Your website is the new business card. It is the first impression which needs to capture the attention of someone before they could ever think about booking an appointment. Especially when they don’t have any relationship or a previous client.
There are information people are looking for when it comes to deciding if they could move forward with a purchase. Those key element increases the satisfaction of adopting and buying hearing aids.
People aren’t getting what they are looking for
There are six key elements which people with mild to moderate hearing loss are looking for on a website when looking to buy in the ear hearing aids. In terms of the order of importance, the following were the things that matter most to people when purchasing an hearing aids.
- Cost
- Self-image
- Fit
- Sound quality of hearing aids
- Lifestyle improvement
- Connectivity
In the study, they research the preferences of a particular region in Florida (Tampa Bay) of individuals who had greater preferences for in the ear hearing aids.
What’s interesting is that relating to another study where people viewed hearing aids as having a small beneficial effect on overall wellbeing, this research also ranked lifestyle improvement (in terms of health quality) as a lower priority also. This shows some commonality in term of what people believe they will gain in lifestyle improvement before and after the purchase of hearing aids.
Hearing aid brand website fails to deliver on what people need.
Most websites from hearing aid brands are not addressing the top pressing needs. In the study, none of the hearing aid brands mentioned anything about cost and many didn’t mention lifestyle improvements.
The website overly emphasized on self-image for in-the-ear hearing aids and it can be seen as one of the top marketing message on the brands website.
Hearing aid brands are presenting their marketing materials in the following order:
- Self-image
- Sound quality
- Fit
- Connectivity
- Lifestyle improvement
- Cost
The larger the hearing aid, the less priority on the self-image, but sound quality, fit and connectivity became a priority.
It is true that hearing aid brand websites have a double duty to tailor to the end users but also to promote to the audiology community as well. However, it appears as if they have missed an opportunity to communicate effectively to hearing aid users.
End-users are searching online. They are doing their research before visiting a hearing clinic. Yet, the challenge, and the research proved, is that people are searching and looking for information on these brand website. More so for those with experienced hearing loss. The inexperienced or those who stopped using hearing aids were not going to the brands website as much.
This makes sense. The buyer journey of those who are engaged are different then those who are not engaged. The engaged are most likely to take action.
Key takeaway for hearing care messaging
- Choose to put cost at the forefront of your marketing message. Provide other potential funding sources.
- Talk less about self-image and sound quality
- Discuss more about fit