The Importance of Content Marketing in the Healthcare Industry

Each year more and more people conduct various health-related activities online. This has been especially true this year during the global COVID-19 health crisis and pandemic lockdowns.

Whether people are inquiring about a specific disease or looking for a nearby hospital, they’re more likely to turn to search engines like Google rather than drive around their neighborhoods. In fact, it’s has been reported that around 7% of daily searches on Google are health-related, which translates to 70,000 searches per minute.

With these numbers, a lot of healthcare providers have begun to realize the importance of building a strong online presence to reach out to potential clients searching online. Hiring a healthcare marketing agency is no longer uncommon in an effort to produce timely content that ranks well on search engines and connects with visitors and the larger community online.

To find out more about how content marketing works in the healthcare industry, and how it can boost your business in the medical sector, here are answers to a few commonly asked questions:

What is Healthcare Content Marketing?

Healthcare content marketing is a digital marketing strategy designed to help healthcare providers and hospitals reach out to people online.

In content marketing, designated teams produce a steady stream of relevant, timely, and engaging content that can stimulate the audience’s interest in a particular topic, product, or establishment.

In the healthcare industry, some of the most common types of content include educational articles or videos, news about medical breakthroughs, and available services in a specific establishment.

Why is Healthcare Content Marketing Important?

One of the key ideas behind marketing is to go where your target audiences are. Since people are spending more time online, it only makes sense that healthcare providers build an online presence for themselves as well.

However, just having an online presence isn’t enough. Your practice needs to have a trusted and engaging online identity, and you can achieve this through content marketing.

Here are some reasons why this is important:

Patient Engagement

Your patients can’t come to you if they don’t know about you. In the digital sphere, with so many companies and brands vying for people’s attention, it’s important to stand out. The main way to do this is by consistently releasing meaningful and engaging content online.

In this manner, healthcare providers present themselves as trustworthy sources of information and establishments with reliable services. Over time, your website or your social media page will have more visitors and followers, which may help you reach out to more potential clients.

Patient Retention

Relationships are extremely important in the healthcare industry. Patients need to be able to trust and rely on their healthcare providers. They need to know that the information that they’re receiving is truthful and useful for their personal health. However, this trust is not easily earned.

To an extent, highly rated services and a good reputation online can increase the trust people have in healthcare establishments. Nowadays, people often first check reviews and ratings on the internet before booking an appointment and visiting a hospital, clinic, or any other healthcare provider.

These reviews are often understood as first-hand experiences and can significantly influence a potential client’s decision to book an appointment. After a visit, make sure to ask your patients to rate your services and to write a review on your website or social media pages.

With that said, keep in mind that reviews and ratings are double-edged swords. Bad reviews and ratings can deter other people from coming, so it’s crucial for healthcare providers to properly attend to their patients and perform professionally.

With good service, patients will continuously come back and may even recommend your services to their families and friends as well.

Branding

For all businesses, companies, and industries on the market, branding is exceedingly important. Good branding allows healthcare providers to distinguish themselves from the competition and helps their audience remember them.

In content marketing, branding is more than just the logo, tagline, or color palette used in publicity materials. It’s in the kinds of content produced, the tone of the articles, and the overall approach they have with customers.

The branding or online image has a significant influence on how people see the healthcare establishment as a whole. A lot of healthcare providers utilize a professional yet friendly approach to welcome and interact with their patients.

Reputation-building

As mentioned earlier, relationships and reputation are two extremely important concepts in healthcare content marketing.

With the right content, healthcare providers can engage better with their clients and audiences. Along with a good reputation, they can potentially invite more clients inside the halls of their establishments.

However, the list of perks of having a good reputation doesn’t end there.

With a good online presence, you can potentially attract business partners, hold community events, and even expand your services to cater to a bigger community.

From these reasons alone, it becomes apparent why content marketing has become an essential marketing approach in the healthcare industry. And the time to implement this approach is now.

Currently, a large number of the healthcare market has yet to adopt medical content marketing, which is likely due to the strict restrictions in the healthcare space concerning health-related information. After all, it’s important to generate reliable and trustworthy content that people can use.

Thus, make sure to partner with the right healthcare marketing agency, which is aware of the needs, nuances, and protocols in the healthcare industry.