Budgeting Tips for Healthcare Content Marketing
Healthcare marketing faces unique challenges. Privacy regulations, budget changes, barriers in data collection and measurement, and ever-changing tech landscapes are just a few of the factors that continuously reshape healthcare systems and marketing strategies.
But healthcare marketing content consistently proves to be a worthwhile investment, not just for ROI but also for brand recognition and thought-leadership credibility. About 77 percent of patients start their healthcare experience with a Google search, and 80 percent depend on Google reviews when selecting a provider.
These are just a few of the many statistics that show the significance of online platforms and content for patients seeking healthcare information. Intentional healthcare marketing (or the lack of it) is shaping patient behavior every day.
You know content marketing is essential to healthcare and requires a dedicated marketing budget, but how do you know how much to really set aside for marketing initiatives?
Here are a few key factors to consider when building your budget.
What’s a Typical Content Marketing Budget for Healthcare Companies?
A Gartner CMO survey found that marketing budgets are relatively stable across all industries, ranging between 6.4 and 9.5 percent of company revenue in recent years. But healthcare companies and practices with higher revenue growth are allocating more staff time or agency involvement in their marketing efforts.
Understanding your content marketing budget starts with a clear overall company budget, then a broad marketing budget within that. Then, the marketing budget should be broken into categories. Digital marketing is a crucial part of that breakdown.
Not all types of marketing investments achieve the same return. According to Demand Metric, content marketing costs 62 percent less than outbound marketing while generating three times as many leads, and 70 percent of people would rather learn about a company through informational articles instead of an advertisement. Building a healthcare marketing budget requires a strategic look into effective channels and efficient efforts.
How Marketing Budgets Adjust With Healthcare Specialty
Specialties throughout the healthcare industry have different marketing spend trends. These budget trends are affected by varying levels of competition within specialty markets, as well as by factors such as referral systems vs. direct customer attraction.
Here are a few real-world examples from Health Union of what some of those specialties are typically spending on marketing as a percentage of total revenue:
Continuing Medical Education (CME): 9.4 to 15.9 percent
Finance: 5.0 to 15.0 percent
Home Health: 1.0 to 5.0 percent
Hospital/Facility: 1.5 to 5.0 percent
Hospital/Health System: 2.3 to 5.0 percent
Long-Term Care: 1.0 to 5.0 percent
Med Device/Diagnostics: 13.0 to 18.0 percent
Medical Group/Practice: 1.0 to 5.0 percent
Pharma - Medical Affairs: 18.0 to 21.0 percent
Pharma - OTC: 18.0 to 21.0 percent
Pharma - Rx: 18.0 to 21.0 percent
SaaS: 18.0 to 21.0 percent
TeleMedicine: 10.5 to 10.5 percent
Other: 9.4 to 15.9 percent
The reason the percentage of total revenue spent on marketing varies so widely across specialties depends on multiple factors. Here is a closer look at a few of the more competitive specialties listed above:
Continuing Medical Education: CME programs are in high demand among providers who must complete a set number of credits. This consistent competition among CME providers means marketing efforts are worth heavily investing in.
Pharmaceuticals: The complicated regulations and inherently competitive nature of pharmaceuticals mean that marketing budgets are higher than in other healthcare specialties. Marketing efforts focus on reaching patients, differentiating products, and adapting to industry shifts.
Telemedicine: The growing specialty of telemedicine spends more on marketing to become visible and credible over more traditional methods of healthcare. Marketing budgets are funneled toward consumer education to establish the value of this relatively new healthcare option.
No matter your healthcare specialty, an extra investment in content marketing could make a big difference for your bottom line. Putting more effort into content marketing at any stage sets businesses up for success and can potentially reduce spending as companies continue to grow.
Different Tiers of Healthcare Marketing Spend
Significant spending shifts happen in relation to company size and marketing efforts. Smaller practices and companies invest a higher percentage of revenue to grow their brand, while larger companies spend big sums but at a lower percentage of total revenue.
