The best healthcare marketing books for 2025

Although there’s no shortage of blog posts, articles, and how-to tutorials for marketing best practices available online, books can offer healthcare providers more detailed insight and in-depth plans of action for independent medical practice marketing than any other resource. 

Healthcare marketing books — or marketing books in general — can help you with everything from establishing your healthcare practice brand and optimizing your digital presence to delivering a positive patient experience and building your online reputation.

Whether you’re looking for new healthcare marketing ideas or want to boost your practice marketing strategy, the following books will help you succeed.

If you're looking for a comprehensive guide to healthcare marketing that reflects today's landscape, Marketing Health Services, fourth edition by Richard K. Thomas is essential reading. Written by an experienced healthcare marketer, this thoroughly updated edition addresses crucial developments like population health management, value-based care, and the shift toward preventive medicine.

The book combines academic rigor with practical, real-world examples and case studies that demonstrate how marketing principles apply in the contemporary healthcare environment. Thomas covers everything from developing effective communication plans to engaging international healthcare consumers, and offers clear insights into how marketing can support modern healthcare delivery models and patient engagement strategies.

A good healthcare marketing strategy requires being able to communicate your practice brand. Your brand helps convey who you are and the value you provide to patients. Your brand also helps differentiate you from your competitors. 

You likely already know what sets you apart in your local market, but communicating your differentiator in a memorable and consistent way can be a challenge for even seasoned marketers.

Although this book is not specific to healthcare marketing, add Building a StoryBrand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen by Donald Miller to your reading list. Miller, the CEO of StoryBrand — a company that helps businesses with branding — gives readers a guide to developing and refining brand messaging. This book brings the expertise of a marketing professional to your practice at a much more affordable cost.

In today’s healthcare landscape, your healthcare marketing strategy must include medical social media marketing. The US has over 239 million social media users as of 2024, according to Statista. 

There’s ample opportunity for you to meaningfully engage with patients and prospects. However, creating a social media calendar and engaging on these channels can be time-consuming. For some providers, it can be difficult to know where to start and, once started, it can be even more difficult to find an engaged audience.

Check out The Guide to Going Viral: The Art and Science of Succeeding on Social Media by Brendan Kane to learn how to grow your audience and your overall online practice brand. Drawing from his years of experience and success in generating billions of views for clients, Kane provides practical tools like the viral content model and communication algorithm. He teaches you to think like a content director, helping you craft engaging narratives that resonate with potential patients while maintaining professional standards.

If you’re looking for a comprehensive guide to healthcare marketing, look no further than the textbook Healthcare Marketing: Strategies for Creating Value in the Patient Experience by Barbara Ross Wooldridge and Kerri M. Camp. Written by marketing professors with ample healthcare experience, this textbook is for students entering a professional healthcare environment. Even if you’ve been practicing medicine for a long time, this book can give you the tools you need to successfully promote your practice in today’s rapidly changing healthcare industry.

Although general marketing principles carry across industries, the health industry has its own unique set of characteristics as well as its own set of rules and regulations that come with practicing medicine. This healthcare marketing book focuses on ideas that specifically translate to patient satisfaction.

If you know about search engine optimization (SEO), then you understand how important it is to your healthcare marketing success. SEO is a strategy you employ on your healthcare website so people find you when they are searching online for care. 

It follows that where you rank on Google is important because, the higher you rank, the more clicks your website will receive. Check out SEO 2025: Learn Search Engine Optimization with Smart Internet Marketing Strategies by Adam Clarke for the latest SEO techniques. The book explains Google’s most recent algorithm changes and reveals tips to achieve top rankings.

Healthcare Marketing in the Digital Times by Olivia Flaggert is a great choice for the doctor or provider who is new to online healthcare marketing and is particularly strapped for time. Within its 42 pages, you will find healthcare marketing ideas meant to help you attract more patients.

If your healthcare marketing strategy hasn’t yet shifted online, this book will serve as a primer to search engine optimization, social media marketing, and search advertising, among other healthcare marketing ideas. There are also 30 Facebook post ideas to kickstart your social media strategy.

The New Multichannel, Integrated Marketing by Craig Huey is ideal for healthcare providers looking to build a comprehensive marketing strategy. Drawing from 40 years of experience, Huey provides a detailed roadmap for creating integrated campaigns that reach patients across multiple touchpoints.

Within, you'll find practical strategies for combining digital advertising, social media, and traditional marketing channels to maximize your practice's visibility and patient acquisition — a combination that is especially important given the varied ways that patients find providers. While not specifically focused on healthcare, Huey's proven approach to integrated marketing campaigns has allegedly helped businesses of all sizes grow their customer base and increase ROI.

To stay ahead in this competitive healthcare market, you have to keep up on the latest trends and best practices. Pick up one or all of these healthcare marketing books to get a deeper understanding of these topics, so you can grow your medical practice and remain profitable in the long term. 

Editor's note: This article was updated in December 2024 to reflect more recent releases.