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Influencer Marketing: Are Journals in Healthcare Marketing the New Influencers?

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Influencer marketing and healthcare don’t always go hand in hand in the mind of a marketing professional. When people think of influencer marketing, they automatically think of big-name celebrities cross-posting promotional material on their social media pages for various brands. In fact, there has been some backlash in the past regarding influencer marketing in healthcare because social media influencers “aren’t doctors” and shouldn’t be advising on medical concerns. 

So, if traditional influencer marketing is so controversial, how does the marketing trend work in the healthcare industry?

Influencer Marketing in Healthcare: Current Trends

When it comes to healthcare marketing tools, many of the “traditional” marketing tools work well for those in charge of building a healthcare marketing strategy for manufacturers, providers, etc. The same can be said of influencer marketing when done right. Studies have shown that approximately 80% of advertisers find this marketing method effective.

A screenshot of a cell phone Description automatically generated

Source: Smart Insights / Mediakix

The easiest way to break the idea of influencer marketing down is to pay careful attention to the audience that you’ll be addressing. However, when it comes to healthcare, things can get dicey. So, if you’re looking to leverage influencer marketing in the healthcare industry, you need to keep in mind that you are catering to a very specific audience made up of either doctors or patients (or sometimes a combination of both). 

So, while a creative celebrity cameo can work in some instances, you’re better off implementing one of these three current healthcare marketing strategies:

1. Healthcare Influencers

The concept of healthcare influencers works very similarly to that of more traditional influencers. The primary difference is that these individuals are experts in the industry. They can be doctors, surgeons, scientists, manufacturers, and more. 

2. Health e-Mavens 

The concept of e-Mavens isn’t exactly a new marketing concept; however, it’s not often talked about either. This concept stems from a term first coined in 1987 known as marketing mavens. Marketing mavens were known as a type of influencer who not only had a social presence but, again, a certain level of expertise or insider knowledge in a particular industry. 

In our current age of technology, these individuals are known as e-mavens, and they are considered consumers with first-hand knowledge of a subject and share their expertise online. What makes these individuals different from healthcare influencers is that while they have first-hand knowledge, they aren’t exactly “experts” in the traditional sense. 

Health e-mavens are defined as those who are “actively involved with health information acquisition and information transmission” across the internet. These are people that the public has come to know and trust for one reason or another. They are constantly searching for new information and they have a deep desire to share it once they’ve found it. 

One recent example is Lucy Hale, who has taken it upon herself to open up and share her women’s health journey and finding the right kind of birth control that suits her specific needs. 

A screenshot of a cell phone Description automatically generated

Source: Instagram

Helping women everywhere find the information they need to stay healthy is a passion for the young actress, so it’s unsurprising that she would open up about her story and share something so vulnerable with the public. 

3. Online Medical Journals

Did you know that approximately 7% of Google’s daily searches are in some way, health-related? That amounts to nearly 70,000 health-related Google searches each minute. Technology is an excellent resource, and with so many patients taking more control over their health and wellbeing, they are turning to the internet for information both before and after consulting with their medical team.

This is where journals in healthcare marketing come into play. Online medical journals come in many different forms, including:

  • Professional medical journals, such as the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) and the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM)
  • Digital healthcare journals for the public, including The Journal of Healthcare Contracting, Frontiers, and more.

How Journals in Healthcare Marketing Work as a Form of Influencer Marketing

So, which of these methods is the most effective for a successful healthcare marketing strategy? The right answer is to say all three have their advantages; however, online journals have a bit more edge to them than health e-mavens and other healthcare influencers. 

The saying content is king still rings loud in the marketing industry, no matter what sector you are in. This is especially true when it comes to content marketing in healthcare. Think about it for a moment – blogs and other similar online content are among the top three types of media used in content marketing today. 

A screenshot of a cell phone Description automatically generated

Source: HubSpot

Online journals in healthcare can and often do fall under this category. They work because they can be easily optimized for search engines, they can help draw in consistent (and relevant) traffic to your website, and when thoroughly researched, can help you build your authority on a given subject matter. 

This type of content is crucial now more than ever as more and more individuals start turning to Dr. Google for answers to their medical questions. 

Get More Healthcare Marketing Tips and Tricks with Share Moving Media

As a full-service media company, the team here at Share Moving Media understands that staying up to date on the current healthcare marketing tools and trends can be a tricky process. That’s why we do the heavy lifting for our clients. Contact us today to learn how we can help your brand.

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, The Marketing Minute, today! 

How to Make Your Content Sell When You Never Meet the End Customer

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A guide to successful content marketing in the healthcare supply chain.

Content is a global industry and it’s more accessible than ever before. You can hammer out a blog at your computer and have your words read by someone you’ve never met, in a country you’ve never visited.

The great news is that this gives you an enormous scope. You can reach consumers across the state, the nation, or even the world. The bad news? You lose specificity. You lose personalization. And you lose trust – the same trust that is essential to successfully selling an idea, a service, or a product.

