Reach The Right Patients With These Four Targeted Awareness Strategies

Precise audience targeting enables health systems marketers to connect with the right patients, but privacy concerns complicate these efforts. Discover how contextual targeting enhances your brand’s reach and minimizes compliance risks.

In a world where 86% of consumers read online patient reviews, a well-placed ad can point consumers to your health system brand and connect them to your care team. After all, timing and relevance are everything. Giving patients the confidence and information they need to schedule their next appointment can mean the difference between life-changing care and poor health outcomes that could have been more manageable with early detection.

Healthcare marketers have long underscored the importance of SEO strategies to attract new patients. However, evolving regulations and stricter privacy and security standards pose challenges. With third-party cookies phasing out and tracking pixels restricted by HIPAA, health systems marketers need to get creative with how they target key audiences while avoiding intrusiveness.

So, how can health systems marketers reach patients without compromising on compliance? Here are four powerful audience-targeting strategies that can maximize campaign effectiveness.

1. Leverage the Power of Social Media

Did you know that 62% of the global population visits a social media platform daily? This means you can likely find members of your target audience on at least one of these channels at any given time. For Gen Z in particular, social media has become a key source of health and wellness information. 

While showcasing your health system on social media can generate interest, it may not be the most effective way to build long-term loyalty. Instead, consider integrating more personalized outreach tactics, such as:

• Humanizing your health system: Demonstrate that patients are cared for by highly experienced and compassionate doctors, nurses, and specialists committed to positive outcomes. Regularly share physician interviews, engaging Q&As with medical experts, and team member spotlights to portray your health system as an empathetic, memorable team rather than a faceless brand.
• Integrating patient-generated content: Creating a safe space for patients to share their healthcare journeys through testimonials, blogs, and social media posts not only helps build meaningful connections with your health system but can also further amplify patient engagement and education, establishing your brand as a trusted resource.
• Providing educational, value-driven content: Leverage resources like awareness day posts, pre-appointment guides, and tips to empower patients to ask the right questions during their visits. For example, Millennials report the lowest confidence in communicating with their doctors, with only 56% feeling comfortable sharing their concerns.¹ Gen Z patients are also less likely to ask questions during appointments. By offering these resources, you can help patients feel more prepared, confident, and engaged in their healthcare conversations, leading to stronger doctor-patient relationships.

In addition, make it a priority to respond to all reviews, whether positive or negative, to show patients their feedback is valued. Leaving reviews unaddressed can make patients feel overlooked. Encourage staff to ask for input immediately after appointments and resolve any concerns in office to help prevent negative reviews. Remember to abide by HIPAA standards when addressing comments—be mindful of patient confidentiality in your public response and encourage offline communication.

2. Craft Engaging Video Content 

In 2025, adults are projected to spend a staggering 4 hours per day on digital video, surpassing traditional TV by more than an hour and showing just how essential digital video has become for reaching audiences. For health systems, leveraging this medium is crucial to engage potential patients. Video ads, with their combination of motion and sound, are highly effective in delivering impactful messages, driving higher engagement rates, and influencing behavior, as evidenced by recent studies:

• 82% of consumers have purchased a product or service after watching an ad video, and even if they don’t immediately act, the video’s initial impression lasts. 
• Messages conveyed through video see a 95% retention rate, compared to only 10% with text-based content.
• Video ads tend to receive 20% more clicks than image ads.

From fostering an emotional connection with prospective patients to educating consumers on common chronic health conditions, videos help paint a clear picture of what your health system can provide. However, to maximize their impact, it’s crucial to reach the right audiences. One effective approach is to narrow your focus to specific service lines, as not all patients seek care for the same reasons. By highlighting the services that align with consumers’ needs, you can present your health system as a promising solution during their search for care.

Bottom line: Effective video marketing can help health systems marketers spread brand awareness, heighten conversion rates, and increase consumer interactions. However, the timing, context, and placement of videos are just as important as the content itself.

3. Reach Targeted Audiences With CTV Advertising

With 99% of all US households paying for at least one or more streaming services, consider making space for connected TV (CTV) advertising in your audience targeting toolbox. In recent years, CTV has become increasingly valuable for marketers looking to reach consumers in a fragmented media landscape since it offers deeper metrics insight and greater control over who sees which ads and how often. 

