Share Moving Media

A Guide to Healthcare SEO for Smart Manufacturers

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Search engine optimization is one of the most effective inbound marketing tactics you can employ as a healthcare manufacturer. SEO optimizes your company website so that it ranks higher in search engines like Google, driving organic, unpaid traffic to your primary sales portal.

This allows your target audience to find you naturally on the internet based on their interests. Instead of blindly trying to target potential leads, you will have potential leads coming to you. These leads will already have an expressed interest in your market area, making them more likely to convert.

Done right, SEO can drive conversion rates of 14.6%. Consider that traditional media advertisement has a conversion rate of 1.7% to put that into context. Given those statistics, it’s no wonder that more companies are investing in SEO.

That said, SEO marketing for healthcare sales requires a unique approach compared to other industries. This guide explains the complexities of SEO in healthcare and provides step-by-step guidance to help you improve your search engine page rankings.

How the “Your Money or Your Life” Principal Impacts SEO in Healthcare

Google, the primary gatekeepers of SEO rankings results, is incredibly strict regarding so-called “Your Money or Your Life” (YMYL) sites.

YMYL content is information that could impact an individual’s health, safety, emotional well-being, or financial stability if it’s presented untruthfully, incorrectly, or deceptively. Examples of YMYL content include medical and financial advice.

Smart manufacturers must present their products objectively and ensure any medically relevant information is clear and factual.

A Quick Guide to Healthcare SEO

When someone types a phrase into Google – say “hearing aid manufacturer” – they get many search results pages. Being at the top of that first page of results boosts your website’s visibility dramatically. Research reveals that the first position in the SERPs achieves an average click-through rate of 28.5%. The CTR drops to 15% for the second search result and continues to decrease, with the search result in the tenth position achieving a CTR of just 2.5%.

Here’s how to increase your odds of climbing the SERPs.

Ensure Your Content Meets the E-A-T Principle

High-quality, value-added content is critical to successful SEO, especially in the YMYL category. Your content should meet Google’s E-A-T guidelines, demonstrating expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness.

You can boost your EAT score by citing high-quality sources, for example. Always provide data for any assertions you make, ideally with citations to reputable “.gov” or “.edu” sources. Medical journals are also a great source.

Make Your Website Technically SEO-Friendly

Your content further needs to be optimized for SEO. This is a way of structuring your on-page content so that Google’s algorithm-driven bots can “crawl” through it, figure out what it’s about, and confirm its relevance and value for internet users.

Here’s a quick on-page SEO checklist to get you started. For each page on your website, you should:

  • Select one primary keyword to include in the content.
  • Choose three to four secondary keywords to include in the content.
  • Add the primary keyword in the webpage’s title tag, meta description, and H1 header.
  • Break up content into scannable chunks with H2 and H3 headers.
  • Include at least one image.

If you want to know more about technical SEO, Google offers a wealth of resources.

Tap into the Power of High-Value Backlinks

Google recognizes a website as trustworthy and providing valuable content to consumers via backlinks – when other websites link back to your website. Getting high-quality backlinks from high-ranking, authoritative sources is a great way to improve SEO results.

Getting backlinks from respected healthcare publications is one option. You can further drive valuable clicks by publishing your blogs, whitepapers, and more on platforms like LinkedIn or Medium.

Infographics are another great trick for generating high-quality backlinks. An attractive visual with relevant, industry-specific facts or statistics is share-worthy. Create your graphic, email it to thought leaders in your field, and invite them to share it. They should include a backlink when they publish it.

Don’t Forget to Make Your Site Mobile-Friendly

Google ranks mobile-friendly websites higher. Ensure your website is mobile-friendly, both technically and in terms of content structure. For example, since mobile screens are smaller, it’s best to use larger fonts.

To get you started, Google has a free tool that can tell if your website is mobile-friendly. It even gives you hints on how to improve, for example, by telling you if the text is too small to read or the links are spaced too closely together.

Boost Your SEO Today

Share Moving Media is dedicated to helping medical manufacturers boost sales and increase market share. From blogs to white papers, our value-added content marketing in healthcare can help you climb the SERPs.

Subscribe to our newsletter to learn more about digital advertising in healthcare. Want support for your SEO strategy? Contact us.

7 Vital Steps to Creating an Effective Content Marketing Strategy in Healthcare

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As a medical supply distributor or manufacturer, your clients depend on you for the highest quality, professionalism, and reliability in your products and services.

