content marketing Archives - Medical Marketing Enterprises, L.L.C.

Is Your Content Providing Value? | 5 Easy Questions to Ask

February 12, 2019 by Randall Wong, M.D.

As healthcare providers, we provide value to our patients all the time. Every time we make a diagnosis and a treatment plan, we provide tremendous value to our "consumers" and to our community.

Providing value on the Internet, however, seems to be less obvious to us. Perhaps it's because we do not really understand what's valuable.

Here's why value is integral to any marketing strategy and some very easy ways to gauge if our content has value. Providing value is very easy of all the other industries on the Internet. As healthcare providers, we are naturally the de facto authorities.

Why Value?

There are many reasons why we need to be creating value with our digital marketing. Here are just 3 reasons why:

Build Trust - the only way a patient is going to call and make an appointment is after you have become trusted. Every time a new patients says "I've done my research," they are saying they've vetted you and trust you. No one makes an appointment solely because your website was at the top of a Google search. You have to be on the top and then also develop trust.
Engage - valuable articles/content are interesting to the reader. Ergo, your content makes your article/website/SM platform more engaging. Engaging platforms encourage additional reading/learning and build trust very quickly.
SEO - content which is shareable (links back to your site) give a quick boost to SEO.

5 Easy Questions to Ask

Here's a quick list of questions you might ask about your content.

Does it educate? This is really easy. Educational content is easy for health providers to create. We educate all day and to every patient. Using some of these well rehearsed and frequent topics easily provides value to our readers.
Is it shareable? Would one of your readers consider sharing your content with someone else? Might they tweet or post on their own page? Shareable means valuable.
Can it be fact checked? Most of this is easy for healthcare. Everything we do is based on fact (evidence based medicine) and, therefore, can be easily fact checked. As subject matter experts (authorities), we provide tremendous value to our prospective patients.
Is this interesting? Your content may not be interesting to everyone, but it will sure appeal to those interested in that particular subject. As long as your article/content is interesting to a percentage of your patient population, it's interesting.
Does it solve a problem or answer a question? If your content directly answers a question someone is "Googling," then it's relevant and of value.

You must answer "yes" to only one of these questions. It's easy...and valuable.

Happy New Year! Tips on Marketing for 2019

January 28, 2019 by Randall Wong, M.D.

Happy New Year!

Let's set an agenda for your marketing goals for 2019. First, let's set some ground rules. Your marketing objectives should be:

Easy to achieve
Enjoyable
Appreciated and understood

Remember that healthcare and medicine is not comfortable with "marketing." The need for marketing is still poorly understood, but every year more and more of us are beginning to understand that healthcare marketing is necessary because our patients are expecting us to market. Marketing involves teaching our patients about their health and what services we provide.

Easy to Achieve Goals

Establishing goals which are easy to attain avoids disappointment and the feeling of failure. When I lecture, I often plead to the audience that your hope should be to implement something over the course of the next year and not everything. Trying to achieve everything is doomed to failure. Try to implement just one or two things learned.

Enjoyable Marketing Goals

Your goals will vary from group to group and organization to organization.

The larger your organization/group, the more complex your marketing needs and, unfortunately, the more difficulty in making every one "happy." Keep this in mind when planning a strategy.

Choose a strategy which involves or requires skills you possess and enjoy to utilize. For example, if you like to write, write new content. If you do not like to write, create a video (do something you enjoy, not stress over).

Appreciate and Understand

No matter how simple or difficult, why are undertaking this task? What is your goal?

Keeping your focus on this reasoning will keep your marketing plan streamlined and laser focused.

Ideas for 2019

Here are some really, really simple goals for 2019. Some may be more complex and other ideas may be for the practice just starting to understand marketing.

Update Your Copyright - nothing worse to me than having an outdated copyright at the bottom of your website in the footer. An outdated copyright date warns that your practice/organization may be outdated too. At the very least, you aren't interested in keeping an updated website.
Publish New Content - publish one new article to freshen up the content of the site. Remember that only refreshed sites get higher SEO rankings.
New Photos - consider new headshots of the docs and employees. New office photos? New photos can improve your brand and reader engagement.
Newsletter - Consider starting an electronic newsletter. If you are already writing content, your new content can automatically be distributed to your email list in the form of a an electronic newsletter.
Market Internally - you should properly (patient's need to "opt-in") collect email addresses from everyone of your patients. Your electronic newsletter can automatically be distributed to the entire email list to share news of the practice and your great articles.
Update/Claim Review Sites - Facebook, Google Business, Healthgrades, Yelp, WebMD.com and many others already have your business listed on their database. These are places where potential patients can find you. What's more is that these are also places where a patient can leave a review. (BTW - this is also a great way to improve your local SEO.) Don't forget to add your new pics of the docs!
Ask for Reviews - only do this if you are comfortable with the idea of asking your patients to give you a review. We recommend selecting only one or two places where a patient can write a review.
Social Media - start a social media platform. Choose a platform (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter) that your patients commonly use. Most likely it's Facebook. Start only if you are able to keep the content fresh and relevant.
About You - remember that your About page is the second most important page on the website. Rewrite your About page in the point of view of the first person and talk a little bit about who you are as a person. Share some transparency - it's much more relevant and meaningful to your patients than a list of your academic achievements and research prowess.
Answer Reviews - learn to monitor the Internet for all positive and negative reviews. Respond to all reviews in a timely fashion, if nothing else than to thank the author for taking their precious time to recommend you and your practice. If it's a negative review, breath deep, don't engage about right or wrong, but respond positively (better yet, give us an email or ask your partner or office manager to deal with this!)

The Secret to “Writing” Effective Content Without Writing

February 23, 2017 by Randall Wong, M.D.

