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Whitepapers — Who Reads Them Anyway?

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A white paper is a reliable and comprehensive presentation of information focused on a specific niche. Today’s marketing world is increasingly digitally driven, with brief blogs and social media snippets taking center stage. Against this backdrop, you might think whitepapers are defunct. Think again.

As a healthcare supplier, learning how to use whitepaper promotion in healthcare can help you engage with existing clients, reach new clients, extend your market reach, and maximize impact.

The Value of Whitepaper Promotion in Healthcare

Whitepapers remain a valuable marketing tool, especially in the pharmaceutical and medical device industries. Why? Instead of offering superficial content that glosses the surface of a topic, whitepapers provide a deep dive into essential issues.

Whitepapers offer fact-based, research-driven information, offering a reliable resource that healthcare professionals can trust. In a landscape where consumers are traditionally wary of prominent marketing and advertising tactics, this kind of content is more valuable than ever.

Value-added whitepapers are particularly relevant in healthcare – an industry that impacts people’s lives. Whitepapers serve as a valuable source of information for:

  • Physicians
  • Medical researchers
  • Health facility managers
  • Healthcare regulators
  • Other healthcare professionals

Finally, whitepapers are a common reference point for regulatory agencies and the people who work in them. Government bodies may rely on whitepapers to make arguments regarding important healthcare policy decisions.

How to Craft Winning Whitepapers for Healthcare Sales

This step-by-step e-guide explains how to implement whitepaper promotion in healthcare marketplaces.

Choose Your Topic Carefully

The point of a whitepaper is to establish expertise and win trust. You should choose a topic that you (or your company) are genuine experts in. The whitepaper affirms your status as a thought leader in your field. This will also make the actual process of writing the whitepaper easier, as you will likely already have relevant resources (data, case studies, clinical results, etc.) to inform your research.

But just what should you write about? Take a problem-solution approach. Identify an existing question in your field and provide answers. You might end up discussing cutting-edge research, new products, or innovative technologies that are changing the area.

Define Your Audience

Knowing who you are talking to helps you determine what’s interesting and relevant to them. Map out a persona of your ideal target audience. Include details like their profession, education, and habits. What problems impact this person, and what decisions do they have to make? A journey mapping exercise can help you answer these questions.

Do Your Research and Use Strong Data

Research is a critical element of any whitepaper. Your whitepaper needs to include sources and evidence for any statements, findings, or claims. You may conduct research yourself or collect data from other sources. If you look to external sources, ensure they are reputable. Medical journals are a great starting point.

Accurate, thorough research will bolster the whitepaper’s – and your – credibility. Interesting stats and facts will also boost your whitepaper’s overall impact. For example, if a person shares an essential piece of data from the document, it may inspire others to read and refer to the whitepaper.

Focus on Facts, Not Sales

The entire point of a whitepaper is to offer value-add information that is backed by research, data, and statistics. A whitepaper should always be fact-based. It should never be a sales pitch. Steer clear of sales jargon and avoid pushing products. Visually, beware of too much overt branding. While you want your whitepaper’s authorship known, you don’t want it to be confused with a marketing brochure.

Focusing on facts instead of sales can also help ensure you comply with regulations regarding medical marketing. From the 2017 Truth in Healthcare Marketing Act to Anti-Kickback Statutes, there is comprehensive legislation governing this area. Further, you have to ensure you are HIPAA compliant.

Add High-Quality Visuals

Images make a whitepaper visually appealing and easier to read. They break up chunks of text, creating a more scannable document. Visuals like graphs, charts, and tables can depict data and statistics in a more digestible format. Plus, such snippets of information can be adapted for shareable infographics – which are great for sharing on social media to support whitepaper promotion in healthcare.

Craft Your Title and Executive Summary Carefully

Once your whitepaper is finalized, you’ll have a comprehensive overview of the whitepaper’s most salient points fresh in your mind. This is the perfect time to write a title and executive summary. The title should be brief, relevant, and attention-grabbing. Ensure it’s catchy since you’ll want to promote your whitepaper title via social media and similar channels for digital marketing in healthcare.

You can then go on to write the executive summary. Important decision-makers like regulators will rely on this summary to determine whether the whitepaper as a whole is worth reading. Briefly present the problem and the solution the whitepaper will discuss, sparking interest in the paper’s contents.

