Doctors and nurses are similar to air in that they’re vital and you don’t miss them, until you need them. If you’re in the pharma industry or manage a medical supply store that offers medical equipment to professionals (scrubs/uniforms, shoes, stethoscopes, otoscopes, blood pressure cuffs, pulse oximeters, etc.), medical professionals are the air you breathe and your organization’s lifeblood. Facebook offers a number of options to target health care professionals, from RNs to specialized nurses and surgeons, hospital administrators and beyond. In this week’s edition of the Psychographic Targeting Hot House, Lea Scudamore, Production Manager at aimClear, prescribes six targeting tactics to reach these compassionate audiences: from medical professionals on the frontlines in the fight against breast cancer, to hospital administrators seeking the latest screening equipment within their hospital’s budget.

As Breast Cancer Awareness Month is October we’ll use the case study of offering supplies and tools with the pink ribbon for supply stores while awareness is at its peak for the year.

Oncology Job Titles

There are many ways to get at our superheroes in pink. First, we’ll aim for the most focused variable: specific job titles. Start by targeting health care providers within the Oncology field utilizing the job titles demographic.

As you can see, Facebook’s targeting tool doesn’t drop down many suggestions when entering in “oncology,” which means it’s up to you to stem on the root keyword. HOLD UP! What’s “stemming” you ask… ? Stemming, in terms of audience research, is the practice of adding letters (a, b, c, etc or “alpha-pattern” stemming) or secondary keywords to a root keyword (oncology). In our case we’d use: oncology + nurse; oncology + rn; oncology + cert(ified). To find more oncology professionals, try these permutations (yes, SRSLY) to start:

• oncol
• Rn oncology
• Registered oncology
• RN oncology registered
• Nurse Oncology
• Nurse oncology rn
• Nurse oncology cert
• Rn oncology cert
• oncology cert
• care oncology

General Health Care Job Titles + Breast Cancer Awareness

Next, let’s try another angle to see if we can find a larger audience by starting with broader job titles (like nurses, surgeons, CT Scan Techs, etc.) and qualifying with precise interests.

Next, we will start alpha-pattern “stemming” on interests. Alpha-pattern stemming will help uncover additional interests such as awareness groups, foundations, related non-profits, hospital and clinic systems specializing in the study and treatment of breast cancer.

The combination of more general health care providers and breast cancer interests yields a whopping 140K medical providers.

Employers Under a Microscope

Now, let’s say a cannabis research facility just discovered new benefits of their medicine for cancer patients and they want to tell the world. Rather… they’d like medical professionals to tell the world! And they’ll start with the fine doctors, nurses, and techs at the Mayo Clinic.

Targeting Mayo Clinic and Rochester, MN is easy enough, but be sure to narrow this audience by age and degree.

If the employer is 100 percent dedicated to the cause (or this case, research), targeting is done. However, if the hospital treats multiple conditions, adding related interests we discussed above will better define the target group as shown below.

Simple, Yet Effective: Interests + Behavior Mash-ups

Most Facebook advertisers are well aware of the B2B targeting by way of job title and employer. However, in recent months Facebook rolled out job titles and B2B targeting in interests and behaviors.

Here, advertisers have a few options of how to reach their cancer-focused medical professionals. Cancer and oncology interests (and we’ve just scratched the surface here) coupled with Healthcare as a B2B industry under behaviors will target 83,000 people working in the healthcare industry who like one (or more) variables related to cancer.

Next, we’ll target Nursing as a business/industry interests category and couple it with the cancer charitable donors audience and you have 490,000 people who are passionate about nurses and have a history of giving to cancer charities.

Reaching the Real Decision Makers

We’ve reviewed how to reach doctors and nurses. However, what if you’re a pharmaceutical company or medical company with the latest robotic surgical system looking to reach the “decision makers” within hospital/clinic systems across the country? Start broad with titles of the people who need to know about the product, such as, administrator, manager, director, etc. Next, layer on the healthcare and medical industry. If the audience is too broad, additional interest may be added to narrow the field.

Don’t forget the B2B seniority targeting within behaviors! In a SNAP select executives against the Business and Industry Health Care interest targeting or under Demographics > Work > industry.

Wrapping It Like a Bandage

Reaching the saints in the medical field is really interesting, as there are so many ways to find RNs, LPNs, doctors and decision makers. From single location medical supply stores, to cannabis research institutes, to pharmaceutical and medical equipment manufactures looking to reach across the nation, Facebook’s targeting offers a plethora of options and angles to reach your desired customer.

Happy and Healthy Targeting!