All of us hate to write. Written text articles, however, are the best for our website search engine optimization (SEO) and rankings.

There are alternatives to producing content without the standard rigors of creating original content on a routine basis.

Writing Without Writing

PowerPoint presentations are popular amongst physicians because all of us like to talk and we have all given lectures to a town hall, rotary club or church group to market ourselves.

PowerPoint lectures are great for your SEO for two reasons; 1) PowerPoint presentations are considered “text” files for the search engines and 2) you can create narratives of the actual presentation.

Uploading the actual .ppt file and posting on your site is perfect for your SEO. Search engines rank text files (i.e. written text articles) the best. A PowerPoint presentation can be indexed just like your written article.

You might also consider writing down the narrative of your presentation and posting as well!

Video

Video is also a nice alternative to writing. Video by itself does not have the same impact on your SEO as a published article, but publishing the narrative of the video is an excellent alternative for your SEO.

This is a great model as you are able to post on two different types of platforms (video/audio and text).

Podcast

I produce a weekly podcast with my co-host Russell Faust, M.D. Our website, RussandRandy.com, a website on Healthcare and Medical Internet Marketing, was created to run parallel to our podcast.

After each podcast episode, we post an article to our website featuring the same topic as the episode. It’s an easy option to creating original content on a weekly basis.

All the best!

Randy

Where to find Content | Content Marketing for Healthcare and Medicine

September 22, 2016 by Randall Wong, M.D.

Your content (the articles your write, posts, videos, etc.) is the most important part of your digital marketing campaign. It is not only vital for any one interested in healthcare and medical Internet marketing, but for everyone who uses a website as a marketing tool.

Your content is the key to getting high rankings with the search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo. Your content is also the key to converting readers into followers and then patients.

Every healthcare and medical website needs content.

SEO Rankings and Engagement

The content (articles, post, pages on your website) will get indexed and if properly optimized will get ranked by Google. The better, and more relevant, the higher your rankings. The best ranking webpages are those which have been written well and have been optimized.

The same content has another purpose. Your articles will be answering questions. Better yet, your content should be educating and informing your readers.

This brings value to your readers. From value, develops trust.

Value and trust are the first steps to engaging your readers to convert them to become a patient.

So website content has a dual purpose: to achieve and maintain high Google (i.e. search engine) rankings and patient engagement.

Sources of Content

Fortunately, we, as health providers, have an endless source of content. The answers and explanations we give routinely in response to commonly asked questions are great sources of content…they are well rehearsed and “written” exactly for our patients.

Use your explanations to serve as patient education articles, posts and pages.

Many of us also have patient education pamphlets adorning our clinic walls. Paraphrase the articles found in the pamphlets – avoid directly copying the content. Google frowns upon duplicate content.

You may also provide links to authoritative websites. While this is not great for your SEO, it still does provide value to your patients.

Curate medical journals. Analyze the articles you read in your medical journals and explain the relevance and significance to your readers. Your opinion and analysis can provide your readers with tremendous value.

Write to Engage Your Reader

Here are a few suggestions to make your writing more engaging.

Write in the first person point of view (I, we, me, my)
Limit each article to just 1 or 2 subjects – avoid the temptation to “show-off” your vast knowledge
Length of articles should be 300-500 words. Too short may not get indexed and too long will bore your reader
Avoid clinical jargon and fancy language, write at the level of an 8th grader
Write as though your perfect patient were seated directly in front of you, do not write as though you were speaking to a packed auditorium

Podcast on Healthcare and Medical Internet Marketing

Russ Faust, M.D and I just launched a podcast on Healthcare and Medical Internet Marketing. I’d love if you tried us out and gave us a review on iTunes.

Thanks for reading, following…and listening.

If you have a comment, question or concern….just leave below and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can!

To Your Success,

“Randy”
Randall Wong, M.D.
Healthcare and Medical Internet Marketing
Healthcare’s Rx for Web and Social

Your Website Should Be “Under Construction”

February 10, 2013 by Randall Wong, M.D.

Every great website should always be “under construction.” Of the three types of sites; resource, marketing and interactive, only the resource site is ever really finished.

And you know I’m not talking about web design.

Great websites must remain dynamic whether by adding a constant stream of great content or with user generated comment vis-a-vis threads and conversations.

Content Marketing is Best

Blogging, or content marketing, remains the most important marketing strategy for your medical practice or small business. While many businesses promote their use of a social media marketing strategy, blogging remains #1 in terms of ROI, branding and value.

The success of content marketing can be easily measured. Visitors, bounce rate, comments, click through rates are all metrics showing the likes and needs of your patients, your customers.

The expense of time spent on a social media campaign is less tangible perhaps only because social media efforts ultimately draw attention to a great website that is “under construction.”

Value, Dedication, Commitment

Your content provides your patients with value. Your articles provide solutions (answers) to their health specific questions. Moreover, your consistent writing also displays a level of dedication and commitment that sets you apart from your competitors.

Value is the key to any website, but by continued and consistant writing, your dedication and commitment turns you into an industry expert.

Your content also remains the key factor to obtaining great SEO…unmatched and immesurable with any social media campaign.

What Can You Do?

Develop a long range objectives for your practice, i.e. define your marketing goals.

Write articles consistently on topics related to your long range initiative (SEO best practice).

With time, your articles will begin to reach out to your patients, compelling them to write and leave comments. Make sure to answer each of the comments in a timely manner, thus creating a dialogue. This visible interaction and engagement is the heart and soul of a blog and will eclipse any social media based campaign with respect to ROI, branding and providing value to your patients.

Both content marketing and engaging your patients online present time challenges and require consistent and continued publications and responses.

A great website, therefore, is never completed and, hence, is always “under construction.”

To Your Growth And Success!