Don’t Neglect the Final Polish

Formatting can make or break a whitepaper. Don’t neglect the final polish. Include a brief table of contents summarizing the sections of the document. For digital whitepapers, a hyperlinked table of contents that allows readers to jump directly to a defined area is ideal. Before your whitepaper is finally published online or printed, ensure it’s been proofread, fact-checked, and copy-edited.

Utilize Diverse Distribution Routes

With your healthcare whitepaper completed, look for ways to share it with relevant decision-makers. If you already have an email list, this is an excellent piece of value-added content to share with them. You can also push your whitepaper via social media, websites, and blogs. Guest posting on other platforms and sharing a quick preview of the document is another way to engage new audiences.

Share Moving Media Helps You Create High-Quality Whitepapers

Effective whitepaper promotion in healthcare takes time and expertise. Share Moving Media can help. A full-service media company, we focus on the healthcare space – and cater to medical suppliers in particular. We help our clients create impactful content that converts leads to sales. We also produce diverse publications that can help you increase your market share.

Contact us to collaborate.

A Quick Guide to Healthcare Content Marketing

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Healthcare content marketing faces unique challenges. Marketers must communicate about complicated topics while maintaining a level playing field with real-world medical experts. There’s no room for error, and the target audience has little tolerance for fluff and filler. Marketers also must keep in mind regulatory guidelines regarding healthcare advertising and marketing, such as HIPAA.

Creating impactful content marketing in this context can be tricky. However, expertly crafted, well-executed content can still create value for target audiences, engage existing clients, and capture new consumers’ interest. This, in turn, can generate leads, boost business, and drive the bottom line.

Healthcare Content Marketing Today

Understanding the current healthcare landscape is the first step for marketers who want to harness the power of content. According to the 2020 State of Healthcare Content Marketing report, which surveys healthcare leaders nationwide, 89% of healthcare organizations today engage in some form of content marketing. Popular media formats among healthcare content marketers included infographics, videos, newsletters, social media, blogs, and illustrations.

The increased acceptance of modern tactics like social media is great news. Healthcare can be a traditional industry, hesitant to pursue cutting-edge marketing strategies (due in part to the challenges mentioned in the introduction, e.g., regulatory hurdles). Thus, the sector tends to lag behind others in digital marketing adoption and has only started playing catch up in terms of digital transformation.

So, seeing healthcare organizations report using tools like social media is big news. However, the report also raised a major red flag that’s cause for concern. Although the vast majority of organizations are using content marketing, only 28% report having a document content strategy in place. Thus, it should come as little surprise that organizations are failing to see a solid return on investment (ROI) for content marketing. Some 23% of survey respondents report a lack of health content marketing success.

Real-World Examples of Successful Healthcare Content Marketing 

So, what makes for successful healthcare content marketing? One of the best ways to answer this question is to look at real-world examples of companies getting it right. We’ve highlighted some of our favorites below. These examples share a few key traits that make them stand out. They tend to be:

  • Creative and driven by original content.
  • Intentional and results-oriented, with a clear goal (e.g., getting the target audience to use a hashtag to spread a message).
  • Information-based, sharing value-added, exciting content.

See what we mean below.

Johnson & Johnson Medical Devices Vertical

J&J features a dedicated medical devices vertical that provides detailed information about the company’s various supply specialties across orthopedics, surgery, interventional solutions, and vision care. The vertical takes a personalized approach, using direct address (“you”) to engage the reader.

Johnson & Johnson demonstrates how content marketing can make creative use of diverse formats – it’s not just about creating chunks of text. Take this device page devoted to the Trumatch® Graft Cage – Long Bone, for example. The page includes an illustrated timeline of device implementation, from the patient’s arrival in the emergency room to the TruMatch implantation and follow-up. 

The content messaging is clear and stresses innovation, as this device is 3-D printed to accommodate the patient’s body. This messaging is consistently upheld across the platform. For example, scrolling down on the main page, the reader comes across the brief tagline “Medical Devices: 130 Years of Innovation.”

