Amazing, pure, powerful stories happen everyday at hospitals and health systems — and healthcare marketers have a front row seat to the wonders of medicine and the strength of the human spirit.
For example, grateful parents witness a successful fetal heart surgery right before their eyes; a bone marrow donor is found through an urgent community awareness campaign; an innovative joint replacement surgery patient finally gets back to the activities that he once loved. The list goes on and on.
For healthcare marketers, finding this content is the easy part. But curating, distributing, and promoting it is the challenge — one that requires a sound and solid content strategy. In fact, 93% of marketers are using content but only 27% of B2C and 48% of B2B marketers have developed a strategy.
We believe a content strategy is key to any marketing strategy. It isn’t about more content. It’s about smart content. It’s not a fun process, in fact it’s quite cumbersome, but it’s critical to your success.
Here’s how a content strategy works:
- Step 1: Plan
Who’s your audience? Does your content align with your goals and objectives?
- Step 2: Audit
How good is your content? And what are your competitors up to?
- Step 3: Produce
Start researching, writing, posting, recording, blogging, tweeting and reusing.
- Step 5: Measure
What’s working — and what’s not?
- Step 6: Refine
Revise and evolve.
The truth is, 74% of marketers are producing more content than they did one year ago. 58% plan to increase their content budgets in the next 12 months. And the most effective marketers use an average of 15 tactics and 7 social media platforms.
A strong content strategy ensures that the content you create tells a consistent and compelling story.
A strategy is no longer a nice to have — it’s a must have.
By Paula Rosenberg Frey | September 21, 2016
SHSMD Digital Engagement Task Force Member
Senior Vice President, Marketing & Client Strategy
GLC – a marketing communications agency
847.205.3062
pfrey@glcdelivers.com