- By Kelli Cotton, MSN, RN
Content creation takes time and effort to maintain a business presence that draws in new viewers or consumers. Successful companies utilize content strategists to create a healthcare content marketing plan to build a blueprint for your business content goals. You can diversify your marketing strategies and maximize the company’s content creation through the expertise of a content strategist. Often the question is asked, “How much should I expect to pay for healthcare content strategy?” Let’s dive into that answer.
What is a Healthcare Content Strategy?
Content strategy focuses on the planning, creation, delivery, and governance of content. In healthcare, it’s the same thing, except healthcare-focused. Content includes not only the words on the page but also the images and multimedia that are used. It’s essential to make content that is easy to find, well structured, and useful for improving the user’s experience of the website. There are several steps required to have a successful plan if you want to work with a content strategist.
Define your goals
To determine your strategy, you need to know what you are trying to accomplish. What are you hoping to achieve with your content? You may be looking to build customer loyalty, build brand awareness, drive e-commerce sales, or something else. Understanding your end goals is essential to your strategic plan.
Audience
Who is your target audience, and how do you want your audience to respond to your content?
Audit
Review your current content from the eyes of a viewer to determine what is working and what needs improvements. You should look at your website, blog, and social media content that has already been created. Decide which parts of your content need a little love and what you need to move away from. As part of your audit, look at what your competition is doing. How do you compare to what your competitors are doing?
Plan
Now it’s time to start a plan. Choose the topics and messages you want to convey. What style format represents your company? This is also the time to brainstorm healthcare content ideas.
Governance
Determine who is responsible for the content strategy. One person focused on healthcare content marketing and content strategies makes it easier to have a clear goal with ownership of the direction. It is essential that your organization creates processes and provides resources to ensure success.
Create
This is the time to create, publish and manage your new content.
Measure
Measure the results of your new marketing campaign. Begin the audit process again, review the results, and repeat the process to improve your healthcare content marketing strategy continuously.
Now that you know the planning process let’s get down to the dollars and cents if you’re looking to hire a content strategist.
What Does Investing for a Content Strategist Look Like?
How much should I expect to pay an agency to produce a content strategy plan and implement that plan? There are several factors to consider when hiring a content marketing strategist.
Larger companies that hire a team in-house to manage their content marketing would need to hire several positions, such as:
- Marketing Manager
- Graphics Designer
- Copywriter
- Web Designer
- Digital Marketing Manager
- Social Media Manager
- Data Analyst
Hiring for this number of positions could easily cost hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. On the other hand, hiring an agency for content strategy can provide all of these services at a fraction of the cost.
First and foremost, when looking to hire a healthcare content strategist, consider the size of your company and your budget. Smaller companies may not have as much room in the budget for extensive services. Most marketing agencies will allow you to pick and choose what services you need to get you started and grow from there.
If you have a smaller budget, one option is to consider hiring someone to map out a plan that you can implement. Another option is to hire an agency to help create your style format that is unique to your business and helps your company stand out from the competition.
Next, determine what specific needs you want the content strategist to address. For example, you can hire an agency to take over all of the content marketing and strategy. You would pay an initial investment for creating your marketing plan and establishing a website and social media. This fee is dependent on the size of your company and what you already have in place. A monthly charge for your content to be created, audited, and managed would also be assessed.
For full-service agencies, you should expect to pay anywhere from $1800 – $6000 for the initial start-up. Estimates for monthly content development can range from $1200 to $4000 per month for continuing growth. Again, these numbers are an average of what you could pay. Some companies charge less; other companies charge up to $20,000 just for a complete marketing strategy.
What to Do Now
Write RN is a digital content agency that provides healthcare companies with engaging content and social media marketing services. WriteRN delivers high-quality, evidence-based content through our writing services. You can completely revitalize your business and invest in a successful future with the services provided by WriteRN. Utilizing our services can provide a complete roadmap in content strategy to drive traffic and engagement with social media management services while gaining the expertise of a whole team of nurse and nurse practitioner writers and marketing staff.
Take your business to the next level by investing in your own content strategist with WriteRN today!
About the Author
Kelli Cotton, MSN, RN
Kelli has been working as a registered nurse for almost 20 years. Specializing in adult and geriatric care, working bedside in a Level I Trauma Intensive Care, Cardiac and Surgical Recovery. Currently, Kelli is working in palliative care. Kelli’s passion lies in teaching her patients about their disease processes and how they can benefit from dietary and lifestyle changes.