healthcare marketer’s guide to AI

In the ever-evolving landscape of healthcare marketing, staying ahead of the technological curve is essential. As a healthcare marketer, you should harness the power of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to save time, personalize campaigns, and elevate patient engagement. In this guide, we'll explore how AI can be your ally in implementing impactful healthcare marketing strategies.

what is AI?

AI, short for Artificial Intelligence, is not just a buzzword—it's a game-changer for healthcare marketing. AI is a machine’s ability to perform tasks typically requiring human intelligence, such as reasoning, problem-solving, perception, prediction, and language processing.

practical steps to use AI in healthcare marketing

AI is not a passing trend but a transformative force reshaping the healthcare marketing landscape. While it’s not a replacement for human skills, those who fail to adopt and harness AI technology risk being left behind in an increasingly competitive field and seeing the financial impact of lower efficiency. AI is one of the most effective tools you can implement to save time ideating content, sorting data, personalizing campaigns, and increasing patient engagement and revenue. As a healthcare marketer, now is the time to learn how to securely apply AI tools to your marketing process to stay ahead of the technological curve and see your productivity soar. ‍

1. campaign ideation

If you've ever found yourself stuck in a creative rut, using an AI tool like ChatGPT can lighten the load and help generate content ideas. Think of it as having an always-available brainstorming assistant. Not to mention an assistant who passed a final MBA exam at Wharton. AI tools can kickstart your campaign ideation process, providing fresh insights and directions for your content. Start by asking ChatGPT, “What are some healthcare digital marketing campaign ideas to drive patient engagement?” Utilizing AI to get the ball rolling on new content lightens the lift for marketing efforts, allowing smaller teams to generate more quality content.

2. content generation 

In healthcare marketing, it’s vital to personalize campaigns for specific segments of your patient population. AI can help streamline this process by providing personalized email content for your service lines or health education campaigns. From primary care or orthopedics to mammography screenings and maternity journeys, AI can quickly provide tailored content tailored to each patient demographic and their needs, saving you time and boosting patient engagement. AI tools are also fantastic for generating dynamic images within your email body, allowing for even further tailoring of content.

While personalization using patient health information (PHI) is secure within the Cured platform, do not share any PHI directly with an AI tool. Additionally, if you’re creating a campaign containing medical advice with an AI tool's help, double-check information with a medical professional to ensure accuracy. If you’re ever in doubt about an email’s content, run it by our HIPAA compliance checklist.

3. marketing automation

Another area where AI saves healthcare marketers significant time and effort is enabling automation. It lightens the load for repetitive and time-consuming tasks, like A/B test optimization and writing subject lines. This allows you to focus more time on optimizing your campaigns and digital marketing strategy and less on small, time-consuming tasks. In the Cured platform, we harness the power of AI to provide curated subject lines and send time recommendations. When put to the test, our curated subject lines resulted in a 32% increase in open rates, while campaigns sent within our recommended window showed a whopping 33% increase in open rates. By incorporating AI into the Cured platform, we can promise higher engagement rates with only the click of a button.

4. data validation

AI is also very handy at validating data more efficiently than manual processes. For example, it can verify email addresses and sift through patient lists, surfacing duplicates and data inaccuracies. Data validation is crucial for maintaining clean and high-quality patient databases. Messy data leaves much more room for error in your campaigns, like assigning contacts to the wrong segment and jeopardizing the patient experience. Save yourself from tedious data review and lower your margin of error by incorporating AI in your validation process.

5. improve data insights

AI tools are also handy when it comes to uncovering key data insights. For example, identifying a patient segment most likely to require specific care and generating scores for segmentation. Machine learning algorithms, also known as propensity models, are very good at predicting future consumer behavior based on past data. These insights are invaluable for healthcare marketers as they allow you to be proactive rather than reactive in your strategies. Our partners at UCHealth leveraged this propensity scoring in the Cured platform and saw an increase in click-through rates of 35% on their campaigns.‍

6. drive revenue

In today's competitive healthcare market, differentiating your organization is vital to sustaining revenue growth and building lasting patient loyalty. Leveraging AI can immensely improve the efficiency of your healthcare organization and marketing efforts. AI helps you understand patients better, tailor your services, optimize your campaigns, and see significantly higher ROI. Increasing efficiency with AI lowers marketing costs and headcount demands while allowing you to produce more campaigns to increase revenue. Additionally, most AI tools are quite affordable or even free. Today's market demands healthcare organizations adopt innovative strategies to differentiate themselves, and AI tools will only increase your healthcare organization's efficiency and effectiveness.

AI technology is here to stay, and being an early adopter will make you shine as a healthcare marketer and bring incredible value to your healthcare organization. With the right approach, AI becomes not just a technology but a valuable ally in your journey towards better patient engagement, conversion, and care outcomes. Efficiently generate personalized campaigns, lower cost and time to value, and see ROI soar by incorporating AI tools into your digital marketing strategy. 

AI best practices checklist

1. trust but verify

Although the information is generally accurate, it’s still important to always verify any output an AI tool shares with you. An AI “hallucination” is when an AI tool makes up false information or facts not based on real data or events. They occur because AI models are trained on data that is not verified, so on occasion, the answer to a prompt is not valid. Remember, if the AI you’re applying uses untrusted data sources, you’ll get untrusted results.  As Professor Ethan Mollick of Wharton put it when referring to ChatGPT, it’s an “omniscient, eager-to-please intern who sometimes lies to you.” So, do always fact-check.

2. protect PHI

Make sure that whatever AI tool you use does not have PHI access. Additionally, look for healthcare-specific AI tools, like those in the Cured platform, for help with content and strategies. Data is not secured when using AI, so make sure you’re not inputting any sensitive information when using AI tools.‍

3. keep it creative

It's important to keep in mind that AI algorithms, while incredibly efficient, may sometimes produce content that lacks the human touch and creative flair essential for connecting with patients on a personal and emotional level. You must strike a balance by fusing AI-generated content with the warmth, empathy, and creativity that only human insight and understanding can provide. Combining the two will result in healthcare marketing campaigns that resonate deeply with your audience.

As a healthcare marketer, AI can be your secret weapon for driving patient engagement and optimizing campaigns. By implementing AI best practices and using AI tools wisely, you can save time, improve data insights, and drive revenue for your healthcare organization. Embrace the power of AI and step confidently into the future of healthcare marketing.

ready to start? book time with the Cured team to talk AI-powered healthcare digital marketing.

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