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Content Marketing for Purchasing: 94% of Buyers Do This Before Purchasing

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Healthcare buyers are turning to the internet to research and buy products more than relying on a sales agent. To keep up with this change in customer behavior, healthcare manufacturers must use content marketing for purchasing.

Let’s look at healthcare content marketing for purchasing and how to create copy that converts in 2022.

Key Takeaways:

  • E-commerce shopping and online product research are on the rise in the healthcare industry
  • Content marketing for purchasing is content created for every stage of the buyer’s journey
  • Optimize your content to ensure it appears during buyer searches to increase your conversions

Healthcare Marketing Isn’t the Same as it Was Several Years Ago

Healthcare marketing has looked the same for several years. Sales agents would bring products from the manufacturer to hospitals and healthcare facilities. In return, the healthcare workers would contact their sales agents when they ran low on supplies.

That pattern has shifted.

Today, 94% of buyers turn to the internet for information on new products or ordering fresh supplies. In addition, 90% of healthcare equipment buyers find their suppliers online.

Your buyers aren’t relying solely on your sales representatives anymore for information. Instead, they are increasingly going online to research options for themselves.

What Caused This Shift?

The internet is home to an ocean of information. Because of the accessibility of research, reviews, and industry data, buyers no longer rely on a middleman for information. Now they can find facts and data for themselves.

Consumers like having the ability to research their options and understand the market. It helps them make the best decisions based on their needs and budget. They can also buy with more confidence because they have reviews and data to back their decisions.

Is the Change in Buyer Behavior Permanent?

Ecommerce is booming, partially due to changes that COVID brought about in consumer behavior. People are looking increasingly to online options for their needs, even medical facilities.

With the increase in online shopping options comes an increase in online data. Consumers can view more information about different products, features, prices, and reviews.

The upward trend of e-commerce shows no sign of slowing. Most customers prefer online shopping because of its convenience, including more options, easy delivery, and quick checkout options. While traditional sales methods still have their place, e-commerce research and shopping are now a permanent fixture in healthcare buying.

The growth of e-commerce between 2013 and 2022
Image from Census.gov

How You Can Use This New Buyer Behavior to Your Advantage

More healthcare buyers going online for their research and product needs means you have a wider audience and can reach more potential buyers with your marketing content. You aren’t limited to those that your sales representatives can reach.

About 94% of B2B marketers plan to develop a content marketing strategy. Content marketing brings in three times more leads than outbound marketing strategies.

You can offer relevant information for every buyer’s journey stage through content marketing. For example, as consumers in your industry research their options, you can position your content at the top of their search results or in their social media news feed.

Strategically placing your content across the internet at critical points in the buyer journey ensures customers find your brand sooner and increases the likelihood of them choosing your products over a competitor’s.

How to Perform Content Marketing for Purchasing

These five content marketing strategies will optimize your content for purchasing.

1. Understand Buyer Intent

Buyer intent is how close a buyer is to purchasing your products. You can find buyer intent by tracking customer behavior on your website. This alerts you to patterns in customer behavior that often precede a purchase.

You can also buy intent data from third-party companies. This purchased data gives you a broader picture of buyer behavior.

Intent data helps you reach customers earlier in the buyer journey and identify the highest quality leads. It’s an essential component of a content marketing strategy that converts customers as these insights alert you to those buyers in the research and buying stages.

2. Consider All Stages of the Buyer’s Journey

Content marketing for buyers isn’t just about conversion copy. It requires the full content marketing funnel. About 83% of the customer journey occurs before they are ready to buy. This period is that essential research stage that modern healthcare buyers now perform online.

Your content marketing strategy should address buyers at every stage of the awareness, consideration, and conversion funnel. Some examples of a content you can create for your buyers to aid in their research and decision process include:

  • Awareness: Demand generation content, educational content, lead generation content
  • Consideration: Nurturing campaigns, more insightful educational content
  • Decision: Customer testimonials, frequently asked questions pages, conversion copy
The buyer's journey: Awareness, consideration, decision
Image from HubSpot

3. Strategically Distribute Your Content

When you relied on sales agents to distribute your products, you sent those representatives to healthcare facilities to educate buyers and sell products. Content marketing works similarly. Except, instead of physical sales representatives going to healthcare facilities, your content acts as your agents, and it goes to where your buyers frequent.

