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7 Strategies for Picking the Right Healthcare Marketing Influencers

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When you think of influencers, medical supplies isn’t typically the first industry that comes to mind. But picking the right influencers to enhance your healthcare marketing strategy might just be the smartest thing you do this year. 

Just put yourself in the mind of your buyers and decision-makers. For starters, they’re busy.

A recent survey found that 76% of B2B medical supply buyers rate ease of finding information as their top priority. 

Meanwhile, 50% of all medical supply buyers are Millennials and 57% of all buying teams have already made a purchase decision before they ever reach out to your sales team.

The point is, you need a strategy to get your content and info in front of your buyers’ faces before they even think to ask for it. That’s why influencers in healthcare marketing are so critical today. 

Picking the right ones, however, is another battle. Here’s how to narrow your search.

How to Nail Down the Best Healthcare Marketing Influencers for Your Niche

Think long term as you pick influencers for healthcare marketing. Remember, they’ll be uniquely representing your company and products. 

You’ll have better ROI and avoid costly faux pas if you spend time researching and strategizing now.

1. Bigger Isn’t Always Better with Influencers in Healthcare Marketing

The follower count means nothing if the influencer isn’t relevant enough to your niche. 

For example, people like the Kardashians are considered mega-influencers but you’d never want them promoting your content to their millions of followers because it wouldn’t deliver results. 

It can backfire too – like when Kim Kardashian promoted a morning sickness medication on Instagram without following pharmaceutical disclosure regulations. 

Even within healthcare, massive influencers tend to have broader audiences and a huge chunk might be consumers. 

Pay little attention to the follower count. Instead, start with a healthcare influencer’s engagement like comments, shares, and clicks. 

2. Analyze the Audience of Potential Influencers in Healthcare Marketing

Engagement must come first. All your target accounts and audience segments might follow someone, but if they aren’t engaging with the influencer’s page then what’s the point?

That’s why your next step is to analyze their audience insights. 

Tools like BuzzSumo can help you work backward. By setting up social listening alerts for keywords and topics, you can see who shares what and whether their audience engages with them. 

Agencies can also help you hedge your bets across internal influencers at offices and hospitals with strategic magazines and journals.

3. Vet Each Healthcare Influencer’s Healthcare Experience

The point of partnering with influencers in healthcare marketing is to build trust in your medical supplies and products.  

Influencers don’t work for your company. They do, however, still represent your company and products. You can’t remove the risk completely, but you can mitigate it with background research.

Ask yourself, would your end-users and buyers trust this person? Experience in their field is key.

Vet their work history and education on LinkedIn just as you would when hiring someone for a job. You might be surprised how easy it is to falsify work history at massive companies. 

4. Consider the Influencer’s Experience Working with Brands Too

Kim K had plenty of experience working with brands but no experience working in pharmaceuticals. 

Don’t laugh. You could run into the opposite problem with healthcare influencers: plenty of medical experience but none in modern marketing.

For example, overly promotional content from influencers doesn’t build trust or deliver results.

Experienced influencers in healthcare marketing understand the subtleties of sparking interest in your product without looking tacky or desperate. 

5. Look at Audience Personas to Build a Comprehensive Influencer Strategy

Ideally, you should already have detailed audience personas mapped out:

  • Doctors
  • Nurses
  • Medical assistants
  • Other professional end-users
  • Medical students
  • Patients 

Remember to include each professional persona’s firmographics, like their hospital size, job role, market share, pain points, and specialties. For patients, include basic demographics along with other qualities as they relate to your product, like health conditions, insurance provider, health concerns, and pain points.

Use these detailed personas to target each one via the right influencers in healthcare marketing.

Building an influencer strategy through these personas ensures your content will reach all the most important touchpoints.

6. Study How Each Influencer Writes and Interacts with Their Followers

Successful influencers need charisma to keep their followers engaged. It gets complicated because different audiences want different personalities from influencers.

Analyze the tone of an influencer’s posts – are their followers receptive? 

What do their followers say in the comments and how does the influencer respond? 

Carefully considering the influencer’s tone and comments first tells you if they’re committed to keeping their audience engaged. Second, it also helps you decide if they fit your brand’s values and culture.

