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How to Map Your Content to the Customer Journey in Healthcare

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The customer journey might seem straightforward enough. A person thinks, “Hey, I need that product,” and then buys it. In fact, the customer journey is a complex five-part process. Mapping out the steps and tailoring content to target the customer at each step is a great way to bring them on board with your brand at any stage of the sales funnel. 

Below, we provide a step-by-step guide to customer journey mapping in healthcare to help you boost sales.

An Intro to Customer Journey Mapping in Healthcare

Understanding the customer journey’s steps is the first step in content mapping. Here they are:

  • Awareness: This stage makes the consumer aware of their want or need for a product or service. The consumer identifies a problem to solve. Example: A private physician’s practice recognizes the airborne infectiousness of the COVID-19 virus. The physician realizes they need FFP2 masks to protect staff and patients.
  • Evaluate: The consumer starts researching their options, comparing differing providers. They are looking for a solution to their problem. Example: The physician investigates FFP2 vendors, looking for a reliable product, affordable bulk orders, and fast delivery.
  • Decision-making: Having weighed the options, the consumer selects a provider. Example: The physician finds a vendor that meets their criteria and places an order.
  • Advocate: The consumer uses the product or service and is so happy with the experience that they refer other consumers to the product or service provider. Example: The physician is satisfied with the FFP2 product and customer experience. They recommend the vendor to a fellow healthcare practitioner who is also in need of FFP2 masks.
  • Retention: The consumer continues to use the product or service without switching to a different vendor. Example: The physician becomes a recurring customer, placing a new bulk order every month.

As you can see, customer journey mapping in healthcare allows you to step into the consumer’s shoes. With the example above, we peek into the physician’s mind and identify three selling points (reliable product, affordable bulk order, fast delivery) that would be relevant to them.

So, what is the role of content?

Content marketing can come into play at any stage of the journey. The right content format with the right message allows you to target your potential consumer effectively.

4-Step Checklist: Mapping Content to the Customer Journey

Follow these steps to create content according to customer journey mapping in healthcare.

1. Create Your Buyer Persona

Create a theoretical sketch of your target audience. This is your buyer persona. Research and write down a list of traits, like profession, demographic details (age, location, gender), professional goals and challenges, and influences (like medical journals they read).

Forbes recommends consulting frontline workers who work directly with consumers (like salespeople) to create buyer personas.

2. Draw the Map

Next, take your buyer persona and walk them through the customer journey described above. Again, this is about adopting their mindset. Ask yourself these questions at each stage:

  • Awareness: How will the person seek a solution to the problem they’ve identified, e.g., via Google, healthcare publications, industry thought-leader websites, etc.?
  • Evaluate: What points are important to the person, e.g., the price versus convenience?
  • Decision-making: What touchpoints will the person come into contact with to conclude their decision, e.g., visiting a company website versus calling a healthcare sales rep?
  • Advocate: What will convince the person to advocate the brand they end up choosing? What channels will they use to spread the word, e.g., word of mouth versus social media?
  • Retention: What will keep the person coming back, e.g., reliable delivery, special deals, etc.?

3. Perform a Content Analysis

With the answers to these questions, it will become clear what content formats you should use to guide your target consumer through the sales funnel.

Here are some ideas:

  • Awareness can be driven via info-packed content in the form of blog posts or infographics.
  • Evaluation can be informed through website landing and sales pages or live demos.
  • Decision-making might be driven via free trial sign-up pages.
  • Advocacy can be encouraged via shareable social media posts and forward-friendly emails.
  • Retention can be encouraged via engagement-boosters, like user guides, webinars, and podcasts.

4. Craft the Right Content

Finally, you’ve got the information you need to start crafting content according to your customer journey mapping in healthcare.

Let’s get back to that private physician in need of FFP2 masks, for example. He’s a GP running a family medicine practice in his early 50s, has been in private practice for 20+ years, is a family man, and prioritizes giving his patients affordable care.

When he’s looking for FFP2 masks, he’s prioritizing efficacy and convenience. He needs masks that work that will be delivered to his clinic doorstep fast. Cost-effectiveness is another concern, though: He’s willing to pay for quality but would prefer bulk pricing to keep costs down.

How are you going to get this guy’s attention at every stage of the customer journey? Maybe a blog post summarizing clinical study results on the efficacy of different types of masks will catch his eye at the awareness stage.

A clear sales page that offers bulk pricing options might be what wins him over when evaluating.

You might then follow up the sale with an email, asking if he’s satisfied – and whether he wants to place repeat orders, so he doesn’t have to think about re-ordering. There’s your retention phase.

In that email, you might include social media links to your company profiles, like Twitter. He then follows your company on Twitter.

