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5 Reasons Why Medical Suppliers Should Blog

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The challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic aggravated the global healthcare supply chain. New viruses and supply shortages made it arduous for providers to procure supplies for quality patient care. But after three years of tackling new challenges and making the healthcare supply chain more efficient, providers are now seeking more resiliency from black swan events like COVID-19.

Medical suppliers must work in a more coordinated way with health systems moving forward to create a more integrated healthcare supply chain. One way medical suppliers can communicate their effectiveness and resourcefulness to health systems is through blogging.

Blogging allows medical suppliers to stay in front of provider audiences and show their expertise about industry trends. Using blogs as part of a multichannel marketing strategy allows them to reach current or potential customers along the healthcare supply chain.

Here are 5 reasons why medical suppliers should blog:

1.     Build trust with the healthcare audience. The best performing blogs can answer common questions about a product or service. This helps establish medical suppliers as more knowledgeable, and industry education is a top customer retention strategy. 

2.     Educate and engage. Medical suppliers can use blogs as a touchpoint with the healthcare industry to show their expertise. Each post shouldn’t focus on their products, but be a reliable source of information on the healthcare supply chain.

3.     Expand the brand. Blogging can help customers understand medical suppliers’ day-to-day business. It can also provide entry into a more personable side of the business that customers enjoy connecting with.

4.     Drive website traffic. Medical suppliers with a blog can drive traffic to their website. It keeps their website updated with fresh content through advice and tying in relevant products.

5.     Increase SEO. New content, keywords and indexed pages can improve medical suppliers’ search engine optimization (SEO). The key is quality content and new posts relevant to the healthcare supply chain. Creating blog posts naturally broadens medical suppliers’ use of industry keywords.

Blogging can help medical suppliers provide better understanding about their products, business and place within the healthcare supply chain. It can offer a touchpoint to providers and other customers along the supply chain with informative content, and allow customers to find new and existing products from medical suppliers.

Blogging in many cases can become like homework and easily get pushed to the bottom of your organization’s to-do list. Share Moving Media has developed the tools, resources and expertise to assist.  We write blogs for several of your peers in the medical device world.  Contact sadams@sharemovingmedia.com today to learn about our SEO blog programs and start drawing customers to you.   

3 Ways Online Media Coverage Results in More Revenue and Brand Recall

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Reaching a wider audience. Building your reputation. Gaining credibility. You need all three to advance to greater marketing goals.

In the healthcare manufacturing industry, earning a trustworthy reputation is vital, because your products have a direct and lasting impact on people’s lives. A solid reputation also may be the deciding factor when a customer is choosing between you and a competitor.

This is where online media coverage can give your business a huge boost.

Online media coverage is PR (public relations) carried out digitally. Rather than earning mentions in print news stories or TV/radio broadcasts, you’ll pop up in social media feeds, search engine results, online articles, blogs, and other digital media formats. 

And, unlike traditional PR, you can build your online media coverage by publishing authoritative content on your website. This accomplishes three goals:

  • Showcases your expertise 
  • Builds trust with your existing audience
  • Creates inroads with a wider audience as that content is shared, reshared, and mentioned across various channels

Let’s dive deeper into the ways reputation-building marketing tactics like online media coverage boosts your brand recall and bottom-line.

3 Ways Online Media Coverage Earns Results for Your Healthcare Marketing Strategy

Greater visibility in online media means greater visibility for your brand. In turn, greater visibility is your ticket to more leads, more customers, and more revenue. Here’s how.

1. Online Media Coverage Builds Brand Awareness and Recall Through Greater Reach & Repetition

To ensure your target audience knows who you are and what you sell, you need the power of online media coverage in the form of content.

70% of marketers actively invest in content, so you’re in good company.

It takes many forms, but some of the best types that effectively build brand awareness and brand recall for your business include blog posts and guest blogs.

Blog Posts

These are one of the best tools for online media coverage in healthcare for a few reasons.

First, your company blog is under your complete control. It’s the ideal place to inform and educate your audience about your expertise and your products.

