2023 Trends for Healthcare Marketers

Online healthcare delivery soared in 2020, and health and pharma advertising budgets followed suit. Digital ad spend will reach $15.84 billion in 2022, and although growth is slowing down, the category is still estimated to approach nearly $20 billion in spending through 2024.

As we look to the future, one of the biggest topics in healthcare is going to continue to be—yep, you guessed it!—privacy. And while this isn’t anything new, there are two sides to the privacy coin for marketers to consider.

On one side: more and more people are prioritizing their data privacy rights. This means it’s critical that healthcare marketers have the framework to manage consumer privacy as demands continue to intensify. If a consumer were to come to your brand directly and ask to be removed from your marketing lists, do you have the processes in place to make that happen? If not, then it is critical you establish the infrastructure you’ll need to comply with these requirements—especially as privacy regulations continue to strengthen.

And, on the other side of the coin: consumers are increasingly willing to have very vulnerable, very sensitive discussions about their health and wellness on social media. Of course, this has been a common practice for a long time, yet historically these conversations have been peer-to-peer. But with growth in TikTok communities such as #medtok and #doctok, they are now also happening between peers and providers. People are using social platforms to educate themselves and engage in specific health topics, so this creates an opportunity to engage users in a very direct way. Also, it’s worth noting that this doesn’t mean your brand needs to have a “cool” TikTok presence. It just means that your paid content should have an authentic and relatable voice that matches the tone of the communities themselves.

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Want to learn about some of the macro trends affecting digital marketing more generally? Check out our 2023 Trends Report to stay ahead of the curve as you plan for the year ahead.