Then, on your company’s Twitter page, you might share some infographics about the efficacy of FFP2 masks in minimizing COVID-19 transmission. The physician retweets the infographic to his followers – becoming an advocate of your brand.

We Help You Create Content Your Customers Love

Share Moving Media helps healthcare manufacturers craft authority content that captivates consumers and spurs them to take action. By boosting conversions, we help you increase your market share. We are a full-service media company, covering diverse formats from e-books to webinars and more.

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter for more healthcare marketing tips.Contact us to take your content marketing in healthcare to the next level.

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.

8 Essentials of Contract Law in Healthcare Equipment You Need to Know

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Healthcare is one of the most heavily regulated industries in the country. 

Every action related to healthcare involves some type of written contract—whether between doctors and patients, suppliers and hospitals, nurses and doctors, and so on.

As a supplier or manufacturer, you deal with contracts between all parties in one form or another.

Understanding the intricacies of contract law in healthcare is key to avoiding massive problems and keeping healthy relationships.

What Types of Laws Impact Healthcare Equipment and Technology Contracts?

Regulations impact everything from pricing and expirations down to locations and usage. 

Stark Law

On the surface, Stark Law seems easy to avoid. Stark Law prevents conflicts of interests, prohibiting physician self-referral anywhere the physician might have a financial interest. 

Different clauses fall under Stark Law as well, such as the Anti-Kickback Statute. 

Dig deeper and you’ll find Stark Law covers a wide range of scenarios—including some relating to equipment and leasing. 

HIPAA

HIPAA contracts and regulations protect patient information. Years ago, HIPAA was the last of worries for most equipment suppliers and manufacturers. The explosion in digital records and smart equipment, however, has changed the game. 

Certificate of Need

Certificate of Need laws require a hospital or physician office to prove there’s a legitimate market need before expanding, building, or even acquiring new equipment like beds in some cases. 

CoN laws vary widely by state. Meanwhile, some states don’t even have CoN laws on the books. Although tempting to assume the burden falls on your buyer to establish need, it’s smart to familiarize yourself with the laws in states you operate. 

What You Need to Know About Contract Law in Healthcare for Equipment and Facilities 

41% of people already don’t trust brands to remain truthful. The stakes are especially high in industries like healthcare supplies and equipment where trust is literally a matter of life or death.

Physician and hospital reputations also depend on your knowledge of regulations and contract law in healthcare. Look at the auto industry: The Takata airbag recall sent shockwaves through every major manufacturer’s reputation. 

Similar mishaps with healthcare equipment or supplies happen all the time. 

Keep the following essentials in mind to protect yourself and build trustworthy relationships with your partners.

1. Outsourcing Your Contracts Could Earn You a Violation

When you outsource your contracts, you’re also outsourcing compliance. Keeping your contract work in-house ensures transparency. You’ll always have control over the details.

2. Automatic Renewals Can Work Against You

Some types of contracts require renegotiations or inspections. In these cases, auto-renewing your contracts could put you in violation of Stark Laws or other compliance regulations. 

3. Unsecure Technology Puts You at Risk

Equipment with smart software that integrates patient records poses a huge risk with data breaches. Make sure to review how HIPAA applies to your technology and which contracts in healthcare to work out with physicians and hospitals in terms of responsibility and data sharing.

4. Certain Technology Requires Licensing Fees

Commercial licensing violations are extremely costly. Depending on the copyright law, both suppliers and physicians could be responsible for paying licensing fees or royalties. 

5. Innovative Equipment Might Require a Certificate of Need

Hospitals have huge legal teams to manage CoN laws. Doctors at small practices, however, rely on your knowledge to make smart decisions. Set yourself apart from competitors by doing the research yourself and helping buyers navigate the local regulations.

6. Marketing Matters

Influencer marketing might be tempting, but tread carefully. Healthcare influencers like physicians could create a huge conflict of interest and violation of Stark Law, although currently a legal gray area.

Likewise, how you market your products, the language you use, and the conditions you treat all require careful configuration. The FTC cracks down on false claims and subtle marketing language in healthcare all the time. You don’t want to put your contracts in healthcare at risk from a simple marketing mishap.

7. What About Repairs?

As a healthcare supplier or manufacturer, you deal with high-value contracts. Losing a contract for a hospital system, for example, could be a disaster. 

Imagine a hospital assumes repairs are covered for a year and a $20,000 piece of equipment breaks down. Not negotiating contract terms for things like repairs and maintenance could ruin that relationship forever.

8. Comprehensive Writing is Key

When legal issues arise—no matter the entities involved—you don’t want anything left to interpretation. 

If there’s any uncertainty in terms of pricing, relationships, shipping, or maintenance, always assume it could be used against you. For example, who holds the burden of risk if a physician harms someone while using your equipment? 

