A recent article in the Telegraph quoted Google Health Vice President David Feinberg MD as saying that around 7% of Google’s daily searches are health-related, which equates to about 70,000 healthcare-related searches a minute. He went on to say “People are asking us about conditions, medications, symptoms and insurance questions. In this case, we are organising the world’s health information and making it accessible to everyone.”
Let’s just think about that for a minute. 70,000 searches a minute is a huge amount of search traffic. If your business is in the healthcare niche, you need to be jumping on this trend immediately. It’s time to start investing in your healthcare content to reach out to and engage with the people who are searching for more information.
Why is healthcare content marketing needed?
Content marketing is a great tool that can not only help you with branding and improving your brand’s reputation, but it can help with boosting customer retention too. The fact that Google has revealed that people are looking for information about their condition, medication and symptoms mean that any information you can give them will be gratefully received.
However, this can lead to problems, as there are many dubious sites out there that aren’t always providing people with the correct information, and this can lead to issues with self-diagnosis.
Your healthcare business can help to combat this by providing searchers with quality content that is both educational and informative. This is one of the main reasons why we need more healthcare content marketing – so that a large number of people who are searching for information can have access to quality resources.
If you get it right, healthcare content marketing will generate more leads for your business, and help you carve out your niche and build your reputation as an expert in your particular area. This is an excellent way to grow your business.
So, how do you go about providing your potential (and current) customers with an engaging online experience? By following these tips for content marketing in the healthcare niche:
#1 Be an expert in your niche
Every company involved in healthcare has a niche. You can’t possibly be all things to all people. Google’s E-A-T update focused on them gaining more understanding of a brands Expertise, Authority and Trust (E-A-T). This is Google’s way of trying to protect searchers from the sort of disreputable content that we mentioned above.
There is a lot to understand when it comes to E-A-T and so we will cover that in another post. However, what it means for content marketing is that you need to be an expert in the area you are writing about. You will have deep knowledge about your specialist area, so share that knowledge. Write blog posts, create videos and share social media posts that are relevant to your niche and that helps your potential customers understand their problem and how you can provide them with a solution.
#2 Know your target audience well
Providing your customers with lots of content that tells them more about your brand’s area of expertise is all well and good. It will help you establish yourself as an expert in your niche – as long as they can understand it.
You may be a company that deals with complex issues, such as our client BBI who produced the world’s first FDA authorised device to alert clinicians to areas of a patient’s body which are at increased risk of developing pressure ulcers. They are not aiming their marketing campaign at patients, they are aiming it at hospital trusts and care home professionals. So, the language and the terms they use are different from a company targeting patients.
Make sure you know your target audience well so that you can get your tone of voice right and create content that is focused on the subject matter they are interested in. Use language that your audience understands and engages with as well. The better you know your audience, the easier it will be to tailor your content and satisfy their need for knowledge.
#3 Make it interactive
When many companies think about content marketing, they think about blog posts, ebooks, newsletters and white papers. However, it can be hard to get audiences to engage with large blocks of text, and so if you really want to grab your customers’ attention, you need to add some interactive elements into your healthcare marketing content strategy.
Games, polls and quizzes can be a great way to engage with your audience as well as educating them about their bodies and their health at the same time. However, you should add some sort of caveat that informs people that your content is not there to replace a DR’s visit, and if they have any real concerns they should go and visit their own DR as soon as possible.
#4 Be Human
It is really important for businesses in the healthcare sector to remember that when people are talking about their health they want to talk to someone they trust, who is credible and who cares. Sharing ‘behind the scenes’ content about your business and the people who work there is a great way to build trust and a more human connection with your audience.
Share pictures of your staff attending conferences or seminars, upload videos of individual team members talking about their work, and share testimonials from previous customers. All of these things will not only help to build trust with your customers but will also show Google that you are trustworthy too.
#5 Share inspirational stories
Everyone loves a good story, especially when it involves someone overcoming adversity and beating the odds. Sharing stories about your customers can provide inspiration for your target customers and motivate them to get in touch with you to learn more about how you could help them. It is also a great way to showcase how your business has gone above and beyond for its customers too. We do this here at Zool by sharing our case studies with you.
If you are going to do this, however, you need to make sure you get your customers’ permission in advance.
We are living in a digital-first world these days, and healthcare is no exception. To really connect with your audience and establish a reputation as an authentic and knowledgeable organisation you should follow the tips we have outlined above. If you focus on informing and educating your customers, then promotion will follow on its own.
If you want to talk to us and discover how your content marketing strategy is shaping up, then get in touch with us today.
Healthcare Content Marketing: What do you need to know?