Your content marketing strategy in healthcare must prioritize those same values.

Now, professionalism doesn’t necessarily equate to stuffy and boring – two qualities you absolutely must avoid in content marketing. 

As with most things healthcare-related, an effective content strategy starts with comprehensive research and thorough planning.

Research shows 60% of B2B companies with the most successful content have a documented strategy. Meanwhile, only 21% of the least successful B2Bs can say the same.

How to Start Creating an Effective Content Marketing Strategy in Healthcare

Every piece of content you create should serve a specific goal and purpose. 

Without a documented strategy, your content will come off as irrelevant or generic. This type of lackluster content in an industry like healthcare can end up damaging your reputation – the exact opposite of what you need your content to do.

1. Research Your Audience

You cannot produce effective content without understanding who you’re creating content for. Your content can inform a handful of audiences, but the point is to pick a specific audience for each piece. 

At Share Moving Media, for example, we have several publications to reach thousands of people in distinct audiences.

Ask yourself some questions as part of your audience research:

  • Who do I want to educate and inform? End users/office workers, doctors of private practices, office executives at hospitals, etc.?
  • Where do they hang out online – Facebook, LinkedIn, industry blogs, Twitter, Reddit?
  • What are their biggest pain points each day? 
  • Which influencers do they follow and trust?
  • What format do they prefer – blogs, social media, infographics, video, podcast?

2. Plan Your Goals

Gartner research shows the B2B journey is long and convoluted. It’s foolish to end every piece of content with a CTA to “buy now.”

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Gartner

Your content marketing strategy in healthcare should play the long game. Set up short-term and long-term goals for each stage of the buyer’s journey so each piece of content serves a broader strategy. 

Short-term goals:

  • Increase monthly website traffic and retention
  • More lead magnet downloads
  • Boost social media followers
  • Increase email subscribers

Long-term goals:

  • Improved brand awareness and recognition
  • Preventing customer churn
  • Expanding customer base

3. Conduct Keyword Research

Keyword research is a must for SEO. Plus, keyword research aids in audience research because it shows what questions your audience is asking and what problems they face.

You can use tools like BuzzSumo and SEMrush to investigate keywords and topic inspiration.

4. Set Up an Editorial Calendar

Quality content always trumps quantity. Google’s algorithms, social media algorithms, and your readers all appreciate in-depth high-quality content. 

In your calendar, plan for about two blogs and about ten social media posts each week along with some multimedia, depending on your resources available. 

If you have the resources to produce two high-quality videos a week, certainly go for it – but don’t sacrifice quality. 

Plan your editorial calendar and posting schedule about 60 days out so you’re always working from an offensive position.

5. Choose Your Creators Carefully

People need to know they can trust what you have to say. 

Google cares too. According to Google, sites promoting your-money-your-life content (such as healthcare), must prioritize expertise, authority, and trustworthiness. 

For healthcare, this means experts should create your content. Choose expert creators that mimic your audience – such as doctors in their respective fields and medical assistants. Don’t use generic author names like your brand name or “news desk.”

Strive to uplift specific people at your company as influencers and thought leaders. Eventually, your target audience will learn to trust them and seek out their opinions. 

6. Keep a Consistent Tone

A set of brand guidelines goes miles toward building trust in your audience through a content marketing strategy in healthcare. 

Consistency breeds trust. People come to expect a familiar voice, format, and tone from you at every touchpoint.

An inconsistent tone accomplishes the opposite: it’s unsettling and provokes distrust.

Your brand guidelines should outline rules for your content to follow:

  • How does your content “sound?” Is it warm, friendly, and subjective or encyclopedic and technical? 
  • How will you adapt your tone for different platforms? For example, email requires a more personal tone than Twitter.

7. Get Personal and Engaging

Even doctors and executives don’t want technical content all the time. Give your content some personality to boost engagement:

  • Interactive quizzes 
  • Gamified content
  • Polls 
  • 360-degree or 3D photos

Squeeze More ROI from Your Content Marketing Strategy in Healthcare

An effective content marketing strategy in healthcare is all about reputation. Building a trustworthy reputation takes time and consistency, so there’s no room for slacking in content marketing.

Remember to:

  • Research your audience’s needs, mindset, and pain points.
  • Plan your short- and long-term goals for content marketing.
  • Research your keywords and SEO plan.
  • Focus on producing high-quality content on a consistent schedule.
  • Look for fresh ways to engage your audience via content.