7. Make Sure Your Goals Align with Your Potential Healthcare Influencers

Look at your healthcare influencer shortlist. 

Have any of them effectively retired from medicine to work as professional influencers? 

Do they seem committed to integrity and sharing their knowledge, or are they only interested in the cash-advertisement exchange?

You could certainly ask your influencers in healthcare marketing these questions during an interview call. However, you can also glean plenty of insight just by analyzing their online presence and background too.

Don’t Force Influencers into Your Healthcare Marketing Strategy

Landing relationships with healthcare influencers who have large followings might sound tempting but massive reach alone won’t build you a sustainable strategy. 

You’ll enjoy the best results for your medical supply manufacturing or distributing company if you take time researching the potential influencers in healthcare marketing and picking the right fit. 

Your prospective buyers and your company’s reputation should always come first. After you’ve built a shortlist with those factors considered, you can finetune potential influencers based on your goals and content. 

Just remember, the influencer’s audience analytics demand just as much vetting as the influencer’s background. 

Share Moving Media has helped countless manufacturers and distributors reach thousands of the right decision-makers through targeted publications like Repertoire, The Journal of Healthcare Manufacturing, and Efficiency in Group Practice. Contact us now to talk!

What Content Types Work Best in Healthcare?

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Despite how widespread content marketing is, 72% of marketers say their content was only slightly successful or not successful at all. Creating content isn’t enough to succeed in content marketing. You need to focus on the right content types.

Learn seven of the best types of content for healthcare marketing that will give your content marketing a boost in 2022.

Key Takeaways:

  • Content marketing requires different strategies for each stage in the sales funnel.
  • Video is the most effective form of content marketing in 2022.
  • You can build relationships with your audience through webinars or social media marketing.

How to Choose the Best Content-Type

Not all your content has the same goal. Content marketing is a broad strategy that covers every step of the sales funnel, from awareness to brand loyalty. The content you create should reflect the goal of each step.

Before choosing a content type, start by outlining the goal of your content. The top marketing goal is lead generation, followed closely by increasing website traffic. Surprisingly, most marketers say sales and product promotion aren’t the highest content marketing objectives, although there are some exceptions.

17 types of content for each stage of the funnel

Image from Orbit Media Studios

7 Content Types You Should Use in Healthcare Marketing

Explore seven of the top healthcare marketing content formats you should use in your strategies to reach your marketing objectives.

1. SEO Blog Content

Blog content is one of the most well-known content marketing formats. This long-form content type engages the audience, answers questions, and encourages action. Some examples of popular blog content include:

  • How-to articles
  • List articles
  • Educational content
  • Interviews
  • Company insights
  • Thought leadership

Blogging drives more traffic to your website by ranking in online searches. To rank in search engines, you target specific search phrases combined with linking to authority sites that boost your reputation. In this way, when your target audience is researching products or solutions, your content is more likely to appear in their searches. Today, nearly 70% of marketers invest in search engine optimization.

Blogging is also a key lead generation and nurturing strategy. Once you attract traffic to your website, you address their pain points and offer valuable information that will lead them through the sales cycle and encourage them to subscribe.

2. Social Media Posts

Over half of the world’s population is on social media. These platforms aren’t just spaces for posting pictures of your cat or lunch. They have transformed into legitimate business platforms where you network, engage and convert your audience through various content types for social media.

Social media has become a crucial part of content marketing for healthcare and requires a dedicated content marketing strategy. For example, suppose you repost your blog articles on social media. In that case, they won’t perform as well as creating dedicated content for your social audience optimized for the platform.

You can use a combination of videos, images, and text to build relationships with your audience through the platform since social media is social first and supports customer interactions. While Facebook and Instagram work well for B2C connections, for businesses that want to connect with other businesses, LinkedIn is the best platform. 

3. Lead Magnets

Lead magnets are content that you exchange for your reader’s contact information. The primary purpose of the content is to generate leads. Without this exchange of information, you will lose your readers when they leave your page because you have no way to follow up.

Instead, you know who is looking at your content through lead magnets. You can use their contact information to qualify them as a lead and focus on those with a high buyer’s intent when nurturing those prospects.

