4 Effective Content Marketing Tactics to Implement in Your Practice Today

With so much happening all around us every day, it’s difficult to find sufficient time for the things we must do, much less the things that we want to do. So, it’s natural to seek out the most expedient, time-saving solutions for our problems.

If you are like most healthcare providers today, you would prefer to spend time helping your patients, not thinking about healthcare marketing strategies such as website content, social media strategies, SEO, or weekly blog topics. You didn’t complete medical or dental school so you could become a digital content creator or marketing manager, but you still need to attract more of the patients that you’re trained to care for.

The best healthcare marketing plans include developing the most effective web content, using SEO best practices, blogging regularly, and creating and executing a sound social media strategy. You need content marketing to find new patients, but who will create and implement the most effective content marketing tactics for you, and do it all in a manner that best serves your ongoing need to attract new patients and grow your practice?

Content marketing for healthcare providers provides high return on investment. Healthcare providers who have a sound content marketing strategy enjoy:

• 55% more web traffic
• 434% more indexed pages on search engines
• 500% more leads

Those same health care providers are also 13 times more likely to generate positive ROI and spend 62% less than they did on traditional marketing.

1. Effective Content Marketing Starts With the Web

Your website is your virtual home on the Internet. It should accurately represent you and reflect your practice’s brand, services, and capabilities. When it comes to content marketing for healthcare providers, your first tactic should be a careful review of your website. Is it attractive and easy to navigate? Is it written in the “voice of the patient” – casual and conversational yet informative and relevant? Is it patient-focused? In other words, does it use the word “you” more often than the word “we”? Moreover, is it ADA accessible and does it use HIPAA-compliant forms?

The most successful healthcare practices know who their current and potential new patients are and understand what type of healthcare experiences patients are looking for. They know exactly which health problems their treatment services solve, how their top competitors are marketing and what makes their practice a better choice than the competition.

2. SEO is Critical to Your Content Marketing Strategy

Search engine optimization is the science behind your website’s Google ranking. According to recent statistics, about 35% of all website traffic comes from organic search. Organic search results are the unpaid results that appear after a specific search query. For example, if a user types “nonsurgical pain relief” into their search window, Google will show both paid and unpaid search results. By using the phrase “nonsurgical pain relief” within your web content, on social media and in blogs, you can attract visitors who are interested in that service.

Think of SEO as a magnet or a virtual spider web that’s designed to attract specific types of visitors to your website. Without SEO, your healthcare content marketing is doomed to fail, and your practice will be relegated to the bottom of Google search rankings where no one sees it. That’s why SEO is among the most critical content marketing tactics a healthcare practice can employ in its search for new patients.

Most healthcare providers today are too busy to get involved in the nuts and bolts of SEO. They are less concerned with how it works and more concerned with the results it provides. That’s why they often turn to a healthcare content marketing agency or one of any number of content marketing services that are available nationwide.

3. Blogging: The Content Marketing Strategy You Cannot Ignore

Blogs have become the secret sauce among content marketing services. They are easily among the most effective content marketing tactics that a healthcare practice can use today. Blogs can help you attract, educate and convert visitors to new patients. You should know that:

• 60% of consumers have a positive feeling toward a company after reading its blog
• 61% of consumers have become paying customers of a company after reading its blog
• Practices that prioritize content marketing are 13 times more likely to receive positive ROI
• Practices that blog at least 8 times per month generate almost three times more traffic and four times as many leads as those who blog only once per month or less

The statistics speak for themselves. Blogging is a must if you want to improve your web traffic and SEO. In case you didn’t know, a blog is an online article of at least 1,000 words in length about a specific topic of interest to readers. Written in an informal, conversational style, a blog focuses on a single topic of interest to current or potential new patients. In effect, a blog acts as a booster for your website by adding pages of focused, relevant content. The most effective content marketing tactic here is to choose topics that your patients or web visitors ask about or express interest in. Your blog should be about them and their interests.

4. Social Media: Reaching More Patients, More Directly

There are basically two types of social media. First up is organic social media, which includes posting health updates, photos, events, and practice news on platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram. And then there’s paid advertising on those platforms, which is generally considered a better way to reach the right audience who may be looking for the services you offer. Just as with any kind of display advertising, paid social media requires a plan, a strategy, and appropriate messaging. If paid social media is one of your content marketing tactics, you will also need a budget that effectively targets the patients you want to reach.

Keep in mind that, when done correctly, web content, SEO, blogs, and social media together all require considerable investments of time and effort. Most practices simply don’t have the time or resources necessary to implement those healthcare marketing strategies.

They most often turn to the experts at a content marketing agency for help. And that’s a tactic that you can implement in your medical or dental practice today.

Looking ahead to 2022, it appears that content marketing will continue to be every bit as critical to your practice success as it is today. Your website, SEO, social media and blogging needs will continue to evolve along with the needs of healthcare consumers.