As healthcare continues to embrace digital tools, a persistent challenge remains: patient engagement. Despite clinical innovations and broader access, many digital health platforms continue to struggle with retaining users and driving sustained behavioural change.
Thirty-two percent of respondents in a digital health study said they would be more likely to use digital health tools if they received better information about their health, and a substantial portion of patients remain hesitant to adopt digital health due to concerns about a lack of awareness and insufficient personalisation.
This isn’t due to a lack of good ideas or intent. The gap often lies in the execution, specifically, how healthcare solutions are positioned, communicated, and supported over time. Product marketing, a discipline built on understanding user behaviour, testing assumptions, and aligning value with real-world needs, has much to offer.
The case for product marketing in healthcare
Product marketers are trained to ask:
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- What does the user care about?
- What barriers are getting in the way?
- How do we build messaging, experience, and support around those insights?
In the technology sector, these questions are core to driving adoption and engagement. In healthcare, however, communication often defaults to compliance: “Schedule your screening,” “Avoid this risk,” or “Take your medication.” These messages may be accurate, but they’re not always compelling.
In an evaluation at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), researchers analysed the impact of message tone and patient-centeredness in secure messaging between patients and their healthcare teams. They found that reframing notifications and communications to be more supportive, warm and encouraging rather than strictly clinical or neutral led to higher patient satisfaction and engagement. Patients who received messages that conveyed friendliness and reassurance reported feeling more valued and were more likely to participate actively in their care. This intervention demonstrated that even without changing the underlying service, making digital communications more empathetic and patient-centred can significantly boost engagement and follow-through.
The product didn’t change. The messaging did.
Engagement is a behavioral challenge, not just a clinical one
When dealing with patient engagement and care coordination projects, one thing stands clear: tone matters.
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Simple changes in wording, more warmth, more personalisation lead to faster response times and more positive interactions. These findings are consistent with broader consumer behaviour data: when people feel seen and understood, they are more likely to act.
Product marketers bring practical tools
Beyond messaging, product marketers bring a toolkit that is well-suited to the current moment in healthcare.
- A/B testing: iterative messaging and design to learn what drives action
- Segmentation: Tailoring communication to different population needs
- User onboarding: Designing the first experience to reduce friction and promote retention
- Community building: Creating peer-led environments that reinforce engagement.
These strategies are already being used successfully in digital health. Healthcare startups are leveraging peer-led groups to reduce call centre load and improve patient satisfaction, demonstrating the potential of scalable, community-first models.
Moving forward
To make the most of this intersection, healthcare organizations should consider:
- Embedding product marketers in patient experience and population health teams.
- Designing campaigns around feedback loops, not just static education
- Tracking engagement as a long-term indicator, not a short-term output
- Investing in communication that supports ongoing behaviour change, not just awareness.
Healthcare is evolving; the way we communicate about it should evolve too.
Access alone is not enough. For digital tools and health interventions to make a real impact, people need to feel connected, motivated, and supported over time.
Product marketing doesn’t replace the science of healthcare. It brings a layer of strategic insight that helps translate good ideas into measurable, sustained outcomes. As more systems shift toward digital, value-based, and personalised care, this kind of thinking will become essential.
Photo: Dilok Klaisataporn, Getty Images
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