Basic Rules of Healthcare Content Marketing

Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience. It is used in both B2B and B2C channels (in the healthcare industry, B usually stands for HCPs or healthcare institutions and C stands for patients). Content marketing aims to drive profitable customer action offering solutions, entertainment, providing insight, and eventually building relationship with the brand.

A special approach to content marketing is often needed to ensure accuracy and compliance with healthcare regulations. All content should be reviewed by a medical specialist to ensure accuracy in use of quality data. At the same time, legal consultants will confirm that the materials and communication channels comply with legal requirements.

To balance out the difficulties in creating the content, there is also a positive side to marketing in healthcare. If informative and credible health related content is distributed to educate patients and healthcare providers, it can convey priceless value by increasing awareness and promoting informed health choices.

If your business is operating then you have probably already started by setting up a website, printing leaflets, sharing presentations with your customers. To make content marketing efficient, however, companies need a clear understanding of its target audience and well-defined business goals. The next steps would be to create a content marketing strategy, allocate resources for content creation, distribution, and analysis, and put together the content calendar — then you are all set for content production and dissemination.

The content should address the needs and requests of your existing and potential customers, which can be established with the help of your sales team and by conducting surveys. Still, there are some bullet-proof ideas for creating engaging content:

• Case studies that describe real life use of your products;
• Disease awareness (texts, videos, podcasts);
• Patient stories & testimonials;
• Emerging medical technologies and trends;
• Health insurance navigation;
• Telehealth services and usage;
• Chronic condition management in your therapeutic areas;
• Fitness routines and exercises relevant for your therapeutic areas;
• Online or printable tools for physicians and patients (checklists, questionnaires, tracking apps);
• Preventive healthcare tips.

When selecting the topics and contemplating your content strategy, do not forget to use specialization to your advantage. Focusing on your area of expertise helps leverage your company’s unique insights, experiences, and knowledge, allowing for the creation of more authentic, credible, and high-quality content. Specializing fosters authority and trust among your audience, differentiates you from competitors, and enhances your brand’s overall influence and impact in your niche.

In healthcare content marketing it's really important to know and help your audience. Relevant and meaningful content addresses specific needs and concerns of your potential and existing customers, establishing a bond of trust and reliability, and showing empathic and ethical approach to business. It might bring additional value by encouraging informed healthcare decisions and promoting a sense of care and commitment.

With recent technological advances, healthcare marketing can offer consumers engaging and user-friendly content like quizzes, polls, interactive case studies, video abstracts of recent studies, eDetailers, self-paced educational content, and even chat-bots. Interactivity creates a sense of a two-way conversation and makes your content more memorable.

Healthcare is all about people, but many healthcare products, medical devices, and treatments can seem too scientific or technological, and therefore hard to connect with. Both patients and HCPs are humans and it is easier for them to relate to case studies or personal stories, be they real-life or just illustrative scenarios. Even when you present scientific findings, data storytelling with visualisation helps your audience understand both data and conclusions.

To add a human touch brands might also consider creating a digital ambassador — a human or animal figure to represent the product and warm up the connection between the brand and potential customers. Promotion with the help of real-life influencers also helps create strong credible bonds with the consumers.