Let these five key medical marketing statistics guide and inform your 2019 content strategy.
As the new year approaches, there’s a lot of change on the horizon for content marketing. While well-written, compelling content will always drive site traffic and help to build rapport with potential patients, keeping up with content trends can help medical marketers stay a step ahead of the competition in 2019.
From the rising popularity of more complex content – like interactive content and long-form articles – to increasing content budgets across companies and industries, one thing is clear: content marketing itself isn’t going anywhere. Look to these five medical marketing statistics to steer your revamped content marketing strategy next year.
Over the past few years, content marketing budgets have steadily increased, and 2019 is no exception. According to the Content Marketing Institute, 55 percent of the most successful content marketers it surveyed in 2018 expect their content budget to increase in the following year, while 50 percent of all marketers foresee an increase.
These numbers indicate that content marketing works — and it works well. Medical marketers who have yet to develop a content strategy would do well to do so, as content is set to become an even more vital ingredient in any comprehensive marketing plan in the coming months and years.
While brands that don’t use content marketing typically see conversion rates of around 0.5%, their content-savvy counterparts can boast rates of almost 3%. Content may not be the quickest way to drive site traffic or the easiest means of building brand awareness, but it forms a solid, high-ROI foundation that acts as the bedrock of your relationship with potential patients.
Companies in the medical space can especially benefit from well-written, informative content. 80% of patients take to search engines to find information about medical conditions and healthcare, and a healthcare provider who offers the answers will stand head and shoulders above the rest.
According to Venngage, 40.2% of marketers report that original infographics and illustrations outperform all of their other visual content, while 23.2% say videos and presentations are their top performers. Only 12.5% of marketers state that stock photos are best at engaging audiences, even though most marketers use stock photos a majority of the time.
While stock photos may be the most time-efficient means of adding a visual aid to your content, it’s worth occasionally going the extra mile to produce an original illustration or infographic. Because these means of communicating information or statistics are so easy to consume and understand, they’ll drive evergreen traffic to your site — and they make great social media fodder, too.
According to the Venngage survey, over two-thirds of marketers consider visual content to be either very important or absolutely necessary, while another 30% find it either “quite important” or “somewhat important.” Absolutely no one who responded to the survey indicated that visuals weren’t important to their content strategy at all.
Even when an original graphic isn’t possible — and it likely won’t be for every piece of content you produce — a stock image can boost the visual appeal, making potential patients more likely to click through and less likely to bounce.
There’s a widely-held belief that consumer attention spans are nonexistent, but many marketers have found that not to be the case. High-quality, informative, and original long-form content is often just what a patient is looking for, especially if they’re researching a medical condition, treatment, or device.
As a medical marketer, consider creating in-depth guides on conditions your practice treats or treatments that you offer. If your content can help inform a patient and put them at ease, they’re far more likely to trust you with their healthcare in the future.