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5 Ways Healthcare Marketers Need to Adjust to the Post-COVID Reality

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COVID-19 has changed many aspects of our modern world, from how we work to how we shop – and even how we greet other people. In 2020, the elbow bump has unofficially become the new version of shaking hands.

Healthcare marketers are facing unique challenges in light of these changes. How can you market medical supplies when you don’t see your clients face-to-face? How can you present new product developments when medical conferences are canceled? Most importantly, how can you make sure that your medical supplies are penetrating the market and reaching the patients who need them?

Although the way healthcare marketers do business is changing, the healthcare marketplace itself is thriving. Global healthcare spending is expected to increase at a compound annual growth rate of 5% through 2023.

The world isn’t going to return to its pre-COVID state anytime soon, if ever. Now is the time to adapt your healthcare marketing strategy to the new post-COVID reality.

This guide provides five tips for successful healthcare marketing post-COVID.

What Will the Post-COVID Reality Look Like?

The COVID-19 crisis has made it clear that you can’t anticipate every scenario, be it in business or beyond. Just one year ago, nobody predicted a global pandemic putting the world on pause.

There is no surefire way to know what the “post-COVID” world will look like. That said, a few trends are already evident in the healthcare market:

  • Digital is gaining ground: Healthcare is no longer shying away from digital technologies. Telemedicine has become increasingly valuable as people are worried about COVID-19 infection, for example. As healthcare becomes more open to digital tools, healthcare decision-makers, from doctors to hospital administrators, will become more tech-savvy.
  • Remote is the new norm: Companies across the United States have put in place work-at-home measures. In July 2020, Google announced that its employees would work from home until summer 2021. The move towards remote is also evident in healthcare. Med students (future doctors) are learning remotely, for example, while medical conferences are taking place online.
  • Spending shift: In light of the two points above, healthcare providers are shifting their spending. Hospitals may put more money towards video conferencing tools in the future, for example.

5 Tips for Successful Healthcare Marketing Post-Covid

The above trends will have a lasting impact on the way that the healthcare industry functions. Understanding the implications as a healthcare marketer will give you a competitive advantage. Here are some healthcare marketing tips and tricks for the “new normal.”

1. Build Virtual Relationships

Tap into the new remote environment and use it to build virtual relationships. Find online conferences and events that are relevant to your distribution field to attend. You may be able to identify new leads from the program’s list of panelists and participants, for example.

You can also build virtual relationships via social media. One option is contacting people via LinkedIn. A direct message can lead to a video call – and even a potential sale.

2. Boost Your Touchpoints

In marketing, touchpoints refer to an effective action spurred by some form of human contact, physical interaction, or communication. Your customer’s experience is a collective group of touchpoints.

With marketing becoming more digital, you have a greater variety of touchpoints to use than ever before. There are blogs, online magazine articles, social media, digital events, and more. Since in-person opportunities are limited, focus on boosting touchpoints through these media.

3. Embrace Social Media

Social media is one of the most valuable healthcare marketing tools you have at your disposal. You can use it to establish your brand as an authority in the industry, connect with others in your field, and foster those virtual relationships mentioned above.

Some healthcare marketers remain wary of social media because of the highly regulated state of their industry. Before you dive in, consult HIPAA’s social media guidance to ensure you don’t go astray.

4. Enhance Your Digital Presence

Social media isn’t the only digital platform you have at your disposal as a healthcare marketer. Take a look at other aspects of your digital presence – such as your corporate website. If you don’t have a company blog, now is a great time to incorporate one into your web presence.

Why do blogs matter? They establish your healthcare company’s knowledge and offer a platform for engagement with others (via comments). They can also reiterate your authority status, paving the way for further opportunities – like thought leader articles in healthcare magazines.

5. Prioritize Analytics

One of the best parts of digital and social marketing tools is that you can easily measure their success. For example, you can see how many people engaged with a social media post, visited your website, or read a blog. You can even see how much time people spend on your website.

Take the time to analyze your marketing efforts in the post-COVID-19 world and see where you are succeeding – and where you could use improvement. Analytics gives you the knowledge you need to tweak your marketing strategy and perfect it.

Learn More About Content Marketing for Healthcare Distributors

Share Moving Media offers comprehensive marketing solutions for healthcare distributors. We are a full-service media company, creating blogs, e-books, webinars, and more. As you adapt your healthcare marketing post-COVID, we can help you grow your brand and boost your market share.

