Health marketing and content marketing go hand-in-hand. People are interested in reading about their health issues, the latest medical breakthroughs or your opinion about various medical services. The key here though is not to be a bore…and you don’t have to be! Medicine is exciting. Remember when you first felt that way?
Engagement is key when it comes to content marketing. If you spend time and effort creating something that ends in the delete file, it is very disheartening and total waste of your resources.
Tips for Exciting Content Strategy
1. Show and tell
People don’t want to read a tome of endless features of your various services. They want to know and feel the benefits to them. Fortunately, this is easy to do in the health field. Create images and videos that illustrate before and after cases, getting the viewers excited and feeling that they can get the same results. Videos can explain better than words alone how procedures work and what will be experienced. If a picture is worth one thousand words, a video is worth more than ten thousand words.
Position some of your content around successful case studies and stories that elicit emotions. This is why videos of puppies and kittens go viral. They carry the “aww” factor.
Don’t forget to actually include facts regarding your services. This is what will convince viewers to consult with you and want to be your patients.
2. Be relevant
60% of content marketers agree that their number one challenge is producing content that engages with their audience. But, figuring out what speaks to your prospective patients and what they find interesting is not that complicated. Ask yourself, why do your patients come to you? What issues do you solve with your services? These are the topics that will interest your target viewers.
Take a look at a study by Searchmetrics which found post length plays a big role in SEO rankings and the likelihood of engagement. Audiences tend to enjoy longer, more in-depth pieces.
Another article on this site also revealed that adding in visual elements like pictures, infographics, or videos to a piece can increase views by 94%.
Keep abreast of what’s trending or getting people talking on sites like Reddit or forums and chat rooms. These give some great ideas for exciting content topics that people are searching for. By tracking advanced content metrics, you can produce a piece more likely to receive engagement.
3. Stay Fresh
Try not to simply rehash old ideas. No one wants to return to your site to get the “same old, same old”.
The best bloggers are voracious readers, so stay current by following other bloggers and writers to discover what content is stimulating them. Collect interesting articles or studies that could be useful for future reference and potential content pieces. Doing things like listening to podcasts, taking classes, watching trending videos, etc. are great sources of inspiration.
To be effective content writers, constantly remain curious and connected to their niche.
4. Gift of new life
Make something old new again by creating a new spin and repurposing your work. A great example is taking an article and making it some blog posts or taking a series of blog posts and making them an ebook. Too, you can take the material and make them podcasts or videos. Making your work evergreen keeps it not only appealing to your new viewers but frees up some time for yourself. Remember though not to put dates and times in the pieces so that the articles are dated.
Videos and infographics, are three times more likely to be shared on social media than any other type of content. Try transforming a piece into interactive content that gets your audience more involved or change up the structure into a list or tutorial. Doing so can potentially result in dramatic spikes in engagement.
Varying your content style or revamping old pieces can bring new life into your marketing strategy.
Recap
No one likes boring content. It not only discourages engagement but also wastes time and resources. There are many sources to discover exciting topics and ideas for your content. Try a new version of your old pieces, and keep fresh.
The key is that your content adds value to your readers, is relevant and in sync with your services. Otherwise, there is no interaction and no reason to create the content in the first place.
No Time?
Right about now you may be saying, “I don’t have time for this” or “I don’t have staff that show any interest in contributing to this content”. Well, no worries! Contact Barbara@TheMedicalStrategist.com and get started!