Roughly 72% of marketers saw increased leads from their content marketing.

Some content formats that work well as lead magnets include:

  • Ebooks
  • Case studies
  • Original research
  • Whitepapers
  • Webinars or live events

4. Webinars and Live Events

Over 90% of marketers say their webinars are the most valuable content channel for generating qualified leads. A webinar is an online event where a presenter provides information to a target audience.

Webinars effectively educate your audience, promote products, and convert customers. For example, in healthcare distribution, you can use webinars to explain how new products work or build trust by educating your audience on the latest healthcare trends.

5. Case Studies

Case studies prove your claims as a business. For example, you can show it through a case study instead of just saying your product results in better patient outcomes. A case study tells a story of how your products or business helped a client. It uses data and emotional storytelling to convince your audience that they can also see those transformative effects if they use your products.

6. Videos

Forty-one percent of marketers say that increasing the amount of video content they produce significantly influenced their success. Video is one of the most powerful mediums for conveying your message. It creates an immersive experience that holds your audience’s attention and sends a memorable message.

Healthcare marketers have been successfully using video content over the past few years. For example, you can share patient or customer stories, demonstrate a new product, or address issues in the industry to help your customers make better decisions.

Some of the places you can share your video include:

  • YouTube
  • Social media
  • Company website
Video has the best results

Image from SEMrush

7. Landing Pages

If all your online traffic is coming through your homepage, you’re missing out on a valuable conversion opportunity. Homepages are just the doorway to your other content. A landing page is different because it’s the destination.

A landing page has one goal and removes all unnecessary or distracting elements that might keep your audience from that objective. For instance, if you want your audience to sign up for a webinar, you will create a landing page that doesn’t have a navigation bar or other content. The only content they would see is information about the webinar and a form for signing up.

Landing pages are a key element of your end-funnel content marketing strategy. They help lead your customers to make that final action.

Create More Content Your Audience Will Read

We can help you upgrade your content marketing strategies with our unique insights and industry data. Our communication and educational services will transform the way you perform healthcare content marketing.

Contact us to learn more about our content marketing solutions.

How to Map Your Content to the Customer Journey in Healthcare

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The customer journey might seem straightforward enough. A person thinks, “Hey, I need that product,” and then buys it. In fact, the customer journey is a complex five-part process. Mapping out the steps and tailoring content to target the customer at each step is a great way to bring them on board with your brand at any stage of the sales funnel. 

Below, we provide a step-by-step guide to customer journey mapping in healthcare to help you boost sales.

An Intro to Customer Journey Mapping in Healthcare

Understanding the customer journey’s steps is the first step in content mapping. Here they are:

  • Awareness: This stage makes the consumer aware of their want or need for a product or service. The consumer identifies a problem to solve. Example: A private physician’s practice recognizes the airborne infectiousness of the COVID-19 virus. The physician realizes they need FFP2 masks to protect staff and patients.
  • Evaluate: The consumer starts researching their options, comparing differing providers. They are looking for a solution to their problem. Example: The physician investigates FFP2 vendors, looking for a reliable product, affordable bulk orders, and fast delivery.
  • Decision-making: Having weighed the options, the consumer selects a provider. Example: The physician finds a vendor that meets their criteria and places an order.
  • Advocate: The consumer uses the product or service and is so happy with the experience that they refer other consumers to the product or service provider. Example: The physician is satisfied with the FFP2 product and customer experience. They recommend the vendor to a fellow healthcare practitioner who is also in need of FFP2 masks.
  • Retention: The consumer continues to use the product or service without switching to a different vendor. Example: The physician becomes a recurring customer, placing a new bulk order every month.

As you can see, customer journey mapping in healthcare allows you to step into the consumer’s shoes. With the example above, we peek into the physician’s mind and identify three selling points (reliable product, affordable bulk order, fast delivery) that would be relevant to them.

So, what is the role of content?

Content marketing can come into play at any stage of the journey. The right content format with the right message allows you to target your potential consumer effectively.

4-Step Checklist: Mapping Content to the Customer Journey

Follow these steps to create content according to customer journey mapping in healthcare.

