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Content marketing is more than a buzz word in healthcare, it’s a marketing strategy that has grown to become quite effective and advantageous for small and large medical practices. From the two-doctor practice Quaintise manages in Phoenix, Arizona to the 35-doctor practice Quaintise manages in Los Angeles, California, content marketing is a beneficial and extremely valuable tool for marketing success. With that said, recent research is showing just how limited the healthcare marketing scope is in relation to this effective strategy.
Content Marketing Numbers in Healthcare
According to MedCityNews.com, healthcare content marketing findings from 2013 look a lot like the overall findings from 2010. Simply stated – content marketing, though taking huge hold in other industries, has yet to capture the marketing minds of healthcare professionals. Take a look at the numbers from research conducted with Marketing Profs, sponsored by Brightcove and Pace:
- Forty-three percent of health care marketers plan to increase their content marketing spend over the next 12 months, compared to 54 percent for all industries.
- On average, health care marketers spend 23 percent of their total marketing budget on content marketing activities, compared to 31 percent for all marketers.
- Brand awareness is the most popular content marketing objective (81 percent).
- The biggest content marketing challenge isproducing enough content.
Health care marketers tend to use print at higher rates than their peers:
- Print magazines:47 percent of health care marketers use them, versus 35 percent of all marketers.
- Print newsletters:43 percent of health care marketers use them, versus 28 percent of all marketers.
- Annual reports:36 percent of health care marketers use them, versus 26 percent of all marketers.
There are also tactics health care marketers use less often than their peers:
- Blogs:58 percent of health care marketers use blogs, versus 74 percent of all marketers.
- Case studies:53 percent of health care marketers use case studies, versus 63 percent of all marketers. (This makes sense… just think of the challenges in the Pharma industry.)
The research goes on to say that healthcare marketers use social media less often, which we at Quaintise find not only surprising, we find completely unacceptable. In fact, every single one of our clients has a strong and highly effective social media campaign running right now. However, when we break down the numbers of social media use in healthcare marketing, we see that 75% of healthcare marketing do use social media to distribute content. That is a decent amount, yet when compared to the 82% of all other industry marketers using social media, the number is paled a bit.
How to Get Your Practice Started in Content Marketing
Content marketing is one of the fastest growing marketing trends currently, and for good reason. With so many tactics and strategies to choose from (social media, web articles, blogs, eNewsletters, case-studies, videos, white papers, webcasts, etc), you can reach a broad and yet targeted audience with informative, personalized content.
So, as a small, or large, medical organization or physician practice, the question becomes, “how do I get started?”
1. Identify Your Niche: This should be fairly easy. Are you a specialist? A surgeon? A pediatrician? Sports medicine? Chiropractor? Each industry has niches within itself, so determine who you are, what your brand is, and where you belong.
2. Solve a Problem: Just as with any form of healthcare marketing, you will need to determine what problem your patients face, and what solution you can offer. For example, if lower back pain is a large problem that your patients face, make sure you provide the best possible solution.
3. Get a Publishing Plan: Just as with any form of healthcare marketing, you need a plan, an editorial calendar, a strict focus on what you will be doing over the next month. What topics will you cover? What problems will you solve for your patients? Commit yourself to publishing three articles a week, one video blog a month, and two social media posts a day.
4. Measurements and Metrics: Become knowledgable when it comes to the numbers that really matter. How much traffic are your blog posts bringing in? How successful are your social media posts? How far is your brand reach online?
5. Know Your Audience: Ultimately, in order to facilitate any successful marketing campaign you need to understand your audience. Where do they spend their time? Facebook? Pinterest? Local newspapers? Magazines? TV? You need to know what shows they watch, what magazines they read, where they shop, how many kids they have, what kind of car they drive, and everything in between. Get yourself a great data scientist, analyze the numbers, and truly understand your audience in a whole new way.
The professional marketing team at Quaintise has ample experience in content marketing. Content marketing is not about making the sale or ranking higher on Google. Content marketing is so much bigger then that. It’s about reaching more of a targeted audience with superbly created, custom and personalized content with the ultimate goal of increasing brand awareness and visibility. Let Quaintise, the Southwest’s number one healthcare marketing agency, help you out.