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The term “strategy” can mean a number of different things to different people. From the C-suite’s perspective, strategy needs to generate results—whatever those desired results may be.

Yet, there’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes. Health system leaders need to be able to understand how the visibility, promotion, and engagement of marketing content creates business growth and loyalty. Otherwise, there’s a risk they may not keep investing in content strategy.

“I think there's a really big opportunity for us to spend more time with the C-suite so they understand what we do,” states Lisa Williams, Senior Director of Growth and Loyalty at Peace Health. “I don't think all of our folks in the C-suite understand that it's not just our job to push out content. It's also our job to be in the moment and really be there for people when they need us.”

Aligning Content Strategy with Business Strategy

An important part of aligning content strategy with business strategy is to define what success means from an organizational perspective. That’s not always a simple determination, because it often depends on where leadership members “sit.”

For example, a specific service line leader will have a set of priorities they would like marketing to execute. CFOs might focus on a specific application to improve appointment scheduling. Healthcare marketers need to understand those different objectives so they know how to approach content strategy conversations.

“I think getting to that clarity about strategy’s usefulness is really difficult in healthcare. Often we will start with the thing they care about most, which is campaigns,” explains Williams. “So, we will craft a content dashboard that helps them understand how visible we are in the market. Here's where we're spending dollars, here's how people are engaging with that content, what they're reading, what forms they're completing, when they pick up a phone call, when they go to a webinar.”

Going through this visibility process helps marketers gain the trust of leadership. It also opens the door for the “aha” moment of content strategy and its performance. Leadership may not know that a Google profile generates 50,000 phone inquiries a month or performs 34 times better than the health system’s website. “It gives us an opportunity to start sharing a broader story about our work,” adds Williams.

Moving from Visibility to Promotion, Engagement, Loyalty, Advocacy

Once leadership has a good handle on the data, and how content marketing moves the needle on business operations, they will be more accepting of what it takes to promote the organization, garner engagement from consumers, and create loyalty and advocacy among them. Seeing tangible numbers helps CFOs and other C-suite members realize just how important content strategy is. For instance, how many people:

• arrived at a landing page?

• attended a webinar?

• downloaded a guide?

• completed a health risk assessment?

• picked up the phone to make an appointment?

Williams notes that all of this insight (and more) supports content strategy efforts—and the budgetary investment needed to keep that momentum going.

“Where are we spending dollars to target and get content to the right people? Then, how are people actually engaging with that content? We want to be there in the moments that people need us, when patients and consumers are searching for information.”

Subscribe to SHSMD Podcasts to listen to Lisa’s podcast, or click here: https://www.shsmd.org/education/podcast?segitem=48088