| By Pilar Araya, Founding Partner B12

The generation of valuable content, also known as «content marketing», is currently experiencing its golden age. The Internet provides a sea of information with a centimeter of depth, where «fake news» is the daily bread, and people are bored that everything can be true and/or also a lie. What’s worse, is that it leaves us even more uninformed.

Faced with this landscape of uncertainty or «information relativity», people value quality, primary source content now more than ever, with appropriate information that is (hopefully) written by experts. Experts being understood as those who understand the language, the context, and above all, the meaning and substance of what is to be communicated.

This challenge is especially relevant in the health sector given that (even before the coronavirus pandemic) health topics are the most searched for on the Internet. Therefore today, clinics, hospitals, healthcare organizations and enterprises, and even physicians and healthcare personnel themselves, have a unique opportunity to generate quality content thereby adding value to their brand.

Considerations when it comes to generating healthcare content:

1. Content is a key component in a Digital Marketing strategy: We can be crystal clear about our KPI (Key Performance Indicators) and the users we want to reach; however, this will be of no use if we do not consider a strategic and valuable generation of content.
2. Choosing the team in charge of content generation: Having a team of journalists who understand the health sector and have experience in mass media communication is essential when it comes to producing quality content. An experienced team, in addition to generating truthful, reliable, complete, and informative content, knows their audience. This means the team knows how to inform and what to inform about to reach this audience and stimulate their interest.
3. Plentiful content: In addition to delivering quality content, information must be generated on an ongoing basis.
4. Simple and high-quality writing: The role of the healthcare journalist is to transform topics that are usually very technical and complicated for the average person into something simple and accessible. This «simplicity», of course, must always be accompanied by high-quality writing.
5. Up-to-date content: Timeliness is and will continue to be highly valued. Having fresh, contingent content, which effectively provides an update on a specific topic, is key when it comes to building loyalty among our users.
6. Different formats: The same content can be published on different platforms and in different formats: text, video, print, infographics, etc. The important thing is to generate quality content, and then adapt it to the formats that best suit the communication strategy.
7. Appropriate distribution: We must ensure that our content is actually read or viewed. This means that there must be a clear distribution strategy for all generated content, both in social networks and in other channels (e-newsletters, for example), that facilitates access to it.

The benefits of good content

1. Brand visibility and trust: We can build a spectacular and creative website, but all that effort is wasted in the absence of valuable content. Through quality content, we spark interest, we make ourselves known, we generate trust, intimacy, credibility, and coherence. All this encourages potential customers to keep choosing us.
2. It helps in organic search engine positioning: The content published on the Web and/or social networks can improve the visualization of a web page in the different search engines (such as Google or Yahoo). This is called SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

Why should a physician, institution, or healthcare company generate quality content?

1. Health is what users search for most on the Internet: According to the first report on e-health in Chile (carried out by Media Conecta, Tren Digital, and the Faculty of Communications PUC), 91.6% of users have searched for information about health at some point. Doctors know the «google patient» better than anyone, who, unfortunately, in many cases arrives at the doctor’s office with very poor-quality information. Given this reality, health professionals should be the first source of information on the Internet.
2. New patients: Education provided through quality healthcare content helps develop a positive reputation. This reputation will allow new patients to be captured, who will be willing to have a consultation with an institution or doctor who is willing to educate them.
3. Closer relationship with patients: It makes the doctor-patient relationship closer because the patient values and feels the difference between a doctor who cares about educating them versus one who does not. By being well informed, patients will also be better equipped to follow the doctor’s instructions and recommendations.