With the advancement of technology, increasing consumer expectations, and evolving healthcare market, healthcare organizations are facing numerous challenges in differentiating their services/products from the competitors and getting attention from their target audience.

The rise of digital platforms and social media has given patients and healthcare professionals, access to vast amounts of information. Hence it is crucial for healthcare organizations to develop an effective healthcare content marketing strategy that brings desired results.

However, building a healthcare content marketing strategy involves various aspects that together contribute to a successful marketing plan. Below is the roadmap to building a successful healthcare content marketing strategy:

1. Understand the Target Audience 

Understanding the target audience is a crucial and time-taking process in creating a healthcare content marketing strategy. Research your target audience, their online behaviors, and preferences in the following ways:

• Gain a comprehensive understanding of your industry, specialties, sub-industries, and segmentations. Also identify the niche areas that align with your products, services, and expertise 
• Review your existing customer base and segment them according to gender, age, occupation, demographics, interests, healthcare needs, etc. If you are starting it new, use the competitor’s details
• Use surveys & polls, seek insights from focus groups that involve healthcare professionals and other key stakeholders. Also, gain insights about pain points and challenges faced by your prospective customers
• Create buyer personas according to each segment of the audience. Use demographics, interests, healthcare needs, gender, and other main criteria. If your target audience is diverse, create multiple personas that represent each audience segment 

2.  Set the Objectives and Goals  

Set clear goals and objectives that you want to achieve with your healthcare marketing strategy. 

Some of the common goals for healthcare content marketing can be:

1. Brand awareness and brand reputation 
2. Driving website traffic
3. Establishing thought leadership 
4. Lead generation and conversion 

Also Read: Why Do You Need a YouTube Healthcare Marketing Strategy?

3. Perform Keyword Analysis and Competitor’s Keyword Analysis 

Keyword analysis gives an overview of what your online healthcare customer searches and expects from a healthcare organization. If a healthcare organization wants to establish its digital presence, keywords are an important component of healthcare content marketing strategy.

Use keyword research tools to identify relevant healthcare topics and popular search terms within your niche and competitor’s keyword analysis helps you to unveil the keyword opportunities.   

4. Decide the Content Pillars and Develop a Content Plan 

Content pillars are created by the intent that defines the content goals and objectives of the healthcare organization.  

Some of the content pillars for healthcare marketing strategies are: 

1. Health and wellness education
2. Patient healing stories and testimonials 
3. Health, Technology, and Innovation
4. Healthcare industry news and updates
5. Healthcare Advocacy and Social Impact 
6. Patient empowerment & engagement 

Create an editorial calendar based on the content pillars, type of posts, and publishing schedule. 

Cater to different audience preferences by using various content formats like blogs, case studies, social media content, podcasts, infographic, educational videos, etc.

5. Produce SEO-optimized High-Quality Content 

SEO is an important aspect of content marketing strategy. All the efforts that go into content planning and creation need to be visible to your target audience. 

Leverage SEO and its best practices to improve search rankings and establish content visibility by optimizing content with off-page, on-page, and technical SEO aspects. Also, do not ignore working on the technical aspects of the website such as page loading speed, mobile responsiveness, etc.  

6. Leverage Multimedia and Visual Content 

Customers use multichannel according to their convenience and interests. Establishing a presence in multichannel help the healthcare organization to engage every customer. Healthcare organizations can use various content formats and channels that target the customer across all channels. 

In the healthcare industry, visual elements can be a powerful tool to simplify and convey complex information and engage the audience. Using videos, and images, and educating the audience through self-help visual content is an effective content marketing strategy for healthcare organizations. 

7. Establish Thought-Leadership Using Insightful Content

It is certain that content plays a major role in content marketing strategy. All the above strategies do not deliver the expected results if the content written is not compelling and do not attract an audience. 

By publishing insightful and factual content, healthcare organizations can position their brand as a trusted authority in the healthcare industry. It is crucial to consistently provide valuable content that demonstrates the expertise of the healthcare organization.

Healthcare organizations can encourage the staff and subject matter experts to provide high-quality content, participate in interviews, conduct sessions with prospective customers to address their pain points, speak at industry events, etc. 

8. Set content KPIs, Measure, and Track the Effectiveness of Content Strategy

Content Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are measurable metrics that are used to measure the performance of content marketing efforts by considering various parameters. 

Setting up content KPIs helps healthcare organizations to analyze how well the content strategy is meeting the goals and objectives. Also, it provides insight into the impact and value of content marketing strategy. 

Some of the KPIs for healthcare content marketing strategy can be: 

1. Website Traffic
2. Conversion Rates 
3. Social Media Metrics (Like, comment, share, etc.)
4. SEO rankings 
5. Content downloads and subscriptions 
6. Social proof and reviews 
7. Cost per acquisition (CPA) 
8. Referral traffic and backlinks 

Regularly track the impact of content marketing strategies by using the above KPIs or set your KPIs according to the strategy choices. Measuring the content marketing efforts helps in modifying the strategies, and also helps in identifying successful content types. This will help in taking informed decisions for future content strategies. 

Conclusion

Building a successful healthcare content marketing strategy involves various above aspects that are interlinked with each other. It is important to create a roadmap for all the content marketing parameters and track them individually to see the real-time impact. 

However, the above-mentioned strategies if implemented effectively can help healthcare organizations to achieve their content marketing goals. 

Additional Read: Tips for Creating Engaging Healthcare Content Marketing