• by Les Luchter , December 8, 2023

Local healthcare providers plan to spend $12.3 billion on advertising in 2024, led by hospitals and the offices of doctors, dentists and chiropractors, according to a new survey from BIA Advisory Services and SalesFuel.

While this represents a drop from the $13 billion spent locally on health advertising in 2023, “it's just adjusting back to normal growth spending post-pandemic,” Celine Matthiessen, BIA’s vice president insights & analysis, tells Marketing Daily.

The report notes that local health advertising was at $10.3 billion in 2019, dropped to just $8.6 billion during the largely locked-down first pandemic year of 2020, and then rose to $10.7 billion in 2021 and $12.0 billion in 2022.

“We had a bump in healthcare spending during the pandemic,” concurs C. Lee Smith, SalesFuel’s chief executive officer.  But, he says, there are still “more opportunities in the market….Healthcare providers that can increase their budgets to take advantage of them are at a competitive advantage when competing against other healthcare providers that are cutting budgets.”

Those opportunities include the “aging American population, a trend that naturally heightens the demand for healthcare services,” Smith says.

“With this in mind,” he continued, “we delved into exploring the unique challenges faced by healthcare marketers, their pain points and their plans for the future. Our focus was on how these professionals are navigating the complexities of brand-building and value communication in a market that is rapidly expanding and evolving due to demographic shifts.”

The survey found that direct mail, online and over-the-air TV were the most-used media by local healthcare providers.

The results also revealed “increasing significance” for connected TV (CTC) and over-the-top (OTT) TV in healthcare marketing strategies.

Marketers at hospitals were more likely to place CTV/OTT ads through local television and radio representatives than were doctors’ offices (47.2% vs 20.0%), the survey found.

And more than 60% of respondents said they have either explored or intend to explore using generative AI for marketing assistance.

Conducted this past summer, the survey included more than 300 respondents with senior marketing titles representing physician groups, medical clinics, dental and vision care organizations, mental health care providers, assisted living facilities, sports medicine, medical suppliers, and other healthcare facilities.