Variety, brevity, and credibility: advertising tips when engaging orthopaedists

Advertisers can distinguish promotions for orthopaedists by using clinical data in a variety of medical sources such as articles, reviews, and multimedia.Physicians are transitioning to established and trusted professional resources as they seek out information about treatment options and patient outcomes. This is especially true among orthopaedists, who turn to a wide variety of professional content to inform their decisions about patient care.

Lippincott surveyed over 1,000 physicians from Q4 2021 to Q1 2022, with key findings concerning the content consumption habits of orthopaedists—especially telling data in terms of effective advertising. Here we share those insights along with three recommendations for advertisers seeking to reach this audience.

Valuable for advertisers based on content preferences and diversity

To start, orthopaedists are more likely than all physicians in sum to access print journals (76.5%), CME/CE activities (76.5%), society websites (41.2%), and both e-textbooks and e-references as medical sources, among others. Orthopaedists are exposed to a wider variety of promotion types and formats as a result. They are more inclined to recognize the value of promotional content as well: Most (50.5%) feel sponsored messages offer some value depending on the topics covered.

Even so, most orthopaedists (73.5%) don’t have enough time to read everything they’d like. Advertisers may struggle to identify the best advertisement placements to reach enough orthopaedists to make a real impact.

Three ways advertisers can engage orthopaedists effectively

Fortunately, the researchers at Lippincott gleaned three key insights about orthopaedists from the results of the 2021–2022 survey. Here we share three ways advertisers can take advantage of orthopaedists’ content consumption habits to engage them with greater success.

1. Orthopaedists prefer articles, reviews, and multimedia more often than other physicians

Like other physicians, most orthopaedists (77.9%) rank peer-reviewed content as their most influential content type in terms of treatment options and patient outcomes. Even so, they are more likely to consider review articles, clinical reviews, and original research articles influential than all physicians in sum, in each case.

Orthopaedists are outliers, especially in terms of their appeal for multimedia (e.g., VuMedi)—50.0% of orthopaedists use multimedia as a medical source compared to only 11.9% of all other physicians. These channels represent unique vehicles for promotional content designed for orthopaedists.

2. Orthopaedists would like to see more abbreviated content, especially in text formats

Like other physicians, most orthopaedists (73.5%) do not have enough time to read everything they’d like. Most orthopaedists (80.88%) have some level of interest in an article summary authored by a thought leader as a result—one that would highlight the main points of the article and discuss applicability.

Among this group of orthopaedists, the vast majority (98.18%) would prefer text-based summaries, whereas only 14.55% would also prefer video summaries. (Even fewer would turn to podcasts.) This means finding orthopaedists with a preference for video content featuring article summaries is not likely, despite half of orthopaedists’ interest in multimedia more broadly.

3. Orthopaedists trust advertisements with peer-reviewed research and clinical data

Compared to all other physicians surveyed, orthopaedists are more likely to believe independent peer-reviewed research supports or substantiates claims in advertisements—nearly three-quarters (73.9%) believe this is the case. Orthopaedists are more likely to feel this way about clinical data listed in advertisements (46.2%) as well. It behooves advertisers to source trustworthy clinical data and peer-reviewed research of interest to orthopaedists so that their promotional content stands out.

The orthopaedist persona is a key place to start

Each of these insights tells advertisers something about today’s orthopaedist persona: They have time limitations, they are more open to different types of content, and they prefer advertisements that give them a good reason to trust them. Advertisers who can build their engagement strategies for orthopaedists based on these concepts or more likely to distinguish themselves from their competitors.

Navigate the new content landscape with Lippincott

Physicians' content consumption habits are difficult to anticipate as the medical priorities these professionals face every day evolve. But the experts at Lippincott can help. When you’re ready for more personalized advice on building a successful content strategy, contact a solutions expert.