Second, blog posts can be endlessly repurposed. You can share and distribute posts across social media channels and reuse them to create new content assets, such as infographics and videos.

Finally, blog content created with SEO techniques gives you greater visibility in Google search results. That means, when customers are searching for a solution or expertise like yours on search engines, they’ll find you.

This cycle of sharing and repetition is inherent in creating blog content, and is one of the keys to building brand awareness online.

Guest Blogs

These have most of the same benefits as blog posts, but they offer one additional asset: they get your name, company, and expertise in front of another brand’s audience. And, if you play your cards correctly, this audience will overlap with yours.

Most guest blogging opportunities allow you to include one promotional link to your website in a byline. So, it’s a good way to expand your reach and pull in more potential customers.

2. Online Media Coverage in Healthcare Draws in Traffic & Leads

Online media coverage is a direct way to draw in more traffic and leads to your website.

It’s pretty simple. Increase the targeted places you appear on the web, and more of the right people will notice you. Produce more quality content, and you’ll increase your chances of getting shared, getting ranked on Google, and earning links from other websites.

Each of these represents another opportunity for a new customer to click your link. 

3. It Turns One-Time Customers into Repeat Buyers

In the healthcare industry, trust is at a premium. Your customers must be able to trust that your products are safe, reliable, and effective. That means they must also put their trust in your brand overall.

If you can effectively build your trustworthiness in the eyes of your audience, you’ll have an easier time turning them into not just one-time customers but repeat buyers and loyal followers as well.

Trust is never built in a day. That’s why consistent online media coverage is so important. It adds up over time. Here are a few examples:

  • You consistently appear in trusted media outlets (like a reputed digital magazine or blog).
  • You continually publish high-quality content on your website.
  • You routinely get your content shared and mentioned on trusted social media accounts with large followings.

Think of each appearance, mention, and share as a vote in your favor. As your vote count builds, so does your authority and trustworthiness. 

Build Your Online Media Coverage in the Healthcare Industry, Build your Brand Rep & Revenue

Think of online media coverage in the healthcare industry as a compounding investment.

It’s one of the top ways to get your business noticed, to reach a wider audience, and to pull in more traffic and revenue.

The more you put in, the more you’ll get out.

Ready to start boosting your online media coverage? We can help. Contact us at Share Moving Media today to get started.

Why Medical Suppliers Need More Consistency in Content Marketing

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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.

Four Strategies for Referral Marketing in Healthcare That Will Earn You More High-Value Customers

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As a medical supplier, you rely on doctors, hospitals, and other healthcare facilities to keep your business growing.

One of the best ways to increase exposure and trust in your products is through referral marketing in the healthcare industry. Word of mouth recommendations backed by medical results can be an effective tool in your overall marketing strategy.

We are going to talk about the importance of referral marketing and share four key strategies that you can use to boost referrals in the future.

Quick Takeaways

  • Referrals generate more high-quality leads than other types of marketing.
  • Referrals have some of the highest lead conversion rates.
  • Medical suppliers can use referral marketing along with other types of marketing to meet their business growth goals.
  • Getting to know your customers is a key step in the referral process.

Why Referral Marketing in Healthcare is Important

Marketing in the healthcare industry can be a bit trickier than in other industries. This is mainly due to healthcare regulations, such as HIPPA and the federal anti-kickback statute (AKS). However, as a medical supplier, you still need to develop a marketing referral strategy. Social Media Today has some great statistics to show this:

High Quality Leads 

You are a business-to-business (B2B) company. 78% of B2B marketers say that referrals bring them higher quality leads.

More Leads

In addition to creating better leads, referrals also generate a higher volume of leads, according to 60% of marketers.

Lower Costs

Referral programs are a great asset. Once you have set up a successful program, it should essentially run itself. 54% of marketers in the survey said that referral marketing comes with a lower cost-per-lead compared to other types of marketing.

Popular In the Industry

Referral marketing is a popular choice across many industries, including healthcare. Referral programs work and they can quickly add new customers to your business.

Great Source of Leads

Marketers rate referrals as the second-best source of high quality leads, with trade events coming in first.

