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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.

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.

8 Pay-Per-Click Tips for Healthcare Advertising on Google

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Google pay-per-click (PPC) is a means of advertising on Google. Given that Google is the world’s largest search engine – commanding some 86% of the market – a successful Google PPC campaign can be a great way to extend your business reach and raise your profile.

For healthcare manufacturers, well-planned PPC ads can help drive traffic to a website, convert customers, and boost sales, ultimately increasing the bottom line and improving market share.

This e-guide explains how you can benefit from healthcare advertising on Google and get some top tips for using Google ads for healthcare below.

The Benefits of Healthcare Advertising on Google

You might think that there’s no need to pay for advertising using Google PPC, given that your healthcare manufacturing or distribution business can likely be found via the search engine anyway. Think again. Paid healthcare advertising on Google offers unique advantages.

Effective search engine optimization (SEO) can indeed help your website climb the Google rankings, making it easier for a potential customer to find you online. However, Google’s algorithms only prioritize the highest quality websites when determining organic search rankings.

Getting that “free” traffic generally requires an extensive investment of effort and money devoted to optimization. Unless you’re an SEO pro yourself, you’ll likely want to hire an expert.

What’s more, building a solid SEO profile takes time. Take backlinks, for example. The more high-quality, well-ranked, reputable websites link back to your website, the higher your website will rank in Google search results.

However, getting other websites to link back to you doesn’t happen overnight. You have to generate high-quality content first and establish a reputation as a trustworthy source worth linking to. Google PPC offers a more efficient alternative.

Finally, PPC also gives you more control over how your listing appears in the search results. Paid ads are listed above the organic results on Google. You can see them marked with the word “Ad” in a small box. Even with the “Ad” label, getting this front-page placement is critical to getting people to click.

One survey showed that the vast majority of Google users stay on the first page of Google results, with 75% of users clicking on the first or second result that comes up. Only a meager 7% of searchers look beyond the first page of results.

Unless your organic SEO efforts are top-tier (which, as mentioned, demands significant effort, money, and time), scoring a first-page results ranking could be tough.

8 PPC Best Practices for Google Ads for Healthcare

This quick e-guide highlights some best practices for healthcare advertising on Google.

1. Educate Yourself About PPC

If you’ve never used PPC advertising before, take the time to learn about the process. Once you set up your Google Ads account, you can set up a PPC campaign. You set a budget (e.g., daily, monthly, etc.). Whenever someone clicks on your ad, this eats into your allotment (hence the term “pay-per-click”). You can target your ad using keywords. If you haven’t already set up a campaign, you can do so here.

2. Set Clear Goals

One of the significant advantages of PPC is that you can track the results. You will be able to see exactly how many clicks you get on your ad. You can then see whether the number of clicks aligns with subsequent conversions. Decide what you want “success” to look at beforehand. For example, do you want to increase website traffic, boost sales, or raise general brand awareness?

3. Include Negative Keywords

Many PPC newbies focus solely on what keywords they want to rank for. However, it’s just as important to specify which keywords you don’t want to rank for. Someone searching for these so-called negative keywords is unlikely to be interested in your product or company – and thus unlikely to take any action that will meet your end goal.

4. Define Your Keyword Matches

There are three main types of keyword matches:

  • Exact: An exact keyword match will allow your ad to appear in the results only when the precise given keyword is input, e.g., “cardiovascular stent.”
  • Phrase: A phrase match will allow your ad to appear in the results if the keyword appears as part of a general search phrase, e.g., “cardiovascular stent provider.”
  • Broad: Finally, a broad match will allow your ad to appear in the results even if the precise keyword isn’t used, but a synonym is used, e.g., “coronary stent.” A broad match is only recommended if you have a large budget.

5. Create a Compelling Ad

There’s no point investing in PPC ads if you aren’t going to make them great. Your ad copy should be concise and convincing. The goal of the ad copy should be clearly defined, with a well-defined call-to-action. Logically, the copy should also be closely related to your chosen target keyword.

6. Ensure Your Landing Pages are Relevant to Your Ads

Your ad is creating a promise. Make sure that whatever landing page your consumer clicks on delivers that promise. For example, if you advertise a specific product, you want to ensure that the user is directed to that product page, not your general web page. You want to minimize the number of clicks your website visitor needs to convert.

7. Monitor Your Results

As mentioned, one of the most significant benefits of Google PPC is that you can track the results. Track your conversions regularly and adjust your ad campaign (e.g., keywords and negative keywords) accordingly. You can use Google AdWords Search Query Reports to gather valuable details to determine what keywords you aren’t using might help you capture more visitors.

8. Abide by Google and HIPAA Guidelines

Last but not least, whenever you’re undertaking any digital marketing in a healthcare campaign, make sure you’re abiding by HIPAA guidelines. Additionally, note that Google ads for healthcare and medicines are subject to unique rules. For example, remarketing isn’t permitted (in which you basically “follow up” and target people who have already visited your website).

Increase Your Market Share with Share Moving Media

Share Moving Media is a full-service media company that helps healthcare manufacturers and distributors increase market share. We work with a diversity of media, from print publications to webinars and more. With a holistic approach to healthcare marketing, we can help you raise your company’s profile.

