The experience you provide your patients is now more important than ever. More than two-thirds of companies 88 percent of companies will be competing based on customer or patient experience. That means understanding your patients’ needs should be a big focus of your practice or hospital, if it’s not already.
One way to improve patient experience is by knowing your patients’ personas and how to communicate with each one. Learn more about personas and how to develop a communication strategy with the help of medical promotional items.
Building your patient personas
Knowing the various personas you serve comes down to understanding your patients. Analyze their demographics (location, age, gender, income, etc.), how they found your healthcare facility, which challenges they face, and any other data that can help you provide better care. To get even more details, build a survey for your current patients and encourage them to complete it by offering a health and wellness promotional item, such as lip balm or hand sanitizer. Using the large pool of data, create avatars (like images or icons) to represent several types of patients. The more personas you build, the more targeted your messaging can be.
Creating messages for different personas
Once you’ve defined various patient personas, use these tips for crafting communications for each one.
Focus your messaging
Tackle one persona at a time. For example, if certain personas have different concerns or health goals, speak directly to those. Also, if you’ve analyzed your patients’ interests, you can use imagery and copy that incorporates those interests.
Change how you capture leads
With your patient personas, reevaluate your lead-building strategy. Consider which social channels patients use, how they perceive email or phone calls, and even which local events they attend. If you choose to set up a booth at an event, don’t forget the medical promotional items. A pedometer, for example, can draw attendees to your booth.
Improve patient communication
Patient personas can also be used to refine how you deliver important health information. If all your patients use social media, for example, be sure to communicate health events, programs and other valuable information through those channels. Or if you discover that patients prefer text messages rather than phone calls, text them appointment reminders or other information.
Write better content
From social media posts to blog topics, choose content that will engage all of your personas. Look at their interests, health concerns and pain points—then position yourself as the expert on those topics to help educate current patients and leads.
Say thanks
Show your appreciation to long-time patients or congratulate them on reaching healthcare milestones. Consider patient personas when choosing health and wellness promotional items. For example, an avid chef may enjoy a portion-control bowl, while an enthusiastic athlete might prefer a quality water bottle.
Build a better patient experience
Thanks to patient personas, you can enhance your marketing communications, and patients can benefit from more personalized care. As you rebuild your communications strategy, don’t forget to enlist the help of medical promotional items.