The Effectiveness of Hearing Aid Website Marketing in Addressing Tampa Bay Consumer Concerns

Abstract

79% of American adults choose not to use hearing aids, despite their benefits (Nassiri et al. 2). Recent Over-the-Counter regulations seek to increase this rate through an online distribution of hearing aids. With a new market, this study sought to evaluate a gap: the effectiveness of website marketing language in addressing Tampa Bay consumer concerns. The study utilized two methods: a survey of 197 hearing aid users and a content analysis of 15 Inside Ear products across six hearing aid websites with coding guidelines to maximize objectivity. The survey established a hierarchy of consumer concerns to fulfill ambiguity in the literature and to evaluate the effectiveness of marketing language. The results indicated that the low application rate can be attributed to other stakeholders beyond the marketers including consumers and hearing professionals. For marketing, the websites were only moderately effective, as the most significant concern (49%) of cost was absent. This was exacerbated by a low website traffic rate (12%) from consumers. The finding may also indicate a greater burden for consumers to conduct research, as consistent users (13%) had a higher rate than discontinued users (6%). Thus, brands need to align with consumer concerns and attract more visitors to increase effectiveness. Over-the-counter hearing aid brands may be more attractive due to affordability but may struggle with getting consumers to their websites. Furthermore, hearing professionals were more likely to give one option to discontinued users (50%) than consistent users (38%), which may indicate a need to offer greater options to consumers.