There is No "I" in Healthcare Content Strategy
Let’s be honest, trying to appeal to everyone is resonating with no one. As healthcare becomes increasingly digital, it's more important than ever to lead with a clear and defined audience while creating your healthcare content strategy.
With an expanding amount of information being generated and disseminated each day (thanks, A.I.), it's essential to capture attention and deliver accurate, relevant, and engaging content. Failing to do so is the fastest way to toss your message into the lost sea of content marketing for healthcare. We see this happening every single day. So, how do you cut through the noise?
By understanding the needs, concerns, and interests of your target audience, you can optimize your healthcare website content, and create a clear path forward for your patient's needs. We'll explore how to define your target audience, six things to consider when optimizing website content for your defined audience, and how to develop content that drives results, even with a small marketing team.
Whether you're a healthcare marketer, provider, or just curious — these tips can help you create a content strategy that connects with your audience and leads straight to booking an appointment now.
Define your healthcare content audience, then listen
By identifying your healthcare organization’s objectives, you can create a clear picture of who your ideal audience is — consider age, location, gender, employment, interests, and income. Most importantly, think about what they need from you. Whether you want to increase hospital brand awareness, grow your primary care patient volume, or retain current patients, defining your audience based on your long-term goals matched with their specific needs, is the sweet spot for success.
Take an audience-first approach to healthcare content strategy
Through decades of working with hospitals across the country, there is one pattern we have seen time and time again: internally structured websites. Innocently created by people through the lens of “I would do this’’ — these websites are without user data and perspective to ensure quality.
From cluttered navigation layers with endless options to inconsistent search experiences for finding doctors, locations, and services, it's no wonder users struggle to find their way. But that's not all, there is a lack of brand voice, physician profile content, and relational data to find care, leaving users feeling disconnected and dissatisfied. It's time to take a closer look at these weak spots and start creating the best hospital websites with content that truly serves users.
6 ways to optimize healthcare website content for your audience
1. Design mobile-first
Today, most users access the internet through their mobile devices — and your web experience needs to reflect that. Creating a mobile-friendly hospital website demands: easy navigation on a small screen, a clear layout, and quick load time. A mobile-first design approach ensures that your website is optimized for the most popular device used to access it.
2. Pay attention to site performance
Site speed matters when you're trying to engage visitors and keep them on your hospital website. Slow-loading pages can cause frustration, leading users to abandon your site before even seeing what you have to offer. Therefore, it's crucial to optimize your site's performance by ensuring that it loads quickly, is responsive, and is free of any errors or broken links.
3. Optimize images and titles
Every page on your website should have well-researched SEO that includes relevant keywords in titles, meta descriptions, and content. Make sure you're making the most of your tags and applying them in all relevant areas. Additionally, optimizing images can help improve the overall user experience, reduce page loading time, and increase engagement.
4. Use data to drive UX
To optimize your website for your target audience, you need to understand their behavior and preferences. Use data analytics to determine where users are leaving your site and identify any roadblocks or broken links. You can also survey site users to get their feedback on how you can improve their experience. By using data to drive your UX strategy, you can ensure that your website meets the needs of your audience.
5. Facilitate a search intent strategy
Create topic clusters within the hubs and related fields, and always place target and secondary keywords strategically throughout the pages and assets. This will help ensure that your content is discoverable, patients can easily find the services they need, and consistently meet the search intent of your audience.
6. Keep the site architecture simple
Your website's architecture should be easy to navigate and understand. If users can't find what they're looking for (no matter how quickly it loads!), they're likely to leave your site. Creating an intuitive and simple architecture will ensure that users can easily find the provider, service, or location they need.
OK, the infrastructure is in place — how does your two-person healthcare marketing team create enough content to drive patients there?
Play to the strengths of your healthcare content marketing team
A small healthcare marketing team can often face challenges when it comes to managing workflow and maximizing efficiency. By establishing clear roles and workflow guidelines, team members can work together more effectively, ultimately leading to better results.
Clarify team roles
Defining the roles on the team is essential. Each team member should have a clear job description that outlines their responsibilities, skills, and areas of expertise to ensure that everyone understands their individual contributions and can focus on their strengths and play to them. For example, content creators often call on subject-matter experts and stakeholders for information, but need the freedom to add voice and tone to the content before it becomes patient-facing. This can be accomplished seamlessly through workflow guidelines.
The benefits of content workflow guidelines
Workflow guidelines are established processes and procedures for tasks such as content creation, social media management, and project management. They help streamline the team's efforts. Guidelines can include timelines, checklists, and other tools that help team members stay on track and meet deadlines.
By adhering to these guidelines, team members can work more efficiently and effectively. They can also hold each other accountable for completing tasks and meeting deadlines, which fosters a culture of collaboration and productivity.
In addition, clear roles and workflow guidelines enable team members to identify and address potential bottlenecks or areas for improvement in the process. Regularly reviewing the workflow and adjusting as needed, the team can continuously optimize their efforts and achieve maximum utilization of their time and resources.
Level up your healthcare content today
So, healthcare marketers, providers, and curious minds, it's time to elevate your digital presence and make a meaningful impact in the competitive world of healthcare content. Let’s shift from generic, one-size-fits-all strategies and focus on engaging your audience with accuracy and relevance. Are you ready to cut through the noise and create healthcare content that resonates?
Ten Adams is here to help you develop a healthcare content strategy that brings patients to your door. Give us a shout, we’re happy to chat!