Sign up for our newsletter for the latest healthcare marketing trends. Want help adapting your healthcare marketing strategy to the post-COVID reality? Contact us today!

6 Content Optimization Tweaks for Effective Branding in Healthcare

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Why do you, as a healthcare supplier, publish content? 

You want to demonstrate your authority as a brand and set yourself apart from competitors, right?

You can’t accomplish any of your goals without solid branding throughout your content.

Branding your healthcare content isn’t as simple as tossing in a logo and colors. Instead, it requires a more nuanced strategy.

Today, we’ll cover some untapped content optimization tweaks for effective branding in healthcare to solidify your presence. 

6 Content Optimization Tips to Improve Branding in Healthcare

For healthcare suppliers and manufacturers, branding cannot be an afterthought. You must incorporate branding throughout every piece of content you publish. 

In some cases, branding will indeed include obvious logos and colors. In others, however, branding will ooze from your content in less noticeable ways. 

Potential buyers and current customers need familiarity with your content. Familiarity breeds trust. Trust encourages loyalty. 

Consistent branding is especially important for healthcare suppliers where the buyer’s journey is long, and the stakes are high. Your branding must be standardized and preserved over time. Make it your goal to prioritize branding in every comment, blog post, tweet, video, and more.

1. Look for Content Gaps to Position Yourself

7% of Google searches – over 1 billion a day and 70,000 every minute – relate to healthcare. While some come from consumers, many are doctors and decisionmakers searching for answers to their problems and questions.

Your job is to figure out which of those queries you can answer. 

Start with your competitors– research their content strategy to see which topics they already cover thoroughly. From there, study your audience’s pain points to find a content gap and focus on creating content within that arena.

2. Develop a Thought Leadership Strategy

Thought leadership isn’t reserved for Silicon Valley startups, and it’s not about nuance for its own sake. Thought leadership is about leading in your industry through well-researched content and conversations – and it’s an important part of content optimization for branding in healthcare.

In an industry like healthcare, it’s especially vital to use real author names for your content instead of generic terms like “staff writer.” Make sure only experts in your field create your content and use the same author names to build familiarity. 

All of Share Moving Media’s unique publications fill a distinct gap as thought leaders. The Journal of Healthcare Contracting, for example, is the only publication dedicated to the healthcare supply chain, and readers rely on us for the authoritative content we provide.

3. Incorporate Your Identity into Media Content

Multimedia content is your big chance to incorporate branding like logos and colors into your content marketing:

  • Custom email newsletter and social media header images
  • Adding a color filter to your images and graphics
  • Using your brand’s color scheme for infographics and social graphics
  • Adding a watermark to your image content
  • Including a brand logo in the corner of your videos 
  • Using your brand color palette for video production

First, make sure every piece of multimedia you publish is authoritative, useful, and relevant to your audience. You don’t want your brand associated with generic or boring content. 

4. Settle on a Specific Brand Voice

Remember, branding must be standardized and preserved. You can’t preserve your branding if you don’t create a standard. Comprehensive brand guidelines are key. 

Most brands know to include logo and color rules in their guidelines, but they neglect voice and tone. 

Setting the standard for voice and tone ensures your blogs, videos, and social media posts all sound the same no matter who writes them. A consistent tone might seem subtle, and it certainly is. However, a consistent tone also has a huge impact on trust and familiarity. 

5. Interact with Your Followers

Don’t be a broadcaster. A broadcaster publishes content to social media but never interacts with their followers or shares content from other accounts. 

Social media is most useful as a conversation or relationship-building tool. For healthcare suppliers and manufacturers, casual conversations in your comments and tweet replies go miles towards humanizing your brand. 

6. Include Emotional Social Share Triggers Throughout Your Content

Creating useful content is important, but usefulness alone won’t earn you shares. You must trigger an emotion if you want people to share your content with others. 

If sharing the content will demonstrate that someone is a good person, they’re more likely to share it:

  • People want to look intelligent and informed on the most current medical best practices (urgency, importance)
  • People share content to help others, like tips or insider information (exclusive, interesting, unusual)
  • People want to show their humanitarian nature by sharing content on important causes (heartwarming, optimism, inclusivity, sadness)
  • People share content that sparks conversations (intrigue, excitement, surprise)

Certain emotions work better than others. Consider what emotions you want associated with your brand. 

Prioritize Content Optimization for Branding in Healthcare and Build Better Relationships

Consistent branding in content humanizes your business and is necessary for technical fields like healthcare supplies. Content is your big chance to connect with decisionmakers at offices and hospitals and form professional relationships. 

