Source: Content Marketing Institute
According to a 2012 study by the Content Marketing Institute, only 58% of healthcare marketers use a blog compared to 78% of marketers overall. Indeed, we see the same lag in content marketing at our agency when it comes to healthcare technology marketing.
Why the lag? Healthcare marketers often cite lack of content resources or regulatory issues. However, marketing agencies can safely and effective handle content creation as long as they are willing to work with legal counsel and have a good understanding of HIPAA and other federal and state regulations.
By not using blogs, case studies and content for social channels, healthcare marketers are missing a huge opportunity to connect with B2B prospects and patients. Blogs more than anything else can convey expertise and corporate culture, and can lend a personality to institutions that are often thought of as “dry” and “clinical”.
As a side benefit, Google and other search engines love blog posts and often rank them very highly on search engine result pages. Search ranking improvement and SEO shouldn’t be your only reason for writing, but if you craft an informative post you might be pleasantly surprised at the traffic it generates to your site. Our agency gets several leads per quarter when people search for niche phrases that just happen to be included in one of our blog posts or case studies. For example, do a Google search for “healthcare software marketing services” and you’ll see one of our agency’s case studies right at the top of the search results. We didn’t plan for that or play tricks to rank, we just wrote a great case study.
Why do you think healthcare lags behind in content marketing and blogging? Please feel free to post comments or examples of excellence in the medical field.