You

Consumers feel more confident to convert when your content is relatable, readable, accessible, and helpful.

• Aim to help consumers feel safe and secure returning to your healthcare facilities, and consider what types of questions patients have in times like this, especially when it comes to care.
  • What will my visit be like?
  • How can I trust it’s safe to visit a waiting room or facility?
  • What are you doing to protect me/my loved ones when we come to an in-person meeting?
• Meet your users where they are, positioning your providers as their go-to resource for answers and solutions.
• Write in an engaging, user-focused way (versus an organization-focused style) that demonstrates your patient-centered ethos.
• Use plain language to make your content accessible to users of varying health literacy abilities, and conduct keyword research to understand the language your target audiences are most familiar with.

Promote Services Strategically

If you offer services that may see increased interest or demand, consider promoting them more widely.

For example, if your organization offers mental and behavioral health services and can accommodate increased volume, you may see improved engagement and conversions promoting counseling through a marketing campaign.

Promote services that were paused during the pandemic. Patient and visitor restrictions prevented people from receiving annual physical exams and routine cancer screenings, such as colonoscopies and mammograms. Young children may need to catch up on routine recommended vaccines.

Telemedicine as Competitive Differentiator

Patients will understandably worry about the risk of COVID-19 infection until a vaccine is widely available. When choosing between two organizations, the ability to see a provider virtually may be the user’s deciding factor. Whatever services you offer through virtual visits, promote those widely.

Communicate Risk

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. To avoid loss of patient volume for preventive and primary care services, explain the detrimental health impact patients who forgo or delay these services may experience.

It may be especially effective to note that waiting until a health issue becomes an emergency is likely to end up being a costlier option than catching it earlier, in addition to having a larger negative impact on the consumer’s health.

Answer Financial Questions

Our keyword research often reveals queries related to billing and finances. These include “paying for [XYZ] care,” “what’s the cost of [XYZ]?,” “financial help for patients,” and similar variations. We also hear from doctors and other department subject matter experts that these are some of the most common questions they get from patients.

On your service line webpages, use plain language to explain how most patients pay for care, and cross-link to relevant areas of your website as needed. For example, you may note that you accept major insurance plans, Medicare/Medicaid, and offer financial assistance or aid to patients who qualify. If affordability is a competitive differentiator for your organization, emphasize it in your content.

Get Expert Help

Contact Geonetric today to evaluate your current COVID-19 marketing efforts and plan a strategy to support future success.

Still, some patients may consider whether they should risk exposure to COVID-19 by going to treatment at a hospital or outpatient facility.

Many health care professional groups and associations have put out recommendations about treatments, therapies, and surgeries for patients. For many patients, delays can be detrimental and make treatment less effective. The National Kidney Foundation urges kidney disease patients not to skip their regular dialysis treatments. And the American Society of Clinical Oncology does not recommend changing or withholding cancer therapies.

Ultimately, decisions about postponing necessary treatments and therapies should be made on an individual basis with a patient’s doctor.

Some patients may have to be hospitalized if that is the safest way for them to get treatment and monitoring for their condition, if they have waited too long for care, or if they have COVID-19 symptoms along with their chronic condition.

Protecting At-Risk Patients

Patients with cancer, kidney disease, multiple sclerosis, or a transplanted organ are at higher risk if they get COVID-19. That’s because of their health condition, a weakened immune system from treatments and medications, coexisting conditions, or donated organs that do not work as efficiently as they should.

If any critical treatments or therapies are available through your home health care services, highlight the benefits to your patients of receiving care and medical supplies at home. Support from home health providers can keep patients safer and healthier.

Patients with chronic conditions need the most protection and reassurance during a pandemic. Coping with cancer and other diseases and worrying about the coronavirus can be overwhelming. They need support. Making them feel comfortable is an essential part of being a health care communicator.

Outreach & Advice from a Trusted Source

Your patients need to know what is true and what isn’t true, and how your organization is caring for patients with chronic conditions. They will value information from you because they trust your organization and providers.

Your primary care providers and specialists might want to begin outreach with these patients, so they don’t slip through the cracks. Use your electronic health records tool, a phone visit, or telemedicine services to connect, answer questions, and put them at ease with their care plan and treatments. During these touchpoints, be sure your providers encourage patients to seek emergency care for their condition if needed. This keeps your patients in the decision-making process for their health care and mental well-being.

Information Can Reduce Patient Anxiety

Patients may worry about the safety of necessary care. As a health care communicator, you’ll need to be transparent and share comprehensive information with your patients to lessen their concerns. Craft messages about:

• Patient safety as your organization’s number one priority – Enforce face coverings at all times and social distancing in the hospital or health system’s facilities. If some locations have different rules, explain why and what differences exist.
• Infection prevention measures at your facilities – Outline cleaning and disinfecting practices your organization has put into practice to prevent infection spread. If you are using the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s infection prevention guideline, be sure to mention that detail.
• Prescreening procedures – Let your patients know the appointment prescreening processes you are using before they come to your location. This may include phone screening and public entrances screening before allowing patients to enter your hospital or clinic. If employee protocol is different, explain those precautions, too. Make sure patients know your procedures apply to all patients and employees, so they feel safe receiving care from your health care professionals.
• Surges in virtual visits – In-person appointments have gone down during COVID-19 temporary closures, and telemedicine usage is up. Explain to nervous patients that this means fewer people are coming through your doors and, therefore, the disease is less likely to spread. Lower patient volume gives your organization time to clean, disinfect, and screen visitors as a way to keep everyone safer.
• Treatment of COVID-19 patients – If you are treating many patients with COVID-19, your other patients may wonder if they are safe when they come to your facilities. If you have a separate unit or area and staff for treating COVID-19 patients, explain the separation of those patients from other patients and other specific precautions you are taking.
• Visitor restrictions – Make your visitor restrictions clear. If family or caregivers are not allowed to accompany patients to their treatments, tell the patient during prescreening. Explain how your limits help keep everyone safe by exposing fewer people to the person-to-person spread of the infection.
• Curbside services – If any of your locations provide curbside services, such as pharmacy or home medical equipment pickup, let patients know they won’t have to risk exposure to COVID-19 to get what they need.
• Contactless, digital payments – Online bill pay isn’t new, but it’s more popular than ever because it reduces the need for patients to interact with staff. Let patients know where to find access to your online bill pay services.

There are many risks during a pandemic; information can bring relief to patients. Regular communication is key.

Contact Us to Help Your Team

Reach out to Geonetric for content services to support your team’s response to the coronavirus. And explore our COVID-19 resources hub.

Whether you’ve had a heavy COVID-19 case load or not, the financial impact of this pandemic on health systems has been dramatic. Re-engaging health consumers is critical to the financial survival of many organizations, and care deferral is beginning to have serious consequences for the health of many Americans.

As you plan to open service lines, this white paper will help you:

• Create a process that embraces uncertainty
• Manage expectations for consumers, employees, and providers
• Move your marketing focus from crisis communication to declining threat and transition to service line marketing
• Utilze messaging pillars to promote what you care able to safely deliver today
• Chart a course for content marketing, content strategy, and digital marketing based the phase your orgnaiation is in