Use branding to give them something to remember and solidify your presence as a thought leader in your industry.

Content from Share Moving Media reaches the offices and homes of several thousand healthcare decision-makers across the country. Get in touch with us to start planning your comprehensive content strategy today!

A Six-Step Guide to Getting New Products Featured in Health Trade Journals

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Medical manufacturers know that a big part of their healthcare marketing strategy involves getting their products seen by practitioners in various fields, and one of the best ways to do that is to get their product featured in health trade journals. 

One of the best healthcare marketing tips and tricks out there is to put your products where your audience’s eyes are. So, which publications are practitioners paying attention to?

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Source: The Script

Why Industry Journal Exposure is Good for Digital Advertising in Healthcare

While many of these publications have a printed version available, most of them have transitioned to a digital platform. This helps them get more eyes on their content, which means more eyes on your products. Sure, while it can be beneficial to have your products featured in smaller, niche publications, the results of being published in a larger publication are 10 to 100x greater. 

Another good reason to consider attempting to get your product featured in a health trade journal is that you gain instant authority in your field. How? Once you’ve been approved and published in a major health trade journal, readers know that you are a source worth investing in because you made it through the rigorous vetting processes to be featured in the first place. 

That authority and credibility go a long way, not only with prospective clients but with other publications as well. If you’re credible enough to be published in a major health trade journal, then other healthcare publications are going to be more willing to work with you in the future. 

6 Steps to Getting Your Product Featured in Health Trade Journals 

There are countless benefits to getting your product featured in a health trade journal. However, getting to that step takes a bit of work. To reap the benefits of being featured in a healthcare journal, you’ll want to follow this six-step guideline to get your product featured in the first place.

1. Make a List of Relevant Journals 

In marketing, one of the golden rules is that you cannot market to everyone. Well, that same rule applies to pitching your products to health trade journals. If your product is geared towards older men in their 60s, you wouldn’t want to pitch it to a popular yoga magazine whose target audience is women in their mid to late 20s.

That said, you’ll want to make a list of 10-20 publications that you’d like to be featured in. These can, and should, include major health trade journals, popular online blogs, etc. 

2. Research Publication Requirements

Once you’ve taken the time to find the right publications that would best suit your product, you’ll want to research them. You need to figure out:

  • Who their target audience is 
  • What their audience is looking for when reading the particular publication
  • The type of content they’re most likely to publish

No two publications are exactly alike, so you’ll want to make sure you are taking detailed notes and take time to review the content itself to help you later on when crafting your pitch. 

3. Identify Specific Individuals to Pitch To

During your research, you’ll also want to look into the best individuals to contact and pitch to. There are quite a few publications that allow for self-submissions, and others that require a rigorous vetting process. Others will only accept pitches from the craftiest of researchers who can find and pitch to the right person — say a chief editor or head of marketing. 

Once you’ve identified the best individual to reach out to, you’ll want to take some time to check out their online presence. Have they previously published work themselves? If so, you’ll want to study their work to get an idea of what kind of content may spark their interest. 

Finally, make sure you make a note of the best ways to reach them. At the very least, you’ll want to find their email addresses. 

4. Create Share-Worthy Content to Pitch

Now, when it comes to creating your pitch, you want to take adequate time to craft various pieces of content to pitch, including:

  • Educational blog post
  • A brief on how your product works, who it’s for, etc. 
  • An educational video
  • Testimonials from current customers 

5. Send Your Pitch

Once you’ve created your content, it’s time to pitch it! The best way to pitch an idea is via email. Why? Because it’s not only the preferred channel for receiving pitches by most journalists but because the average business professional checks their email approximately every 37 minutes. 

Now, research shows that there is an ideal time to send pitches, and that’s on Tuesdays or Wednesdays between 8-9 am, and then around 3 pm. Just remember to keep time zones in mind when you send it!

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Source: Publicize

6. Always Follow Up

You know how crowded an email inbox can get. Just imagine how much more crowded these individual’s inboxes must be. Show them you are serious and want to be noticed by following up on your initial email at least once, if not twice, to make sure they’ve received and seen your message. 

Increase Your Market Share with the Help of Share Moving Media

Here at Share Moving Media, we are a full-service media and content company. Our goal is to help you get noticed by creating and helping you to distribute high-quality content. 

Curious how we can help you increase your market share? Then contact us today to learn more!

