5 Ways to Achieve Healthcare Content Marketing Success

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5 Ways to Achieve Healthcare Content Marketing
Success

• Youve been hearing about content marketing for
  years. The buzz around content marketing started
  with businesses in other consumer and B2B
  categories and spilled over into healthcare
  during the last decade as more medical practices,
  physicians, and hospitals jumped into the fray
  and began creating meaningful content marketing
  programs.
• Content marketing became a natural fit for
  hospitals and healthcare providers. It gave them
  a way to speak to patients and prospective
  patients and provide them with relevant, useful,
  and engaging health information. It became a
  marketing tool for patient attraction,
  engagement, retention, and professional online
  reputation building. Healthcare content marketing
  is how todays providers connect with a large,
  interested target audience of patients and
  healthcare service organizations. Providers
  connect by sharing valuable and relevant
  multimedia content. The key benefits of
  healthcare content marketing include
• Building trust by sharing your expertise and the
  capabilities of your practice
• Reducing patient anxiety, showing them what to
  expect, and answering their questions in a clear,
  concise, straightforward manner.
• Capturing the attention of local search traffic,
  generating more leads and patient visits
• Differentiating your practice from competitors
  and finding an audience that keeps coming back
  for more.
• This article focuses on how healthcare providers
  and organizations can gain these benefits and
  achieve content marketing success.
• Content Marketing is Long-Form Messaging

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• Content marketing is an umbrella term that
  embraces many forms and formats. Think of it as
  long-form messagingthe timely creation and
  distribution of relevant, engaging messages that
  can influence your current and prospective new
  patients purchase decisions. You can communicate
  your long-form marketing messages in many ways
  including
• Blog posts
• Case studies
• Data-driven reports
• Discussion forums
• eBooks
• Educational games/health quizzes
• E-newsletters
• Instructional guides
• Technical reports
• Podcasts
• Print/email/digital newsletters
• Research reports
• Videos
• Virtual conferences
• Webinars/webcasts
• Websites
• White papers

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Always begin with your target audience in mind.
Focus your messaging so it is relevant to
individuals whom you seek to engage and influence
over time. Keep in mind that your messaging must
be about what interests them, not you. In
content marketing, self-promotion is
self-defeating. Your target audience wants to
know how you can benefit them. They want to feel
a greater sense of trust and credibility from
your messaging. Unlike direct response marketing
which aims for immediate results, content
marketing results take time and effort. Content
marketings value comes from delivering regular
updates and fresh material. A blog, for example,
can help build your credibility and engagement,
but infrequent posting can diminish your
audiences trust. Content marketing delivers
value to prospects, inspires confidence in you
and your practice, fuels informed word-of-mouth
referrals, and engages your readers. It also
plays an important role in helping prospects
discover you on search engines. As the dominant
player in the world of internet search, Google
increasingly stresses quality and relevance in
online messaging. 5 Tips for Achieving
Healthcare Content Marketing Success If your
content hasnt performed well, consider these
five tips for developing an effective healthcare
content marketing strategy 1. Take time to
understand your audiences needs You can
determine the types of content your audience
wants most by observing the kinds of articles
that are popular in your field. Identify content
thats shared frequently on your readers social
networking profiles, or survey patients and
readers about their favorite health topics. You
can also review your past blog posts and other
content to see which
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• topics drew the most reactions in terms of
  likes, blog comments, or other social metrics.
  Use your findings to plan your future content.
• Dedicate resources to content marketing
• Good content takes time and resources. After you
  identify topics that will be most interesting for
  your readers, set aside time and money to
  implement your content marketing strategy.
• If you plan to create your content, youll need
  to reserve time in your
• busy schedule. If you dont feel confident about
  your content creation skills, consider
  outsourcing the work to a freelance healthcare
  writer or an agency that specializes in
  healthcare content marketing. Outsourcing can
  cost money, but will eventually give you positive
  ROI as you attract more new patients with your
  content marketing strategy.
• Set high standards
• Avoid the temptation to create mediocre content
  to satisfy some arbitrary publishing calendar.
  Substandard content can hurt your image and cost
  you readers and business. A steady decline in
  your website traffic or reader engagement may
  mean your content standards have slipped.
  Establish editorial standards and stick to them,
  whether youre creating the content yourself or
  outsourcing it to freelancers.
• Build a social media presence
• Your content marketing success relies on social
  sharing by your readers and members of your
  community. Stay proactive about building your
  presence and engagement on popular social media
  channels.
• Connect with people on social networks like
  Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter, and
  avoid being promotional. Engage with members of
  your community. Then, post your best content on
  social sites

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where it can provide clear benefits to your
followers. If you see a decline in the number of
followers, reassess your strategy. 5. Stay
consistent Accept that not every piece of
content you create will go viral or generate
significant interest in your website or practice.
Even well- planned and crafted content can fail
to resonate with your target audience. Do not get
discouraged. If you stick to a consistent
schedule of content creation and produce new
content regularly, youll increase the likelihood
of engaging the right prospects. Youll also
build a reputation for authority in your medical
field and your readers will get accustomed to
seeing your name frequently on the web. Learn
more about healthcare content marketing and
enhancing your online presence. Find solutions
that will drive new patients to your practice. To
learn more, contact us.