Some typical content buyers interact with during the research process include:

  • Google search engine results
  • Industry forums
  • Customer reviews
  • Social media posts
  • Paid ads in reliable digital or print publications
  • Third-party product promotions

4. Encourage Online Feedback

Online reviews are one of the most influential content forms that buyers consider when performing their research during the purchasing process. Online reviews impact the purchasing decisions of over 93% of customers. Additionally, 91% of customers rely on online reviews as much as personal recommendations.

5. Always Include a Call-to-Action

Your call-to-action (CTA) tells buyers what step they should take next. It helps you capture prospects and keep them interested in your brand rather than moving on to the next piece of content in their research.

CTAs work with all types of content, including social media posts, emails, and website copy. For example, email CTAs can increase your clicks by 371% and your sales by 1617%.

Take Your Marketing into the Next Era

Boost your sales by reaching your buyers in the research phase of purchase. Since most of your customers no longer rely entirely on a sales agent for their purchasing information, you must adjust your strategies to continue reaching them with effective and timely content.

Contact us to learn more about our content marketing insights to help you create content for purchasing.

Why You Need a Content Marketing Plan If You Want to Compete with Amazon

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Amazon has been a competitor for e-commerce brands around the world, offering similar products at much lower costs. As a result, healthcare manufacturers also see some of their customers go to this retail giant instead of purchasing from their e-commerce stores. However, a content marketing plan can be the boost your brand needs to gain the upper hand.

Learn why content marketing for healthcare is essential and some e-commerce brands that are thriving despite competition from Amazon and other large e-commerce retailers.

Key Takeaways:

  • Content marketing is the top marketing strategy of 2022
  • Use content marketing to build a community of niche and loyal customers
  • Build a brand beyond just your products that shows your values, causes, and stories

Your Secret Weapon for Building an E-commerce Brand

Content marketing offers you a unique advantage over large e-commerce brands like Amazon. According to marketers who use content marketing:

  • 70% Educate their audience
  • 60% Generate demand and new leads
  • 60% Encourage customer loyalty

Because it yields excellent results, 81% of marketers consider it a vital part of their marketing strategy and plan to increase their content marketing budget over the next few years.

How many marketers use and are growing their content marketing strategies.

Image from SEMrush

Through content marketing, e-commerce companies can create a unique brand that adds value to their products. When you add value to your products, customers are willing to spend more with your healthcare brand over your competition.

5 Lessons Healthcare Brands Can Learn from Successful E-commerce Businesses

Here are five specific content marketing strategies you can adopt from successful e-commerce brands that understand how to stand out from big retailers like Amazon.

1. Prioritize Your Customer

Your brand should be customer-centric first and an e-commerce store second. When you are customer-centric, your primary focus won’t be making a sale but building a positive relationship with consumers and other businesses that interact with your brand.

About 86% of customers will pay more for a positive experience with a business. You can prioritize your customer through content by engaging with each customer and business, posting relevant and timely information, and creating an experience specific to your niche.

BarkBox is an excellent content marketing strategy example of an e-commerce brand that puts its customers front and center. It understands that its audience consists of dog lovers and shares its happy puppy customers even before promoting products. One example is how it introduced a team of canine executives on its website instead of the real faces behind the brand.

Its “BARK Post” blog shares fun facts about dogs, pet health information, and product updates that always keeps its unique audience in mind. As a healthcare manufacturer, you can use this same strategy where customers appear front and center on your website rather than products.

BarkBox customer reviews

Image from BarkBox

2. Build a Community of Loyal Customers

About 65% of your business comes from loyal customers. You can retain more customers by investing in them through content marketing. This builds a community of loyal buyers versus constantly competing against large retailers for each new sale.

Some ways to build a community through content marketing include:

  • Sharing customer stories or case studies
  • Allowing loyal clients to share their content on your blog or social media
  • Rewarding loyal followers with discounts and promotions

MUD Jeans is a sustainable retail company that created a unique business model. It gives its customers an option of renting jeans rather than buying jeans. This reduces waste by allowing its customers to send jeans back for recycling rather than tossing jeans they don’t wear anymore. 