A Guide to Choosing a Content Marketing Agency in Healthcare

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As a medical supplier, you can leverage content marketing to increase your market share and drive profits. The healthcare supply field is highly competitive. Being able to provide consistent, client-centric messages across a range of media channels ensures you stand out from the crowd.

Whether you’re distributing diagnostics equipment to integrated delivery networks (IDNs) or selling exam room supplies like latex gloves to doctors’ offices, the right marketing agency can craft a tailor made content creation plan to reach your desired audience.

The first step is choosing a content marketing agency in healthcare that meets your unique needs.

5 Steps to Choosing a Content Marketing Agency for Medical Suppliers

Trends in healthcare marketing suggest that content will continue to play a valuable role – however, that content needs to deliver value. More than ever before, quality takes priority over quantity. You need a content marketing agency with the knowledge, experience, and skills to meet that need.

1. Define Your Content Marketing Goals

Before you start searching for content marketing agencies, write down your goals. Of course, the end aim is to earn more money – but think specifically about what content will help you get there.

Here are some possibilities:

  • Attract more subscribers to your email newsletter and increase newsletter engagement (opens, clicks, and downloads).
  • Ramp up website traffic and engagement, such as page views, backlinks, unique visitors, and conversions.
  • Increase your business’s ranking in search engines like Google. Of all Google searches, 5% are health-related. Don’t ignore search engine optimization (SEO).
  • Enhance your profile as an industry expert, building trust in your professional community.

Content marketing covers an array of media, from vlogs (video blogs) to whitepapers. Having an idea of where you want to focus your energy ensures you select an appropriate agency. Some agencies prioritize social media content while others concentrate on SEO, for example, and others are all-rounders.

2. Look for Subject Matter Expertise

Content marketing agencies have different areas of expertise. A smaller boutique agency might focus on one select field, like fashion or food, while a larger agency will cover multiple verticals. When choosing a content marketing agency in healthcare, subject matter knowledge is more important than size.

Look for either a boutique agency that exclusively serves the healthcare market – or better yet, the medical supply market – or a larger agency with a dedicated healthcare vertical.

3. Ask for a Portfolio of Previous Work

Anybody can claim to be a subject matter expert. When choosing a content marketing agency in the healthcare supply space – a very niche area, you want this claim to be backed up by data. Ask for a portfolio of previous work, ideally work done for clients with a similar profile to your own.

As you review the portfolio, you will also see what sort of content the agency works with. This is your chance to confirm that they have knowledge of not only the medical supply space but also the media formats you want to prioritize, ensuring they will deliver the type of valuable content you want.

4. Discuss Your Specific Goals and Needs

Never hire based on the portfolio alone. Have a chat face-to-face or via video to talk about your potential project. This is an opportunity for you to present the priorities you wrote down in the first step and to confirm that the content marketing agency in question can help you achieve those goals.

This is also an opportunity for the agency to pitch you ideas. Say you want to draft a series of thought-leader articles in healthcare online magazines, for example. You could ask whether they have ideas for topics to cover and what publications they would recommend targeting.

5. Clarify the Content Marketing Agency’s Working Processes

Your face-to-face discussion with the content marketing agency should also cover practical points – namely, what a working relationship with the agency will look like. You want to make sure you are on the same page in terms of collaborative style.

Here are some topics to touch on:

  • Point of contact: Who will be handling your account? Is it the person you are currently talking to, or will it be someone else?
  • Outsourcing: Does the agency outsource any of their content creation? If so, ask for a sample of the contractor’s work to make sure it meets your standards.
  • Understanding your brand: Do they know your company, your product, and the end-user you are trying to serve?
  • Timelines: How long will they need to deliver the content you’re looking for?
  • Communication: What communication channels will they use to keep you abreast of content updates?

Ask these questions now to clarify expectations and avoid frustration on both sides down the line.

A Full-Service Content Marketing Agency for Medical Suppliers

Share Moving Media is a full-service content marketing agency that caters to professionals in the medical supply sector. We create personalized webinars, eBooks, infographics, and more. With our in-depth understanding of the field, we will help you increase your market share.

Sign up for our newsletter to learn more about healthcare content marketing. Ready to create a content strategy for healthcare that will make your business grow? Contact us today!

In-house vs. Outsource: What’s Best for Healthcare Content Creation?

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Healthcare distributors and suppliers can’t afford to skimp on content quality. 

In the competitive healthcare supply chain industry, you need to squeeze every ounce of trust and authority as you can from your content.

