paid media

By Megan Hamby, Editorial Director

One of the biggest challenges that marketers face when creating new content is promoting and distributing that content. You’ve created campaigns with engaging blog posts, thought-provoking e-books and compelling infographics—but if you are not able to ensure your target audience sees it, then what good does it really do? 

Generating qualified leads requires more than just publishing compelling content. You also need a strategy for promoting that content—focusing on all the tactics at your disposal to ensure your message reaches its intended audience. With healthcare, this isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach. Instead, your content strategy should be highly customized and you must leverage trusted channels—industry conferences, trade media or even your own events. Another option to include in your content strategy is paid media—a way to promote content through sponsored social media posts, native advertising, paid search results, video advertisements, display ads and more. Utilizing paid media can be an effective and efficient way to reach your target audience and expand your reach.

However, when it comes to paid media, simply using Google Search ads or pay-per-click ads likely won’t help you reach your target audience or key decision-makers. Instead, turn to more specific forms of paid media, such as:

  • Social media posts: LinkedIn is one of the most effective social media platforms for B2B marketers—especially if you are implementing account-based marketing (ABM). According to Gartner, ABM is “a strategy in which a supplier targets a select group of accounts that represent significantly higher expansion or growth opportunities with tailored marketing and sales support.” Using sponsored posts on LinkedIn can target users and drive them to relevant content. On Twitter, consider promoting a post that links to high-performing content to boost it even further. 


  • Display ads: Display ads are one of the most popular forms of paid media—pop-ups, banners and videos can be found on almost every web page on the internet. However, because they are so popular, web users tend to ignore them. If you do use display ads, be sure to advertise on websites specific to your industry. For instance, if you specialize in healthcare technology, consider paying for a display ad on a site like Healthcare IT News. 



  • Sponsored content: In 2016, Business Insider predicted that sponsored content would be the fastest-growing form of native advertising over the next five years. Sponsored content can be expensive—but when choosing the right content and the right outlet, it can be effective. For example, a revenue cycle company might consider publishing a sponsored article or blog post on a site like RevCycle Intelligence.


This week, take a look at your content that could use an extra push—and look for new ways to distribute it with paid media. Need help? Give us a call. 

Image: Getty Images

 


About Hammock Healthcare Idea Email |
This post is part of Hammock’s award-winning Idea Email series. Idea Emails are sent every other week and share one insightful marketing idea. Idea Email comes in two flavors: Original and Healthcare. To subscribe to the original Idea Email (general marketing ideas), click here. To subscribe to the Healthcare Idea Email (healthcare marketing ideas), click here.

 

 

comedyclub

By John Lavey | Hammock President and COO

I spend most of my professional life helping clients tell stories across all forms of media to accomplish a business objective. But in my personal life for the past eight years, I’ve also been part of a few storytelling groups in Nashville and have gotten up on stage in bars and comedy clubs to tell comic stories. 

Telling a story in front of a crowd has informed my perspective on marketing, and I’ve learned through great nights where I was killing it (and one or two nights where I’ve bombed) three truths about what it takes to engage an audience. I think those three truths are just as relevant for engaging your audience at a healthcare conference as they are in a club.

  1. Show, Don’t Tell—Any writer will tell you this, but you have to make people feel the details and concrete nature of a problem or challenge you face. When you are telling a story about a bad date, it matters to share details about how bad the calamari was, or how you were both glancing at your phones, and some of the specific and terribly awkward words shared. When it comes to talking about industry issues (say physician burnout), we tend to focus a lot on data-supported points (which are necessary for making a decision) but don’t engage our hearts and minds like the stories of men and women logging into an EHR at 1 a.m. after days and days of treating patients.

     

  2. Create a Story With an Arc—Most of us prefer to deliver a resolution, and when you are telling a funny story, that means to deliver a laugh line. But if you don’t take someone on a journey that shares the ups and downs to demonstrate the depth of a problem, then you won’t get the payoff of a great laugh. In talking about solutions in our work, it’s a similar dynamic. The great CEO, writer and speaker Nancy Duarte talks about the principles of good storytelling when presenting, and the importance of creating an arc, with distance between “what is and what could be.” If you don’t create the arc of a story, you are delivering a boring corporate presentation.

     

  3. Resolve With Truth—I’m convinced that what is magical about laughter is that it is a spontaneous reaction to something that we believe to be true (however unexpected). And a group of people laughing is shared recognition of something resolved, and the relief of resolving the situation you’ve shared in a way that they didn’t expect but that they believe. With your presentation, you have the ability to deliver the same resolution by accurately telling a story of a situation faced in their work and resolving the situation with something they believe. 

Storytelling and creating engagement with your ideas and solutions can be enhanced with attention to these tips, in my experience with clients, too, not just strangers in a comedy club. And that’s no joke.

Image: Getty Images

 


About Hammock Healthcare Idea Email |
This post is part of Hammock’s award-winning Idea Email series. Idea Emails are sent every other week and share one insightful marketing idea. Idea Email comes in two flavors: Original and Healthcare. To subscribe to the original Idea Email (general marketing ideas), click here. To subscribe to the Healthcare Idea Email (healthcare marketing ideas), click here.

 

 

QRcode

By John Lavey | Hammock President and COO

One important development from the pandemic for healthcare marketers has been the renaissance of Quick Response (QR) codes. 

While QR codes have been around since 1994, efforts to make QR codes and QR code readers ubiquitous had never been successful. One effort in particular, the CueCat, was launched in 2003 and burned through $250 million of investors’ money. According to one critic, the CueCat “fails to solve a problem which never existed.” Ouch.