How to Attract New Patients through Healthcare Content Marketing

The healthcare market is crowded. So, what can your practice do to attract new patients?

The answer is a smart content marketing strategy built on trust and authenticity. Your potential patients need to feel that your practice is credible, caring, and nonjudgmental. By cultivating a welcoming digital space that prioritizes useful information and supportive dialogue over mere transactions, you can distinguish your medical practice from the competition.

Most of us seek healthcare providers with expertise and compassion; when your content embodies this dual commitment, new patients will feel drawn to you. Here’s how to do it.

What Is Healthcare Content Marketing?

Healthcare marketing is changing. It’s less about old-school ads and more about providing useful content. Like it or not, nowadays when someone’s worried about their health, everyone turns to Dr. Google. High-quality, informative content tailored through SEO to answer the questions potential patients are asking online gives your practice a chance to stand out in the earliest phases of their search for a provider.

Effective healthcare content marketing hinges on these core components:

• The 4 P’s: Product, Price, Placement, Promotion—tailored to meet patient needs effectively.
• The 3 C’s: Compelling content, consistent delivery, and community engagement, which involve understanding the needs, concerns, and motivations of your future patients.

Unlike traditional marketing, healthcare marketing must adhere to strict ethical guidelines and regulations (like HIPAA), and it’s deeply personal, often educating and empowering patients to make informed decisions about their health.

Successful healthcare marketers leverage a variety of channels, including digital marketing (websites, social media, SEO, email marketing), traditional advertising (print, radio, television), and public relations, to increase patient volume, improve brand awareness, and promote specific services.

Understanding Your Target Audiences

Healthcare content marketing requires a nuanced approach that recognizes the distinct needs of its two primary audiences: patients and referring physicians.

Patients want to:

• Understand their conditions
• Evaluate treatment options
• Find qualified providers

Referring physicians, on the other hand, are typically looking for:

• Specialized expertise
• Efficient referral processes
• Clear lines of communication to ensure optimal patient care

To connect with both of these groups effectively, start by researching and creating detailed personas. Patient personas might reveal concerns about cost, access, and common misunderstandings of their condition or treatment options.

Physician personas, on the other hand, are more likely to zero in on clinical outcomes, research opportunities, and the reputations of their peers. This persona prioritizes data-driven insights and streamlined collaborations.

Understanding these divergent needs, preferences, and behaviors allows healthcare marketers to tailor information and messaging for each audience. Resonating with both audiences is crucial to scaling patient acquisition and strengthening your referral networks.

Content Creation Best Practices

Sharing good information builds trust. You can become your future patients’ go-to source for medical advice by offering educational content that empowers them to make informed decisions about their health.

Follow these best practices to strike a chord with your audiences:

• Clear writing is kind writing. Avoid complicated medical terms that can be hard to pronounce and remember. Use plain language and simple communication that everyone understands.
• Optimize your website for mobile devices so it looks good and reads well on every phone or tablet.
• Adhere to accessibility standards (WCAG). This means adding alt text to images, using good color contrast, and making your website easy to navigate with a keyboard.
• Ensure all content is thoroughly reviewed and vetted for clinical accuracy and adherence to HIPAA standards to protect patient privacy and security.

Types of Content That Resonate With Healthcare Consumers

Different types of content work for different people, so it’s good to have a mix. Experiment with these forms and see what happens:

• Blog posts and articles: Best for breaking down complex medical information—turn big words and hard ideas into simple language anyone can understand.
• Videos and animations: Great for showing treatment processes and patient success stories. Explain ailments with animations.
• Infographics and data visualizations: Make data easy to digest with pictures and short text.
• Podcasts: Great for interviews with healthcare experts, patient testimonials, and in-depth discussions on medical advancements.
• Webinars: Useful for live discussions, Q&A sessions, and virtual seminars on specialized health topics.
• Whitepapers: Ideal for presenting research, clinical studies, and detailed analyses of healthcare issues. These are ideally suited for appealing to referring physicians.

Leveraging Social Media and Email Marketing

Social media and email marketing can play essential roles in growing your medical practice. Leverage these channels to deliver timely advice, nurture connections, and establish your practice as thought leaders in your field.

Social Media Tactics

Here’s how to make social media an effective avenue for sharing knowledge, empowering patients, and building trust with referral partners:

• Identify the channels most relevant to your target audiences. Consider LinkedIn for medical professionals, Facebook for broader patient communities, and Instagram for younger audiences who tend to value visual storytelling.
• Adapt your content to suit the format and culture of each social media platform.
• Maintain a consistent brand identity and voice across platforms to build recognition and trust. This includes visual elements, messaging, and tone.
• Create a structured content calendar to streamline creation and establish a healthy posting cadence. Use native scheduling tools to preload content in batches and effortlessly maintain a consistent presence.