Those drawbacks might make it sound like effective content marketing – especially in the competitive healthcare supply chain market – is a losing battle. But it doesn’t have to be.

This guide lays out what it takes to craft compelling healthcare content marketing.

Hurdles to Effective Content for Healthcare Sales

In a globalized world, the key to creating content that converts is to overcome the two “T”s: Targeting and Trust.

1. Targeting

You’ve written an original blog. It’s informative. It’s eloquent. It’s a masterpiece. But if you don’t get that blog in front of the right eyes, it’s useless. Being able to sift through the massive content marketplace and get the right people looking at the right content is critical.

2. Trust

Sales used to be personal. In the ’50s, salespeople went door-to-door to peddle their wares – or, in the case of the healthcare industry, from one healthcare provider’s office or hospital to the next.

Today? Not so much. With modern technology – fast internet, fast communications, fast logistics – sales has become just as far-reaching as the global content industry.

This has created a trust issue with consumers. When it comes to content, research reveals that people distrust internet information, especially social media. That’s bad news for content marketing, which is increasingly digital-reliant.

How to Craft Content That Converts

The same tools and technologies that have created a content marketplace hampered by targeting and trust issues can be leveraged in your interests.

Here’s how to tame the beast.

Understand Your Customer

Just because you never meet your end customer in the flesh doesn’t mean that you can’t develop an understanding of who they are and what they want. Develop a customer journey map to articulate customer personas, allowing you to target different content marketing types to different niches. This helps you create content for healthcare sales that is meaningful to the end customer – even if you never meet them.

As you map out the customer journey, consider different decision-maker roles. Who makes the choices about what the consumer receives? How do you reach that audience? Determining the gatekeepers will help you define relevant brand messaging in healthcare.

Establish Yourself as a Thought Leader

There are a few essential keys to success in sales. Expertise is one. The best salespersons are experts in their fields, backed by industry knowledge. Study, learn, and establish an opinion in your area, whether it’s catheters or stents.

This opens the gates to healthcare organization thought leadership. You can become a thought leader by publishing blogs, opinion pieces, or investigator-initiated studies in respected healthcare publications. Target both digital and physical media for maximum impact.

Get Personal

Don’t rely on just one channel to sell your content. You have many avenues available to you. A multi-platform approach encompassing both inbound and outbound marketing allows you to diversify your target audience.

Speaking at events, live streaming seminars, or participating in podcasts further confirms your position as a thought leader. It also lets people get to know you. Once people have a face to the name, they feel more connected, and you start building trust. 

Run with it. Get personal. Talk about your background. Did you spend years touring hospitals as a medical sales rep? Have you spent time working in a lab in healthcare R&D? Are you personally invested in the message, product, or service you are selling? You should be. And you should make that clear to consumers.

Be Adaptive

Another trait of great salespersons is that they know when to pivot. One of the best things about content marketing is that it’s measurable. Don’t just put content out there and hope for the best—Set KPIs (key performance indicators).

How many subscribers does your newsletter have? How many people follow you on Twitter? How many unique clicks did your last thought-leader article in a healthcare online magazine receive? Did those clicks convert to new contacts or, better yet, sales?

There are many healthcare marketing tools available to help you craft and track content. If something isn’t working, reexamine your approach. Is it the medium, the message, or a combination of both? With KPIs, you can better understand that elusive end customer and tailor your marketing accordingly.

Get More Tips on Content Strategy for Healthcare

Here at Share Moving Media, we know how to craft content for healthcare sales. As a full-service media company, we create articles, webinars, podcasts, e-books, blogs, and more. Our mission is to give clients the tools they need to increase their market share.

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter for more best practice tips and tricks. Interested in collaborating? Then contact us today!

3 Things Medical Suppliers Can Learn From This Year’s Super Bowl Ads

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Lately everything on TV is so serious – the impeachment, the 2020 election, coronavirus, Ukraine, and on and on. It’s almost as though the news topic has to be horrifying to get noticed. If valid, normal news isn’t getting noticed what chance does a mediocre ad have? Anything but an excellent ad not only doesn’t get noticed but we are conditioned to ignore or block it out.

Why do we look forward to Super Bowl ads? Because only the best brands place their best work during the Super Bowl. Makes sense, right? They are paying $5 million for 30 seconds so they better send their best work.

Here are three observations from this year’s Super Bowl ads that I think every medical supplier can learn from:

  1. Be Memorable!

I, for one, do not think celebrity endorsements work. I would never start smoking Chesterfields because Babe Ruth declares them “the most refreshing!” However, it is more likely to work if you use someone who resonates with your prospects in order to entice them and make them open to your message.

