Everything about healthcare revolves around trust. How do you build and keep it through content marketing?
Today, we will show you how this high-converting strategy can generate leads who will be open and ready to build a long relationship with you.
3 Healthcare Content Marketing Ideas to Attract and Keep Patients
Digital marketing is tricky for medical practices. Not only is it a new landscape, but it also puts one core value into question: trust.
How can patients believe you are a credible, legitimate medical provider if they cannot immediately see you face-to-face or shake your hand?
The answer lies in a well-developed content marketing plan that showcases your brand and expertise as authentically as possible.
Here are some ideas:
1. Use Content to Educate Your Patients
Search engines, especially Google, usually have a long list of dos and don’ts for writing content. But healthcare-related articles are subject to more stringent rules for different reasons.
- Google sees your site as a “your money, your life” (YMYL) page. In other words, your content can potentially change your reader’s health and well-being. You do not have room for mistakes or misinformation.
- Violating federal and state rules on data and patient privacy comes with several hefty penalties, not to mention possibly irreparable reputation damage.
- Search engines are less friendly to thin, unoriginal content. Your page may struggle to get crawled or indexed. If not, you will see your search results rank declining.
But how do you create helpful content? According to Digital Authority Partners (DAP), you should educate your patients.
Try these:
- Write well-meaning blog posts, such as dispelling the biggest health myths, answering pressing questions, or giving expert tips on how to stay healthy and fit.
- Design helpful infographics that show the connection between lifestyle choices and certain health conditions.
- Host a webinar or podcast and invite other experts to share insights on a particular health topic.
- Create content silos around specific diseases or treatments and link to these pages from your main site to show search engines you possess deep knowledge about your niche.
- Publish long-form content; create e-books or case studies highlighting your expertise and success.
You can demonstrate your expertise, authority, and trustworthiness with valuable content. This way, you can tell patients to believe you, not Dr. Google.
2. Showcase Your Transparency and Vulnerability
Do you know that over half of Americans struggle to discuss their medical conditions and treatments with their healthcare providers? The same survey revealed that:
- About half of the respondents worry that if they push for more information about their illness, their healthcare provider will be insulted or might get annoyed.
- Over 65% wished they could describe their symptoms better before talking to a doctor.
- Nearly 70% said they might not understand medical terms, leaving them confused after a consultation.
As a doctor, you can never remove a person’s worry or fear of talking to you. But you can humanize your practice by showing transparency and vulnerability.
Here is how you can do it through medical content marketing:
- Write blogs, social media posts, and other content types that address common patient pain points or barriers. For example, explain a disease in your specialty simply.
- Be open about your own struggles as a medical professional. Share how you juggle work and family life or what keeps you motivated to continue helping patients.
- Create video content that shows you are not just some faceless brand. Patients are more likely to connect with and trust you if they can see your face, hear your voice, and observe your body language.
- Feature patients, with their permission. You can host a Q&A or write a case study. You can also allow them to leave reviews on your social media pages or share user feedback in newsletters.
- Practice honesty in your content. Do not make unqualified claims or over-promise something you cannot deliver. Avoid downplaying complications from procedures or success rates.
Vulnerability is a powerful tool to tell your patients that you empathize with their struggles, understand their needs, and are ready to help them resolve these problems.
3. Build Long-Lasting Relationships with Your Patients
The stronger the relationship, the higher the chance that patients will trust you. Unfortunately, most healthcare providers have a transactional mindset regarding patient interactions. They see patients as someone who pays them for their services.
While this is understandable because you need to make a living, you should also realize that this could harm your practice in the long run. If you only focus on the financial aspect of your relationship, patients will leave as soon as they find a cheaper option.
Instead, provide high-quality customer service to build long-lasting relationships with your patients using content marketing:
- Engage prospects and existing patients by responding to patient comments, questions, and reviews on your website and social media accounts.
- Use emails to personalize your messages and target specific segments of your list. You can even automate some of these emails, such as appointment reminders or follow-up notes after a consultation.
- Publish timely content that is relevant to your patients’ interests and needs. For example, if it is flu season, share tips on avoiding getting sick.
- Do not gatekeep content. Your goal is to provide as much valuable information as possible so patients can make informed decisions about their health.
- Organize virtual and offline events related to health and wellness using online content. Invite your patients to participate and learn new information that could improve their quality of life.
- Make it easy for patients to contact you. Many healthcare providers only publish their contact information on their websites. But you should also include this on every page, especially your blog posts and social media updates.
Also Read: The Importance of Purpose-Driven Social Impact Marketing
Summing Up
Time and time again, healthcare content marketing has proven itself to be effective in building trust with your patients. When done right, it can help you close the gap between you and your patients, engage them in two-way communication, and build long-lasting relationships.
This article already provides a good head start by sharing ideas for implementing a reliable campaign. But you can always take your plan further. Work with a medical digital marketing agency willing to help you reach your objectives.