Email Marketing Techniques

Email marketing remains a vital tool in the healthcare marketing toolkit. It supports patient loyalty and retention and serves as an effortless touchpoint with new prospects. Use it to send automated “drip campaigns” to new subscribers and share preventative care tips, research findings, and guidance on seasonal health concerns.

There are a several beneficial communication tactics unique to email marketing, like:

• Segmentation and content personalization: i.e., organizing contacts into lists based on their audience persona and sending them tailored messages.
• Automation tools for streamlining campaigns and personalizing patient journeys efficiently.
• HIPAA/GDPR compliant appointment reminders, follow-up care instructions, and other relevant communications for existing patients.

Evaluating the Health of Your Content Strategy

The iterative process of publication, analysis, and strategic adjustment is the hallmark of effective content marketing. Track these key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure the success of your content and strengthen your marketing plan each month:

• Reach, engagements, follower growth rate, clicks, and lead generation are the most important social media metrics to understand and monitor.
• Unique visitors, page views, form submission rate, pages per session, and search engine rankings are the best KPIs to evaluate website performance.

Tools like Google Analytics, SEMrush, Ahrefs, native social media features, and built-in CMS analytics allow you to monitor these KPIs and refine your strategies based on data-driven insights.

Case Study: Alexander Orthopaedic Associates

After partnering with Big Sea, Alexander Orthopaedic Associates boosted their new appointment requests by 50% year-over-year and experienced a remarkable 240% surge in organic sessions. By implementing a comprehensive SEO revamp and targeted content strategy, we were able to heighten Alexander Orthopaedic’s engagement and improve their search visibility.

Our strategy emphasized SEO-optimized blog posts on common patient concerns and new testimonials that reinforced the expertise and kindness of doctors at the practice. This led to a significant rise in conversions and new patient acquisition.

The Future of Content Marketing in Healthcare

Big developments are on the horizon for content marketing in the healthcare industry. The rise of AI-driven, personalized healthcare information and interactive content formats are set to transform how patients engage with and understand their health. A nimble, adaptable approach to content marketing is the best way to acclimate to fast-emerging trends in the years to come. Stay curious, stay informed, and use new technologies to educate and support your patients.

The marketing experts at Big Sea know that your future patients are people in search of clarity and connection. We work with healthcare organizations to connect with audiences on a deeper level to spark engagement and build lasting trust. We’d love to help you turn medical data into meaningful dialogue. 

Healthcare Content Marketing FAQs

The healthcare industry has specific challenges. We’ve compiled responses to a few of the top questions healthcare marketers want answered.

How Do We Align Content Marketing with HIPAA Guidelines?

HIPAA compliance in healthcare content marketing isn’t as scary as you might think. Here are some essential principles.

• De-identification: Exclude Protected Health Information (PHI) in content. This means no names, dates of birth, medical record numbers, or other data that could identify an individual.
• Generalization: Provide general health information and educational content rather than personalized medical advice.
• Secure platforms: Choose content storage and marketing software with robust security features to safeguard collected data.
• Privacy policies: Communicate privacy policies clearly and be transparent about your data collection protocols.
• Review process: Before publishing your content, have legal and compliance experts review it to ensure HIPAA adherence.
• Consent: Before promoting patient testimonials or stories, obtain explicit, written consent.
• Social media: Be cautious when posting to social media and never release any PHI. The team at Big Sea monitors user comments and removes public discussions that contain PHI.
• Training: Our content creators receive regular HIPAA training to stay up-to-date on regulations, and yours should, too!

What Are the Benefits of Using Subject Matter Experts for Content Creation?

Leveraging subject matter experts (SMEs) in healthcare content marketing offers numerous advantages. SMEs provide accurate, up-to-date information, enhance the credibility of your organization, and build trust with your audience.

Big Sea frequently partners with medical SMEs to translate complex medical information into easily understood language that’s both appealing to patients and optimized for organic search.

What Is the Best CMS for Healthcare?

Choosing the ‘best’ CMS for healthcare depends on your specific needs and priorities, but remember: the one you select must offer advanced security features and data encryption for HIPAA compliance. We recommend CMS platforms with enhanced user access controls, audit trails, reliable data backup and recovery, and seamless integration with other software. Popular options include WordPress, Drupal, Sitecore, Kentico, and Adobe Experience Manager.