Mayo Clinic “Sharing” Patient Stories Blog

The Mayo Clinic’s Sharing blog shows how adding personalization to healthcare content can enhance influence and impact. This insightful blog features stories from real-world patients and their loved ones – and the healthcare professionals who treat them. The narrative style allows for emotional impact and creates a connection with the audience. However, every story is backed by fact-based evidence.

For example, take the story of Gayle Wilkerson, who has lived for a decade thanks to a left ventricular assist device (LVAD). This is a milestone that very few people have achieved. Medical devices can seem impersonal, and language like “LVAD” can be alienating. However, the interview with Ms. Wilkerson, who lives with congestive heart failure, literally gives this cutting-edge medical device a face.

Cleveland Clinic “Health Essentials” Information Platform

The Cleveland Clinic is another respected source of public health information trusted by healthcare professionals, suppliers, payors, and non-specialists alike. The Health Essentials content platform covers everyday topics “normal” people wonder about, from how to relieve stress to the utility of dry brushing and the possible health benefits of apple cider vinegar.

A comprehensive health library supplements this more informal content. Here, users can search medical questions and answers by keyword. There is also a dedicated vertical for medical devices. For example, if you input “asthma” into the search on the “Drugs, Devices & Supplements” page, you get various suggestions – including results for different types of dry powder inhalers.

The dedicated page for each type of device provides intricate detail. Here’s the page for the Dry Powder Inhaler (DPI): Diskus® as an example. It includes simple explanations, images, step-by-step usage instructions, and maintenance details.

GE Healthcare

GE is a significant provider of medical devices, from radiology to ultrasound machines. Their healthcare platform provides valuable information about their products. However, it also uses effective content marketing by purposefully engaging the website visitor and requiring them to get actively involved. Scrolling down on the main page, you’ll see how people are encouraged to take action.

The promotion for the Vscan Air™ handheld ultrasound device encourages you to “Visit the Experience.” When you click, you’re taken to a dedicated page that incorporates real-world interviews with healthcare professionals, a docuseries, and hashtags you can use to push out the page (#VscanAirFirstLook, #GEfortheFrontlines, #POCUS).

This is a fantastic example of how creative you can get with healthcare content marketing. Creating a streaming docuseries is a genuinely innovative way to capture people’s attention and raise awareness about new medical device products.

Share Moving Media Boosts Your Healthcare Content Marketing

Share Moving Media is a full-service media company that works with medical and healthcare suppliers. We can help enhance your content marketing, creating value-added, actionable content that resonates with your target audience and inspires them to take action. We don’t just help you create content. We support an overall strategy. Subscribe to our newsletter for more healthcare content marketing news.

Ready to ramp up your healthcare marketing? Contact us.

Digital Marketing Budgets: A Channel-Wise Digital Marketing in Healthcare E-Guide

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As the COVID-19 pandemic rolled across the globe, the healthcare industry came away forever changed.

One of the biggest adjustments from the pandemic came in the form of virtual health options. With this push for online access to doctors and other health services, health marketers have had to adjust their strategies as well.

If you, as a health marketer, are looking for innovative ways to create a digital marketing budget for healthcare, we are here to help. Read through this digital marketing in healthcare e-guide to help steer your marketing department in the right direction.

Key Takeaways

  • Healthcare marketers need to understand their marketing goals to adjust their budgets to the new digital landscape in the healthcare industry.
  • Focus your marketing budget on the channels where you can most effectively reach your customers. This may include email, blogs, and social media.
  • Make sure your company’s website loads quickly and is optimized for mobile users.

Define Your Marketing Goals

While you may wish you had an unlimited budget for your digital marketing, you must be realistic about how much you can spend and where to spend it. To make sure you choose the right channels, you should ask yourself these questions:

1. Where Do My Potential Customers Spend Their Time Online? 

Depending on the type of healthcare organization you work for, your customers might be individual patients, doctors, hospitals, or even large healthcare conglomerates. Focus on your customer demographic and figure out how to reach them online.

You can brainstorm ideas and talk with other team members. You will likely be able to connect with customers on social media, but you must choose the right platforms. If your customers are other businesses, can you reach them through email or other types of messaging?

2. How Can I Generate More Leads? 

Once you know where to reach your potential customers and how to communicate with them, look for ways to generate leads from those channels. Do you already have marketing on these channels? If not, can you start? If so, is there room to do more?

