But only if your site is built to engage and convert. Designed specifically for healthcare marketers, this helpful 10-point checklist gives you a quick and effective way to see how your website is performing. It covers items unique to the healthcare industry, like ensuring your forms adhere to HIPAA regulations. Download it today and get actionable tips to improve your site in key areas like:
In this updated, second edition, we dig deep into content marketing strategy and share even more tips around how to build a team, from keyword research, and turn ideas into effective assets for your content marketing hub.
This eBook is designed for healthcare marketers who want to learn how to develop a content marketing framework that attracts a clearly-defined audience and drives action. Download it today and:
The Content Marketing Institute defines content marketing as “…a strategic marketing approach that focuses on creating and distributing content that’s valuable, relevant, and consistent to attract and retain a clearly defined audience…”
While consistent (content posted regularly) and relevant (content that’s appropriate and interesting to your audience) are easy to define, “valuable” content is a little more difficult.
But how can we judge whether your content is valuable? Consider these five criteria:
Timely content is newsworthy – sometimes linked to recent events, holidays, seasons, and more.
Consumable content is interesting, engaging, and relies on user-first standards for audio, video, imagery, and text presentation. In text, this often includes visual architecture like subheads and bulleted lists to keep the content engaging; in video or podcast, it might be video or audio length and production quality.
Credible content is written or referenced by proven authoritative sources. In a healthcare system or hospital, this is often your doctors, nurses, volunteers, or medical team members.
Audience-focused content is content that speaks directly to the intended audience or engages with them in some way. Audiences crave information that is interesting to them – and if they find it’s not, they’ll quickly go somewhere else.
Actionable content ties your efforts to a conversion, whether it’s picking up the phone, filling out an online form, or downloading a brochure. Move your audience to engage with you!
Avera Balance’s May 2017 article about flip-flops hits all the marks: It’s timely for the summer season, relies on a podiatrist for credibility, speaks directly to the reader, employs subheads and short, easy-to-read paragraphs to keep it consumable, uses high-quality imagery, and includes a call to action to subscribe to an e-newsletter.
Content marketing isn’t just text. It comes in all shapes and sizes. Long-form text, opinion or personal stories, and listicles are just a few of the text formats for content marketing, but don’t forget about infographics, memes, podcasts, and videos.
Anything can be content marketing if it’s digital and it has value to your audience.
Choosing the format for your content depends on your:
This infographic about diabetes from Patient, a UK patient education site, makes an impact with bold numbers, source citations, easy-to-digest graphics, and a call to action that encourages the user to learn more.
Not to get too philosophical, but ideas for great content marketing are all around you – no, really!
First thing’s first: Identify your audiences. Who are they? What are their values or needs? What do you want your audiences to do after they interact with your content?
From there, you may have opportunities for topics. You can also:
Content marketing is a big undertaking, but there’s always a step you can take in the right direction. Introducing content marketing to your marketing team or C-suite may be step one, but or maybe it’s creating an editorial calendar or establishing social media sharing guidelines
No matter where you want to start and what direction you want to go, Geonetric can help. Contact us today to learn more about digital services, including designing a great content marketing hub for your site, developing valuable, user-focused content, and boosting the SEO of your digital marketing efforts.
Governance gives you a coherent, documented framework that increases productivity by avoiding miscommunication and uncertainty. This guide provides a great place to start down the path to governance, and will:
In this video, Jill Jensen explains why digital governance is the foundation of a successful online presence.
Watch this video and learn why it’s important to:
In this video, Joanna Basile explains why Google is making this split and what it means to healthcare marketers.
Watch this video and learn:
Governance is another word for organizing and managing both strategic and tactical components that help deliver the comprehensive experience your customers expect—online and offline. And it’s the framework for helping your team keep track of all the moving parts.
Before you set out to create a governance framework, it’s helpful to first have a solid understanding of your organizational goals and create a core strategy statement.
Once you feel comfortable with your overarching priorities, create a core strategy statement that can guide your team through ongoing website development and maintenance.
Benefit Health System’s Core Strategy Statement
To support Benefit Health System’s goal of creating an exceptional user experience for our current and prospective patients, families, caregivers, and loved ones, our website will offer an accessible, easy-to-use, and appealing system to help people find our services and take action to get the help they need.
We’ll do this by focusing on users in an expandable website that prioritizes services over organizational issues, answers typical questions in engaging ways, connects services with providers and locations, and makes it easy for people to get the care they need as quickly as possible.
