Every organization that wants to achieve success in the healthcare industry, should craft an outstanding content marketing strategy. It will help to increase reach, drive conversions and hit other important goals.
If you want to know what to expect in healthcare marketing, check the following top 5 trends. They will help you to build a strategy, which will take your organization to the next level.
Demand for trustworthy content
Modern patients are different. They try to solve their problems on their own instead of scheduling an appointment with a doctor. They try to find answers to health-related questions using the Internet.
The problem is that the World Wide Web is full of low-quality content and health care scams. Most of the articles are written by copywriters, who don’t have a healthcare background. When patients use this unreliable information for self-diagnosis, they risk harming themselves.
There is a need for high-quality sources of information, which will educate users and help them to solve their problems. For this reason, the government, local authorities, medical institutions, pharmaceutical companies, and doctors should unite their efforts to produce reliable, trustworthy content, which will be available for everyone. Once again, all content for the healthcare industry must be crafted by only professionals in the field.
Productive presence on social media
Modern people can’t live without social media. They spend more than 4 hours a day checking their Instagram accounts and browsing Facebook. “When a user wants to get more information about the company, they check the company’s social media accounts before visiting its official website,” – claims Andrew Arnold, Forbes’ contributor.
There is no room for doubt that users are ready to follow the healthcare organizations on different platforms. However, the problem is that not so many medical institutions have already created a productive social media presence.
To get a competitive advantage, it’s important to resolve this issue. Every healthcare organization, whether it is small or big, should complete the following tasks:
Create accounts on at least two different social networks and link them to the website;
Publish at least two high-quality posts a week;
Actively participate in the groups and discussions;
Answer questions and comments of the followers on a regular basis.
These actions will help to increase reach and boost the effectiveness of content marketing strategy. The more high-quality posts you publish the better results you achieve.
An example of an educational social media post
Collaboration with influencers and micro-influencers
Today, the effectiveness of influencer marketing for the healthcare industry is hard to overestimate. Influencers and micro-influencers can educate their followers as well as influence their opinions. Collaborating with digital celebrities, it’s easy to hit the following goals:
raise awareness of global health issues;
promote new medical products and services;
teach patients how to use medical devices and how to take pills in the right way.
A healthy lifestyle is a worldwide trend, so modern people care about their health more than any previous generations. They keep an eye on innovations in the healthcare industry and use social media as a major source of information. “This is a wise decision to use collaboration with influencers as a tool to reach out to the wide audience,” – claims Melanie Preston, a marketing specialist at Canada-Writers.
Emilia Clarke promotes Royal College of Nursing
Young popular singer Malu Trevejo advertises BrighterWhite device
Video content is a king
In recent years, the demand for video content is rapidly growing. It is expected that this trend will significantly influence the healthcare industry, too. Video reviews of medical devices and medication, as well as how-to and explanatory videos, will be extremely popular among the users.
When a patient has a choice to read a 2,000-words educational article or to watch 3-minutes video, it’s more likely that he will choose the second option. Video content is super engaging and easy-to-consume. If you want to grab and retain the audience’s attention, be ready to shoot high-resolution videos.
An example of an explanatory video
Chatbots
What about content distribution, chatbots are becoming a channel number one. Smart bots are taking the healthcare industry by storm. They are changing the ways patients communicate with doctors, schedule their appointments, control their health conditions, take pills, and many more.
Millennials and Z generation prefer writing text messages instead of making calls. They feel more comfortable chatting with the bots than talking to the company’s representatives. It’s important to use Facebook Messenger chatbots, websites’ bots, or specialized messaging apps to distribute content and to meet changing clients’ preferences if you want to reach a young audience.
Conclusion
Crafting a content marketing strategy for the healthcare industry, you should put an emphasis on the content quality, not quantity. Focus on growing social media presence, implement the latest technologies – and you will take your strategy to the next level.
