There’s no question that most health care marketers today use content
marketing as part of their marketing mix.
According to one 2017 study
, 94 percent of health care organizations claim they used content marketing
or planned to use it during 2017. For most marketing teams already running
lean, creating all this new content can be chaotic. This is where editorial
calendars come in.
Editorial calendars keep busy health care marketing teams on track
Editorial calendars help you define and control the process of creating
content, from idea generation through writing and publication and even into
promotion. It keeps everyone on track and gives transparency to the content
creation process.
But just as no two hospitals are exactly alike, neither are two editorial
calendars. What works for your team won’t necessarily work for others—and
that’s true of both the format of your calendar and the information you
include.
[RELATED: The best ways to engage with hospital employees.]
Popular editorial calendar formats for health care marketing teams
There’s no shortage of options when it comes to editorial calendars, as a
quick Google search will confirm. Many marketing teams rely on Excel. It’s
free, already on your computer, and pretty customizable. Other popular
formats include Trello, Google Docs and Google Calendar. There are
certainly paid options available, but some teams find success by simply
using a printed calendar and Post-it notes.
If you’re new to building an editorial calendar, start with something easy
to use and free. Build it and start using it. Then you can see where the
limitations are and find something else if it’s not working.
Structuring your calendar
Not sure how to organize your calendar? You can always organize it the way
you currently work—which often is by month. This works well if you tend to
develop content around events, such as monthly health observances, new
doctor hires, offline campaigns or events your organization sponsors.
Consider
organizing by topic clusters
—especially if you are taking advantage of this strategy on your website.
When you organize your site by topic cluster, such as service line, it can
help you rank higher in search engine results pages and provide a more
organized user experience.
Remember, the key is to see your calendar as a living document that needs
to be updated regularly. You know things are going to change. Make sure you
use your calendar like a map; you can see where you’re going but you’re
able to change direction as new opportunities emerge.
Important elements of an editorial calendar
Regardless of what format your calendar takes, here are some fundamental
areas to focus on:
-
Audience.
Who is the primary audience for this topic? If you have personas
developed, you could list the primary (and possibly secondary) persona
this content asset speaks to.
-
Date.
This could include date assigned and date due, or just the date that
content will be published.
-
Topic.
For health care marketers, the topic could tie back to which service
line this asset is supporting, such as maternity, cancer, heart or
primary care.
-
Content type
. Is it a blog post, infographic, patient story, video, checklist,
etc.?
-
Keywords.
Before writing, be sure to gather keyword research from places like
Moz’s Keyword Explorer so you can
optimize your content for both search engines and people
. Don’t forget to consider local keywords, too.
-
Headline.
The famous David Ogilvy quote still holds true: “On average, five times
as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have
written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.”
Make sure to align the title with keywords for SEO.
-
Lead.
Including a benefit-driven, engaging lead is a great way to ensure your
message strategy for the content transfers to other channels, such as
an email campaign. If you include a word or character count, the lead
can easily be used in social media outlets, making promotion a snap.
-
Cross-linking.
Do you mention specific providers, locations, service lines or health
library information? If so, be thoughtful about cross-linking and
keeping the reader engaged on your site.
-
Author.
Capture who will have the byline, which is especially important if your
team is ghostwriting for providers or other subject matter experts.
-
Owner.
Include this field if someone other than the author is responsible for
keeping the content moving through the process. This is common when
doctors or service-line teams are authoring content but a marketing
team member is responsible for ensuring it is finalized.
-
Status.
This field would be updated as the content progresses from in-progress
to review to completion.
-
Call to action.
What do you want your reader to do? Sign up for a tour? Make an
appointment? Share a personal story? Identifying the next step—and
ensuring it’s trackable—will help your team determine the success of
your content.
Sample editorial calendar and taking your calendar to the next level
Ready to use what you’ve learned so far?
Here’s a sample of a healthcare editorial calendar
using many of these fields to use as a starting place.
This is just the beginning of what you could cover in your calendar. For
example, take the above foundation to next level by also including:
-
Stage of the patient journey.
If you’re recording the content type, you can also map where that asset
is likely to be used in the health care customer journey. For example,
a patient story is most likely to be used by someone in the evaluation
phase.
-
Opportunities to repurpose.
Creating a content machine often means repurposing content. What other
ways can that blog post be used? Can that interview with your
cardiologist become a heart-healthy checklist or infographic? Can part
of that patient testimonial video become a blog post?
-
Existing content.
An editorial calendar doesn’t have to just include content that will be
created in the future. Plug in existing content, especially content
that performs well, and think about how you can repurpose or refresh
it.
[Free Download: 10 ways to help your email engagement skyrocket]
Prove your content’s value by tying it to organization goals and
tracking success
As you already know, most organizations are investing in content marketing,
but many of those same organizations reporting their efforts aren’t
necessarily producing a return on investment. This
study
reported that 69 percent of health care organizations use content
marketing, but only 28 percent feel their efforts are “very effective.”
How do you make those investments pay off? Be sure the content you’re
investing in aligns with broader organizational goals. For example, if your
organization prioritized increasing volume to a certain service line,
you’ll want to focus content efforts on that service line.
As mentioned earlier, it’s also essential to ensure you have a call to
action in your content, which can be an online form or a trackable phone
number. This ties the visitor experience back to the end goal.
Another way to prove value is to record your rankings for valuable keywords
before you publish content and then again a few months later. Rankings you
achieve organically can save money, especially if that’s traffic you are
currently buying through paid search advertising.
Happy content marketing
As you can see, there’s a lot to consider when starting an editorial
calendar for your health care marketing team. From format to elements to
tracking success, a lot goes into a successful content marketing effort.
Don’t get overwhelmed by how big or complex your editorial calendar could
become—especially if you’re a multihospital system or considering
integrating other types of content, such as email campaigns, print
magazines, media, health observances, etc. Start small and build on it as
your team and processes become more sophisticated.
Heather Stanley is the marketing director at
Geonetric
. The original version of this post can be viewed
here
.