Share Moving Media

Search Results for: brand awareness

Why Tracking Marketing ROI is Essential for Medical Suppliers

By

Marketing has the potential to spread the word about a company and greatly increase awareness, profit, and trust in a brand when successful. In the medical supply chain industry, it is necessary to evaluate the performance and impact of marketing campaigns to ensure they are effective in promoting a business.

Marketing Return on Investment (MROI) is a way to measure how much return a company experiences from its marketing spending. ROI determines how marketing contributes to a company’s revenue growth.

It is often a good decision for medical suppliers to spend money on marketing, because if done right, it can increase profit and help a company improve its bottom line.

MROI is calculated through a straightforward equation, with incremental financial value gained as a result of the marketing investment minus the cost of the marketing investment over the cost of the marketing investment. Completing these calculations can be outsourced or calculated by a company’s in-person finance team.

So, what are the benefits of measuring marketing ROI?

  1. Deciding what to spend money on.

MROI is often calculated on each individual marketing campaign that is developed. The advantage of measuring the effectiveness of each campaign allows a business to understand which efforts have the highest return. By calculating MROI, decisions can also be made about what marketing efforts were most effective and what to spend budgets on going forward.

  1. Comparing marketing efficiency to competitors.

When a company measures its MROI, they can use the data to track and analyze their marketing statistics. The data collected can be compared against other medical supply chain businesses within the industry. The process of comparing data can assist a business with changing or creating new and improved forms of marketing that help a business to stand out.

  1. Justifying a business’ marketing spend.

Marketing is a significant expense for a business. Measuring MROI can exemplify that allocating resources to marketing efforts is impactful and contributes to higher profitability for a business. Measuring MROI can also justify making changes and reevaluating a brand’s marketing strategy.

Whether you’re trying to reach healthcare supply executives or medical distribution sales reps with your marketing efforts Share Moving Media can assist you with the process of developing content. With extensive experience in the medical manufacturing and sales industry, SMM can help your business create written content, podcasts, videos, webinars, and more that have the potential to boost your company’s Marketing ROI.  As you come up with your strategies around these two customer types we would love the opportunity to do a free one hour brainstorming session with you on best practices we’ve seen over the past 30 years in the business.  Please contact Scott Adams at sadams@sharemovingmedia.com to set up this free session.

Sources: Marketing ROI: Definition and How to Measure It | Marketing Evolution

What Content Types Work Best in Healthcare?

By

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

By

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.

Why Medical Suppliers Need More Consistency in Content Marketing

By

Over 97% of marketers agree that content marketing is essential to their marketing strategy in 2022. However, not everyone creates content equally. What you post, where you publish it, and how often you make content varies considerably between industries. Despite the differences, consistency in content marketing is crucial to every strategy.

Learn how often you should be creating content as a medical supplier and how to create a consistent content strategy for healthcare marketing.

Key Takeaways:

  • Medical suppliers should be creating content anywhere from daily to several times a week, depending on the platform.
  • Consistent content encourages greater loyalty, increases your exposure, and establishes you as an authority.
  • Create consistent content using a content calendar and outsourcing.

How Often Do Medical Suppliers Need Content? (It’s More Than You Think)

Healthcare Content marketing is a broad category of strategies that involve creating digital content to build awareness, educate your audience, and convert leads into customers. For the best results, consider using several channels in your content marketing.

Here is a general overview of how often successful businesses post content on each of their marketing channels:

Since these are average statistics, your actual numbers will vary. The best way to decide how often you should post content is to perform A/B testing. Change how often you post content on each channel during your tests and see what number of fresh posts gets the best response.

Benefits of Consistency in Content Marketing

If you stick to the above schedule for sharing consistent content, you will create hundreds of new pieces each year. That can quickly feel overwhelming without the proper healthcare content marketing strategy. However, adjusting your processes to handle that number is worth the effort, as these three benefits show.

Encourage Customer Loyalty

About 65% of your revenue comes from loyal customers. Your content isn’t just for bringing in new customers but also for keeping existing customers loyal to your brand. These loyal customers already follow you on social media or subscribe to your blog.

Consistent quality content ensures they continue to get value from your content channels so they can purchase more from your company.

Broader Brand Exposure

Search engine optimization is a strategy to rank your content in consumer searches. For example, when a hospital decision-maker searches for products for their facilities, your content can appear at the top of their search results, pointing to what products you offer.

The more content you have online, the more searches you can appear, which increases your online visibility. Over half of your website’s traffic comes from online searches.

Percentage of people performing online searches each day.

Image from FinancesOnline

Greater Authority in Your Industry

Brand authority comes from other people’s opinions of your company. If consumers in the healthcare industry consider you an expert and trustworthy source of information, you are considered a healthcare authority.

You must publish consistent, quality content to encourage positive opinions of your business. Each piece is another chance to establish yourself as an authority in healthcare, leading to more conversions.

How to Create Consistent Content for Your Marketing Campaigns

Use these five tips to be consistent in content marketing across all your marketing channels.

Video Embed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4Cb6xKZo18

How to be Consistent with Content Marketing

1. Brainstorm Topics in Advance

An expert content creator can write a 1,500-blog post in two to three hours. However, most people take significantly longer to research, create, and publish online content. Brainstorming for topics is one of the forgotten steps of content creation that many people don’t calculate into their schedule.

If you resort to coming up with topics as you create content, you risk settling on mediocre content themes to meet your deadlines. Instead, plan content ideas weeks or even months before you create and publish the content.

You can hold brainstorming sessions where you and your marketing team research common search phrases, questions your customers are asking, and the types of content your competitors post. Then, use that list to narrow done the best topics.

2. Create a Content Calendar

Content calendars keep you organized. For example, you will be working on dozens of content projects simultaneously if you run several campaigns, including a blog, various social media platforms, and email. A content calendar keeps all the projects and their due dates in one convenient location, so you never miss a deadline and create consistent content.

Content calendar example

Image from HubSpot

3. Plan Content Series

Some marketers use content series to help fill their calendars with predictable and regular content. A content series is a group of posts all on the same topic.

For example, as a healthcare supplier, you might create a blog post series on nursing homes where you cover their pain points, needs, and products that could ease the flow of nursing home activities. The next series could follow the same format but focus on a different healthcare facility.

4. Streamline the Content Creation Process

The amount of content you can create is limited by the people and time you have available. While you can’t add more hours to the day, you can reduce the time it takes to create content.

Investing in scheduling tools, content management systems, and content creation tools will streamline the process and help you create the amount of content you need with the available time and personnel.

5. Outsource Your Content Marketing

Content and marketing agencies will help you meet your content marketing goals. They can create content consistently through scalable marketing strategies that grow as you grow.

Because of the training and experience of content agencies, you are guaranteed quality content.

When you outsource your content creation, you free up your own time so that you can focus on other parts of your marketing strategy.

Are You Creating Enough Content?

Boost your sales by creating consistent content and start seeing more revenue from your increased exposure.

Do you need help understanding your market?

Our publications and training are rich with the latest industry data to help you make smarter content and more consistency in digital marketing.

Contact us to learn more about our healthcare marketing products and solutions.

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

By

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.