In a competitive healthcare manufacturing landscape, B2B companies are beginning to invest resources and budget into building substantial content marketing strategies. With 78% of CMOs believing that content is the future of marketing, a vast majority of businesses have embraced content marketing over traditional marketing tactics.
Quality content is an effective way to grow audience engagement, boost brand awareness, and drive sales. Not only that, but it also helps you build trust and loyalty with your audience to improve conversions over time.
In a modern world, your healthcare customers expect you to develop valuable content that answers their questions.
Even if you run a small marketing team, content marketing can work for you. If you’re involved in any type of content marketing, reading through the Content Marketing Institute’s 2020 B2B report is essential to understand how you can get started. Let’s take a look at a few content marketing insights for healthcare manufacturers that you can start implementing today.
Why are Content Marketing Insights Important for Healthcare Manufacturers?
Marketing moves fast. In an ever-changing landscape, you need to stay ahead of the game.
91% of B2B marketers are committed to using content in their marketing strategy. With more healthcare companies developing content, it’s more important than ever to stay on top of current trends to remain competitive. Content marketing insights for healthcare manufacturers help you understand how to reach customers at every stage of the funnel and carry a consistent message.
Staying updated on marketing insights allows you to:
- Understand how your customers research and purchase products
- Keep abreast of new changes in healthcare consumer behaviors and priorities
- Stay relevant to your target audience, marketplace, and competitors
- Forecast and budget better so you’re not wasting any resources
4 Content Marketing Insights for Healthcare Manufacturers
The Content Marketing Institute (CMI) is dedicated to providing resources to professionals who are looking to propel their company forward with content. As a leading global content marketing training and educational organization, they teach brands how to engage, attract, and retain customers through storytelling.
Healthcare manufacturers can take advantage of CMI’s 2020 report to learn more about developing impactful content. Here are the key insights from the report:
1. Top-of-the-Funnel Content Increases Engagement
Most B2B marketers focus on content that targets top-of-funnel engagement and goals. While 86% of respondents use content marketing to build brand awareness, there has been a notable increase in those that use it to build loyalty (9% increase) and generate sales (8% increase).
For healthcare manufacturers, top-of-the-funnel content includes:
- Infographics
- Blogs
- Videos
- Ebooks or whitepapers
Top-of-the-funnel content doesn’t attempt to sell your target audience products, but instead focuses on developing educational materials that solve pain points.
2. High-Performing Content Formats Drive Results
While marketers are focusing on top-of-the-funnel content, it’s essential to understand what formats perform best throughout the entire customer journey. High-performing content at every stage includes:
- Awareness: Blog posts/articles (31%), social media content like tweets and stories (25%), and in-person events (8%)
- Interest: In-person events (19%), webinars/online events (16%), and ebooks/guides (13%)
- Consideration: Email newsletters (31%), blog posts/short articles (13%), and in-person events/case studies (9%)
- Purchase: In-person events (25%), case studies (23%), and webinars/online events (11%)
Regardless of the B2B company size, half of the marketers create content for their targeted audiences who are in the early stage of the lead flow. To successfully engage with your customers, your content needs to speak to every stage of their customer journey so you can provide relevant and personalized information to drive conversions.
3. Paid Distribution Channels Remain Essential
While content marketing fundamentals focus on building an organic presence, 84% of B2B marketers use paid distribution channels to promote their content marketing strategy. In the same group, 72% of professionals report that LinkedIn is the top paid and organic social media platform that generates the best results. Additional paid content distribution channels include:
- Sponsorships (66%)
- Search engine marketing (61%)
- Display ads (46%)
- Sponsored email content (32%)
- Native advertising (31%)
- Other (14%)
Additionally, marketers report using social media (91%), brand’s website (89%), and email (87%) as the preferred free distribution channels to earn higher customer engagement.
4. Marketers Continue to Measure Performance and ROI
When it comes to measuring content performance, 65% of marketers utilize key performance indicators (KPIs) and 43% measure content marketing ROI. Marketers track ROI with the following metrics:
- Email: Opens, clicks, and downloads (90%)
- Website traffic: Pageviews and backlinks (88%)
- Website engagement: Time spent, bounce rate, form completion (86%)
- Social media: Shares, followers, likes, and views (83%)
- Conversions: Traffic to subscribers and sales (78%)
From the 43% of marketers who measure ROI, 59% of them rate their ability to demonstrate ROI as very good or excellent.
Develop an Impactful Content Marketing Strategy
As health manufacturers compete for conversions and internet rankings, it’s essential to utilize CMI’s insights to develop a comprehensive content marketing strategy. With the right strategy in place, you can build brand awareness, delight your customers, and boost your bottom line for years to come.
Ready to develop quality and valuable content? Get started today with Share Moving Media.