Smaller healthcare companies focus on patient acquisition and local visibility. These goals generally depend heavily on acquiring Google Reviews and on overall brand image and online visibility. Larger companies focus more on marketing technology, healthcare events, and strategic partnerships.
According to Health Union, marketing budgets often shift average spending based on these organizational age brackets:
Startups and New Companies (Under 5 Years Old):
Average Marketing Budget: $4.3 million
Marketing Focus: These companies often funnel focus to online content marketing and brand growth, including search ads and email marketing. Measuring metrics and ROI is key to determining what is working and how to continue efficient growth.
Examples: New clinics and practices, healthtech or medtech firms, telemedicine platforms, medical device solutions, etc.
Established Companies (5 to 20 Years Old):
Average Marketing Budget: $7.6 million
Marketing Focus: Companies of this size are meeting industry-mandated marketing requirements to shift toward online efforts and scale back on traditional channels. This means fewer TV advertisements or phone book listings and a stronger focus on digital ads, formal recognitions, and accumulating online reviews. Analytics are always important, but for companies this size, they are crucial — when budgets increase, it’s imperative to know how to spend more on what’s working and let go of dead ends.
Examples: More established telehealth companies, umbrella owners of primary care practices or other specialty clinics, AI-driven diagnostic companies, etc.
Mature Companies (20+ Years Old):
Average Marketing Budget: $11.4 million (typically over $500 million in revenue)
Marketing Focus: For mature healthcare companies, marketing investment increasingly focuses on relationships, outreach, engagement, and robust market research. This allows marketing decisions to be strategically long-term while leveraging data.
Examples: Established healthcare staffing agencies, pharmaceutical companies founded in the 1980s, established health insurance companies, etc.
Legacy Companies (50+ Years Old):
Average Marketing Budget: $9.3 million (larger pharmaceutical companies)
Marketing Focus: Large legacy healthcare companies focus on integrating new technologies and forming and maintaining strategic partnerships.
Examples: Legacy healthcare companies that have continuously operated include Johnson & Johnson, Eli Lilly, Pfizer, Bayer, Cigna, and more.
Where To Allocate Your Healthcare Marketing Budget
Setting your marketing budget starts with understanding your overall budget and marketing goals. To break down the allocation process, start with these steps:
Establish Focused Goals: Without knowing what you want your marketing budget to achieve, you’ll never know if it’s working. Where do you need to focus growth efforts? Patient acquisition, review accumulation, local visibility, or overall brand awareness? Focused goals are the first step to strategic efforts.
Analyze Revenue Percentage: Understanding the big picture of overall revenue and budget categories is essential to determining what can and should be diverted to marketing efforts.
Know Size and Stage: Whether you're just starting out or taking established growth steps, understanding proportional investment is an important part of establishing marketing allocations.
Understand Competition: Pay attention to local competition or similar-sized organizations and learn from their successes and mistakes. This step is particularly important in high-demand specialties and crowded markets.
Measure Results: No matter how proud you feel of a marketing campaign or content efforts, the best feedback to shape future decisions is measurable results. This means knowing the right metrics and having the tools in place to track them.
Credible Content Establishes Thought Leadership in Healthcare
With digital marketing, you have the opportunity to reach new customers, create positive interactions and conversations with them, and boost your brand’s growth. As a healthcare company, you need to allocate a strategic portion of your budget to digital marketing, then split it among ad campaigns, blog content, email outreach, and more.
Your content marketing strategy can make a big difference to your business's success, helping you move forward and grow over time. With the right outreach and information for your customer base, you’ll see a true change in the support your company receives.
Whether your company is well-established or just starting out, digital marketing can drastically impact your branding and shape how you’re perceived by your target audience.
At Comma Copywriters, we can help you build the content your customers want to see, boosting patient trust in your company. To learn more, schedule a call with us today.
