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Thanks for checking out the second part of our series on promoting your telemedicine app. If you missed part one, you can find that here. In part two, we’re going to talk about advertising telemedicine apps and tactics for doing so. Of course, this list is not exhaustive; these are just the channels and tactics we recommend as a starting point. Without further ado, let’s start with the first tactic: remarketing.
Remarketing
Remarketing is advertising to users who have already engaged with your telemedicine app.
Downloaders Who Haven’t Scheduled an Appointment Yet
The most important users to retarget are those who have downloaded the app but who have not made an appointment. This is because remarketing to these users is free with push notifications and has the greatest potential for success. You can examine your customer list and find out who has registered but who has not yet made an appointment.
When targeting these users, you might send them a push notification on their phone that says “Swipe for a free primary care appointment!”. A simple swipe sends them to promotional page with a unique code that they can use in the future.
Referral Remarketing
Another way to build new business off of your existing downloads is to provide an incentive for users to invite their friends to the app. Sending a push notification offering rewards for sharing the app with friends will earn bonus and free exposure. Additionally, existing users will have an incentive to come back and schedule another appointment by reaping the reward of getting friends to sign up.
Google Ads for Telemedicine
Google Ads is a no-brainer for promoting your app. Targeting users while they are searching for a telemedicine option gives you the best chance to win them as a patient. It makes sense: target people when they are most likely to convert.
Search Ads for Telemedicine
You have several options for advertising your telemedicine app on Google. The first two types of campaigns you should consider are Google Search Ads and Google App promotion campaigns.
- You can create a normal search campaign and send traffic to a landing page or app store URL (Google Search Ads).
Or… - You can create an app promotion campaign so that viewers can download the app directly from the Google results page (Google App promotion).
Examples of both types of campaigns are shown in the image.
The Google Search Ads campaign is on the top and the Google App promotion campaign is on the bottom.
Even though app campaigns feature less information, they earn better conversion rates because they require fewer clicks leading to in order to lead to a download. At bfw, we’ve averaged a cost-per-download of $3.50 on average.
Google’s strength is earning you a large number of downloads for a lower cost, and app download campaigns reduce that cost even further. Your focus should be on getting as many downloads as possible for two reasons.
- App stores decide where to rank your app for relevant searches based on several factors. One of them is how many downloads you have.
- It is easier to convince someone who has already downloaded your app to schedule an appointment than to convince a new person who hasn’t downloaded it yet.
While earning these downloads, make sure you are A/B testing your in-app landing pages to find out which leads to the greatest number of appointments scheduled per download. This will help you earn more appointments-per-download and will positively affect your reviews. We’ll talk about the importance of reviews later on.
Trueview Campaigns (Youtube Advertising)
Trueview campaigns are another type of Google campaign to consider.
Advertising on Youtube via Google is a great way to earn large number of targeted impressions. As long as you are paying low CPMs, you should consider these campaigns successful. That is because, according to Nielsen, brand recall among audiences
increases significantly when audiences see an advertisement on multiple screens.
Youtube campaigns help views become familiar with your brand over time. Do remember to set frequency caps to one or two impressions per day. You don’t want to over-advertise on Youtube.
Apple Search Ads
This is another no-brainer because you are targeting people when they are searching for your service.
Apple Search Ads will show your app as a download option on the App Store for iPhone and iPad for relevant searches. So, if someone searches for “telemedicine app” on the App Store, your ad will show up on the top of the search results. You want to make sure you are covering all of the app stores as completely as possible because this is how you will get the highest number of downloads.
At bfw, we’ve been able to get our cost-per-app-download numbers to below $5.00. It’s completely reasonable to see a cost-per-appointment-generation of $10.00. How’s that for ROI?
Programmatic Advertising
If you have extra budget after maxing out your app store advertising campaigns, consider advertising your telemedicine app with programmatic advertising.
Audience & Behavioral Targeting
Programmatic advertising allows you to target users based on how they used the Internet. Clever Sherlock-Holmes-esque programmers and algorithms can generate a very clear picture about who targets are based on browsing habits. These databases of activity allow you to target audiences based on a wide array of factors, including:
- Age
- Location
- Gender
- Parental status
- Income level
- Education level
- Lifestyle habits
- Nightlife enthusiasts
- Business professionals
- Night owls
- Fitness enthusiasts
- Much more
- Media consumption habits like…
- Film buffs
- Reality TV lovers
- Gamers
- Much more
- Hobbies
- Cooking
- Gardening
- Sports
- Many more
The above list is by no way exhaustive. There are literally hundreds of audience category segments out there.
