Content Marketing for Healthcare: How to Educate, Engage, and Convert Your Prospects and Patients

Do you want to find new ways of attracting high-value clients and leads for your healthcare brand or business?

You are in luck.

You can create meaningful relationships with patients by creating a strategy for demand generation and lead-generation.

How do you go about creating a lead generation and demand gen strategy?

Simple. Set up a plan for healthcare content marketing in your organization.

Content marketing is a key player in the sales process. It can educate, engage and convert prospects and patients. Content marketing can help you move leads down the sales funnel. You can also nurture your patients over time.

We’ll look at the importance of content marketing in healthcare and how you can use this strategy to achieve success.

Why healthcare content marketing is important

Content — the collective term for online information — is a key factor in the success of healthcare marketing.

Avoiding content marketing will prevent your brand from reaching your audience wherever they are. Patients and prospects are primarily searching online for information on health issues, treatment options and medical facilities.

Second, the reviews and recommendations about hospitals, doctors and healthcare providers can have a major impact on decisions regarding care. The self-education pattern has created a culture where patients actively seek ways to resolve their problems and take an active role in their own health.

Reviews and recommendations not only help brands overcome objections to sales, but also provide the information that searchers want in an easy-to-digest format.

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Third, an informed audience is a great way to increase brand awareness, build trust and, over time, convert customers.

What’s the bottom line? The patient of today is informed. It’s because medical professionals and brands have taken the time to create online content that can help patients learn more about healthcare options.

TL:DR: Give the information your ideal patients are seeking, and watch them begin to like you, trust you, and know more about you.

The best practices for creating a content plan

When creating your content plan, don’t forget to include the following steps:

Research SEO and audience behavior for each channel that you intend to use

It’s not enough to create and distribute high-quality content in healthcare. You need to convert leads and build awareness. You must optimize your content to appeal to your audience. This includes optimizing it for search engines, social networks, and other marketing channels.

Use relevant keywords, tags, hashtags and titles to boost your content’s ranking and increase its reach.

You should always uncover the following when conducting SEO research or audience behavior research.

• The main themes, topics and secondary keywords will be determined by the pain points and questions that your ideal patient has.
• They consume content in various forms, such as videos, blogs, infographics, etc.
• They consume content such as research on diabetes medications, weight loss surgery, and non-invasive treatments for Type 2 diabetics.
• What they use online (e.g., health websites, blogs and social media channels).

Make data analysis and applications a regular habit

Healthcare content marketing has many benefits. Content is a valuable marketing tool. It can be used to increase brand awareness, position your organization as an expert in medicine, or retain your best customers.

To achieve these benefits, you will need to measure and optimize the performance of your content using data and analytics.

Business intelligence reporting is a great tool for this. Businesses can gain actionable insights by using interactive information visualizations. They can also optimize the performance of their content for continued growth.

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Business intelligence reporting can help you make better decisions based on data, which can increase your ROI from content marketing and bring you closer to your sales targets.

Plan ahead your content, topics and publication schedule.

Plan your content types, topics and publication schedule with a SEO strategist who has experience in the healthcare sector.

A SEO strategist can assist you in getting organized, creating a plan for content creation based on SERPs, and advising you on how you can batch your content so that you stay ahead of your competition.

To ensure that your content is accurate and professional, you’ll need to collaborate with medical experts and subject matter experts.

Content marketing: How to educate prospects

How to use content at the top of your marketing funnel to inform and generate demand.

Articles

Write blog posts based on FAQs and search intent to answer the top questions of your audience.

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Consider creating a knowledge base or help center where your leads can learn more about how your treatments, medical procedures and medications work.

Media

Create infographics that are easy to digest, videos with information, and images for your audience.

Here’s a simple but effective infographic that explains why “Turkey Teeth”, as the name suggests, happens.

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Start a podcast to take this tip to the next level. Each episode should be dedicated to a specific audience problem and its solution.

Guest authors and appearances

To build a rapport with your audience, consider guest posting on medical blogs of high authority, appearing in podcasts, live videos, and informational interviews.

Content marketing: How to engage with your audience

How to engage prospects at the middle of your marketing funnel using content.

Influencer marketing campaigns, affiliate marketing and UGC campaigns

Get reviews and recommendations from influencers, affiliates and trusted people who are in your target market.

Here is an example of a Reel-style documentary by an influencer about their experience with ACPS Plastic Surgery Clinic:

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Create massive campaigns using user-generated content with affiliates and influencers to boost your engagement.

High-value social media content

You should post social media content that is in line with the core needs, values and pain points of your audience.

Use engagement stickers to engage your audience, ask them thought-provoking and provocative questions, post behind the scenes content on Stories, and display some of your infographics, videos, and images.

Perfect Skin Solutions is a facial aesthetics center. Here’s a sample of a carousel-style post with information:

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Lead magnets for funnel marketing

Create a sales funnel and lead magnet that will increase your prospect list.

Your audience research will help you choose your lead magnet. Consider adding these services to a package of free services that patients can win through a social media competition if most of your audience is looking for a primary care physician who will conduct a thorough physical, collect bloodwork, and create a customized treatment plan.

You could also offer free physicals to those who download your “10 Tips for Immaculate Health Guide” in exchange for their contact details. You may not get everyone to take advantage of your free physical, but you will need their contact information to allow them to access the guide. You can nurture your leads with segmented, automated emails.

Content marketing: How to convert prospects into customers

Here’s a final tip on how to use content at the bottom of your marketing funnel to convert prospects.

Case studies and testimonials from patients

Share case studies, testimonials and before-and after photos to win over BoFu prospects.

Dentfix, for example, shares case studies, patient testimonials, and informative blogs from those who’ve had successful dental treatments in Turkey. The following before-and after photos show the positive experiences of its patients:

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Comparison guides

Create comparison guides to show your customers why your treatments are superior to your competitors.

Pumpkin, an insurance company for dogs, uses content marketing as a way to educate pet owners on various health issues, including allergies, heartworms and surgery. Pumpkin uses comparison guides to show how its unique packages outperform the competition.

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Buyer’s Guide

Create a detailed, optimized buyer’s guide for your BoFu prospects to reduce decision overload and overcome objections.

For reference, here’s an example buyer’s guide that explores all the options available for dental insurance in California:

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Wrap-up

That’s it! This article explains why content marketing in the healthcare industry is so important and shows how it can be used to increase demand, lead generation, and patient numbers.

What are your next steps? Now is the time to turn your knowledge into action. Hire a content agency, or an SEO content strategist with expert writers, to help you achieve your goals. Do not forget to work with medical reviewers to ensure your content is accurate.

Are you feeling overwhelmed by all these tips? We feel the same way! Our content curation platform is a great way to relieve some of that pressure. Scoop.it helps you save time on content marketing every week.

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