Its content marketing strategy focuses on building a community of loyal customers who continually lease a pair of jeans and then trade them for a new pair. One of the main ways it creates a community is through social media marketing. It encourages customers to become brand ambassadors, shares customers’ stories on its blog and social channels and offers special promotions through its content to encourage loyalty.

3. Share the Brand Behind Your Products

If your content marketing only focuses on your products, you will struggle to compete with larger e-commerce retailers because they will have lower prices and more options. However, you can gain an advantage over large retailers by selling your brand more than the products.

Instead of selling products, you can build a brand by selling your story, mission, values, or a specific experience. One of the best ways to sell your brand rather than products is to use storytelling. The stories of customers or your history add value to what you create and emotionally persuade your audience to act.

Bosch home appliances uses a noteworthy content marketing plan example that employs this technique. Its blog is called “Heart of the Home” and sells the memories that its appliances help create rather than the appliances themselves. For example, one section of their blog shares recipes from customers who use their ovens and the memories associated with those recipes.

A healthcare manufacturer might share stories about lives changed by their products, the detailed manufacturing process, or the values you uphold that make you different from large name e-commerce brands.

4. Align with a Cause or Value

Around 71% of customers prefer to purchase from a brand with the same values. For example, a customer might buy from a small business owner rather than a major retailer or spend more for a recyclable product than a cheaper plastic product.

Use your content platform to speak up about your values and mission. You can also share stories about causes you support. These stories encourage customers to choose your brand over a cheaper or more well-known brand because they want to be part of a greater cause.

Rothy’s is a sustainable shoe company that creates footwear from recycled plastic. Its blog is a platform to share stories of sustainability and how it is changing the world one shoe at a time. This strategy has earned the brand a following of loyal customers who hold the same values and mission for sustainable living.

5. Market to Your Niche Business

One major disadvantage large e-commerce retailers have is trying to reach a broad audience. Meanwhile, your business is a niche healthcare manufacturing company with a specific audience.

You can use your niche to your advantage by creating content relevant to your target audience and their specific needs. Use healthcare content marketing insights to craft relatable and timely content. These articles give you a chance to rank well in SEO as you can target keywords within your industry that your audience is searching.

Artifact Uprising uses its blog to share educational material and helpful ideas. Each post focuses on a specific area of home décor, crafting, and making memories, reflecting their niche in the photo gift and book industry.

Target Your Healthcare Content Marketing Strategy

Are you making the most out of your content marketing?

Consider using some of the strategies you learned for successful e-commerce brands to create content that resonates with your distributors and buyers. Then, explore some of our publications to find unique market insights that will help you build a targeted content marketing plan.

Contact us to learn more about our content marketing resources and tools for healthcare manufacturers.

Demand Marketing in Healthcare: What It Really Means

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Demand marketing in healthcare is an essential aspect of a successful business strategy to stand out from your competition and generate more traffic to your site.

Whether you’re in hospital purchasing or medical sales, today’s marketplace is more competitive than ever. Because consumers can now conduct their own research and find solutions to their problems online, people are more discerning and selective in their purchases. Demand marketing in healthcare helps engage your audience and channel more people through your sales funnel. This attracts prospects, drives traffic, and increases the likelihood of conversions.

Keep reading to learn what demand marketing in healthcare really means and how to use it to your advantage. 

Key Takeaways

  • Demand marketing in healthcare is the process of raising awareness and generating excitement about a brand and products that provide relevant solutions to healthcare suppliers.
  • Incentivize your audience to create interest and stand apart from the competition. 
  • Follow the five pillars of demand marketing to increase the likelihood of a successful marketing strategy.

What Exactly Is Demand Marketing?

Demand marketing uses your marketing efforts to create interest in and generate demand for your products. First, you must make buyers aware of your brand and the particular solutions you provide. Then, you must pique consumer interest and provide valid reasons why they should purchase your product. Finally, through positioning relevance, you persuade consumers to buy your goods and continue to build customer loyalty for future purchases.

Demand marketing uses a multi-channel approach that combines marketing education with the persuasion of sales. Demand marketing in healthcare can include:

  • Free trials: You build trust and potential lasting relationships by giving people a low-risk opportunity to try your products.
  • Incentives: Free apps or tools with an in-purchase option might convince someone to buy from your company and become a loyal customer.
  • Expert content: E-books and podcasts can be valuable tools that increase engagement and position you as a leader in your industry.
  • Email campaigns: Customers receive special offers or discounts via email that entice them to buy, and you obtain useful contact information for future campaigns.