3. Where Can I Invest If My Marketing Budget Increases? 

As we travel into the post-COVID world, many healthcare marketers may see an increase in the amount of digital marketing money allotted to them. The pandemic showed the healthcare industry that it can connect with people virtually, and that method is here to stay. If your marketing budget increases, focus on your company’s goals to spend your money strategically.

4. Where Will I Get the Best ROI? 

The simple answer to this question is that you will get the best ROI on the most popular channels used by your customers. However, you have to use the right kind of marketing on those channels. Different platforms require different types of content. Make sure you have a solid overall marketing strategy.

For even more things to consider, this video from Philip VanDusen has some great digital marketing tips.

Where to Spend Your Digital Marketing Budget for Healthcare?

The pandemic drastically shifted the healthcare industry toward digital resources, whether it wanted to it not. Many healthcare marketers are adjusting their marketing goals and spending patterns based on the effects of the pandemic.

In a recent survey, healthcare marketers indicated that one of the top marketing goals for 2021 was to build brand awareness. Respondents also said they were increasing marketing investments in search engine optimization and paid social media, among others.

top digital marketing investments healthcare organizations are making in 2021

Now, you get to figure out the best way to use these digital channels to connect with your customers and get successful returns. We recommend these key digital channels to maximize your marketing budget.

1. Create Bold Brand Messaging Through Your Website

The most important digital channel to focus on is your company’s website. This is the place where most customers will ultimately connect with you. You want it to look sharp, have an easy-to-understand layout, and load quickly. In fact, a website that takes too long to load may cost you a sale.

According to Neil Patel, the longer a site takes to load, the higher the chance a visitor will abandon your site.

Finally, don’t forget to optimize your site for mobile use, as about half of all internet traffic comes from mobile devices.

2. Trust Email Marketing to Reach Businesses 

Email marketing is a highly effective way to reach potential customers. It also offers an incredible ROI with an average return of $38 for every $1 spent. Email is an easily customizable channel you can use to communicate directly with your customers. 

You can use email to gradually convert a lead, offer new solutions to current customers, and even reactivate old customers. Email is one of the most personalized methods of connecting with customers. However, you must have a good email marketing strategy, so you don’t waste your marketing dollars.

3. Use Social Media Marketing to Engage with Customers 

Our modern world is connected through social media. More and more often, businesses use social media to connect with and find customers. With so many social media platforms available, your company can find the ones best suited to you.

While the main goal of social media is to share information about your company brand, it is also an effective tool for monitoring the activity of your customers. You can use relevant hashtags to draw attention to your industry. For example, if your company sells mammogram machines, you can join in the conversation with hashtags during breast cancer awareness month in October. 

4. Share Your Expertise Through a Blog 

You know your company and industry well. Share that expertise with others through a company blog. When you set up your blog, you should plan on publishing something new at least once a month, but once a week is even better. Focus on creating quality content with good SEO value that will attract more customers in your market.

Share Moving Media Can Help You Maximize Your Digital Marketing Budget

At Share Moving Media, we’re experts in creating high-quality content for the healthcare industry. We work with healthcare marketers along with distributors and manufacturers in the healthcare industry. If you want to put our expertise to work for your healthcare company, we are ready to help.

Contact us today to learn more about our company.

How to Know if Your Website is Ready for a Digital Marketing Campaign

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You may be curious about healthcare website optimization, and how to build a brand for your healthcare organization. It is simpler than you think. 

The healthcare tech industry is expected to reach $280 billion by the end of 2021. That is a CAGR of 15.9%. So, it is essential that you develop a digital marketing campaign that ranks highly on search engines. However, if you are not familiar with how search engine optimization (SEO) works, you may not be prepared to manage this feat. 

If you are interested in discovering ways to prepare your website for an effective digital marketing campaign, take a few moments to read over this digital marketing in healthcare e-guide and to learn more contact Scott Adams at sadams@sharemovingmedia.com.

Digital Marketing in Healthcare E-guide: Understanding Healthcare Website Optimization

As a healthcare organization, you probably have a website but primarily rely on word-of-mouth to connect with customers. However, the outbreak of the recent global pandemic has made this approach ineffective and limiting for your business.

