Presenting your healthcare company, services or products with a focus on patient well-being is the new norm. This should come as no surprise—best practices suggest that all brands should focus on customer needs and benefits in their healthcare marketing strategy.

But when it comes to healthcare, there is no better audience than one of which will benefit from improvement in life, health and happiness. It’s not necessarily altruistic by nature, but it certainly seems like the right time for companies using innovation and technology to take a good look at how their brands can improve health and lives. And, when presenting a brand from the perspective of a health advocate, we believe companies can easily implement strategies for creating frequent content to share with each audience.

With this perspective in mind, we’ve outlined five strategies below that will help you start having a better conversation with your customers right away.

Focus your content. This one is easy—your patients have real symptoms, real struggles, and cluttered or hidden resources to help them gain peace of mind. Address this by creating content that will improve their health. You can break down symptoms and offer solutions to provide patients with a regular stream of content (specific to your company or industry-aggregated). You will likely find this strategy helps improve organic SEO and inform your marketing efforts by more easily filling up your scheduled release calendars.

72% of Internet users say they looked online for health information within the past year.

Be responsive and swift with content. We continue to suggest serving up content in shorter, more visual formats. Research shows humans now have shorter attention spans than goldfish, which means the ideal length for blog posts is short, sweet, and visual—less than 1,000 words (or less than a 7-minute read).

Get to the point quickly. And use visuals and infographics to help highlight key areas for takeaway. At a minimum, be sure your site is responsive as you’re probably reading this on your phone right now. If your site is not responsive, please make this your first priority. After all, 44% of patients who researched hospitals on a mobile device scheduled an appointment.

Serve interactive, experiential content. Have you ever read a “Choose Your Own Adventure” book? This is a great way to help you serve site visitors with content that is specifically created for their needs. It does not stray far from focusing your content (per above), but it does allow you the opportunity to create quizzes or surveys that provide content that is specific to a reader’s input. This is a great way to offer a personalized approach that will help your visitor remember your brand. Not to mention, you’ll have better data to help inform your content and optimize for future campaigns.

Humanize your brand. Show emotion. As we consider taking a position of health advocacy, your customers are patients and they want to find comfort, relief and confidence in a new partnership. Consider using patient stories—they are extremely powerful. They help humanize your company and help patients relate to the stories of those you highlight. We recommend a real patient video; it’s digestible to watch and quickly helps achieve the points outlined above. Video format is a critical part of a healthcare marketing strategy—53% of patients who did not watch a healthcare brand’s video were unaware they even existed. Some other ideas to consider include a Q&A interview (with photos), a podcast series, or a sponsored panel discussion.

Support your community. Patients want local support based on referral and efficiency. Easy access to networks is a number one priority for customers seeking health care solutions. Be sure you are visible, present and active in your community. Sponsor local events, support healthy initiatives and partner with other like-minded companies doing the same. The direct ROI might be harder to track, but the positive impact on your brand is invaluable.

Ready to get started? Whether you need video marketing help, a website rebuild, or a complete rebrand for your healthcare organization, Orange Element is here to help you take the next step with your healthcare marketing strategy. Get in touch with us today for a free brand assessment.