Leads Turn into Sales

According to Harvard Business Review, consumers are four times as likely to purchase a product when it is recommended by a friend. In addition, 84% of B2B sales start with a referral.

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Referral Programs Lead to Success

According to Copper Chronicles, companies with referral programs have better sales success.

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When a friend, family member, or colleague recommends a business or product to you, it automatically comes with built-in trust. When a business rewards that referral or recommendation, customers are more likely to share their experiences with others.

Determine Your Marketing Goals

To help make your healthcare referral marketing work better for you, you should follow these steps.

1. Identify Your Goals 

Obviously, your main goal is to increase the number of customers you have. However, you also want to get new, loyal customers who will share their experiences with other healthcare providers.

2. Use Various Methods to Reach Your Goals 

Instead of focusing all of your time and money on one marketing area, consider multiple marketing avenues that could draw in more customers. These may include:

  • Mass mailing campaigns: You could send out mailers to local hospitals and physician’s offices in the area you want to target.
  • Monthly newsletters: Create a monthly e-newsletter that you send out to your customers and anyone on your email list. You can highlight new products and share details on the benefits of your referral program.
  • Local events: Participate in as many events as you can that will connect you with hospital staff, doctors, and other healthcare professionals. This could include educational events, conferences, and hospital events.
  • Advertising: Buy advertising spots in healthcare publications, on medical websites, and even social media sites.

3. Compare Results 

With multiple marketing paths, you can compare the results you get from each method. Be sure to stick with your chosen methods for at least six months. Ask your new customers how they heard about your company and your products. If you find that some methods worked better than others, you can adjust your marketing strategy to focus on those areas.

Four Healthcare Referral Strategies to Help Grow Your Customer Base

Much of the healthcare industry is driven by referrals and recommendations – not simply doctors referring patients to specialists, but hospitals and healthcare organizations recommending medial suppliers and products.

If your business is ready to expand your referral network, here are a few strategies to get you started.

1. Find Your Main Sources of Referrals 

If you sort through all your sources of referrals, you will likely find a small number of key organizations and individuals that drive most of your referral business. By focusing on these primary sources, you can prioritize your marketing resources and give these sources the attention they deserve. You want to ensure that they remain your primary referral source, and not someone else’s.

2. Learn What Makes Your Sources Happy 

Talk to your referring organizations and ask them what they like the most about your business and products. Really listen to their answers and find ways to make them and their referrals happy.

3. Ask for Referrals Right Away 

While this may seem pushy, asking for referrals early in the process is more likely to lead to success. During the initial purchase stage is when customers are most excited about your products. You can ask questions like, “Who do you know that would benefit from our services?”

4. Hold an Exit Interview 

If a customer is finished using your services or products, schedule an exit interview with them. Ask them specific questions about what you did well or things you could have improved on. This is also a good time to ask for additional referrals with a question like, “Would you recommend our business?” If they say yes, ask for more information.

Improve Your Healthcare Referral Marketing Strategy to See Your Business Grow

Referral marketing in healthcare is an important part of any medical supplier’s marketing strategy. Focusing on your top customers and learning what makes them happy is the key to success.

Share Moving Media is here to help healthcare suppliers like you grow your business and reach new customers.

Contact us today, and we can help your healthcare business streamline your referral process.

Digital Marketing in Healthcare E-guide: 5 Benefits of the Best Remarketing Campaigns

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Effective marketing strategies require that healthcare organizations focus their marketing budget on surefire methods of converting leads to new sales. Remarketing in healthcare organizations is the answer. 

Healthcare marketing is a way to keep a healthcare facility alive and well. It brings in new patients, keeps old ones coming back. Without it, what would happen? There’d be no influx of customers, and even loyal ones might drop off. 

The fact that 5% of Google searches are medical-related inquiries means that healthcare organizations need to be competitive in their marketing strategies. 

Yet, traditional marketing strategies are not as cost-effective as the latest advertising campaigns known as remarketing. If you are unfamiliar with how remarketing works, check out this digital remarketing in healthcare e-guide. 

What is Remarketing?

Remarketing is an advertising campaign that is better known as retargeting. This term better describes what remarketing is and how it works. 