This type of clear statement helps everyone in your organization understand the purpose of the website, which means they’re better able to help YOU create and maintain the site because—even before they make requests—they’ll consider if their request is essential and if it supports the mission of the site.
The strategy statement helps with governance by identifying key components, shown in bold in the sample above.
Then, turn your core strategy elements into questions. This makes it easier to evaluate requests for additions or changes to your website by asking: “Does this request allow us to:
If you receive a request to add content and the answer to most or all of the questions is yes, the next step is to respond favorably and move forward.
If some or all of the answers are negative, the next step is probably to reject the request. But that’s an opportunity to keep the communication lines open and show how the current site actually meets the requested need—or continue the conversation to find alternatives that do meet your established core strategy elements.
Creating a strategy statement not only ensures all stakeholders are on the same page, it also helps you stay on-strategy when requests come in. It’s not always easy to put your strategy into words or gain consensus across stakeholder groups. But creating the core strategy statement is one of the most important things you can do to ensure your website remains consistent, valuable, and representative of your organization’s mission.
Learn more about core strategy statements and digital governance by watching our webinar, The Importance of Digital Governance.
Leading healthcare organizations are rethinking their content marketing strategies. To stand out today, you need to create content that is exclusive, valuable, and delivered consistently. Watch this video to learn how to develop a content marketing framework that attracts a clearly-defined audience and drives action. We’ll discuss the basics of content marketing, showcase great examples from inside and outside of healthcare, and highlight how to use content marketing to meet both your organizational goals and your audiences’ interests.
You’ll learn:
In this session recorded at Geonetric Symposium, our client-only conference, Lindsey Steinkamp shared with attendees a number of ways to better understand how people are using their sites and where they might be running into problems.
You will learn:
At Geonetric, we work with hundreds of healthcare marketers across the country – some have been working with us for over a decade, while others are new clients that came from other vendors.
Some of these new clients may not have had the best relationship with past vendors. Others are just looking for a good working relationship, like Holly Smith, Director of Marketing and Communications at St. Vincent Health in Indiana.
“The decision of picking a CMS vendor can make or break a department. Your working style, the systems you have, and how supportive you are makes our lives easier and that is what we look for when picking a partner and a vendor,” Holly told Geonetric after the launch of her organization’s website.
After working with clients who had some rough history with past vendors, we can see why some might be nervously optimistic as they move into a new relationship. Here are some tips to make the most of your new partnership.
If your previous vendor took weeks to respond to an issue, or even return a call, ask your new partner what their response time is and set out expectations for a working relationship. A lot of what becomes a problem can be solved up front with communication from both parties being on the same page.
At Geonetric, we’re all about “putting the moose on the table” so you’ll get nothing except a round of applause when you’re honest about how you work, what’s going on in your world and most importantly, your expectations for a smooth-running relationship.
Paper trails are never scoffed when you need them most. If you weren’t involved in the proposal or sales process, ask for notes from the start of the process. Specifically, find out:
If you were present for the sale, keep your notes handy and build on them as the work begins. Referring to your notes and what you’ve heard or understood are important for our next tip.
Chances are, your web vendor and project team is also taking good notes and leaving paper trails, but it never hurts to have two sets of notes to compare and keep each other on the same page.
Relationships of all kinds are a two way street when it comes to communication. Your web vendor can’t read minds, and neither can you.
Goals, ideas, intentions – these are all excellent things to have top of mind when starting a new digital project, but they don’t get very far if they’re not expressed.
If it’s something you want, or something you’ve heard that you need clarified, speak up and be honest. Similarly, if your web vendor doesn’t deliver what you expected, don’t be afraid to respond in earnest. Letting your vendor know what you do or do not like ensures they can adjust deliverables to give you what you expect so you don’t only get the experience you paid for, but the experience you deserve.
The world of digital marketing has a lot of lingo, and sometimes vendors use words differently. “Content strategy” might have meant something different with your last vendor than your new one. “User experience design” can be interpreted in a number of ways.
But whether you’re deciphering vendor lingo, or you’re just not sure about the direction of your project, asking questions and expecting clarity are your rights as a client. This can tie back to the notes you’ve taken, and being open and transparent, but when you’re starting a new vendor relationship, no question is a stupid question. Open-ended questions are a great way to get a thorough answer, such as:
If you need more definitive timelines, project management or other support services from your vendor, don’t hesitate to ask.
The fact that you’re already thinking ahead to how this new relationship will work and what lies ahead means you’re on the right track to a successful digital journey. You and your vendor are counting on each other for success, and that’s the bottom line.