4 Ways to Humanize Your Healthcare Marketing Efforts

With healthcare content, it’s easy to get into the habit of presenting factual, straightforward information. While there’s nothing wrong with this approach to presenting health-related content, your overall marketing message should be more human than Wikipedia-like. Content that evokes some type of emotion or establishes a connection with the reader tends to be more effective, so here’s what you can do to humanize your healthcare marketing efforts.

Tell Stories
Content with a compelling narrative tends to resonate better with readers. Storytelling is especially popular with millennials, an often-preferred target group for medical practices. Authenticity matters, so tell stories with real people (patients, caregivers, doctors). Storytelling that works for medical practices may involve:

• Patient success stories
• Stories illustrating the benefits of preventative care
• Patient testimonials
• Letting members of your healthcare staff share their own inspirational or motivational stories

Use Video
Video content will soon make up nearly 80 percent of all Internet traffic. It’s also a form of content that’s more likely to be remembered and shared. Video can be incorporated into your marketing strategy as video introductions from staff on your website, as a video tour of your office, or as a YouTube video series.

Embrace Social Media
Social media can be a valuable marketing asset among medical practices. Being engaged socially online is an excellent way to make human connections with people beyond simply selling the virtues of your practice. For instance, you could post advice on what to do about summer bug bites or offer healthy eating tips. Further humanize your social posts by:

• Actively responding to comments
• Hosting Q&A sessions where you or your staff gives answers to common health-related questions
• Posing interesting questions likely to encourage conversations
• Using themed posts (“health tip of the day”)

Don’t Overdo It With Stats

Stick with a few compelling stats but don’t overdo it. Facts and figures tend to work best in opening paragraphs. If you have some must-include stats to include later in the text, use bullet points or add some context around whatever facts you use so they make sense to the reader. Cold, hard facts can also have more of an impact if you create a narrative or story around them.

Ideally, the content you present as part of your healthcare marketing efforts should be a blend of insightful, factual information that’s also compelling and relevant to your intended audience. If you need some cues for where to go with your content, take a look at your social media and blog comments to see what’s on people’s minds.