1. Create Your Buyer Persona

Create a theoretical sketch of your target audience. This is your buyer persona. Research and write down a list of traits, like profession, demographic details (age, location, gender), professional goals and challenges, and influences (like medical journals they read).

Forbes recommends consulting frontline workers who work directly with consumers (like salespeople) to create buyer personas.

2. Draw the Map

Next, take your buyer persona and walk them through the customer journey described above. Again, this is about adopting their mindset. Ask yourself these questions at each stage:

  • Awareness: How will the person seek a solution to the problem they’ve identified, e.g., via Google, healthcare publications, industry thought-leader websites, etc.?
  • Evaluate: What points are important to the person, e.g., the price versus convenience?
  • Decision-making: What touchpoints will the person come into contact with to conclude their decision, e.g., visiting a company website versus calling a healthcare sales rep?
  • Advocate: What will convince the person to advocate the brand they end up choosing? What channels will they use to spread the word, e.g., word of mouth versus social media?
  • Retention: What will keep the person coming back, e.g., reliable delivery, special deals, etc.?

3. Perform a Content Analysis

With the answers to these questions, it will become clear what content formats you should use to guide your target consumer through the sales funnel.

Here are some ideas:

  • Awareness can be driven via info-packed content in the form of blog posts or infographics.
  • Evaluation can be informed through website landing and sales pages or live demos.
  • Decision-making might be driven via free trial sign-up pages.
  • Advocacy can be encouraged via shareable social media posts and forward-friendly emails.
  • Retention can be encouraged via engagement-boosters, like user guides, webinars, and podcasts.

4. Craft the Right Content

Finally, you’ve got the information you need to start crafting content according to your customer journey mapping in healthcare.

Let’s get back to that private physician in need of FFP2 masks, for example. He’s a GP running a family medicine practice in his early 50s, has been in private practice for 20+ years, is a family man, and prioritizes giving his patients affordable care.

When he’s looking for FFP2 masks, he’s prioritizing efficacy and convenience. He needs masks that work that will be delivered to his clinic doorstep fast. Cost-effectiveness is another concern, though: He’s willing to pay for quality but would prefer bulk pricing to keep costs down.

How are you going to get this guy’s attention at every stage of the customer journey? Maybe a blog post summarizing clinical study results on the efficacy of different types of masks will catch his eye at the awareness stage.

A clear sales page that offers bulk pricing options might be what wins him over when evaluating.

You might then follow up the sale with an email, asking if he’s satisfied – and whether he wants to place repeat orders, so he doesn’t have to think about re-ordering. There’s your retention phase.

In that email, you might include social media links to your company profiles, like Twitter. He then follows your company on Twitter.

Then, on your company’s Twitter page, you might share some infographics about the efficacy of FFP2 masks in minimizing COVID-19 transmission. The physician retweets the infographic to his followers – becoming an advocate of your brand.

We Help You Create Content Your Customers Love

Share Moving Media helps healthcare manufacturers craft authority content that captivates consumers and spurs them to take action. By boosting conversions, we help you increase your market share. We are a full-service media company, covering diverse formats from e-books to webinars and more.

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter for more healthcare marketing tips.Contact us to take your content marketing in healthcare to the next level.

Outstanding E-Book Examples: The Powerful Content Marketing Tool You Might Be Missing

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What do a killer content marketing strategy and your next vacation have in common? E-books. Too many companies underestimate the impact that e-books can have in attracting high-quality leads, building their brand, and developing trust with potential customers. But data shows that e-books as content marketing tools are on the rise. In a recent NetLine study, e-books were the number one most requested marketing content. Take a look at these outstanding e-book examples to discover how to make e-books work for you.

Key Takeaways

  • E-books help position your brand and attract high-quality leads.
  • Your e-book should meet an unmet need for your potential customers.
  • The best e-books are formatted professionally to reflect the writer’s brand and values.
  • An effective landing page is a vital component of your e-book strategy.

The Benefits of E-Books as a Content Marketing Tool

Why are e-books such a powerful content marketing tool? Creating an e-book has many benefits, from positioning you as an industry expert to generating more high-quality leads. With an e-book, you will:

Offer Value

E-books are one of the best ways to build value with your audience. Many people worry about giving so much information away for free, thinking their e-book will replace the need for their services. In fact, the opposite is true.