You need a team of writers and law professionals on your side to draft proper contract law in healthcare.

Enhance Your Sales and Marketing with Comprehensive Content

Useful and relevant content shows your audience that you’ve done your research and you understand their biggest concerns. In an industry like healthcare supplies, building authority is key to earning trust. 

Doctors and hospitals are busy. Don’t wait for them to research your organization’s history and expertise. Show them right away with high-quality thought leadership content in your industry.

At Share Moving Media, we provide regular healthcare content tips, research, and advice backed by decades of experience. Sign up for our Marketing Minute to stay updated.

The Changing Face of Content Marketing

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Content marketing in healthcare has changed quite a bit as the world rapidly adjusts to upcoming technologies and all that it has to offer. While digital journals in healthcare aren’t exactly a new concept, they are quickly becoming the expectation when it comes to publishing relevant information in the world of healthcare.  

Digital health is quickly becoming the new norm, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. This term refers to the practice of using various technologies to provide data access to everyone in the healthcare industry – patients included. The end goal of digital health is to foster an equal patient-doctor relationship. 

With digital health on the uprise, does that mean that print media in the industry is on the way out?

Is Print Media Dead in the Water?

Is print media dead in the world of healthcare? Absolutely not – but it has its time and place. In the healthcare field, medical professionals must be able to find information in a moment’s notice, and nothing makes that easier than digital journals. They are also an excellent resource for medical teams to share with their patients when they need answers to their questions.

Here’s the thing – print media is still a relevant option when it comes to healthcare marketing tools. In fact, a study by MarketingProfs showed that print ads were not only easier to digest by the public, but that consumers trusted print ads 34% more than search engine ads – something worth noting when considering digital advertising in healthcare.  

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However, when it comes to creating and sharing relevant information amongst professionals and patients alike, digital media is the way to go. It is the most natural solution as far as digital health is concerned. Digital journals in healthcare give instant access to doctors, marketers, patients, and the general public when it comes to sharing relevant updates in the world of healthcare. 

Not only that, but it’s the perfect solution for medical facilities that are turning their focus to sanitary marketing. Again, sanitary marketing isn’t a new concept; however, in light of the current pandemic, it’s never made more sense. The concept, in a nutshell, is the safe delivery of marketing communications and the sharing of information in a way that informs without manipulating. 

Since more people are now restricted from in-house visits with their physicians and rely heavily on telehealth, it makes sense to have digital journals available. This allows healthcare professionals to share the materials with those who ask for more information or better references. It also helps medical facilities move away from unsanitary marketing practices that leave consumers with more questions than answers. 

Why Digital Journals in Healthcare Make Sense

Now, when we talk about digital journals in healthcare, we are talking about the genre as a whole. When most people think medical journals, they often think of the big wigs, including:

  • The Lancet
  • New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM)
  • Journal of American Medical Association

These journals have a heavy focus on studies of various practices and theories. What they can lack, however, is the simplicity in language that is required for the general public. The good news is that there are dozens of other reputable digital journals available for the public, including:

The goals of these digital journals are to keep the public informed of the goings-on in the healthcare industry – an industry that can get extremely complicated, very quickly. They break down the complicated jargon and turn the content into something that is not only easily sharable but much easier for the average reader to understand. 

Using Digital Journals to Foster Relationships Between Professionals and the Public

Now, the general public is very unlikely to head to Google and start searching for digital journals to help them with a medical problem. Instead, they’ll likely talk with their doctor and ask them for more information. The medical team will then provide them with relevant sources to help guide them on their search.

While digital journals can be very technical in nature, they are still an excellent source of content when optimized correctly. Remember, the goal of these journals is to foster positive relationships between medical teams and their audience. So, that means these journals need to be answering essential questions that patients are likely to ask and use both a language and tone that are easily understandable to those who will be reading them. 

Translating the complicated jargon used throughout the healthcare industry can be challenging for some, which is why it’s crucial to have the right team on your side to help you break it all down into something that can be shared with your audience. 

Share Moving Media Can Help

Here at Share Moving Media, we understand that creating the right content for your audience can be somewhat challenging. Our team of trained professionals has the knowledge to help you create amazing content to help your business reach its goals. 

Curious how we can help you create outstanding content? Then contact us today to learn more!

5 Benefits of Content Marketing for Supply Chain Leaders

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COVID-19 transformed B2B marketing and sales processes. Over the next few years, the healthcare supply chain will shift away from traditional seller-focused strategies and focus on the buyer’s needs and benefits. Content marketing for supply chain leaders will take center stage in this change as more buyers go directly to suppliers instead of working through sales representatives.

Is your healthcare distribution business ready for this shift?

