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A 5-Step Plan for Creating Exceptional Healthcare Content

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A 5-Step Plan for Creating Exceptional Healthcare ContentIt’s hard to overstate how important digital content has become for healthcare consumers.

Some 72% of Internet users say they’ve looked for medical information online in the past year, and 96% of Facebook members report using the social network to engage with health topics. Moreover, healthcare providers—dentists, doctors, hospitals, clinics, etc.—are among the most searched-for local businesses on digital devices, behind only restaurants and retail stores.

In other words, consumers are increasingly going online for every aspect of their healthcare needs, from researching issues to finding products and services. Organizations that do not consistently publish engaging digital content are missing out on this massive shift in behavior.

Despite all that, many healthcare brands are still struggling with content. An analysis by the Content Marketing Institute found that healthcare marketers lag two years behind their peers in other industries when it comes to digital content creation and distribution.

Why? Often it comes down to not knowing how to tackle the process effectively. Healthcare is a complex, highly regulated area and many brands err too much on the side of caution when approaching content marketing.

It doesn’t have to be so complicated. In this e-book, we’re going to outline five simple things organizations can do to boost the quality and quantity of content being produced. This series of steps is based on what we’ve seen work with our own healthcare clients as well as for other exceptional brands in the space.

The approaches outlined in this e-book are not suggestions for specific content types or topics to cover; those are ever changing and vary widely from brand to brand. Rather, we are providing a framework for ongoing success. If you follow these five steps you should be able to create exceptional content both today and far into the future.

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Section 1Master Compliance: Understand and Teach, Then Trust

Section 2Put Your Audience First: Develop Customer Personas

Section 3Start With a Plan: Document Your Strategy

Section 4Be Human: Create Accessible and Relatable Content

Section 5Know Thyself: Recognize Your Strengths and Weaknesses

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Table of Contents

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There is no realistic way to regularly publish significant amounts of content without trusting the employees responsible for creation.

33% of healthcare marketers say compliance significantly limits their digital capabilities.

1. Master Compliance: Understand and Teach, Then TrustWhat makes the healthcare industry different—and more difficult—when it comes to content marketing is compliance.

Understandably, organizations want to be very careful about navigating the complex web of regulations and legal concerns that surround providing health-related information and advice online. The problem is that these challenges often lead to inertia and/or complicated internal approval processes for publishing content.

According to a survey of healthcare marketers conducted in 2015, a third say compliance significantly limits their digital capabilities and 43% believe their organizational structure is not suited for delivering effective digital programs.

To overcome these issues, and to produce content at scale, we recommend taking three steps: First, work with your legal and compliance teams to fully understand and document what is, and is not, allowable; Second, hold regular training sessions with all employees who deal with content to ensure that they understand the boundaries; Third, step back and let your organization create.

That last step, letting go, is the hardest one. It’s also necessary. For most organizations, there is no realistic way to regularly publish significant amounts of content without trusting the employees responsible for creation.

The good news is that if you handle the first two steps properly—if you clearly define the compliance issues and properly educate employees on how to tackle them—it’ll be much easier for your teams to feel empowered to create more, and better, content.

Section 1

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Too often healthcare organizations create content based on their own needs rather than what people are looking for.

A survey conducted of 6,000 healthcare consumers found the most in-demand content topics are around healthy lifestyle choices.

2. Put Your Audience First: Develop Customer PersonasIt’s impossible to create exceptional content without understanding what your audience wants.

That may sound obvious, yet too often healthcare organizations develop pieces based on their own needs rather than what people are looking for. Case in point: a survey conducted last summer of 6,000 healthcare consumers found the most in-demand topics were around healthy lifestyle choices (nutrition, staying active, holistic approaches, etc.), yet the content provided by brands was often about topics like staffing, technology, and products.

To overcome this bias toward internal priorities, we recommend creating customer personas to understand your audience(s).

A key thing to note is that in this context, personas don’t equate to demographic profiles (though that information can be useful, too). Rather, these are meant to be broad outlines of the people your brand is aiming to reach, what questions they have, and how digital content can help them.

For example, if you’re an urgent care center targeting parents of children with non-serious injuries/illnesses, think about the major things this audience is searching for (What does X condition look like? Should I seek professional care for X condition? What is an urgent care center? What are the hours, location, and insurance details?), then create content pieces that answer each of these questions.

This approach will naturally steer you away from looking inward to looking outward; it’ll also help understand exactly which areas to focus on with your content.

Section 2

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The thing that correlates most strongly to content marketing success is simple: a documented strategy.

60% of marketers with a documented strategy consider their organization’s content to be effective; in contrast, only 33% of those with only a verbal strategy say the same.

3. Start With a Plan: Document Your StrategyWhat’s the biggest difference between the brands that do well with content marketing and those that do not? Is it leadership? The quality of the teams? The budgets?

All of that certainly comes into play, but the thing that correlates most strongly to success is less expected: a documented strategy.

A benchmark study conducted last year of content marketers found that 60% with a documented strategy consider their organization’s content to be effective; in contrast, only 33% of those with only a verbal strategy say the same.