Your e-book is an example of the expertise you can offer clients. By giving it away for free or at a low price, you are giving potential customers a substantive sample of what your services can do for them. When you demonstrate the value you can provide, you build confidence and value in your paid services too. 

Example: software company Devsu offers its e-book on “Tech as a Revenue Driver” to address one of its customers’ key goals. It offers quality insights that can directly assist its clients and demonstrates the value it brings to the table with its services.

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Generate Leads

E-books are an effective lead magnet: a free item you give away in exchange for the potential customer’s contact details. It’s not easy to convince people to part with their valuable contact information. However, if you give away professionally presented, in-depth information in exchange, people will likely perceive it as a worthwhile trade.

That’s why e-books are an effective way to generate leads that convert. They offer a win-win situation: your audience receives valuable and substantial insights, and you receive the contact information of people who self-identify as needing your service.

Example: fitness company Transform offers a free e-book of hunger control shake recipes. Its lean contact form makes it easy for anyone interested in weight loss to sign up for its book. The company can follow up knowing that these potential customers already need its products and services.

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Build Your Brand

Forty-six percent of consumers prefer a brand they know and trust. That’s why e-books are a fantastic opportunity to position yourself in the marketplace and build audience understanding of what your business offers.

Your brand can really shine in an e-book. Every page of your e-book, from the layout and color scheme to the content itself, will convey important messages about your brand, including:

  • Who you are
  • Your points of differentiation
  • Your level of expertise
  • Your brand’s purpose and values

E-books help build familiarity with potential customers, translating into higher brand recognition and more leads.

Example: utility company Surple uses consistent imaging throughout its e-book to convey its brand identity and values.

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Position Yourself as an Authority

When we refer to experts, we often use the phrase “they wrote the book on the subject.” Books, including e-books, carry weight and convey a sense of authority. Providing your valuable insights and expertise in e-book form helps position you as a thought leader and authority in your industry. This translates into greater recognition, trust, and ultimately sales.

Example: social media expert Gary Vaynerchuk‘s e-book “How to Make 64 Pieces of Content in a Day” is an impressive resource that clearly positions him as a leader in his field.

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Writing an Effective E-Book: Examples of How to Use E-Books in Your Content Marketing Strategy

Not all e-books are created equal. To implement an e-book as an effective component of your content marketing strategy, several important aspects must be kept in mind.

Choose an E-Book Subject That Meets Your Potential Clients’ Needs

Like any marketing content, it’s important to consider your audience carefully. You should identify your target audience and choose a topic that fulfills a need. Potential customers are significantly more likely to download an e-book that addresses their unmet needs.

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Example: cyber security company Celerity offers its e-book on “Cyber Security Priorities” to educate potential customers looking for ways to improve their cyber security. The landing page and e-book target the reader’s unmet needs.

Format Your E-Book Professionally to Reflect Your Brand

The best and most effective e-books are:

  • Visual
  • Interactive
  • Easy to digest

Think beyond the words to how you present them. Your e-book is a reflection of your brand, so it’s important for the formatting and presentation to look professional, clean, and consistent with your brand. 

Example: Dropbox‘s e-book “Don’t Let Large Files Slow You Down” effectively uses white space and graphics to present the information in easily digestible chunks.

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Entice Potential Customers with an Effective Landing Page

Your landing page is another vital aspect of implementing your e-book successfully. It should:

  • Tell readers exactly what to expect
  • Give them a preview of the e-book
  • Display social proof in the form of testimonials and reviews

These elements help convince potential customers that your e-book offers them value, making them more likely to provide their contact information in exchange.

Example: this e-book from hosting platform Flywheel offers a stand-out landing page example. The page is attractive and easily digestible. When visitors scroll down, there’s a visual preview of the chapters, giving them a clear idea of what they can expect to learn.

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This Flux Academy episode goes into depth on five crucial elements for an effective landing page:

Outsource Your E-Book to the Pros

When creating an e-book for your content marketing strategy, there’s a lot to consider. Fortunately, Share Moving Media is here to help. Our content marketing specialists know how to craft unique and compelling e-books to help you build your brand and attract the leads you want. 

