The Currency of Social Exchange and Ammunition
By Chandresh Shah
Healthcare and content marketing is a heaven made marriage. Good Content creates empathy, strengthens relationships and supports healthcare providers on their journey and quest for solutions and tools to better manage their Practice. But most EHR software marketers mess it up. Here’s why.
Content is now much bigger in terms of becoming the currency of social exchange and ammunition in the battle for human engagement. In the post-advertising era it’s also become a prized asset – if not the most prized asset – of the EHR software technology marketer. Building a robust content marketing strategy is the first step towards differentiation and brand marketing and towards building exceptional customers, loyal customers, evangelist customers.
The Divide
The first part of this article and blog is what drives marketers – ‘let’s create content – tons of it’. The biggest problem I’ve seen is in the quality of content. Let me give you some examples.
Testimonials
Consider this real testimonial from a real web based EHR Company (name suppressed):
“I have been using ABC-EHR for the past 9 years. What makes ABC-EHR stand out from the rest is their cloud-based service and usability. It was very important for us to have patient data available across our six centers; ABC-EHR made it possible. They have brilliant support and whenever we need them, they are available.”
Here’s another one from a different company.
“After comparing many EHRs, I determined that XYZ-EHR was the best software for my new clinic. I run a high-volume family practice clinic with two mid-level providers. XYZ-EHR is used for scheduling, reminder calls, medical records, insurance, and patient billing. XYZ-EHR is a critical tool for my practice. It is a very good software, but I am also very pleased with the level of service XYZ-EHR provides with their technical support team.”
Any web EHR company could have written this, and it applies to all companies across the board.
Put yourself in the shoes of a provider that is struggling to find a good software. You spend hours on the internet going from one web-site to another, looking at their products, services (they all say the same thing, all offer the same features in one form or the other).
You look at customer testimonials. You encounter the same thing from one website to another.
Case Studies
It is the same age old formula that no longer works.
- Problem / Challenges
- Solution
It is a brochure in disguise. It is the business owner or marketing manager’s opportunity to toot their own horn.
Who Cares? Certainly, your constituents don’t. Your prospects, the physicians that are looking for a good solution don’t care.
Where is the disconnect?
The disconnect is in the content narrative. There is nothing in those testimonials or case studies that makes the reader say, ‘that’s exactly who I am and the subject of the content is just like me. So, if it worked for them, it may work for me…. let me give them a call.’
The bottom line
Story. Content must be real stories that connect. Unfortunately, they can’t be crafted in a marketing intern’s cubicle. You need to really talk to your clients, spend time and extract ‘their’ story. Then you need to have good writers that can convert their story into a narrative.
This is what makes content King. Not just quantity of case studies and testimonials on your site.
This article was originally published on Chandresh Shah’s blog and is republished here with permission.