Focusing search engine optimization (SEO) efforts ... Facebook and Twitter, these av- ... Improve organic search traffic
Content Marketing
to Healthcare Providers ubm medica
“[Content marketing:] a marketing technique of creating and
distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience - with the objective of driving profitable customer action.
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About This Report Authors: Jason Golden, Content Marketing Manager; Amy Erdman, VP - Marketing; Jessie Meehan, Senior Marketing Manager
Executive summary: By employing a variety of content marketing strategies, you can successfully optimize exposure and ultimately reach your target audience. Some proven key tactics to increase traffic and engage users are:
• Optimizing exisiting marketing channels • Enhancing your social media presence • Focusing SEO efforts For more information, e-mail
[email protected]
- Content Marketing Institute
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egardless of your overall digital marketing goals, there are a variety of distribution strategies for optimizing content exposure which are critical to reaching your target audience. To increase traffic and engage users, proven key tactics include: • Optimizing existing marketing channels • Enhancing your social media presence • Focusing search engine optimization (SEO) efforts
Optimizing Existing Marketing Channels E-mail is one of the most common and powerful tools for healthcare marketers, yet it is often under-optimized. E-Newsletters can serve as a strong content marketing tool to drive healthcare provider traffic towards specific content, increase brand awareness, and ultimately creates a line of communication between you and your target audience. UBMMedicaUS.com/insights |
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In order to maximize clickthrough rates (CTRs), e-mail strategies should be continuously optimized and tested. Among the mechanisms which can impact email performance are subject lines, deployment time (time of day/day of week), and graphic design. As a provider of medical information to healthcare providers, UBM Medica US has performed a significant amount of testing and optimization of these variables and has validated the following best practices: • Size matters – optimally, subject lines should be between 50 and 59 characters long • Time of day – Plan to have e-mails arrive in the recipient’s inbox at a time of day when they are least likely to be consumed by other matters – this could be first thing in the morning before office visits begin, during their lunch hour, or at the end of office hours.
Enhancing Your Social Media Presence Social media plays an important part of content marketing to healthcare providers. There is a widespread belief that health care professionals and hospitals do not use social media. This is fundamentally wrong. According to UBM Medica’s report on healthcare providers and social media, 72 percent of healthcare providers reported that they use social media for professional and/ 2
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or personal purposes. They also use a variety of online professional communities to interact with peers, follow and participate in discussions, and access educational opportunities such as CME credits. While concerns still remain regarding pharmaceutical company use of social media channels, healthcare marketers should still be looking to social media and relevant communities to: • Reach and engage with HCPs by generating discussion and awareness around specific content – While it is difficult to limit exposure to solely healthcare providers on Facebook and Twitter, these avenues offer healthcare marketers the opportunity to post rich content (content that includes a combination of text, graphics, and/or video) at no cost. By sharing content with a compelling call-to-action (polls, quizzes, links, etc.), you will not only increase engagement among your current audience, but also successfully drive traffic to your content. While once primarily a job-focused networking site, LinkedIn has also become an additional platform where content can be posted and discussed in a variety of ways – whether by sharing with your own network of connections, or by posting content in relevant groups. A good example of utilizing LinkedIn groups is Philips’ various Innovations in Health medical specialty groups which have a combined 61,000+ members. • Improve organic search traffic through social-sharing between community members – A huge part of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media platforms is the ability for users to share content.
By pushing compelling content out through these channels, your reach is extended exponentially among users that share that content within their own networks. And while usage rates of Google Plus are comparatively low, establishing a strong presence may yield positive results as the platform continues to integrate the information gained from its social network and sharing into its search results. • Identify and connect with key opinion leaders (KOLs) in desired therapeutic areas or specialty segments – These platforms not only serve as a means of communication with a target audience, but are also another way identify KOLs who use social media to bring attention to the key issues affecting their day-today practice.
Some Quick Twitter Dos and Don’ts: • Do use tools such as listorious or twellow to identify Twitter users to follow. • Don’t automatically follow back new followers. Always be aware of and monitor your ratio of people you are following to your followers to achieve perception of a thought leader, rather than just an aggregator/retweeter of content. It is better to have a large number of followers relative to the number you follow; it is extremely important to be selective in whom you follow on Twitter. • Do use tools which analyze the Twitter habits of followers to determine the best time of day for your tweets to maximize the impact and reach of your messaging.
Because each social media channel has a different user type, healthcare marketers should test various strategies to maximize the benefits of each unique space. In order to best determine the success of each channel, it is important to have a mechanism by which you can measure performance – including the analytics offered by many of the popular top-tier platforms. For more tips and strategies on enhancing your social strategy, see part one and part two of our Insights interview with Jonathan Richman for recommendations on how to futureproof your digital strategy.
Focusing Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Efforts SEO is perhaps the most misunderstand, yet important, aspect of content marketing. For many digital campaigns, great content and a list of e-mail addresses is not enough to reach the masses. Engaging in a strategic process of optimizing referral traffic from Google plays a huge role in content marketing. There are literally hundreds of variables which impact Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs). Key among them are: • Using a variety of free and paid keyword tools, as well as web analytics and Google Webmaster tools, keywords and content descriptions can be continually optimized to maximize click through rates. • Carefully crafted meta descriptions (HTML attributes which give concise information about a page; commonly used by search engines to
display a preview of what a page is about) and meta titles also improves CTRs on SERPs; this increase in traffic ultimately yields higher search rankings for content. Press Releases: While many think of press releases as being solely for promoting a new product or feature, they can also be used to improve SEO – you don’t need hard “news” to issue a press release. A timely and keyword-dense release with relevant hyperlinks can drive significant traffic among a healthcare provider audience and ultimately improve overall SEO performance.
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When crafting your release, be sure to select strong anchor text for hyperlinks that link back to your content in order to maximize the SEO benefits of the inbound links. If you are using a web analytics platform such as Omniture or Google Analytics, using campaign codes can help you measure performance so you are continually able to optimize your releases.
allow you to optimize and distribute a variety of multimedia content. Social-Sharing: As mentioned earlier in our section on social media, organic search traffic can also be increased by posting links to content on various social media platforms – allowing other users to share that content with their own network.
Conclusion Content marketing affords healthcare marketers the ability to attract, acquire and engage their target demographic in a variety of ways. By having an understanding of the analytics and strategies behind e-mail, search, and social, marketers can hone their online campaigns for maximum benefit with minimal risk. When tested and used consistently, content marketing will quickly become an invaluable asset to any of your comprehensive marketing programs.
Many companies like PR Newswire offer various marketing and communications solutions – including analytics and optimization tools – that ABOUT UBM MEDICA US Addressing today’s healthcare information needs, UBM Medica US, delivers strategic, integrated communications solutions and comprehensive reach—online, in print, and via custom programs. Improving the effectiveness of healthcare through information and education, UBM Medica US provides unbiased clinical, practical, and business information for physicians, providers, payers, and patients around the world. Through journals, magazines, websites, online communities, drug databases, digital events, and other valuable resources, UBM Medica US also delivers comprehensive communication solutions for the pharmaceutical and related industries. Websites include CancerNetwork.com, ConsultantLive.com, DiagnosticImaging.com, MusculoskeletalNetwork.com, OBGYN.net, PhysiciansPractice.com, PsychiatricTimes.com and SearchMedica.com. UBM Medica US is part of UBM Connect – which provides marketing services across a number of communities, the largest of which are healthcare, medical device design and advanced manufacturing. UBM Connect also includes UBM Studios, the global leader in interactive digital environments. UBM Connect is a UBM plc company. For more information, visit www.UBMMedicaUS.com
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