The move to CTV advertising is already making a difference:

• 65% of marketers classify CTV as a performance channel, and 52% use it to drive key metrics like web visits and revenue. Those using CTV as a performance channel are experiencing significant returns.
• CTV ad attention has risen, reaching nearly 52% in Q1 2024.
• Around 65% of marketers observed increased sales by combining CTV with other paid advertising methods.

CTV advertising solutions, such as Healthgrades’ PatienTarget Connected TV, make it easier for marketers to reach a highly targeted audience based on demographics, interests, and behaviors. These capabilities allow campaigns to be tailored to specific conditions, age groups, and other criteria, delivering personalized messages that educate and empower viewers to book appointments—regardless of what or where they’re watching.

In addition to targeting, building strong brand awareness through CTV is vital for attracting and retaining patients. It keeps your health system top of mind when patients need care, whether now or in the future. Although branding may not always yield immediate, measurable results, it plays a significant role in building trust and loyalty, ultimately laying the groundwork for long-term success.

4. Maximize the Power of Contextual Targeting

While display ads have their place in digital advertising, contextual targeting offers a more strategic approach to reaching patients when they’re most likely to engage. Platforms like Healthgrades’ PatientConnect allow health systems to highlight their services through hyper-targeted sponsored listings, placing your brand in front of patients actively searching for specific conditions or doctors.

With two-thirds of Healthgrades visitors making appointments within a week of viewing a doctor’s profile, your brand will reach an engaged audience ready to act. Pairing this visibility with omnichannel solutions like PatienTarget eliminates wasted impressions, ensuring your ads connect with the right patients across web, CTV, and audio platforms. This comprehensive approach maximizes reach and precision, driving stronger outcomes and long-term patient loyalty.

Additionally, Healthgrades offers prominent branding and calls to action on physician search results and profiles. Through a wide syndication network, your brand extends across partner sites, providing a seamless user experience. If prospective patients encounter a doctor who isn’t accepting new patients, they’re automatically shown alternatives within your system, helping manage capacity while retaining patient engagement. This approach keeps patients within your system and allows them to make appointments seamlessly, bolstering your health system’s overall effectiveness in digital outreach.

Reach Your Audience Targeting Goals with Healthgrades  

By partnering with Healthgrades, you can strengthen the impact of your media spending. With our Brand Solutions for Health Systems, Healthgrades places your health system’s brand in front of the industry’s most qualified and action-oriented audience at scale across web, CTV, and audio by utilizing Healthgrades Audience Intelligence proprietary data. This data combines billions of consumer behavioral site interactions and HIPAA-compliant, de-identified claims data with exclusive machine-learning modeling techniques to find the consumers most likely to make an appointment soon.

How This Works

1. Healthgrades Audience Intelligence combines billions of consumer behavioral site interactions and HIPAA-compliant, de-identified claims data with exclusive machine-learning modeling techniques to find the consumers most likely to make an appointment soon.
2. Through a consultative approach, Healthgrades works directly with your team to develop a tailored plan aligned with your media and branding goals. This collaborative process ensures our solutions are customized to meet your unique objectives.
3. Maximize your brand’s reach to this targeted audience on Healthgrades and extend it to wherever they are across CTV, web, video, or audio.

Implement strategic branding initiatives that create a lasting impact on your healthcare system. As the premier doctor discovery platform, our goal at Healthgrades is to ensure your brand reaches the right audience at the right place at the right time. Couple our best-in-class proprietary data with our Advertising Solutions, which provide your hospital or practice with prime visibility across our platform. 

We guarantee patient conversions through prominent branding and calls to action on healthgrades.com and our partner sites. Additionally, we position your medical staff as alternatives directly on competitor profiles so that your health system remains top of mind when consumers are searching for care. Our solutions further enhance your SEO and SEM efforts, improving search rankings and driving more qualified leads. Chat with us today to start activating the full power of your brand.

1. RVO Health Consumer Healthcare Study, May 2024, n=2,985; Among US Gen Pop (n=2,535), Gen Z (n=219), Millennials (n=706), Gen X (n=704), Boomers+ (n=906)