It’s no secret that healthcare is a volatile industry that garners varying degrees of trust from patients and caregivers. For this reason, it is particularly important that your business strives to gain and keep people’s trust. This is one of the key objectives of content marketing. Today, I’m going to show you how you can leverage responsible content marketing to meet that goal.
Disclaimer About Legal and Privacy Issues
Before implementing any of the advice in this article, it is important that you be aware of both HIPPA and local laws. Certain types of content and content delivery might violate established policies on various levels. Don’t be scared; just be educated and proceed in a manner that complies with company and applicable national agency policies.
It Starts with Your Website
The key to success in any content marketing initiative is a functional, responsive website that is updated with fresh content and accurate information regularly. If you don’t know whether your site is responsive, speak with your IT manager or web hosting company. Chances are, if you haven’t updated your site within the last 18 months, it is either not responsive or is not taking advantage of current responsiveness technology.
The presentation of your site is also important. What people see when they click through to your site will determine whether they stay to have a look around. You don’t want your homepage or landing page to look too busy. In fact, simpler is better. Still, you know your patients better than we do, so feel free to choose the best possible layout for the people you are trying to reach.
The content of your home or landing page is especially important. Potential patients (or clients if yours is a business that caters to the healthcare industry) need to be able to tell instantly what your specialties are and how you intend to help solve whatever issue or problem has brought them to your site. Clearly, you cannot promise miracles, but you can build confidence in the reader in your ability to manage and treat their conditions.
The Right Content for the Job
Keeping people in the know is a vital part the objective of medical content marketing. That means staying in front of (and being perpetually accessible to) patients or customers. You can do this in several ways, not all of which will work or even be appropriate in every circumstance. The three content types to which you should be paying closest attention are:
• Blog Content
• Social Media
Let’s look at each of these and how you might use them to reach out to your intended audience. The power of email cannot be disputed. It remains the single most effective communications medium for any marketing initiative. It can be used solely to deliver information but also to educate and build trust.
There are right ways and wrong ways to use email in specific contexts. Most doctor’s offices, for example, won’t want to develop drawn-out narrative email sequences, but they probably would want to use email as an alternative to other communications solutions that use more local resources. Scheduling reminders, prescription refills, referrals, annual checkup reminders, and much more can be managed via email. How does this relate to marketing, though?
Whenever you reach out to a patient or customer, it’s a marketing move. You are using the content medium to keep your practice, business, or brand in front of them. Some people would never book a checkup without a reminder, and most will skip an incoming phone call and let it go to voicemail if the number is unfamiliar (or they just don’t want to deal with an unsolicited call from you). The time it takes your receptionist to make that call can be saved with an email, and you can link to your website or social media as part of your email messaging.
If you use email for those kinds of practical purposes, you can also use it for straight marketing initiatives without alienating your reader base. If you have a history of sending useful content via email, the reader is more likely to open messages from you consistently.
Blog content and email also go hand in hand. Whenever you update your blog, people should be informed. Is blogging necessary for a doctor’s office, though? I say absolutely, and here’s why:
The more you do to demonstrate your level of expertise in a given area, the more likely people will be to trust you to meet needs and solve problems associated with it. When people trust you, they stay with you. Regular blog updates also help boost SEO, which helps more new patients and clients find you ahead of other practices and businesses.
Lastly, you need to take your social media presence seriously. This is where consistency and authority will mean the most. If you don’t have a presence established on the top social platforms, you need to fix that ASAP. An expert copywriting agency that delivers great medical content marketing services (like Beez) can help with that tremendously.
The more meaningful content you post on social media, the more engaged your audience will be. This makes it much easier to stay in communication with your audience since they will be far less inclined to scroll past content if they consider yours worthy of their attention.
Final Takeaway
Your messaging and its delivery are more important in the medical industry than average, which is why a solid content marketing strategy is so important. Knowing who your audience is and delivering appropriate, timely, and valuable content is a powerful way to gain trust. You might also help a few people live better and longer lives along the way by keeping their attention on their health and well-being.
