Avoiding Content Marketing Mistakes In The Medical Field

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A proper content marketing system is essential for overall success. This especially applies in extremely competitive fields like the medical world. More and more businesses are sprouting up in this niche to try and take advantage of increased demand, but there are some unique marketing challenges that apply for this category.

Medical content generally has to walk that fine line of taking complex content and making it easy to explain, while retaining enough technical knowledge and mastery to avoid Google’s YMYL (your money or your life) SEO penalties. Here’s a look at some of the common mistakes that happen to businesses trying to strike that balance.

Failing To Use The Right Channel

As any medical professional can tell you, being able to properly communicate with your patients is key to building rapport, but also to making sure they follow your directives. This carries over when it comes to your content marketing as well. Pedro Copelmayer, CEO of Timit, shares a story on what ended up sinking one of his company’s attempts at content marketing.

“One of the biggest mistakes I made regarding content marketing was missing the channel (and not communicating well with my customers). So, we had a nice user base, and we thought creating content would generate loyalty within that user base and also expand and serve as an introduction to what we did as a business.

The thing is, we simply assumed that having a Podcast was the way to go. It was time efficient for us, fun and we just assumed that people would tune in. They didn’t. It wasn’t that the quality was bad or anything, we just missed the channel. A simple analysis (or just talking to our customers) could have saved us hours of work and frustration. Turns out they just wanted a newsletter, and all we had to do was ask them what they wanted.”

Copelmayer’s story covers a key point in terms of how you can misread a room. Every person needs medical services, but not everyone needs the same medical services.

Failing To Diversify Channels

Another side to this equation is putting all of your eggs in one basket in terms of content marketing. Budgets likely mean you can’t try everything, but John Frigo, Digital Marketing Lead For SurgicalSuites.com, mentions how one approach could potentially lead to diminishing returns over time. Rather than concentrating entirely in one area, he advocates for a diverse group of channels.

“We’re going to be launching two Instagram accounts. One for customers to educate them about procedures, dental implants, all on 4 teeth in a day, etc. We’re also going to launch another one with pictures of procedures where people come there almost for entertainment more than to be educated about dentistry.

Outside of that, we’re working on launching a YouTube channel answering patient questions and common questions online people have about implants. I think, in our space, providing value and establishing ourselves as experts goes a long way.”

With this said, it bears mentioning that the “Jack of All Trades, Master of None” mentality doesn’t work with medical content marketing. Frigo’s approach only works because each channel is specifically designed to target a subset of his intended audience.

Issues With Accessibility

In terms of medical content marketing, there are a lot of nuts and bolts present in terms of what happens after your planning. While a bad plan means your content will never be effective, poor implementation means that good content will never reach its full potential. Kunal Sampat, Founder of Clinical Coach LLC, doubles down on the importance of good UX:

“Medical content can be dry at times, especially if it’s technical information or published scientific literature. When promoting such medical content, you want to make it easy for the user to digest the information you are sharing. Spending extra time and resources on user interface and
experience will prove to be beneficial to your business.”

Access matters a lot as well. If you are having your company’s medical info published in a peer-reviewed journal, he emphasizes the importance of having the article stay open-source to spread the informational reach. “Ideas that spread win. Hence, you want to make it easy for your idea to spread
and ultimately win.”

Elijah Masek-Kelly
Elijah Masek-Kellly is the Managing Director of Powerful Outreach, which is a PR service that helps clients get exposure through innovative and strategic outreach. With a long history as a writer and content marketer, Elijah is focused on helping small businesses develop their brand, increase their influence, and generate leads by leveraging his skills and knowledge to tap into new audiences.

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