There’s so much competition for our audience’s attention. Want to stand out? Consumers are spending 31% of their media time with audio, but marketers are only allocating 9% of their media budget toward audio. This presents an opportunity for healthcare marketers to unlock new avenues to increase engagement, brand recall, and differentiation.
Jeremy Mathis, an Account Partner and healthcare marketing expert on our team, recently hosted a remote roundtable to discuss the opportunities streaming audio presents to hospital system marketing leaders. Featuring Anna Clement, the Director of SXM Media’s Healthcare Vertical, the conversation highlighted several opportunities and best practices in leveraging this emerging marketing channel.
Here’s a snapshot of key themes that emerged:
- The rise of digital audio
- Digital audio has surpassed radio with 55% of audio consumption occurring digitally. Consumers are spending an average of 1 hour and 43 minutes listening to streaming audio daily, exceeding rates for traditional television, social media, and streaming video.
- The power of podcasts
- 116 million Americans listen to podcasts monthly, and 1 in 5 podcast listeners have said they’ve made an appointment with a doctor as a direct result of hearing a podcast ad. This presents a powerful opportunity to reach healthcare marketers’ target audience with impactful messaging where they are most engaged.
- Targeted transformation
- Streaming platforms like Pandora offer a wealth of first-party data and the ability to partner with third-party data providers. A multi-channel approach involving audio, display, and video can be highly effective in complementing your overall marketing strategy, especially in reaching targeted audiences.
- Personalized healthcare marketing
- With audio, healthcare marketers can break away from advertisements with excessive visual stimulation, reaching a more receptive audience. Streaming audio’s personalized nature and low ad load makes it an attractive medium for healthcare marketers.
Streaming audio and podcast advertising presents an underutilized opportunity for healthcare marketers to differentiate themselves, reach untapped audiences, and engage listeners to take action in a personalized way. By embracing this medium and adopting a multi-channel approach, healthcare marketing leaders can position themselves for success in the ever-evolving digital landscape.
Interested in seeing the impact of streaming audio in action? Check out how we partnered with UCLA Health to increase appointment volume with streaming audio.