Reframing Hospital Digital Marketing: Moving from Search Intent to Consultation Intent

Hospital digital marketing is frequently evaluated using visibility-oriented indicators, including clicks, reach, and impressions; however, these metrics provide limited explanatory power regarding patient decision-making, consultation uptake, treatment conversion, and organisational performance. This narrative review reconceptualises hospital digital marketing as a strategic clinical intelligence system that links digital behaviour to consultation intent, service utilisation, patient retention, and institutional reputation. Guided by narrative review reporting standards, the study synthesised literature from healthcare management, digital marketing, digital health, patient experience, health communication, and behavioural science to examine how online search behaviour is shaped by uncertainty, perceived risk, affordability, family influence, and reassurance-seeking. The proposed framework differentiates search intent from consultation intent and identifies multiple frontline touchpoints, including the consultation room, call centre, counselling desk, nursing station, and billing counter, as sources of actionable intelligence for detecting hesitation, dropout, and trust breakdowns. The review further advances a multi-level KPI architecture and balanced scorecard that connect awareness, conversion, trust, and business outcomes more analytically than campaign metrics alone. Overall, hospital digital marketing should be understood as an integrated management function rather than a promotional activity. When aligned with patient experience and operational design, it can strengthen consultation pathways, improve trust formation, and support strategic performance.