Remarketing referred to as targeted ads geared towards people who have visited your website, landed on your page through a search engine inquiry, or otherwise engaged with your brand using a digital platform. These targeted ads re-engage with those that visited your site without purchasing or scheduling an appointment on their first visit. 

Remarketing allows brands to reach out via email, through CRM tools, cold-calls, or targeted ads that stream across social media, newsfeeds, and website banners. Nearly 92% of people do not purchase the first time they visit a brand’s site. Therefore, remarketing is a highly effective tool that gives healthcare organizations a chance to reach out to leads and turn them into new patients.   

5 Momentous Benefits of Remarketing in Healthcare

Marketing is an integral part of any business, but healthcare organizations may have a more difficult time attracting potential patients. Ways to improve the marketing strategy and snag new customers include remarketing ads. 

Using data collected through lead scoring systems, medical providers can advertise to specific groups who might be interested in buying products or services from them. Here are a few of the benefits of a remarketing campaign in your healthcare organization.

1. Better Connection to Audience 

Remarketing is a way to maintain your connection with customers even when they are not actively searching for you. Remarketed ads tend to be compelling and top-of-mind, which means that if someone ever makes a purchase from you in the future, there is an increased chance of them seeing one of these ads first.

The best way to get the most out of your marketing campaign is by targeting specific people at certain stages in their buying cycle. Therefore, you are not advertising to just any random site visitor. So, ask yourself which people make the most sense to retarget.  

2. Higher Conversion Rate

Online advertising is all about converting your audience into leads. Remarketing, a tactic used to display ads on sites other than yours, can help you get higher conversion rates by displaying banners even when users are not browsing your site. Ultimately this will build consumer trust and boost sales.

Create engaging content that will keep people coming back for updates on treatments, research breakthroughs, and other helpful resources. A strong content marketing plan generates leads to bolster patient retention rates by delivering tailored information at just the right time to the right audience. 

3. Increased Marketing ROI 

Adding remarketing to your campaign is a smart move for any business, especially in healthcare. The return on investment (ROI) of this type of marketing will depend on how effective your efforts are, but even so, it’s always better than not having one at all. 

Remarketing ads come with less cost per click and conversion rates when compared to traditional SEO campaigns, which means that there’s an increased chance for success if these are used first before anything else. Remember, never run a remarketing campaign unless you have enough traffic coming from other sources as well.

4. Utilizes Multiple Platforms

In many ways, the Internet has made it easier for health systems to reach patients. Campaigns on digital platforms are considerably more economical than advertising in traditional media outlets like TV and radio. Furthermore, nearly 72% of consumers prefer to connect with an organization across multiple platforms.  

There is also a comprehensive variety of tools available, such as Facebook Ads, which can be used by healthcare organizations to finely target their audience based on demographic information or even specific interests indicated through likes and posts. 

5. Most Cost-Effective

The share of global healthcare ad spend on the internet in 2021 has been 45.9% in various mediums. Therefore, remarketing ads are a cost-effective way of targeting people who have previously demonstrated their willingness to utilize healthcare services from your medical office. They have done this by viewing your website content as indicated through Google Analytics. With these targeted prospects more qualified than cold leads, there is no need to spend so much time convincing them with broad marketing tactics.

The leads connecting with your medical office will likely be interested in utilizing your services, saving advertising costs. It doesn’t hurt that remarketed customers are also highly engaged because they had explicitly visited your site before. By combining this technique with contextual targeting, you will ensure an increase in new, loyal patients.

Remarketing for Your Digital Marketing Strategy in Healthcare Services

Defining your target market is the best way to advertise in digital media, especially if you’re doing remarketing. The first step should be to determine whom to target and how to bring them back again. This technique will help with other aspects of the campaign, such as setting up goals to know where members of your target audience live, their age group, and even their income level. 

Define your audience when starting a new type or form of marketing because it helps create a solid foundation before launching any other form of a marketing campaign. Researching your audience allows you to better shape how things go from there!

For more information on the best remarketing campaign strategies, contact us here at Shared Moving Media.