Get more digital marketing in healthcare news by signing up for our newsletter, The Marketing Minute. Contact us to collaborate.

How to Use Webinars to Create Content for All Stages of the Funnel

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The medical supply market is competitive. As a healthcare supplier, you can boost success by proactively targeting consumers at every stage in the marketing and sales funnel. Webinars are one effective way to do this. This e-guide explains how to harness the power of webinars for healthcare sales.

An Introduction to Full-Funnel Marketing

Experts agree that a full-funnel approach is essential for future digital marketing success. While the terminology for the stages of the marketing and sales funnel varies, a general breakdown might look like this:

  • Awareness: A prospective customer is made aware of a business’ product or service.
  • Discovery: The prospective customer – the lead – learns more about the product or service.
  • Evaluation: The lead takes time to consider whether they need the service or product.
  • Engagement: The lead decides whether or not to make a purchase.
  • Commitment and purpose: The lead commits to making a purchase and becomes a customer.
  • Loyalty and advocacy: The customer returns to make a repeat purchase. They may also recommend the product or service to others.

Webinars for Healthcare Sales at Every Stage of the Funnel

Although the concept of full-funnel marketing has been prevalent for years, technological and organizational hurdles made practical implementation difficult. Until now, of course. Today, modern digital technologies –like webinars – make a full-funnel approach more accessible than ever.

Here is how to harness the power of webinars to create content for every stage of the medical equipment sales funnel.

Awareness

At the awareness stage, the goal is to target your potential customer with compelling content. Through that content, you want to make the lead aware of your product or service offering.

It is generally more impactful to steer clear of product-, service-, brand-, or business-specific content. The lead isn’t yet looking to make a purchase. Overtly and aggressively pushing them to buy something will likely turn them off and send them away.

Instead, you want to inform and entertain them. At this point, webinars should focus on providing value-added content, not on proactive selling. For example, a webinar raising awareness about a specific ailment (e.g., Type 2 Diabetes) can segue to discussing treatment options (like glucose tracking) and ultimately serve as a platform for a product (such as blood sugar monitors).

Discovery

The goal of the discovery phase is to provide the potential customer with more information about a company’s product or service. With your content, you want to pressure the pain. What does that mean?

You want to clarify how the product or service can improve the lead’s life. What pain point will it fix? At this point, it’s critical to maintain the lead’s attention. It is like reeling in a fish — you need to keep them on the line until they are ready to conclude a purchase (the final stage in the funnel).

You want to make sure you are providing the lead with all the information they need about a service or product. Unanswered questions at this point can cause them to exit the sales funnel. For example, they may want to know essential details, like cost and delivery time. A how-to webinar guide can be helpful towards this end.

Evaluation

This stage aims to provide the consumer with additional winning arguments that will sway them towards making a favorable purchasing decision.

A positive way to do this is to incorporate new information from verifiable external sources of information. Instead of simply telling the lead about the product or service first-hand, you give them personal agency and the chance to verify the facts themselves using objective third parties. 

This is where you can dive into greater detail. A webinar featuring a round table discussion gathering objective insights from third-party medical experts can be helpful. In-depth case studies, customer stories, and free product demos are also viable options.

Engagement

The goal here is to get the lead to confirm their decision to make a purchase. This tends to be one of the most challenging points of the sales funnel, as consumers may waver and go back a step to the engagement phase or take two steps back to the discovery stage when they find a competitor.

You want to make sure your brand or business (and its product or service) stays at the forefront of the potential customer’s mind as they weigh the decisions. This requires eliminating any doubts associated with concluding a purchase and the process towards the next stage.

Interactive webinars are helpful to spur engagement. You can invite participants to submit questions via social media in a live stream, for example.

Commitment and Purchase

In this stage, the aim is to get the client to actively conclude the purchase – for example, by inputting their credit card details or completing an order form. They are then fully committed.

Although the lead is ready to purchase at this point, you still have to provide some reassurance that they are making the right choice. A webinar of customer testimonials is a great fit here. You might also include videos covering practical points like pricing guides or product comparison sheets.

Loyalty and Advocacy

In the past, some pros ended the sales funnel after the commitment and purchase stage. However, savvy marketers know that there is one more invaluable phase to consider: a loyal customer can become an informal brand ambassador as they promote and advocate for your products or services. There is even a new type of marketing built around this concept called advocacy marketing.

Webinars allow you to show your customers that you care about them even after they have made a purchase. Build user communities with ongoing educational webinars featuring product tutorials, the latest research, and upcoming innovations. A “frequently asked questions” webinar is another option.

We Help You Implement Digital Marketing in Healthcare

Trust Share Moving Media to help you create webinars for healthcare sales. We are a full-service media company dedicated to helping our clients expand their reach and improve engagement with their target audiences. Using quality crafted content informed by in-depth marketing expertise, we help you improve sales and boost the bottom line.

 Subscribe to our newsletter for more healthcare marketing e-guides. Contact us to collaborate.