Top 5 B2B healthcare marketing trends emerging in 2024

The B2B healthcare market is a steadily growing global machine with vast opportunities for healthcare organizations. As we dive into 2024, there are some interesting B2B marketing trends shaping the landscape more broadly and several trends specific to healthcare. No matter which trend resonates the most for your organization this year, it’s important to keep in mind how the unique challenges of the B2B healthcare marketing world affect trends and implementation. The most notorious challenge is most likely the extended sales cycle. Selling to hospitals and healthcare organizations can range anywhere from 6 months to a year and even longer depending on the product or service. This insight helps marketing teams shape more impactful and enduring marketing strategies that are no longer subject to the fleeting whims of one trend or another.

The B2B healthcare marketing trends shaping 2024

AI and advanced tech tools

AI isn’t just a huge trend in marketing, it’s a huge trend across the majority of industries. For marketing specifically, processes and communications are being automated and streamlined since the introduction of Generative AI (GenAI), giving teams more time to focus on innovation and core responsibilities. While healthcare organizations have to be extremely careful with data regulations and misinformation, tools like ChatGPT can still be useful for content creation and automated tasks (provided you always pass it through a human before it’s published).

In addition, leveraging AI for predictive analytics can help organizations anticipate sales cycles and identify hot leads. Predictive analytics works by analyzing data from website interactions, social media engagement, historical sales data, and email interactions, among many other things, to uncover trends and patterns that would take much longer with manual analysis. This is extremely helpful for long sales cycles and organizations that are notoriously restricted by purchasing committees, as it allows you to identify buying cycles and hot leads ahead of time, speeding up the sales process.

Diverse forms of advertising

Most companies are well aware that they need to be advertising on social media, especially Linkedin, when it comes to B2B marketing. However, 2024 will be the year for more unconventional avenues for advertising to thrive. Podcast advertising is one of those untapped avenues. Right now, only 7% of all podcast ad revenue comes from the healthcare industry, indicating a massive opportunity for healthcare organizations to capitalize on podcast adverts.

Print advertising will be another useful tool facing a resurgence in 2024. Print is especially useful for getting in front of multiple people at the same organization and sending curated materials to the right audience exactly when it’s needed. And, don’t forget about TV broadcasts and CTV (connected TV, aka streaming services). Advertising on these channels enables precise audience targeting and improved ad relevance, and most marketers witness high ROI. Ultimately, 2024 should be the year your marketing team gets outside of their comfort zone and tries something new in advertising. If you’re concerned about doing it alone, reach out to MDG for expert guidance. We’ll walk you through each step and give you the tools you need to be successful.

Leadership content promotion through video and podcasts

Two of the most effective mediums for producing engaging leadership content, especially for busy leadership and purchasing teams, are video and podcasts, and 2024 is on track to be another banner year for both. With an estimated 3 billion people streaming or downloading video at least once per month, according to Statistica, and 92% of survey respondents reporting a positive ROI from video, what’s not to love? Even short videos can have a big impact on an organization, especially in the first part of the buyer journey as they are becoming acquainted with your organization. If you decide to shoot video in 2024, start small. It’s about getting leadership content out there and not perfect. Sometimes getting feedback on how to improve is more impactful than a perfect video anyway.

Then, there are podcasts which are projected to reach more than 100 million listeners in 2024. Podcasts can be a great way to get your organization’s leadership team in front of the right audience. It might be a healthcare podcast, a business podcast, or a focus on a different defining characteristic that is relevant to your audience, either way, podcasts provide a new avenue for reaching a diverse and attentive audience. Keep in mind, being a guest on a podcast and advertising on a podcast are two different strategies. Each is effective in their own way, but require different parameters and objectives.

Emphasis on account-based marketing

Account-based marketing (ABM) focuses on engaging specific high-value accounts with personalized content. The key components of ABM include identifying key stakeholders within these accounts, creating customized content and messages that speak directly to the specific needs and interests of these accounts, and employing various marketing channels to engage them. ABM is highly effective in B2B marketing environments, and even more so in 2024 as organizations look for ways to reduce the sales cycles, target buying committees early on, and align their marketing and sales efforts.

Privacy-first, HIPAA-compliant marketing

2024 is going to be another year focused on privacy and security, especially in healthcare marketing. Privacy-first, compliant marketing prioritizes Protected Health Information (PHI) and sensitive data and ensures adherence to legal standards, both HIPAA and the GDPR. For B2B healthcare marketers, this means implementing strategies that respect patient and customer confidentiality and the integrity of healthcare providers, without compromising on the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns. It involves leveraging anonymized data, obtaining explicit consent for data usage, employing advanced encryption, implementing blockchain technology to provide more secure information sharing, and ensuring all marketing materials are compliant with healthcare advertising regulations.

It’s important to note that GA4, which replaced Universal Analytics recently, uses tracking technology that is not compliant with HIPAA. You’ll need to be careful when using GA4 data, and ensure your sales and marketing teams have read and understood the appropriate guidelines for data collection and usage.

Building the right foundation to capitalize on the B2B healthcare marketing trends of 2024

For 2024, building a robust content funnel that gets buyers the right information at the right time will play a big role in all of the trends outlined above. In fact, Gartner found that when buyers had what they considered to be useful supplier information to advance the buying process, it facilitated a smoother purchasing process and reduced buyer’s regret by substantial margins, but perhaps more importantly, those buyers were 3x more likely to buy a bigger deal. So, as you consider which trends are most relevant to your audience, structure your campaigns to deliver the right information to the correct part of the buyer’s journey.