Healthcare advertisers to start utilising mobile more

Increase in mobile marketing spend: The New York Times recently reported that healthcare advertisers are expected to increase their spend in mobile marketing.

17 million people in September- November 2011 used smart phones to access health information. comScore explains that people using mobile to search for symptoms/health information are generally from a much younger generation than those who are using desktop/pc and this is reflected in what they are searching for. For example 3 of the 5 symptoms searched for on Yahoo! Mobile in January were pregnancy, herpes and H.I.V. In contrast the top searches from a PC included gastroenteritis, heart attacks, gout and shingles. This is interesting to bear in mind when considering your mobile strategy.

In 2011 PriceWaterHouse Coopers reported that advertising spend on mobile devices were $818 million but health organisations have been slow to adopt the trend. Health organisations have specialist problems that need to be considered like fitting drug safety warnings onto small mobile screens. However it is predicted that this year we will see a rise in the spend on mobile advertising from these organisations.

Are you planning to start a mobile strategy? What problems are you facing?

We will be tackling this and more at Mobile Health World Europe 2012.