Healthcare Marketing: Why Print Still Matters for Patient Engagement

Healthcare faces an uphill marketing battle. For one, it’s intensely competitive. The ever-growing number of drugs, devices, services, solutions, and start-ups make it difficult for any product or company to stand out. What’s more, the industry frequently requires the communication of complex, dry, or even upsetting information. Presenting that in a way that doesn’t immediately deter patients is another serious conundrum. 

Fortunately, print marketing materials are a highly versatile tool, and they can help you overcome these healthcare marketing challenges. Used to their full advantage, they provide numerous compelling methods for getting your message heard.

Why Print Marketing is Vital in Healthcare

Print marketing helps healthcare enterprises in a few distinct ways.

Building trust with tangibility – Often, when a patient is exploring new healthcare solutions or providers, they’re dealing with serious challenges. In these cases, tangible print media can build trust far better than just a PDF or a webpage. Consider a print brochure or booklet, thoughtfully designed and sturdily constructed, resting in the patient’s hands. It provides both information and a grounding sense of physicality that’s better attuned to the weight of the patient’s needs.

Increasing accessibility – While the rise of digital resources may have been intended to create a utopia of accessibility, the lived reality has often been anything but. As browsers, platforms, computers, and phones change, web pages and digital documents lose their integrity. Formatting fails, image files go missing, and anxious patients click links only to be greeted with error messages. Print resources endure, ensuring critical information is always at hand and presented in a legible, visually appealing format.

Strengthening brand identity – Print marketing materials come in countless forms, from business cards to wall calendars, brochures, and catalogs. Taking advantage of this variety can help ensure your brand’s colors, logos, and product imagery are never far from view. Then, each glance at a wall or walk past a counter can become another touchpoint in your potential consumer’s journey, cementing your brand’s presence in their mind.

Essential Healthcare Marketing Materials

While the potential forms that healthcare marketing materials can take are limitless, some types of collateral are more common than others. These essential resources can be educational, such as patient brochures, wellness plans, and preventative care guides. They can also be promotional, such as conference handouts and direct mail flyers. But the largest category of healthcare marketing materials is the ‘informational’ category, with reference and reminder products such as:

• Provider directories
• Network directories
• Appointment reminders
• Vaccination reminders
• Contact and business cards
• New patient welcome materials

Best Practices for Designing Effective Healthcare Print Materials

To get the most out of your print marketing materials, here are a few simple design tips to follow:

Clarity and Legibility

• Use a single, easy-to-read font, ideally taken straight from your brand standards.
• Use accurate, medical-grade illustrations.
• Keep sentences and paragraphs short.
• Use simple, accessible language.

Brand Consistency 

• Use brand-standard logos, ideally in vector format.
• Use brand-standard colors.
• Maintain the same visual standards across all marketing materials.

Regulatory Compliance

• Keep sensitive data secure and compliant with encrypted file transfer and server access controls.

Of course, if you’re ever in doubt about designing your healthcare print materials, don’t hesitate to turn to your commercial print partner for help. At Wallace Carlson, we gladly support our healthcare clients with design assistance, ensuring every file is fully optimized for printing. Simply get in touch with our team today to get started on your next print project.