Learn how you can succeed in this new age of marketing and sales through an innovative healthcare content marketing strategy for supply chain leaders.

Key Takeaways:

  • Content marketing provides essential information for buyers performing the research phase of their journey.
  • Many buyers are interacting directly with suppliers instead of working through sales representatives.
  • Your content improves buyer interactions by controlling your online reputation and providing solutions that build trust with your customers.

What Is Content Marketing for Supply Chain Leaders?

Content marketing for supply chain leaders is creating and distributing online content like blog posts, videos, social media posts, and images. These online assets spread brand awareness and build trust with potential buyers.

While some content might turn into a conversion, most of your content aims to provide valuable information as healthcare facilities and workers find solutions and research their options. Your return from content marketing will be greater customer loyalty, more quality leads, and increased trust in your company.

You will also indirectly increase your sales through content marketing. Only 17% of the B2B sales process includes meeting with suppliers. The rest of that journey often occurs through independent research. You can be part of their journey from an earlier point by offering online content that moves them towards your products and solutions.

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5 Ways Content Marketing Helps the Healthcare Supply Chain

Here are five reasons why content marketing works for healthcare supply leaders and how marketing helps with supply chain issues.

1. Connects You Directly with Buyers

Gartner reports that by 2025 80% of B2B sales between buyers and suppliers will be through digital channels. Additionally, 44% of millennial buyers would rather connect directly to the suppliers instead of working through a sales representative. This is 2.2x more than previous generations.

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With more buyers coming directly to suppliers and distributors, your content and online image matter more. When you invest in content marketing, you offer your customers an alternative approach to learning about your products. This approach will increase your sales because of your broader market reach instead of your marketing team relying only on buyers who still use a traditional sales representative approach to find and purchase new products.

2. Controls Your Online Reputation

Over 89% of B2B buyers will conduct online research before purchasing. What shows up online will influence how buyers view your business. If you don’t create online content to inform buyers about your products, they may get their information from online reviews and less credible sources.

Content marketing helps you control your online reputation by managing what information will appear at the top of your buyers’ searches. Here are several ways you can perform online reputation management through content marketing:

  • Use SEO to rank your content above other information
  • Control what healthcare decision-makers learn about your business and products
  • Use social media accounts to interact with customer feedback
  • Engage personally with buyers on different channels
  • Encourage positive online feedback

Online reputation management doesn’t include deleting or hiding negative reviews. Keeping negative reviews and addressing them for others to see shows buyers that you strive to resolve issues. It also increases your trustworthiness as a business that only has positive reviews might come across as fake.

3. Creates Solutions for Your Buyers

Your business might sell products, but your content marketing sells solutions. Creating audience-centric content is more effective than sales pitches. Today, 87% of B2B marketers focus on informing their audience rather than promoting a company message or agenda.

The healthcare supply chain has many challenges that hospitals and care facilities are concerned about. You can use your content marketing to address those challenges and solve pain points.

For example, supply chain shortages are weighing heavily on many healthcare facilities as they look to diversify their distributors or stockpile supplies to avoid running out. Your content can offer solutions to their supply chain issues and reassurances about how you combat supply chain challenges to avoid delays in delivering their needed products.

4. Increases Your Return on Investment

Content marketing can increase your ROI by decreasing your marketing spending while improving your results. For example, Marketers say content marketing is 3X more cost-efficient for lead generation than PPC, and those with an active blogging strategy are 13X more likely to increase their ROI.

Content marketing is a strategy that continues to work even after you initially invest in content creation. You don’t have to continue to pay like with PPC ads or compensate sales representatives. Instead, your content sells itself and your business if you create it using SEO strategies that help it rank well.

Content marketing works best alongside your other marketing efforts to broaden your reach and fill in marketing gaps different strategies might miss.

5. Builds Trust with Your Buyers

About 88% of marketers said their online content created brand awareness and built credibility with buyers. Those were the top content marketing results that B2B brands saw from their efforts. 

Consider using these methods for building trust with your buyers through your online content:

  • Create thought leadership in the healthcare industry
  • Write at a higher level and avoid fluff
  • Share and support your business values
  • Personalize the customer experience
  • Share case studies and feedback

Most importantly, always remain authentic with your content. Over 90% of customers want to do business with genuine companies. An authentic company is real and honest about who they are, what they value, and what it can offer its buyer.

The following video explains how to make content marketing work in 2022, so you can continue receiving these five results of effective healthcare marketing.

Transform Your Marketing Strategies

Are you ready to upgrade your marketing strategies?

Share Moving Media are experts in healthcare distribution marketing and can help you succeed with your new content marketing strategies. Our training, publications, and industry insights provide the data and knowledge you need to grow an effective content marketing strategy in 2022.

Contact us to learn more about our healthcare marketing solutions.