Content from Share Moving Media reaches the offices and homes of several thousand healthcare decision-makers across the country. Get in touch with us to start planning your comprehensive content strategy today!

A Six-Step Guide to Getting New Products Featured in Health Trade Journals

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Medical manufacturers know that a big part of their healthcare marketing strategy involves getting their products seen by practitioners in various fields, and one of the best ways to do that is to get their product featured in health trade journals. 

One of the best healthcare marketing tips and tricks out there is to put your products where your audience’s eyes are. So, which publications are practitioners paying attention to?

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Source: The Script

Why Industry Journal Exposure is Good for Digital Advertising in Healthcare

While many of these publications have a printed version available, most of them have transitioned to a digital platform. This helps them get more eyes on their content, which means more eyes on your products. Sure, while it can be beneficial to have your products featured in smaller, niche publications, the results of being published in a larger publication are 10 to 100x greater. 

Another good reason to consider attempting to get your product featured in a health trade journal is that you gain instant authority in your field. How? Once you’ve been approved and published in a major health trade journal, readers know that you are a source worth investing in because you made it through the rigorous vetting processes to be featured in the first place. 

That authority and credibility go a long way, not only with prospective clients but with other publications as well. If you’re credible enough to be published in a major health trade journal, then other healthcare publications are going to be more willing to work with you in the future. 

6 Steps to Getting Your Product Featured in Health Trade Journals 

There are countless benefits to getting your product featured in a health trade journal. However, getting to that step takes a bit of work. To reap the benefits of being featured in a healthcare journal, you’ll want to follow this six-step guideline to get your product featured in the first place.

1. Make a List of Relevant Journals 

In marketing, one of the golden rules is that you cannot market to everyone. Well, that same rule applies to pitching your products to health trade journals. If your product is geared towards older men in their 60s, you wouldn’t want to pitch it to a popular yoga magazine whose target audience is women in their mid to late 20s.

That said, you’ll want to make a list of 10-20 publications that you’d like to be featured in. These can, and should, include major health trade journals, popular online blogs, etc. 

2. Research Publication Requirements

Once you’ve taken the time to find the right publications that would best suit your product, you’ll want to research them. You need to figure out:

  • Who their target audience is 
  • What their audience is looking for when reading the particular publication
  • The type of content they’re most likely to publish

No two publications are exactly alike, so you’ll want to make sure you are taking detailed notes and take time to review the content itself to help you later on when crafting your pitch. 

3. Identify Specific Individuals to Pitch To

During your research, you’ll also want to look into the best individuals to contact and pitch to. There are quite a few publications that allow for self-submissions, and others that require a rigorous vetting process. Others will only accept pitches from the craftiest of researchers who can find and pitch to the right person — say a chief editor or head of marketing. 

Once you’ve identified the best individual to reach out to, you’ll want to take some time to check out their online presence. Have they previously published work themselves? If so, you’ll want to study their work to get an idea of what kind of content may spark their interest. 

Finally, make sure you make a note of the best ways to reach them. At the very least, you’ll want to find their email addresses. 

4. Create Share-Worthy Content to Pitch

Now, when it comes to creating your pitch, you want to take adequate time to craft various pieces of content to pitch, including:

  • Educational blog post
  • A brief on how your product works, who it’s for, etc. 
  • An educational video
  • Testimonials from current customers 

5. Send Your Pitch

Once you’ve created your content, it’s time to pitch it! The best way to pitch an idea is via email. Why? Because it’s not only the preferred channel for receiving pitches by most journalists but because the average business professional checks their email approximately every 37 minutes. 

Now, research shows that there is an ideal time to send pitches, and that’s on Tuesdays or Wednesdays between 8-9 am, and then around 3 pm. Just remember to keep time zones in mind when you send it!

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Source: Publicize

6. Always Follow Up

You know how crowded an email inbox can get. Just imagine how much more crowded these individual’s inboxes must be. Show them you are serious and want to be noticed by following up on your initial email at least once, if not twice, to make sure they’ve received and seen your message. 

Increase Your Market Share with the Help of Share Moving Media

Here at Share Moving Media, we are a full-service media and content company. Our goal is to help you get noticed by creating and helping you to distribute high-quality content. 

Curious how we can help you increase your market share? Then contact us today to learn more!

