There’s no getting around it, we are living in the age of the influencer, where once only big brands had the capacity to reach all corners of the globe, our needs and our means have evolved significantly. Influencers have expanded their reach exponentially in the last decade, with the likes of Instagram and Youtube serving as the perfect vessel for such emerging personalities to flourish. This is all good and well when influencers immerse themselves in sectors that require style and persuasion over concrete qualification. But what happens when the influencer culture begins to step into industries that require more than just a pretty girl showcasing a product?
Those seeking reprieve from the health industry will have seldom been used to the presence of influencers when deciding the best course of action. When you get sick, it’s almost natural to turn to doctors to seek medical help. Of course, why wouldn’t you? After all, doctors are trained in their professions. They are equipped with the necessary knowledge to give medical advice to the public. But with the evolution of business in this digital age and influencers expanding their appeal, it seems almost inevitable for influencer marketing to make its way into the life science, healthcare, and the wellness industries as an alternative method to reach out to a wider range of audience. In turn, we will start seeing the presence of the life science marketing agency.
The Life Science Marketing Agency Must Also Do Good
Most brands will naturally put influencers with large, engaged followings as their priority. Though these influencers have larger audiences, the same strategy simply won’t work for a life science marketing agency promoting healthcare brands. Relevance, experience, communication, and qualification are all facets that will be much more crucial for healthcare brands to identify in a potential influencer. Part of the reason for this is that influencer marketing in the healthcare business should not aim to overly promote a certain product or drug, but rather to share the experience and raise awareness of the product. In medicine, pushing a product that isn’t useful to the user not only defeats the purpose of a medical provider in itself, and it’s definitely a look many brands won’t want to be associated with.
And that’s exactly it—more often than not, influencers are, unfortunately, promoting products they might not understand or even really believe in. The healthcare influencer will have to be a different beast entirely, because in many cases promoting the wrong product can quite literally affect other people’s health and well being.
The future of influencers in marketing seems nailed in at this point. The question now is how wide can the appeal and usefulness of such actors stretch into unfamiliar territories. For medicine, utilizing influencers to teach the public how to use a new digital healthcare system and its benefits, or to provide advice for an apprehensive population preparing itself for COVID-19 protocols for instance, would be the most obvious first step forward. Such strategy helps healthcare brands to position themselves as trustworthy resources in the public’s eyes, therefore, establishing a genuine connection rather than risking a backlash through an over-zealous pursuit of sales.