Demand marketing focuses on building customer engagement while channeling people through your sales funnel. The following video explains how to create demand for your products and succeed in the marketplace:

5 Pillars of Demand Marketing

The healthcare supply chain is a $2.14 billion industry and growing. It’s essential to generate demand for your products to set yourself apart from the competition and gain the business of the medical distribution sector. You can achieve this by following the five pillars of demand marketing in healthcare.

1. Know Your Audience

For marketing to be successful, you have to deliver the right message to the right person at the right time. The only way to do this is to truly understand who your audience is, their needs, and their preferences. A basic understanding of their demographics like gender, age, and job can be a terrific starting point in realizing what information would resonate with them. Dive deeper by learning pain points, frustrations, and motivators to deliver messaging compelling them to buy.

Imagine your ideal customer and create a buyer persona to identify their needs and wants. Look at existing customers as well as hypothetical prospects. All of this information can help you build an effective strategy that enables you to deliver relevant content through the most impactful channels at the right time. This helps to boost conversion rates and increase sales for continued success.

Build a buyer persona to identify the needs and wants of your ideal customer.

Source: marketinginsidergroup.com

2. Engage Your Audience

Although delivering relevant content is a big part of a successful marketing strategy, you must engage with your audience to develop deeper relationships that last. This is important because existing customers are responsible for 65% of a business’s purchases. Audience engagement contributes to customer loyalty and helps spread the word about your brand. Engaged people are more likely to share your information with their contacts and become ambassadors for your brand. This helps broaden your reach and gains you more recognition.

Audience engagement also helps give you more insight into your customers’ needs and wants. People who interact with your brand are more likely to give candid feedback you can use to improve your products and processes. All of this works in your favor as you continue to delight customers and create demand for your products.

3. Give Added Value

One way to educate people about your brand and create interest in your products is to establish yourself as a thought leader and expert in your industry. Become the company people look to for reliable information and helpful tools and resources. Provide useful content that helps people make informed decisions about their purchases. Stand out from competitors by offering an added value. 

From e-books and webinars to whitepapers and research findings, the more value you can offer your customers, the more likely they’ll engage, convert, and return. Demand marketing in healthcare aims to generate interest in your company and your products, so anything you can do to create excitement will benefit you in the long run.

4. Integrate Marketing for a Consistent Message

Demand marketing typically uses several channels for the most impact. Whether you use social media, email campaigns, digital ads, or blog articles, everything you publish should deliver a consistent message. Make sure web content is SEO friendly to earn you higher SERPs for greater visibility. Share valuable information on your social network platforms to increase engagement and reach. Whatever you do, be sure to integrate your marketing efforts into a powerful campaign that excites your audience and spreads the word about your brand and your products.

An integrated marketing strategy ensures that you align all of your efforts for maximum impact.

Source: boscoanthony.com

Consider implementing marketing automation tools to help streamline your efforts, increase efficiency, and boost productivity. This can save you time while allowing you to reach your audience with impactful messaging that resonates and converts.

5. Track Data

It’s important to track data and measure your performance to determine your demand marketing campaign’s overall effectiveness and success. Data can reveal:

  • Whether people are sharing your content and commenting on your posts.
  • If people can find you on search engines.
  • Your site’s searchability on social media platforms.

Metrics can show engagement and click-through rates to help you realize whether your messages are striking a chord with your audience. Website traffic will show if your content generates interest and demand. Tracking data provides invaluable clues into what’s working well in your marketing efforts and what needs to be changed. All of this helps to ensure your demand marketing strategy is creating buzz, helping you reach your goals, and making the most of your advertising budget.

Develop an Effective Demand Marketing Strategy 

Share Moving Media is a full-service media and content company that provides resources to companies in the healthcare industry. Reach your group purchasing network with valuable content that resonates, generates demand and sets you apart from the competition. Contact us today to learn how we can help you create an effective demand marketing strategy.

How Can Medical Manufacturers Use Inbound Marketing?

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Marketing is all about engaging your target audience. To do that, you have to establish contact and start a conversation. You might think that the best way to achieve that goal is to target them with marketing materials proactively.