That’s exactly what Dorito’s did with Sam Elliott and Lil Nas X as they get into a dance off to Lil Nas X’s current pop hit, Old Town Road.

https://youtu.be/9OpuHa2vwdk

So, who are some interesting people you could use in an ad that would draw prospects in?

  • Current customers
  • Patients or their family
  • Clinicians
  • Company team members

2. Position Yourself with “Giants!”

Jeep did a masterful job of positioning its Gladiator line with the fun and memorable story from the movie Groundhog Day. (It shouldn’t be lost on you that Super Bowl Sunday was Groundhog Day this year.)

Is there a way to position your brand or product with those who are giants in the mind of the prospects you’re trying to attract? Maybe you feature a joint charity, collaboration or industry initiative you worked on together? Some possible “giants” to stand with could be:

  • High-interest IDNs like Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, Kaiser Permanente, or UPMC
  • Best-in-class supply chain leaders
  • National GPOs
  • Distribution partners
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnhzGUcENWo

3. Be Authentic!

In advertising,the opposite of “authentic” would be “playing it safe” or producing an ad that “fits in.” Google hit it out of the park with its Loretta commercial. It was a real tear-jerker for those of us that have lost loved ones and wish our memories with them could be more accessible or organized. The ad shows an elderly gentleman on his computer who says, “Hey Google…show me photos of me and Loretta.” And that’s what exactly Google delivers – pictures, movies and content of the man and his late wife.

Medical suppliers save lives and enhance the quality of people’s lives every day, so how can we bring those stories to life?

Here are a few ways to be authentic in your advertising and promotions:

  • Deliver a story
  • Show, don’t tell
  • Get to the value, not features
  • Differentiate!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xSxXiHwMrg

Here at Share Moving Media we are committed to helping suppliers gain market share to IDNs and through distribution. I’d be thrilled to chat with specifically on ways to make sure your content, promotions and ads are:

  1. Memorable
  2. Positioned with giants
  3. Authentic

To set up a 30-minute, complimentary content review and brainstorming session, please call me at (770) 263-5262 or email me at jpritchard@ShareMovingMedia.com.

What is Amazon?

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Seems like an easy enough question. You may answer:

A virtual retailer of everything from books to electronics.

TV and Movie show producer.

What is Amazon Business?

This isn’t as easy to answer, is it? I can tell you what Amazon Business will be though. Amazon Business will look a lot like what you think of Amazon personally. Why? Because that is how the consumer (you and me) want to buy stuff.

Said another way in the healthcare setting: Nurse Nancy will want to request and receive her supplies at her nurses’ station the same way she orders her hair care products at home. The preference of how people want to order and receive stuff at home and work will start to merge into very similar expectations.

Check out this video I saw on LinkedIn, posted by Orca Pacific, a full-service agency that helps brands maximize their relationship with Amazon. It’s 6 minutes long and is worth every second.

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/activity-6577268145944346625-QN1C/

Here are my takeaways:

  • Advertising spend with Amazon will increase 470% by 2023
  • Amazon is the dominant Search Engine for products
  • Amazon is morphing from a Search Engine to a Discovery Engine
  • Brands must understand Amazon is:
    • A Big Retailer
    • An Ad Platform
    • A Product Search Engine

If you are currently selling through Amazon today or may in the future, it’d be wise to understand Amazon. Brands that want to succeed will need to have plenty of content drawing prospects to their brand all over the place. Not just on Amazon but also on client’s sites, in whitepapers, in infographics, user reviews and at live events. It seems complicated, but it’s not; brands need to be where their prospects are looking, engaging and asking about the product or category.

I’d love to hear your thoughts or experiences with Amazon.

What good is LinkedIn if you are not looking for a job?

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I have been on LinkedIn for a while now and keep wondering- what good it is? I guess it is helpful if you need to contact someone whose contact information you do not have. Or if you want to know what products and services your network is promoting.

But, the single most valuable part of LinkedIn for me is the marketing experts and their interesting, timely and compelling posts. One of my favorites is Michael Brenner; if you are not following him, you should! He publishes on LinkedIn a couple times a week and it is always thoughtful, practical and actionable advice and direction.

This week he posted 33 of his favorite quotes.

Here are 3 quotes that really made me laugh!

  1. “Market like the year you are in!” ~ Gary Vaynerchuck
  2. “Marketing is too important to be left to the marketing department.”~ David Packard
  3. “Banners have 99 problem and a click ain’t one.” ~ Scott Sorokin

Here are 3 that kind of make me sad and hit too close to home for many of our clients.

  1. “Content Marketing is a commitment, not a campaign.” ~ Jon Buscall
  2. “Stop interrupting what people are interested in and be what people are interested in.” ~ Craig Davis
  3. “Behind every piece of bad content is an executive who asked for it.” Michael Brenner

Here is a link to the full list.

Sign up for his newsletter, you will thank me!

I’d love to hear from you, who is someone you follow that makes you a better marketer? Email me at jpritchard@ShareMovingMedia.com