The companies best equipped to adapt to today’s changing circumstances use local marketing strategies and digital marketing tactics. These initiatives include social media campaigns and SEO optimization efforts.

5 Ways to Get Your Website Ready for Your Digital Marketing Campaign

The internet is a powerful tool and an inexpensive marketing solution for small business owners. These five ways to get your website ready for digital marketing will help you start moving in the right direction:

1. Rank Higher in Search Engine Queries

According to marketing experts, 75% of people will not go past the second page of search results when searching online. Therefore, your website must appear on the first page – which is a lot easier said than done.

Google, the leading search engine, creates algorithms that determine a website’s ranking. The site’s ranking determines where a website shows up on a search engine results page (SERP) based on the relevant content within that site and the words used in the search.

2. Showcase Your Expertise

Digital media has become much less of an advertising space and much more of a platform that experts use as their podiums. The days when companies could only reach out through TV commercials or print advertisements are over.

Today’s brands need content creators who also know how digital works if they want to capture new customers’ attention spans in this constantly changing world.

The internet is full of platforms that promote your brand, but video and written content are not the only ways you can go about it. Different channels may work better for some companies over others because they offer different types of messages. Regardless of the format, your online content can have a lasting impact on potential consumers without ever explicitly asking them to purchase anything from you – and positioning yourself as an expert helps them remember your brand name when searching for products or services like yours.

3. Boost Social Media Presence

Connecting with your potential customers or clients is accomplished easily with a digital marketing campaign. You don’t have to be a social media or SEO expert to start engaging with your target audience.

You can get started by creating a free social media business page that has all the contact information for your company, as well as what you offer. You can customize it with photos and videos to show off more of who you and your healthcare organization are. It’s also easy to run sales or promotions from your Facebook or other social media page to ensure everyone knows about your latest deals.

Once people start seeing your posts, they will begin liking and sharing them. This viewer engagement means your campaigns will start showing up in local search results.  

4. Establish Personal Connections

Being in the digital marketing world can be a great way to build your connections and get acquainted with customers and nearby complementary businesses. By following, engaging with, and getting to know customers on social media, you have an easier time building relationships. You can also solicit feedback for new products or services through your account.

Do you want to know what your customers are thinking on topics related to your business? Use Facebook or Instagram and ask them. If they reply in the comments, have a chat with them. You can also use Stories on either of those platforms for quick informal polls and to get more engagement.

Another way to promote personal connections is when people post pictures related to your healthcare services, repost them on your pages. That way, people know how great your healthcare organization treats its patients. Be sure to respond even when feedback isn’t positive. These responses are essential in connecting with potential new patients.

5. Track Your Success

One of the many advantages of digital marketing is that most platforms come with analytic tools. You can use web analytics to see what terms users search for before finding your website.

If one term seems more effective than others, try incorporating it into advertising and email campaigns to generate a better response rate from potential customers. Facebook’s analytical features let you know how many people have seen an advertisement or are currently viewing it.

These tools allow advertisers and marketers alike the chance to adjust marketing campaigns until they reach their desired results.

How to Improve Your Healthcare Website Optimization

If you are looking to start marketing your small business online, there is no need to hire an expensive agency. Spending time on the social media sites that align with what your brand offers while using an authentic voice will make digital marketing a breeze. These strategies can lead to some serious rewards.

Many people don’t realize how easy technology makes this process these days. All you need is access to the internet to promote your brand through various platforms like Twitter or Facebook. You can do this without any prior experience, even if you do not work in marketing by trade. 

Are you looking to optimize your website before your next digital marketing campaign launch? Contact us here at Shared Moving Media for more information and learn how we can help. 

Online Directory Listing: Is it Still Relevant in 2021?

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As a medical supplier, you want to stay on top of the latest marketing techniques – and not waste your valuable marketing dollars on media formats that are no longer relevant.

Online directory listings were essentially created to serve as the internet’s response to the phone book. There is no question that the telephone book is irrelevant these days. However, you might also be wondering whether the digital version of the phonebook is still relevant. It is a fair concern.

After all, online directories were created in the days before Google existed. If you wanted to find a website, you had to input it directly. If you did not know the exact address, the solution was to search an online directory. As web directories expanded, they made money by boosting specific results for a fee or selling ad space.

