In the last few years, there has been a dramatic shift in how people find healthcare information. The internet and social media have become new sources of medical knowledge for many Americans. In fact, some research suggests that Facebook is now one of the most popular places to get healthcare information from friends and family.

With this in mind, hospital administrators must consider running campaigns on Facebook to not only raise awareness about what they offer, but also prompt patients, both current and potential, to schedule appointments, find a doctor, or otherwise take action.

Today, we’re digging into three Facebook advertising campaigns every hospital should consider running and why these campaigns are worth putting your ad dollars behind.

3 High-Performing Facebook Advertising Campaigns for Your Hospital

As in every aspect of your marketing, the patient journey — and where your prospective patients are on that journey — plays an integral role in setting up effective Facebook ad campaigns. Understanding the nuances involved in reaching and connecting with patients at varying stages of their decision-making journey means there is no “one size fits all” approach to setting up your Facebook ad campaigns. That’s why we recommend stacking your digital marketing efforts to include these three high-performing ad campaigns.

Each of these campaigns reaches patients at a specific stage — awareness, consideration, conversion. And it all starts by setting the most appropriate objective for your campaigns. This tells Facebook what to optimize for when running your ads, ensuring you see the results your hospital needs. Let’s take a deeper look at each of our recommended campaigns based on the patient journey stage and objective.

Awareness Stage: Reaching Prospective New Patients

Objective: Reach

During the awareness stage of the patient journey, your hospital is targeting and reaching people who are unfamiliar with your brand and offerings but fall within your ideal target set. These may be individuals who live in areas your healthcare facilities serve, are in the age range of your target patients, or have shown interest in offerings similar to yours. To run your awareness Facebook ad campaign, we recommend setting your campaign’s objective to reach, letting Facebook know you’d like them to show your messaging to as many people within your target audience as possible.

At this stage, your advertising should work to:

Introduce your hospital and your brand — Who are you? Where can patients find you? What is the most important thing for them to know about you? Use awareness ads to briefly answer these key questions.

Form a connection — Patients have options, which means your hospital has competition. To stand out from the pack, even your general awareness advertising is an opportunity to generate an emotional connection with a broad audience. 

Move prospects along the journey — The goal of any advertising is to elicit a specific reaction. In the case of awareness ads, 

Consideration Stage: Focus on Service Lines

Objective: Traffic

In the consideration stage of the patient journey, consumers may be aware of your brand, but unsure of your offerings or if you can help them solve a specific challenge. These individuals may have a particular healthcare concern, such as the need for a new primary care physician, a condition like diabetes, or being within the age range to require certain health screenings. With Facebook advertising, healthcare marketers can reach these audiences with service-line focused messaging to provide a solution.

With a consideration-stage Facebook ad campaign, your options for setting an objective are varied. For healthcare marketers promoting a specific service line, our recommendation would be to focus on traffic. This means Facebook would optimize for link clicks or page views, using your ad targeting to prompt users to visit a landing page where they can obtain additional information on that line of service. For example, reaching men over 55 with heart-health-focused messaging and a call to action to view cardiologists in their area.

Conversion Stage: Encourage Action

Objective: Conversions

As we reach the bottom of the funnel — also known as the later stages of the patient journey — messaging should focus on encouraging patients or potential patients to take the desired action. At this stage, your audience is much narrower than within the awareness phase, however, these individuals are more familiar with your brand, may have already visited your website or facilities, and are more likely to take higher-value actions such as scheduling an appointment.

For example, if your hospital launched a telehealth app, a conversion-focused Facebook campaign can be optimized for app downloads. The platform will show your ads to those most likely to take action, which would take the form of a download in this example but may also be a phone call or instant appointment booking.

Facebook advertising can be a valuable tool for any hospital to consider. We’ve shown you three campaigns designed to be successful at generating patient leads, but there are many more ways your organization could use this powerful social media marketing platform. If you have yet to take advantage of the opportunity, our team is here to help ensure success from start to finish by providing expert guidance on developing your campaign strategy and ensuring execution doesn’t fall through the cracks. Why not get started today?