- By Krista Vaughan
Leverage the positive impact that your healthcare practice can bring to the field with an effective healthcare content marketing strategy. Whether you are looking to build a strong online presence or rank on Google search results, these strategies can help you connect with your target audience and build quality relationships with your patients. Learn how to stand out and thrive in the digital landscape, improve patient outcomes, and get ahead of your competitors.
Are you looking for ways to grow your practice, improve patient outcomes, and distribute valuable information to your patients? Do you want to drive patients and their caregivers to your practice and stand out above your competitors? A strong healthcare content marketing strategy can help your practice become recognized in a crowded industry. This article will teach you how to build trusting relationships with your patients and improve compliance with their healthcare plans. In addition, we will discuss how to establish yourself on social media and drive patients toward your practice.
Through effective communication and feedback delivered directly through your website, you can move beyond the traditional practice into a growing business that helps patients be healthier. You can create a winning healthcare content marketing strategy to stand out above your competitors in a highly-crowded market.
Why Your Healthcare Brand Can’t Thrive Today Without a Healthcare Content Marketing Strategy
Today’s healthcare industry is challenging for everyone. Patients look for information on the internet using Google or social media to get answers to their medical questions. This trend can lead to false information and poor healthcare outcomes. You want to educate your patients and drive them to your practice for answers. To build trust and relationships with your patients, you must use a content marketing strategy.
In traditional medical practices, word-of-mouth advertising was often enough to help a patient choose a physician. Today, patients use Yelp, Angie’s List, and other business reviewing websites to decide where to go for healthcare. You want those websites to drive traffic to your website. This marketing strategy will establish your authority in the field, increase your visibility on the web, and help your practice thrive.
One example is blog writing. If your subject matter is diabetes, you can drive traffic to your website through blogs that are easy to find through SEO (search engine optimization). SEO is posting links and references to your website through social media and search engines like Google. When one of your patients types in “How do I prevent diabetes?”, they will be driven to your website through keywords that link to your blog. When medical professionals in your practice write those blogs, patients may be less intimidated by the healthcare professional they just read about in an article on the internet.
If you want to stand out as a leader in your community, you can establish your presence by addressing your patient’s pain points. Driving them to your website for advice on treating that pain can lead to better patient outcomes, fewer unnecessary emergency room visits, and better recovery because you provided the answers to their questions.
The Lifeblood of Healthcare Content Marketing
Step One: Identify your objectives.
Your team should first determine what you hope to achieve through your content marketing strategy. Do you expect to answer frequently asked questions? Do your patients often come to the office with information they read online that caused potential or actual harm? Is there something you wish your patients knew before coming to your office for the first time? You can address these items directly on your website.
Step Two: Understand your target audience.
Knowing who your audience is will help you market your content to suit their needs. If most of your patients are elderly, marketing through well-established websites for that demographic, like AARP or pain relief ads, is more beneficial than through social media platforms they don’t typically use.
Step Three: Identify the topics.
Focus your approach to marketing on the topics and keywords your target audience is seeking. An OB/GYN practice should create content around keywords like women’s health, childbirth, lactation, and infertility.
Step Four: Develop a content plan.
When developing your content plan, consider using a digital content agency like WriteRN.net that can provide content written by healthcare professionals and marketing services.
Step Five: Consider the quality.
Quality matters, so it’s essential that the content you distribute is informative, engaging, and valuable to your audience. Your content should be well-researched and provided by the healthcare professionals within your practice. This standard will give your content credibility when your patients see their doctors’ names on an article. It should also be written in a way that is culturally appropriate to your audience.
Step Six: Optimize your content.
You want your content to stand out in a crowd. View content on your competitors’ websites, and then provide additional information not found on those websites. Use marketing tools like ads on social media sites such as Facebook and YouTube to help you offer deliverables that will reach your audience. Ensure your website is visible in search engines and social media channels to maximize visibility. You can use sites like Search Engine Journal to help you get noticed.
Step Seven: Vary your content.
People learn in different ways. Blogs are one great way to provide information, but short video clips, images, and even interactive gaming platforms can help your audience retain the information you provide. Using a multimedia approach to your content will help engage your audience meaningfully.
Step Eight: Measure and track your performance.
Track your website’s performance using online trackers such as Semrush or Leadfeeder. These tools will help you determine which content is getting the most traffic, the focus of future subject matter, and help you develop a plan for moving forward.
Step Nine: Prioritize connection.
Consider offering a way for patients to contact you through your website and respond promptly. This option will help build trust and relationships with your patients. You can expect to see an increase in phone calls, requests for appointments, and traffic on your website.
Your website’s performance is closely related to the traffic generated through search engines. When more patients see the healthcare professionals in your practice on the internet, it builds trust and helps to establish your healthcare brand identity to the target audience. Using a healthcare content marketing strategy, you can distribute reliable information to your patients to help build trust and lasting doctor-patient relationships.
References
https://writern.net/why-clinicians-drive-healthcare-content-creation/
https://writern.net/healthcare-business-with-healthcare-content-marketing/
https://writern.net/healthcare-content-writing-strategies-for-creating-compelling-and-engaging-copy/
https://www.constantcontact.com/blog/healthcare-content-marketing/
https://www.semrush.com/blog/healthcare-content-marketing/
Search Engine Journal – SEO, Search Marketing News and Tutorials
Nurse Writers: Content Strategy, Writing, Social Media (writern.net)
About the Author
Krista Vaughan
Krista Vaughan has been an RN for 28 years. Most of her background is in L&D, but her passion is helping nurses develop themselves professionally. She’s a clinical educator and freelance writer.