However, flooding people with unwanted information will likely annoy them – and may even leave them distrustful of your brand. The majority of consumers already report that they don’t trust brands or their advertising.

As a marketer, distrust is the last thing you want to inspire in your target audience. This is especially true in the medical manufacturing field. You are responsible for healthcare products that literally change – or even save – lives. So, how do you reach consumers without inundating them with unwanted messaging?

Inbound marketing is the answer. This methodology brings customers to you by offering them valuable content tailor-made to their interests.

Find out how to implement inbound marketing for healthcare manufacturers below.

Inbound Marketing 101

Outbound marketing techniques like phone calls, email spam, and media buys are more likely to annoy than convince consumers. In contrast, inbound marketing attracts consumers organically. How? Content.

Blogs, websites, e-books, podcasts, long-form articles, and white papers can provide valuable information. By creating educational, informative content that meets your target audience’s needs, you can spark their interest — and then drive them to your website, your primary sales platform.

Effective content also helps to demonstrate authority on a subject and to establish trust. Authority marketing is a must in the medical manufacturing field. Healthcare provider networks, physicians, and patients need to trust your company and its products.

Implementing Inbound Marketing for Healthcare Manufacturers

Inbound marketing shares the same end goal of any marketing tactic: to generate leads and convert them to customers – and, ideally, loyal followers. The difference lies in the first step, as inbound marketing subtly attracts consumers instead of aggressively pursuing them.

Here is a step-by-step guide to inbound marketing for healthcare manufacturers.

Know Your Customer

If you’re going to create content your consumers find valuable, you have to know what they want. Understand their pain points, challenges, and motivations. Developing a customer journey map can help you make your content sell even if you’ve never met the end customer.

For example, in the current climate, understanding how the COVID-19 pandemic impacts healthcare providers and networks can help you generate relevant and timely content.

Create Niche-Specific Content

Odds are you work in a highly specific field, whether it’s cardiovascular stents, stethoscopes, or ultrasound machines. Many medical manufacturing professionals will stay in the same sector for years or even decades.

Leverage your knowledge. Content marketing in healthcare should be focused on your area of expertise, allowing you to create genuinely informative blogs, white papers, e-books, and more.

Perfect Your Website

The content you put into the world to attract your target audience should always link back to your leading sales portal – your website. Include a call-to-action with links to your platform, ideally after the content. Promoting upfront can deter consumers.

When consumers get to your website, they should be greeted with a streamlined, user-friendly platform. Create a robust portal that will drive healthcare sales. It should feature straightforward navigation and content that is crisp, clear, and informative.

Finally, make sure to develop a mobile-friendly version of your website. Many people now prioritize smartphones over desktop computers for internet access, and Google ranks mobile-friendly websites higher in search engine results.

Automate Your Marketing Processes

Inbound marketing is all about delivering an improved consumer experience. This comes in part from great content and in part from efficient processes. Use marketing automation tools to streamline operations.

Say a consumer visits your website, for example. They download a free white paper on a topic of interest to them – say, cardiovascular stents – in exchange for providing their email address. A marketing automation system will capture, sort, and store that email. It can further be programmed to tailor future mailings according to the individual’s expressed interest (in this case, cardiology).

What does this accomplish? The consumer gets more meaningful content more quickly. Meanwhile, your marketing team saves time and effort, which they can then dedicate to other measures – like creating more great content.

Tap into the Power of Inbound Marketing Today

Share Moving Media is a full-service media company specializing in medical marketing and distribution. From podcasts to e-books, blogs, and more, we can help you create and place valuable authority content to drive your inbound marketing efforts.

Subscribe to our newsletter for more healthcare marketing tools, tips, and tricks. Ready to revamp your inbound marketing? Contact us.

8 Essentials of Contract Law in Healthcare Equipment You Need to Know

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Healthcare is one of the most heavily regulated industries in the country. 

Every action related to healthcare involves some type of written contract—whether between doctors and patients, suppliers and hospitals, nurses and doctors, and so on.

As a supplier or manufacturer, you deal with contracts between all parties in one form or another.

Understanding the intricacies of contract law in healthcare is key to avoiding massive problems and keeping healthy relationships.

What Types of Laws Impact Healthcare Equipment and Technology Contracts?

