If you understand the importance of digital marketing for the success of your practice, you’ll probably be very well aware of its foundation, as well. Good content is the building block of a successful content marketing strategy.
A well-planned content marketing strategy plays an indispensible role in creating and maintaining your digital reputation and can mean the difference between a full-waiting room and an empty one at your practice. In the context of healthcare, content marketing is not the same as other industries. The audience involved are the healthcare consumers, i.e. patients, who are now digitally empowered and have become partners making their own health decisions. There’s a lot patients look forward to learning from the online posts of trusted healthcare providers.
Executing a robust content marketing strategy by generating rich content that balances accurate medical information in an easy-to-digest form can generate a higher ROI than other forms of Internet marketing. If you can fulfil the need of healthcare consumers by providing them great content, at the right time and through the right medium, you can drive engagement, get the benefit of ranking higher on search engines, shape brand perception and create brand advocates.
Learn some quick tips to amplify your content marketing strategy to create impactful physician-patient communications that inform, influence and motivate patients to make better health decisions to improve their quality of life.
Begin with strategizing your content strategy
To begin with, just focus on your target audience and then chalk out a strategy on how best you can reach them. Always remember, the principles of great content marketing are the principles of the great customer experience. In this digital era, digital patient experience now counts prior to the actual patient experience. Always put the digital patient at the center to research and analyze their needs.
Personalize content as per individual consumer needs
Healthcare consumers are increasingly becoming health-literate and making informed decisions. The content posted on the Internet and social media channels should be tailored to the needs of online health information consumers. The content should be written in simple and informal language so that readers are able to connect with it. Avoid using technical terms as they are meaningless to consumers/patients since an average person has much lower health literacy. Postings should be scientifically accurate, unbiased and timely — consistent with your other postings and goals.
Promote content through an integrated communications strategy
Developing and implementing an integrated communications strategy enables healthcare providers to better control the content which is posted across various social media platforms. Pre-planning for careful selection of the channels helps optimize the impact of the message. Without investing in planning about the distribution tactics, there is a high possibility your content can go unseen and your efforts will be wasted.
Presentation matters– get creative
Content is more than text and should be informative as well as user-engaging at the same time. Think out of the box and include images, infographics, e-books, newsletters and videos to attract more readers. Understand the need of your patients and deliver content in creative formats. Give them an experience that no other competitor is offering and they will differentiate your brand among others and they will definitely want to engage it.
For healthcare providers, content marketing is a conversion tool. They should focus on creating clear, trusted content that can help people improve the quality of their lives. The content strategy should be patient-centric copy that holds the safety and interests of the patient as a top priority and encourages physician-patient communication. Simply making health content available on the Internet and social media channels will serve no purpose if it cannot be used by patients across a spectrum of comprehension and health literacy levels.