Contact us today to find out how we can boost your business with an e-book.

3 Ways Online Media Coverage Results in More Revenue and Brand Recall

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Reaching a wider audience. Building your reputation. Gaining credibility. You need all three to advance to greater marketing goals.

In the healthcare manufacturing industry, earning a trustworthy reputation is vital, because your products have a direct and lasting impact on people’s lives. A solid reputation also may be the deciding factor when a customer is choosing between you and a competitor.

This is where online media coverage can give your business a huge boost.

Online media coverage is PR (public relations) carried out digitally. Rather than earning mentions in print news stories or TV/radio broadcasts, you’ll pop up in social media feeds, search engine results, online articles, blogs, and other digital media formats. 

And, unlike traditional PR, you can build your online media coverage by publishing authoritative content on your website. This accomplishes three goals:

  • Showcases your expertise 
  • Builds trust with your existing audience
  • Creates inroads with a wider audience as that content is shared, reshared, and mentioned across various channels

Let’s dive deeper into the ways reputation-building marketing tactics like online media coverage boosts your brand recall and bottom-line.

3 Ways Online Media Coverage Earns Results for Your Healthcare Marketing Strategy

Greater visibility in online media means greater visibility for your brand. In turn, greater visibility is your ticket to more leads, more customers, and more revenue. Here’s how.

1. Online Media Coverage Builds Brand Awareness and Recall Through Greater Reach & Repetition

To ensure your target audience knows who you are and what you sell, you need the power of online media coverage in the form of content.

70% of marketers actively invest in content, so you’re in good company.

It takes many forms, but some of the best types that effectively build brand awareness and brand recall for your business include blog posts and guest blogs.

Blog Posts

These are one of the best tools for online media coverage in healthcare for a few reasons.

First, your company blog is under your complete control. It’s the ideal place to inform and educate your audience about your expertise and your products.

Second, blog posts can be endlessly repurposed. You can share and distribute posts across social media channels and reuse them to create new content assets, such as infographics and videos.

Finally, blog content created with SEO techniques gives you greater visibility in Google search results. That means, when customers are searching for a solution or expertise like yours on search engines, they’ll find you.

This cycle of sharing and repetition is inherent in creating blog content, and is one of the keys to building brand awareness online.

Guest Blogs

These have most of the same benefits as blog posts, but they offer one additional asset: they get your name, company, and expertise in front of another brand’s audience. And, if you play your cards correctly, this audience will overlap with yours.

Most guest blogging opportunities allow you to include one promotional link to your website in a byline. So, it’s a good way to expand your reach and pull in more potential customers.

2. Online Media Coverage in Healthcare Draws in Traffic & Leads

Online media coverage is a direct way to draw in more traffic and leads to your website.

It’s pretty simple. Increase the targeted places you appear on the web, and more of the right people will notice you. Produce more quality content, and you’ll increase your chances of getting shared, getting ranked on Google, and earning links from other websites.

Each of these represents another opportunity for a new customer to click your link. 

3. It Turns One-Time Customers into Repeat Buyers

In the healthcare industry, trust is at a premium. Your customers must be able to trust that your products are safe, reliable, and effective. That means they must also put their trust in your brand overall.

If you can effectively build your trustworthiness in the eyes of your audience, you’ll have an easier time turning them into not just one-time customers but repeat buyers and loyal followers as well.

Trust is never built in a day. That’s why consistent online media coverage is so important. It adds up over time. Here are a few examples:

  • You consistently appear in trusted media outlets (like a reputed digital magazine or blog).
  • You continually publish high-quality content on your website.
  • You routinely get your content shared and mentioned on trusted social media accounts with large followings.

Think of each appearance, mention, and share as a vote in your favor. As your vote count builds, so does your authority and trustworthiness. 

Build Your Online Media Coverage in the Healthcare Industry, Build your Brand Rep & Revenue

Think of online media coverage in the healthcare industry as a compounding investment.

It’s one of the top ways to get your business noticed, to reach a wider audience, and to pull in more traffic and revenue.

The more you put in, the more you’ll get out.

Ready to start boosting your online media coverage? We can help. Contact us at Share Moving Media today to get started.