Lists
Programmatic targeting with the right partner can also gain you access to lists based on medical information. While these lists are limited to the medical situation of targets, they can be combined with other databases and algorithms to make educated guesses on the medical situation of your targets. For example, if someone is a registered patient of an OB/GYN and frequently searches for yeast infection information, you can be relatively sure that they suffer from yeast infections. It might be a little sneaky, but it is effective.
Contextual Targeting
You can also target placements where your ad will show. Placements are simply another word for advertising locations. A placement is typically a website, app, or mobile game.
For telemedicine app advertisers, your focus will be on websites like WebMD and Mayoclinic.org because this is where users come to learn if they should seek treatment for a condition.
Remarketing
You can also build lists of users who have interacted with your telemedicine app in some way. These might be people who have clicked on your other programmatic advertisements or people who have visited your app’s website.
We highly recommend including at least one remarketing campaign so that you make sure you are not missing out on people who have considered downloading your app but who may have been distracted or interrupted before they could convert.
OTT Advertising
If you want to swing for the fences, consider OTT advertising.
OTT advertising is essentially programmatic TV advertising to devices that are connected to the Internet. These might be Amazon Fire Sticks, game consoles, Smart TVs, DVR set-top boxes, and other types of Internet-capable devices where users can watch TV.
OTT advertising combines the high-impact strengths of traditional TV advertising with the pin-point accuracy and attribution of digital advertising.
Attribution
With near certainty, you can attribute an exact number of downloads to each advertisement based on the show that was being watched at the time, the device that was being used, the age of the downloader, and other factors.
It’s a pretty complex system, but it is made possible by the use of tracking pixels similar to those that Google Analytics uses. Here is the general outline:
- The OTT vendor has massive databases of households with OTT-connected devices.
- These devices have emails and names attached to them.
- These devices are registered with an email or name of some sort.
- This email or name is tied to third-party data that the OTT vendor buys. This data includes information like demographics, behavioral data similar to those in programmatic advertising, geolocation data, & other data.
- The advertiser tells the OTT vendor which audiences to target based on the third-party information. Again, this is very similar to programmatic advertising.
- The advertiser installs the OTT vendor’s tracking pixel on the app. This allows the OTT vendor to get data about when a certain device saw an advertisement.
- The pixel communicates information to the OTT vendor about which IP addresses connect to the app.
- The OTT vendor pairs this IP information with its records and communicates how many installs or viewers are attributable to the ad.
So, if someone on their phone is connected to the same Wi-Fi as their TV when they visit your app, they will be attributed to an advertisement, show, and targeting group successfully if they convert. This is because the Wi-Fi has the same IP address as the connected device. The OTT vendor simply has to do a search for IPs that match their database.
If someone isn’t connected to their Wi-Fi, it’s still possible to attribute their app usage to the OTT ad. This is done with geolocation information.
The vendor may be able to compare the geolocation coordinates of new converters with the geolocation coordinates of the connected device. They should be able to say with a certain degree of accuracy that this unregistered device is actually a connected TV viewer visiting the app.
Impressions with Potential
Advertising your telemedicine app to connected TV’s and devices has a lot of potential to drive new business for a few reasons:
- The attribution allows you to minimize waste.
- OTT advertisements combine the visual and audio effects of TV advertising with the targeting capabilities of digital advertising.
- Viewers are either on their phone or have their phone right next to them.
OTT advertising is an excellent tool for telemedicine app advertising. The only downside is that the full attribution quoted above can be very expensive. But if you have the budget you should definitely consider this advertising channel.
Lastly…
If you’ve read through this whole article—kudos!
There’s no one-size-fits-all solution for advertising telemedicine apps. These are just our recommendations of tried-and-true tactics. If you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed, we’re here to help. Give us a call at 561-962-3300 or email us at [email protected]. We’ll help you earn downloads for your telemedicine app so you can focus on offering the best service out there.
As always, we encourage you to visit our healthcare advertising blog and subscribe if you enjoyed this article.
That’s all, folks. Take care and stay safe.