Given that search engines now make it easy to find websites online even with only a partial address or business name, you might assume that online directories in healthcare are defunct. While you should not necessarily invest big bucks in directory listings now, you also shouldn’t ignore them completely. Failing to maintain listings can cause issues for your business – as you will see below.

Why Online Directories in Healthcare Still Matter

This e-guide explains why online directories in healthcare still require your attention in 2021.

Improve Search Engine Optimization

If you have a website, you have undoubtedly informed yourself about the importance of good search engine optimization, or SEO. This makes it easy for people to find you as a medical supplier via Google, Bing, and other search engines.

While search engines might be part of the reason online directories are less significant these days, they still take online directories into account. Inputting your business into reputable directories (more on how to tell what is and is not reputable below), you generate backlinks to your website. Backlinks help increase SEO rank.

Ensure a Consistent Online Presence

Accuracy is critical when it comes to online directories in healthcare. Incorrect or inconsistent listings can give your medical supply business an unprofessional appearance. They can also make it difficult for potential customers to find you via the directory – which is the original goal.

Inconsistent listings can also hurt your online presence by damaging SEO. Remember that just because you have not created an online listing for your medical supply company does not mean someone else has not. You may have listings you do not know about. It is essential to ensure the information they contain is the same across all platforms.

Search engines like Google can view discrepancies between business listings as a red flag, thinking they are fake or scams. This can make Google question the authenticity and legitimacy of your website, detracting from your SEO success.

Check Your Reviews

Online directories allow you to expand your online footprint in one other valuable way – they can serve as a means of gathering testimonials from satisfied clients. Client reviews can help serve as a natural, helpful, and trusted means of word-of-mouth marketing. Plus, they do not cost you a thing financially.

That said, all reviews are not necessarily good. Again, remember that some directory entries may exist that you are not aware of – because someone else created a listing for you. You do not want this to happen with a disgruntled customer.

While you cannot delete a bad review, which would be unethical, you can respond to it. Consumers react positively to a positive, thoughtful response from a business to a negative review. Your response shows that you are still engaged and listening to what your client wants. It is far better than simply letting negativity go unanswered.

How to Make the Most of Online Directories as a Medical Supplier

You cannot afford to ignore online directories in healthcare, even in 2021. Regular directory maintenance will help protect your medical supply business’ online presence. Check your directory listings across major platforms regularly to ensure they are up to date.

Major generalist directories include BOTW, AboutUs, and Spoke.com. There are also local directories, like Google My Business, Bing Places, Yahoo, Yelp, and the Yellow Pages. Some guides can help boost your business reputability – like the Better Business Bureau and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Other directories specifically target medical suppliers, like MedSuppliers, Medical Device Directory, and the Medical Device Qualified Supplier Directory (Qmed). When deciding which medical supplier directories to work with, do your due diligence.

First, do your research to determine what directories are trustworthy and active. A reputable directory should:

  • Review submissions: Be wary of any platforms that approve listings automatically. These are likely to contain scams and spam links. A reputable directory will use editors to review applications and ensure credibility.
  • Be user-friendly: The appearance of an online directory can be an indicator of its trustworthiness. A disorganized page with many pop-up ads is not user-friendly – and is unlikely to do you much good.
  • Cater to the end-user: A reputable directory will target the end-user, knowing that the end-user relies on the guide as a trusted source of information. A well-maintained, clearly designed, and comprehensive directory listing provides actual value to users with well-sourced content.

You want to present yourself as a trustworthy, reliable supplier to potential customers who may find you online. You do not want your name associated with the scam- or spam-filled directories.

Boost Your Digital Marketing in Healthcare with Share Moving Media

Online directories in healthcare are just one of the many tools you can use to boost your business profile and expand your market reach as a medical supplier.  Share Moving Media helps healthcare distributors stand out from the crowd and increase visibility with comprehensive content marketing services.

We are a full-service media agency working across multiple media formats, including print publications, online webinars, blogs, podcasts, and more. We work exclusively with healthcare suppliers, giving us unique insights into the marketplace. With our marketing and healthcare knowledge combined, we can support your success. Get more tips from the Share Moving Media blog.

Want to collaborate? Contact us.