How to Use Video Marketing to Boost Healthcare Sales

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Digital marketing provides marketing teams with endless options to boost healthcare sales, especially given the fact that more patients are heading online to search for answers to various health-related needs. Approximately 70,000 health-related Google searches happen every minute! So, with so much competition online, how can you stand apart from the crowd? One excellent method is to start utilizing video marketing for healthcare sales. 

Video Marketing: What You Need to Know

Recent studies state that 92% of marketers believe that video is an important aspect of their overall marketing strategy. 

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Source: Wyzowl

Video has a profound effect on consumers. This is because people process videos and other visuals at a much faster rate than they do text. The human brain processes visuals (videos, infographics, images, etc.) approximately 60,000 times faster than text and grabs the attention of viewers five times faster than still images do.

Visual content is not only easier to process, consumers continuously state that they prefer videos instead of still images because it delivers to them the information that they need much quicker than it does via text and infographics. 

Since it can have such an impact on your audience, video marketing is well worth the time and monetary investment. So, how do you implement video marketing into your current strategy? By getting to know the basics first. 

What is Video Marketing?

Video marketing is just what it sounds like – creating video content to help share information with your targeted audience. Video content comes in almost as many forms (if not more) than traditional written content. Some of the most popular videos used in marketing include:

  • How-to/Educational Videos
  • Video Ads
  • Explainer Videos
  • Product Videos
  • Testimonial Videos

Videos can be animated, they can be traditionally filmed, and they can even be live broadcasted on social media and shared over and over again, making it an excellent source of evergreen content for your brand. 

Current Video Marketing Statistics Worth Knowing

While it’s true that traditional content can be simpler to put together than video content, it’s definitely worth the time and investment. Need further proof? The numbers don’t lie:

  • 85% of internet users in the U.S. watch video content monthly across multiple devices.
  • 57% of marketers say they now use live video in their marketing strategy. 
  • 41% of B2B marketers are curious about adding video marketing to their sales strategies in 2020.
  • 48% of consumers want to watch videos that reflect what they are interested in – whether it be educational, entertainment, or on products. 
  • Both global online video viewing and ad spend on videos are predicted to increase in 2021
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Source: MarketingCharts

How to Use Video Marketing in Healthcare Sales

Now, when it comes to using video marketing in healthcare sales strategies, there are countless directions your team can take. Whether you are looking to bring in new patients to a given office/hospital location or are trying to sell various treatment options to patients, video marketing can play a significant role in encouraging them to take action. 

Not quite sure how video marketing can help in your healthcare sales strategy? Here are a few examples to help give you some ideas to play around with.

Physician Profile Videos

If you’re a healthcare organization looking to bring in new patients, one of the best video marketing methods to incorporate into your digital marketing strategy is to include physician profile videos. These videos introduce each doctor and give patients an idea of who they may or may not be working with. 

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Source: Edward-Elmhurst Health

Welcome Videos 

Having doctor profiles are an excellent way for new potential patients to get to know your staff. In that same light, including welcome videos on your website is an excellent way to introduce your organization, your mission and share your values with those who are trying to decide if your organization is the right fit for their needs. 

Video Testimonials

Research shows that 90% of patients use online reviews and testimonials to evaluate doctors and care facilities. So, what better way to improve your online reputation than by sharing patient testimonials? 

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Source: Loyola Medicine

Reading about a pediatric cancer survivor’s journey is powerful in itself. However, watching a video of the patient and/or their family sharing their story holds a much higher emotional power over those who are looking into the testimonials of a healthcare organization. 

Educational Videos on Various Procedures and/or Health Conditions

Investing in educational videos to help you explain various health conditions or medical procedures is another excellent way to incorporate video marketing into your healthcare sales strategy. These videos are a great way to not only educate your patients but help ease any of their anxieties revolving around a recent diagnosis or an upcoming procedure. 

Product Information Videos

Finally, product information videos are an excellent tool for those in healthcare manufacturing and distribution. Much like the educational videos for procedures and health conditions, product information videos give consumers an idea of what a product is, what it does, why it’s beneficial, and so much more. 

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Source: AliMed

Amp Up Your Marketing Strategy with Share Moving Media

At Share Moving Media, we are a full-service media company that understands how important your content is to your healthcare marketing strategy. That’s why we help healthcare brands create stunning webinars, blogs, and articles, and we’ll be happy to help you develop your video marketing strategy for your healthcare sales team.

Ready to get started? Then contact us today to learn more!