Despite this, a survey of hospital marketers conducted this year found that only 23% have written out their content marketing strategy.

A documented strategy doesn’t have to take months to develop. For some organizations, it’s as simple as answering a few core questions such as: Who are we trying to reach? What are the content needs of these audiences? How can our content serve those needs? And, what purpose does content serve for our company?

Of course, it’s also possible to go much deeper with a strategy. Taking the time to step back and develop a detailed plan—including outlining long- and short-term goals, preferred channels, key metrics, etc.—makes it much more likely that the actual content you produce will be effective.

Either way, should you choose to create a broad overview or a detailed plan, the important thing is to write it down. With all the day-to-day issues that arise within a healthcare organization, it’s easy to lose sight of why content is being created and how success will be measured; a documented plan makes it far less likely that these will be forgotten.

Section 3

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It’s important to keep in mind that content marketing is fundamentally about storytelling.

55% of consumers want content from businesses to have a tone that is both informational and humorous.

4. Be Human: Create Accessible and Relatable Content

Section 4

Between compliance concerns and the nature of the industry—lots of scientific terms, acronyms, and complex products/services—it’s all too easy for healthcare brands to create content with a dry and impersonal tone.

While that approach is understandable, it’s also a big mistake. A survey of consumers’ preferences found that 32% prefer businesses to take an informational tone with their content, 13% prefer a humorous tone, and 55% want a mix of informational and humorous. In other words, the majority of people (68%) don’t like it when brands take themselves too seriously.

This doesn’t mean that you have to go off-brand and start cracking jokes all the time. However, it does highlight the fact that consumers want content that feels open and relatable.

On a basic level, this means that healthcare brands should strive to use easily accessible language and visuals in their content, and should make every effort to ensure that creators’ personal voices are not lost in their pieces.

Beyond that, it’s important to keep in mind that content marketing is fundamentally about storytelling. Healthcare brands have so many incredible stories at their disposal to tell—in particular about the impact of their products/services on individuals and about their own employees/organizations—yet they often focus too much on abstract ideas and issues.

This is a big missed opportunity. By being more approachable and telling more stories about people—by being more human—you can connect with consumers on a much deeper level.

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Healthcare brands often underestimate the value of their own employees when it comes to content.

40% of healthcare marketers say they struggle to produce enough content and 33% grapple with creating engaging content.

5. Know Thyself: Recognize Your Strengths and Weaknesses

Section 5

Some 40% of healthcare marketers say they struggle to produce enough content and 33% grapple with creating engaging content. In other words, content marketing for many brands is a difficult endeavor.

Rather than give up, or scale back on content, keep this in mind: Not everything has to be done in-house. Some brands don’t have competencies in writing, editing, video production, graphics, or many other content areas. That’s okay; there are plenty of other organizations out there that can help.

It’s possible to get assistance with any number of things from external providers—from small pieces of design feedback to entire content packages.

Conversely, healthcare brands often underestimate the value of their own employees when it comes to content. Consumers are desperate for high-quality, fact-based health information. This sort of expertise is what many organizations have plenty of.

The key is to understand your strengths and weaknesses. If you have an expert in-house who is extremely knowledgeable about a topic but not an effective communicator, then pair them with a writer. If you’ve got a patient or consumer with an exceptional visual tale to tell, bring in a few professionals to help convey the story properly.

Fundamentally, it comes down to focusing on what you do well. By combining your organization’s wealth of knowledge with expert storytellers, you’ll be able to create truly compelling content.

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Digital healthcare content is having a huge impact on people’s lives.Some 60% of Americans who’ve searched for health information online say they’ve made a decision about how to treat an illness/issue based on what they’ve found on the Web, 56% say online content has changed their overall health approach, and 53% say digital information has led them to ask a healthcare provider new questions.

If you follow the steps outlined in this e-book—master compliance, create audience personas, document a strategy, develop a relatable tone, and focus on your strengths—your organization can develop exceptional content that truly connects with consumers and helps make their lives better. Ultimately, that’s a huge win for both your business and your audience.

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Sources http://www.truenorthcustom.com/state-of-healthcare-2016-report

http://fleishmanhillard.com/2014/07/true/survey-what-types-of-content-consumers-do-want-from-brands/

https://econsultancy.com/reports/healthcare-study-organizing-marketing-in-the-digital-age

http://www.skyword.com/contentstandard/enterprise-marketing/health-care-content-marketing-strategy-lacks-context-confidence/

http://www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheets/health-fact-sheet/

https://www.brightlocal.com/learn/local-consumer-review-survey-2014/

http://www.pewinternet.org/2013/07/26/e-patients-and-their-hunt-for-health-information-2/

http://strategichcmarketing.com/lp-sending-clear-message-content-still-reigns-supreme-4839/

http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2012/11/health-care-content-marketing-lags-two-years-behind/

http://ihealthtran.com/images/infographic-healthcare-social-media-infographic.png

http://www.amatampabay.org/local-news/top-trends-and-challenges-in-healthcare-content-marketing-2/

http://insights.newscred.com/the-future-of-healthcare-content-marketing/

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