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Create B2B Medical Content Your Audience Actually Wants to Read

August 22, 2022 By Scott Adams

A well-researched, 1,400-word blog post can take four hours to write, in addition to the hours you invest in content planning and analysis. Most marketers are willing to make this investment in their B2B medical content because it offers a valuable opportunity for generating and converting leads. These benefits start with quality content your audience wants to read.

Learn steps you can take to ensure the content you create is what your audience is interested in.

Key Takeaways:

  • Content creation starts with a strong topic that doesn’t have too much competition
  • Use an attractive and easy-to-navigate format
  • Keep your topic focused on your audience and the specific challenges they face

What Makes B2B Medical Content Creation Challenging?

Every day, content creators publish over six million new blog posts. If your audience isn’t interested in your content, they have dozens of other options. Marketers struggle to make their content stand out from competing articles and media.

Marketers often treat search engine optimization (SEO) as the golden ticket to success. However, over 90% of online pages don’t see any traffic. SEO is still a profitable healthcare marketing technique, but you need more research and effort to use it successfully by creating relevant content your audience responds to.

Healthcare professionals lead hectic lives, especially due to staffing shortages and supply chain delays. As a result, they don’t have the time they used to for reading online content unless that content offers advice and information that can improve their job.

Despite these challenges, healthcare content marketing is rising because you can cut through the noise and encourage your target audience to read your media if you use the right strategies.

5 Tips for Creating Engaging B2B Medical Content

Use these five tips to create quality and relevant B2B content your audience wants to read.

1. Pick a Relevant Topic

Your content starts with a strong topic choice that’s relevant yet not overused.

Relevant topics aren’t just content that addresses your niche. They are topics your audience is actively researching. You can find several content ideas by performing a search on your industry and looking at related searches.

You can also find popular searches in your niche using keyword research tools like SEMrush or Moz. These tools list over 1,000 topics and details on each topic’s competition. You can see who else is using that keyword, what sites are ranking high, and what similar opportunities are available.

Example of keyword research results

Image from SEMrush

When choosing topics, look at the top-ranking content to see what is currently ranking well for keywords in that topic. Then, find a way to create an improved version of that content that offers more information, updated statistics, or higher quality content. This way, you can improve your chances of ranking well while providing content you know readers want to read since similar content is already receiving traffic.

2. Create a Supporting Layout

The longest proper sentence in the world is 1,287 words from William Faulkner’s novel Absalom, Absalom. While most marketers won’t be writing sentences as long as this blog post, they commit several other avoidable formatting mistakes that can make content just as challenging to read as one long sentence.

Your readers will be on phones, laptops, and tablets. To support all scrolling formats and make your content easy to skim and break it up with plenty of headlines, lists, and subheaders. These allow your readers to jump to the most relevant information or quickly read the content if they’re in a hurry.

You can also make your content more visually appealing by inserting images, charts, and videos. Consider using alternative formats for your content, like medical ebooks or whitepapers. These can convey longer pieces of content like case studies in an easier-to-read format than blog posts.

3. Keep Your Content Consistent

A consistent voice in B2B content marketing ensures brand consistency. It ties your content together and offers your audience a more positive reading experience. Companies with a consistent voice also saw a 33% increase in revenue.

For example, if you are an informal brand, you should continue using contractions, casual language, and a personable approach in all your articles. If you suddenly sound like an entirely different person, readers might question your reliability or lose interest in your content.

Your branding should also remain the same. This includes the format of your blog articles, colors, and fonts. In addition, the phrases you use to talk about your brand should be consistent. For example, if your primary value proposition is your reliability, continue repeating similar words that emphasize that feature. This provides a unified brand message to your audience and builds trust with them. 

Trust is one of the main reasons your audience will continue reading your content and purchasing from your brand.

4. Focus on the Reader Rather Than the Topic

Keep your content reader-focused rather than topic-focused. In other words, talk more about why the topic applies to your audience rather than just providing information.

For example, you might address a pain point by covering medical supply chain issues. However, you can increase your reader’s interest in your content by connecting it directly to their challenges with the supply chain. For instance, you might list ways they can improve their supply chain issues.

5. Always Keep Your Content Updated

Fresh content ranks higher than outdated topics. With the influx of online content, your readers can always access the latest information. While an article you published a few years ago saw thousands of readers, you won’t generate the same readership today.

Review some of your most popular articles and update them with new statistics and information. This won’t take as long as rewriting the article because you already have a solid framework. It only requires a slight facelift to stay relevant and rank well in searches.

You can also write the same topic each year. For example, several leading businesses publish annual reports and research. These reports don’t replace the previous year’s publications. Instead, they add another piece of content that can rank online with the latest information.

For example, if you published an article on “The Best Medical Supplies for 2021,” consider writing another piece this year titled “The Best Medical Supplies for 2022.”

Access Resources to Create More Relevant Medical Content

Share Moving Media provides the information and training you need to boost your medical content marketing. Use our solutions to write content your audience wants to read.

Contact us to learn more about our information and communication services.