The Definitive Guide to Building Buyer Personas of IDN Supply Chain Leaders

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The healthcare market is enormous – and it’s only going to get bigger. Global healthcare spending is anticipated to increase at a compound annual growth rate of five percent from 2019 to 2023.

Medical suppliers who want to increase their share in an expanding market should act now. The right marketing campaign is the key to success. What’s the “right” campaign? It depends on your target audience.

Suppose you’re a supplier trying to sell medical masks to private physicians’ offices. In that case, your healthcare marketing techniques will be (should be!) different than if you’re a supplier selling diagnostic ultrasound equipment to integrated delivery networks (IDNs).

Buyer personas are integral to guiding your approach. A buyer persona allows you to define your target audience and better understand their buying behaviors, so you can craft your marketing accordingly.

This guide takes you through a simple three-step process to craft buyer personas for healthcare.

Why Buyer Personas Matter

The purpose of a buyer persona is to understand how your customer thinks and acts. With this information, you can better understand the decision-making process that governs what, when, where, and how they buy.

What a Buyer Persona Is

A buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of who is using your product or service. This imaginary profile covers details like demographics (sex, age, race, income, marital status, educational level), purpose (such as career goals), and motivation.

What a Buyer Persona Isn’t

A buyer persona is not a guess. It’s fact-based, created with detailed market research.

3-Step Checklist to Creating Buyer Personas for Healthcare

The healthcare supply market is exceptionally competitive. A well-crafted buyer persona allows you to stand out with concise, impactful messaging that attracts the buyer’s attention – and keeps it throughout the medical equipment sales funnel.

Here’s how to create buyer personas for healthcare.

1. Conduct Quantitative Analysis

Suppose your product isn’t exclusive to a single market segment (for instance, you target both individual physicians and IDNs). In that case, the first step is to break down your broader market into smaller segments.

Create a list of existing clients and group them according to details like location, contract value, and engagement (as evidenced by the frequency of orders, for instance). With this demographic and revenue information, start looking for trends.

For instance, you might find a correlation between location and an uptick in spending – indicating a gap in the market that you can step in to fill. If a competitor had an area sales rep changeover, it’s a prime opportunity.

2. Complete Qualitative Research

One of the biggest mistakes companies make when crafting buyer personas is ignoring psychographics in favor of demographics. This is where qualitative analysis comes into play. To better understand your target segments, both at the individual and organizational levels, get more intimate.

Reach out to trusted clients to arrange a chat. Healthcare professionals are busy, so keep it short. Emphasize that you’re trying to collect feedback to see how you can better serve them. 

During the interview, get a brief description of the business, the individual’s role within the organization, and their main goals and key performance indicators (KPIs). Are they looking to cut costs? Have they been tasked with researching new tech? Is efficiency a factor?

Also, refer to your offering, asking what they use it for and, of course, what improvement they’d like to see in your product or service. Remember, retention is half the battle in healthcare sales.

3. Create and Socialize the Persona

You can now create your semi-fictional buyer persona based on the evidence you’ve collected. Say you sell heart stents, for example. A quantitative analysis reveals that private hospitals in the Midwest are your most significant revenue source. Your qualitative research shows that it’s the heads of cardiology departments who are the relevant decision-makers.

So, make your buyer persona the head of cardiology in a hospital setting. Let’s call her Rachel Harding. Dr. Harding will be further along in her career, at least 40 years of age, and highly educated. She must balance providing the best patient care with budget limitations set by higher-ups. 

As head of her department, Dr. Harding must stay on top of the latest developments. She does this by reading certain healthcare publications, like Wiley’s Clinical Cardiology, and attending essential conferences, like the American Society of Echocardiography Annual Conference. 

Finally, Dr. Harding is busy. She’s overseeing an entire department. Maybe she also has a family at home. Her time is precious. Your healthcare marketing strategy must take this into account.

Now you have an idea of where and how to reach a professional like Dr. Harding best. Thus, the buyer persona makes it easier to sell to your end customer without ever meeting them in person.

Find Out More About Making Buyer Personas Work for You

Share Moving Media helps healthcare suppliers reach diverse buyers through targeted content. Our publications, educational services, and associations cater to distributors, providers, and manufacturers. With our industry knowledge and comprehensive content offering, we help you increase market share.

Sign up for our newsletter for more healthcare marketing tips and tricks. Want to work with us? Then contact us today!