With so much riding on your healthcare content creation, what’s best: in-house or outsourcing? 

You might assume hiring inhouse is the answer – why let content slip out of your control? However, outsourcing often gives you leverage over the competition while reducing costs.

64% of manufacturing marketers and half of B2B marketers outsource at least one content marketing task. Of those who outsource, 84% to 87% outsource their content creation. 

Here’s what you need to know to make the best decision. 

In–house vs. Outsource: What to Choose for Healthcare Content Creation?

Healthcare distributors and manufacturers need content for several market segments and stages of the buyer’s journey. 85% of buyers say they would consider dismissing a company that doesn’t personalize the initial touchpoint. 

That’s a lot of risk and pressure.

Creating effective content requires technical knowledge of your product and the industry, end-users, healthcare professionals, and marketing in general. 

Your content marketing directly reflects your company’s value, expertise, and professionalism. On that note, it would seem like hiring a technical content creator is the only choice.

Should You Hire an Inhouse Healthcare Content Creator?

First things first. Hiring a single technical writer to cover your content production won’t get the job done.

If you want to keep your content creation in-house, you’ll need to hire an entire team. Writing copy for blogs, eBooks, and marketing material is more than a full-time job for one individual – and writing is only one small part of content creation.

Creating effective healthcare content requires a team of creators, strategists, and analysts:

  • Graphic designers for infographics, social media posts, and custom website graphics
  • Video technicians for instructional videos, tutorials, and social content
  • Technical editors and fact-checkers 
  • Social media managers
  • Analysts to track the ROI of your content

Plus, in–house content writers have implicit bias. You don’t want overly promotional content. Your content should be helpful, useful, and actionable – not salesy. An in-house content creation team reports directly to shareholders so they might have trouble overcoming this issue.

7 Benefits of Outsourcing Your Healthcare Content Creation Needs

Outsourcing isn’t synonymous with detachment and low quality. Quite the contrary! 

Entire agencies specialize in creating technical content – the technical yet engaging and digestible content your industry demands. 

1. You Get Access to Leading Talent

Healthcare content marketing agencies specialize in one thing: creating healthcare content. They hire the best writers in the business. 

They’ve already put their team through a thorough vetting process to ensure they can produce the content you need. 

Plus, they handle the editing and quality control, so the burden is totally off your shoulders. 

2. You Can Spend More Time on Strategy

Content creation is time consuming. Behind a single blog, you’ll find hours of keyword research, topic development, copywriting, and editing.

Outsourcing frees up thousands of hours each year. Instead of getting bogged down with content, your marketing team can focus on strategy, audience research, and tactics.

3. Outsourcing is Cost-Effective

Remember, you aren’t hiring a single creator. You need an entire team. 

Glassdoor says the average business spends $4 thousand and 24 days to hire a new worker. Recruitment technology, assessments, job postings – these all cost time and money. 

If the relationship doesn’t work out, it could cost you 200% of the worker’s salary to find a replacement.

4. You’ll Produce Content Consistently

HubSpot recommends large blogs publish up to five pieces of content per week. Those who prioritize their content are 13x more likely to enjoy higher ROI from their efforts.

An outsourced team has the time and resources to publish high-quality content consistently. 

5. Outsourcing Provides Easy Access to Metrics

A specialized healthcare content agency wants you to see ROI from your content investment. They have on-staff analysts tracking your content’s metrics. 

They’ll help you visualize your content’s performance with charts and have all the info ready to go for shareholders.

6. You Can Seamlessly Scale Your Healthcare Content Production

As we’ve seen with COVID-19 vaccine production, healthcare distributors must scale instantly when necessary. Outsourcing your content lets you seamlessly scale up or down as your needs and budget change. 

You don’t have to go through the trouble of hiring during a surge, evaluating, and laying off if things slow down. 

7. Outsourcing Gives You Access to the Latest Technology

Hiring costs are one thing but tools are also costly. Enterprise packages for SEO, social media, and content can cost thousands every month. It’s just one more thing marketers must make their case for to shareholders.

Outsourcing your content means you already have access to the industry-standard tools and emerging technologies. Healthcare content agencies need to stay competitive too.

Start Building Your Healthcare Content Creation Strategy 

At Share Moving Media, healthcare content for distributors is all we do. We’re a full-service agency with industry experts offering everything from eBooks and blogs to videos and podcasts. 

We understand the value of high-quality content. That’s why industry leaders trust us with their content creation. 

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