83% of healthcare organizations engage in content marketing, but only 36% feel their efforts are effective, reports MarketingProfs. Explore tools that can help you take your content marketing from OK to a success.
Your Tools for Stellar Content Marketing
Many elements go into crafting an effective content marketing strategy. There are also a variety of tools that can help you find success with your efforts.
These six are necessary for data-driven, measurable results that are trackable and help you meet your goals.
#1: Personas
Before you begin to write – or even plan – content for your content marketing effort, you need to know who you’re talking to. That’s where personas – representations of your ideal customers – come in.
Use market research and data about real people to discover your target audiences’ goals, values, problems, and more. Once you’ve completed your research, create a document you and your team can reference to help you keep your persona top-of-mind throughout the editorial process. Hubspot’s Make My Persona Tool lets you build visually appealing and easy to read personas for free.
#2: Patient Journey Maps
As healthcare marketers, we often focus on reaching people at the moment they’re making a decision about medical care. Journey maps help us see beyond that decision point, providing insight into consumers’ thoughts, actions, goals, and interactions with our organization before and after they schedule an appointment. That’s why journey maps are such a great resource for content marketing.
Content marketing helps you build awareness and trust with your audiences before they need care. Then, when they need care, they’ll be more likely to turn to you since you’re already their go-to expert.
Use research and data to chart out a typical patient experience from before they need care through their recovery. You’ll gain insight into how your content can help them accomplish their goals and have a positive experience with your brand.
If you’re doing journey mapping on your own, use a tool like Hubspot’s free Customer Journey Map Template to create a visual for easy reference.
#3: Keyword Research
Keyword research reveals the interests, questions, and preferences of people in our area. That makes it a great resource for content marketers who want to better understand what type of content their audience wants.
Use free keyword research tools like Google Trends to discover the popularity of topics and phrases. When trending topics and keywords align with your content marketing goals and target audiences, use them to help plan and create valuable, search-optimized content. and then incorporate what you find into your content marketing mix.
#4: Editorial Calendar
Your editorial calendar is more than just a planning tool. It’s a governance document, a strategy resource, and a place to document specific goals for each piece of content. Use it in conjunction with the other tools we’ve discussed to make sure your team is planning and publishing the right content at the right times for your goals and audiences.
While you could create an editorial calendar in Microsoft Excel, free online tools like Trello are easy for your whole team to access and edit. Not sure how to begin? Here are six tips to get you started with your editorial calendar.
#5: Customer Relationship Management (CRM) System
Your CRM can help you be smart about how and when you’re reaching out to patients and other audiences. Most CRM systems can integrate with marketing automation platforms, making intentional outreach a breeze. It also means you can tailor your communications so they align with your personas and you can reach out to people in the way and frequency they prefer.
Watch this video for more information on connecting your CRM and hospital website for smarter marketing.
#6: Measurement Planning
Make sure you can sing the praises of your team’s hard work by measuring the success and growth opportunities you find through content marketing. Set specific, measurable goals and use free tools like Google Tag Manager to measure your key performance indicators. Putting a number — even a general one – on your conversion points will help you prove the value of your efforts.
Learn the Best Ways to Use These Tools for Yourself
Discover strategies for making the best use of all of these tools when you check out our Strategies for Patient-Centered Content Marketing webinar.