Filed Under: Blog, Marketing Minute Tagged With: B2B content marketing, healthcare content marketing, healthcare marketing, medical content marketing

Why Most Healthcare Content Marketing Fails

April 20, 2022 By John Pritchard

Anyone can do content marketing, but few get it right. Healthcare distributors and manufacturers can spend hours on content but never see a single quality return. Thankfully, there is a way to avoid wasting resources on failed content and consistently see positive healthcare content marketing results.

Learn three pitfalls every B2B content marketer should avoid and three strategies to help your content hit the mark every time.

Key Takeaways:

  • Healthcare content marketing should be audience-centric, which first requires a deep understanding of who your customers are and their needs.
  • Your content should be easy to read and understand, even when addressing complex topics.
  • Let your creativity shine through your text by including images, video, and engaging language.

What Is the Current State of Healthcare Content Marketing?

The healthcare marketing industry, as a whole, has a higher-than-normal conversion rate. Marketers see 5.6% of leads turn into customers, compared to the average conversion rate of 3.9% across all industries.

That rate only shows half the picture. Another pattern you might notice from the conversion rate is that industries with high-value or expensive products also have a lower conversion rate. While healthcare facilities like hospitals might enjoy that high conversion rate, manufacturers and suppliers often don’t see those same numbers.

The average B2B conversion rate is 2.23%, considerably less than the overall healthcare industry.

You aren’t alone if you are seeing those less-than-stellar results from your content marketing. Don’t let those numbers get you discouraged about your content promotion and throw out all your work. Over 60% of leading B2B marketers use a content marketing strategy to get where they are.

You can also see that same success if you use what they learned and avoid major healthcare content marketing pitfalls.

3 Reasons Why Healthcare Content Marketing Fails

Healthcare content marketing can fail for dozens of reasons, but the most common B2B content marketing mistakes fall within three categories.

1. Don’t Understand the Audience

If you don’t know who your content is for, it will never connect with your audience. Over 45% of B2B marketers struggle with identifying the audience for their content. Copying the style and format of others in the industry isn’t the answer. For example, if you write healthcare marketing content the same way hospital marketers write their content, you won’t see the same success even though you are both in healthcare marketing.

Healthcare manufacturers and suppliers are working with businesses, not individuals. Within healthcare businesses, your specific organization will have a small number of hospitals and healthcare facilities that would use your supplies and products. If you want to resonate with those businesses, you must write to the primary decision-makers, use a higher level of content, and address business challenges like revenue and productivity.

2. Don’t Have Scannable Content

Physicians work over 50 hours a week on average, with nearly a quarter of doctors working over 60 hours a week. Content that is hard to read won’t resonate with time-strapped hospital workers looking for solutions.

Long paragraphs, no headlines, and industry jargon are all ways to turn your target audience off your content. Instead, placing scannable headlines that let healthcare workers easily find the most relevant information and plenty of white space and lists will encourage more of your audience to spend a few minutes of their valuable time reading what you have to say.

3. Content Has No Real Value

Marketers often focus on quantity over quality. As a result, many will publish new content multiple times each week. However, if your content only adds to the noise of daily blog posts without bringing any unique value, it wastes time and energy.

Healthcare content writing should not be full of fluff or repeat the same information your competitors covered. Instead, if you want your content to stand out, it must present old information in a new way or share new knowledge to leave readers with a fresh perspective and valuable insights that will help them improve their company.

How to Avoid Those Pitfalls

Include these essential elements in your B2B healthcare content marketing strategy to help your content stand above your competitors.

Focus on Your Audience

Audience-centered content is the only type of content that will see high conversion rates. You may be tempted to focus on how great your company is and the incredible features of your new products. However, that information is meaningless to your audience unless you can relate it to them and how you and your products will address their challenges.

You should write your content with empathy and understanding that places you alongside your reader instead of speaking down to them or criticizing their struggles.

Be a Thought Leader

Your content is your business’s chance to shine above the competition by positioning you as a reliable expert in healthcare. Thought leadership content will express your opinion and share valuable insights about healthcare in a way that builds trust and respect from your readers.

Some benefits of writing thought leadership content include:

  • Boosts your reliability as a company
  • Increases your brand awareness
  • Gives you credibility and authority in your industry
  • Inspires your readers

The 2021 B2B Thought Leadership Impact Study showed that 51% of executives had increased the amount of thought leadership they read. Additionally, 54% of decision-makers spend over an hour a week reading thought leadership content.

Make Your Content Unique

A misconception in B2B content marketing is that your content must be formal and rigid. While you should retain professionalism, that doesn’t go together with stiff content. Your decision-makers are still human and work in a stress-filled environment. Your content can be a mental escape that uses a variety of colors, interesting writing styles, media, and current healthcare content marketing trends that will capture their attention.

Content marketing for healthcare can also include channels outside your website and blog. For example, you can reach more of your audience by tapping into social media, videos, podcasts, and infographics.

The video below shows examples of companies using these three tips for successful B2B content marketing.

Create a Different Type of Healthcare Content

Why settle for average conversion rates when you can position your organization among the leaders in your industry? Take a few minutes to evaluate your current content marketing strategies and look for any areas holding you back.

Contact us about our publications that provide the latest healthcare insights to help you provide valuable content.

Filed Under: Blog, Marketing Minute Tagged With: B2B content marketing, content marketing for healthcare, healthcare content marketing trends, healthcare content writing, healthcare marketing

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