Regulations impact everything from pricing and expirations down to locations and usage. 

Stark Law

On the surface, Stark Law seems easy to avoid. Stark Law prevents conflicts of interests, prohibiting physician self-referral anywhere the physician might have a financial interest. 

Different clauses fall under Stark Law as well, such as the Anti-Kickback Statute. 

Dig deeper and you’ll find Stark Law covers a wide range of scenarios—including some relating to equipment and leasing. 

HIPAA

HIPAA contracts and regulations protect patient information. Years ago, HIPAA was the last of worries for most equipment suppliers and manufacturers. The explosion in digital records and smart equipment, however, has changed the game. 

Certificate of Need

Certificate of Need laws require a hospital or physician office to prove there’s a legitimate market need before expanding, building, or even acquiring new equipment like beds in some cases. 

CoN laws vary widely by state. Meanwhile, some states don’t even have CoN laws on the books. Although tempting to assume the burden falls on your buyer to establish need, it’s smart to familiarize yourself with the laws in states you operate. 

What You Need to Know About Contract Law in Healthcare for Equipment and Facilities 

41% of people already don’t trust brands to remain truthful. The stakes are especially high in industries like healthcare supplies and equipment where trust is literally a matter of life or death.

Physician and hospital reputations also depend on your knowledge of regulations and contract law in healthcare. Look at the auto industry: The Takata airbag recall sent shockwaves through every major manufacturer’s reputation. 

Similar mishaps with healthcare equipment or supplies happen all the time. 

Keep the following essentials in mind to protect yourself and build trustworthy relationships with your partners.

1. Outsourcing Your Contracts Could Earn You a Violation

When you outsource your contracts, you’re also outsourcing compliance. Keeping your contract work in-house ensures transparency. You’ll always have control over the details.

2. Automatic Renewals Can Work Against You

Some types of contracts require renegotiations or inspections. In these cases, auto-renewing your contracts could put you in violation of Stark Laws or other compliance regulations. 

3. Unsecure Technology Puts You at Risk

Equipment with smart software that integrates patient records poses a huge risk with data breaches. Make sure to review how HIPAA applies to your technology and which contracts in healthcare to work out with physicians and hospitals in terms of responsibility and data sharing.

4. Certain Technology Requires Licensing Fees

Commercial licensing violations are extremely costly. Depending on the copyright law, both suppliers and physicians could be responsible for paying licensing fees or royalties. 

5. Innovative Equipment Might Require a Certificate of Need

Hospitals have huge legal teams to manage CoN laws. Doctors at small practices, however, rely on your knowledge to make smart decisions. Set yourself apart from competitors by doing the research yourself and helping buyers navigate the local regulations.

6. Marketing Matters

Influencer marketing might be tempting, but tread carefully. Healthcare influencers like physicians could create a huge conflict of interest and violation of Stark Law, although currently a legal gray area.

Likewise, how you market your products, the language you use, and the conditions you treat all require careful configuration. The FTC cracks down on false claims and subtle marketing language in healthcare all the time. You don’t want to put your contracts in healthcare at risk from a simple marketing mishap.

7. What About Repairs?

As a healthcare supplier or manufacturer, you deal with high-value contracts. Losing a contract for a hospital system, for example, could be a disaster. 

Imagine a hospital assumes repairs are covered for a year and a $20,000 piece of equipment breaks down. Not negotiating contract terms for things like repairs and maintenance could ruin that relationship forever.

8. Comprehensive Writing is Key

When legal issues arise—no matter the entities involved—you don’t want anything left to interpretation. 

If there’s any uncertainty in terms of pricing, relationships, shipping, or maintenance, always assume it could be used against you. For example, who holds the burden of risk if a physician harms someone while using your equipment? 

You need a team of writers and law professionals on your side to draft proper contract law in healthcare.

Enhance Your Sales and Marketing with Comprehensive Content

Useful and relevant content shows your audience that you’ve done your research and you understand their biggest concerns. In an industry like healthcare supplies, building authority is key to earning trust. 

Doctors and hospitals are busy. Don’t wait for them to research your organization’s history and expertise. Show them right away with high-quality thought leadership content in your industry.

At Share Moving Media, we provide regular healthcare content tips, research, and advice backed by decades of experience. Sign up for our Marketing Minute to stay updated.