Content Writing & Blogs Digital / Feb 17, 2020
A recent article in the Telegraph quoted Google Health Vice President David Feinberg MD as saying that around 7% of Google’s daily searches are health-related, which equates to about 70,000 healthcare-related searches a minute. He went on to say “People are asking us about conditions, medications, symptoms and insurance questions. In this case, we are organising the world’s health information and making it accessible to everyone.”
Let’s just think about that for a minute. 70,000 searches a minute is a huge amount of search traffic. If your business is in the healthcare niche, you need to be jumping on this trend immediately. It’s time to start investing in your healthcare content to reach out to and engage with the people who are searching for more information.
Why is healthcare content marketing needed?
Content marketing is a great tool that can not only help you with branding and improving your brand’s reputation, but it can help with boosting customer retention too. The fact that Google has revealed that people are looking for information about their condition, medication and symptoms mean that any information you can give them will be gratefully received.
However, this can lead to problems, as there are many dubious sites out there that aren’t always providing people with the correct information, and this can lead to issues with self-diagnosis.
Your healthcare business can help to combat this by providing searchers with quality content that is both educational and informative. This is one of the main reasons why we need more healthcare content marketing – so that a large number of people who are searching for information can have access to quality resources.
If you get it right, healthcare content marketing will generate more leads for your business, and help you carve out your niche and build your reputation as an expert in your particular area. This is an excellent way to grow your business.
So, how do you go about providing your potential (and current) customers with an engaging online experience? By following these tips for content marketing in the healthcare niche:
#1 Be an expert in your niche
Every company involved in healthcare has a niche. You can’t possibly be all things to all people. Google’s E-A-T update focused on them gaining more understanding of a brands Expertise, Authority and Trust (E-A-T). This is Google’s way of trying to protect searchers from the sort of disreputable content that we mentioned above.
There is a lot to understand when it comes to E-A-T and so we will cover that in another post. However, what it means for content marketing is that you need to be an expert in the area you are writing about. You will have deep knowledge about your specialist area, so share that knowledge. Write blog posts, create videos and share social media posts that are relevant to your niche and that helps your potential customers understand their problem and how you can provide them with a solution.
#2 Know your target audience well
Providing your customers with lots of content that tells them more about your brand’s area of expertise is all well and good. It will help you establish yourself as an expert in your niche – as long as they can understand it.
You may be a company that deals with complex issues, such as our client BBI who produced the world’s first FDA authorised device to alert clinicians to areas of a patient’s body which are at increased risk of developing pressure ulcers. They are not aiming their marketing campaign at patients, they are aiming it at hospital trusts and care home professionals. So, the language and the terms they use are different from a company targeting patients.
Make sure you know your target audience well so that you can get your tone of voice right and create content that is focused on the subject matter they are interested in. Use language that your audience understands and engages with as well. The better you know your audience, the easier it will be to tailor your content and satisfy their need for knowledge.
#3 Make it interactive
When many companies think about content marketing, they think about blog posts, ebooks, newsletters and white papers. However, it can be hard to get audiences to engage with large blocks of text, and so if you really want to grab your customers’ attention, you need to add some interactive elements into your healthcare marketing content strategy.
Games, polls and quizzes can be a great way to engage with your audience as well as educating them about their bodies and their health at the same time. However, you should add some sort of caveat that informs people that your content is not there to replace a DR’s visit, and if they have any real concerns they should go and visit their own DR as soon as possible.
#4 Be Human
It is really important for businesses in the healthcare sector to remember that when people are talking about their health they want to talk to someone they trust, who is credible and who cares. Sharing ‘behind the scenes’ content about your business and the people who work there is a great way to build trust and a more human connection with your audience.
Share pictures of your staff attending conferences or seminars, upload videos of individual team members talking about their work, and share testimonials from previous customers. All of these things will not only help to build trust with your customers but will also show Google that you are trustworthy too.
#5 Share inspirational stories
Everyone loves a good story, especially when it involves someone overcoming adversity and beating the odds. Sharing stories about your customers can provide inspiration for your target customers and motivate them to get in touch with you to learn more about how you could help them. It is also a great way to showcase how your business has gone above and beyond for its customers too. We do this here at Zool by sharing our case studies with you.
If you are going to do this, however, you need to make sure you get your customers’ permission in advance.
We are living in a digital-first world these days, and healthcare is no exception. To really connect with your audience and establish a reputation as an authentic and knowledgeable organisation you should follow the tips we have outlined above. If you focus on informing and educating your customers, then promotion will follow on its own.
If you want to talk to us and discover how your content marketing strategy is shaping up, then get in touch with us today.
