From pharmaceutical companies to hospitals to insurers, today’s healthcare organizations spend record amounts in order to reach consumers. It can be frustrating when any marketing campaign falls short of its goals, but with the high stakes of healthcare content marketing, ensuring a successful campaign is essential. And though healthcare in general is a vast market made up of extensive verticals, each with its own nuances and circumstances, today’s leading healthcare organizations can leverage the latest trends and insights to create better campaigns.
The first step to creating better healthcare marketing campaigns is to avoid the common mistakes. When you know what not to do, you’ll have an easier time focusing your efforts on creating campaigns that speak to audiences and drive results. So, when do campaigns commonly go wrong? They go wrong the minute marketers stop listening to their audiences. Let’s take a look at 4 concrete ways you can create better content by listening to your audience.
Audience-First Healthcare Content Marketing
Marketers everywhere have been trying to crack the code of Google search results since the early days of the search engine, and for good reason: It’s where their audiences are. Last year, Google averaged more than 1 billion health-related search queries a day. That equates to 7% of all daily searches.
Unfortunately, too many marketers only write to appease an algorithm and not potential consumers. But Google’s latest algorithm is its most “human” yet, and is intent on providing its users with high-quality results. Now more than ever, healthcare content marketing initiatives should be written for humans, not machines. Organizations should strive to find a partner capable of creating well-written, relevant content that speaks to their audiences.
Expansion of Digital Video
In 2020, if you aren’t leveraging video, you’re in the minority. According to a recent survey, 92% of marketers say that video is an important part of their marketing strategy. Meanwhile, Cisco reports that video will account for 82% of all internet traffic by 2022. This means that digital video marketing is one of the most powerful tools available to marketers today.
In healthcare, videos and motion graphics can be used to create awareness, explain important concepts, launch products, generate engagement, and much more. Determine the goal(s) and target audience(s) of your campaign before deciding what type of video is right for you, and what it should aim to achieve.
Social Media in the New Decade
Ever since social media entered our lives, the only constant has been change. That’s why marketers need to reconsider their social strategies year in and year out.
In 2020, consumers are becoming increasingly comfortable with brand interactions on social. On the brand side of things, when it comes to listening to their audiences on social media, nearly 2 in 3 marketers believe that there’s a need to look beyond simple metrics such as “likes” and “follows,” and instead engage in social listening.
By analyzing the conversations and trends surrounding both the brand and the vertical, marketers can make more informed decisions surrounding future campaigns, content strategies, and the type of content to create.

User Experience Upgrades
Healthcare can be a stressful topic for consumers, and organizations should never add to that stress by providing a less-than-stellar user experience. When a user lands on a healthcare organization’s webpage, they need to find what it is they’re looking for, and they need to find it with ease.
A user-experience and content audit can reveal valuable insights into how consumers are actually engaging with an organization. Today’s marketers can leverage those insights to write meaningful content, make smart visual decisions, and ultimately improve user experience.
Across all industries, it’s important to keep note of the trends. Even in a typical year, marketing strategies deserve regular reevaluating, but the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has added increased pressure on the healthcare industry to truly consider who it engages with and how.