By John Lavey | Hammock President and COO
I heard a great question this week from a prospective client: Why do customers choose you and why do they stay with you?
It’s a great question because the person who asked it recognized the fundamental value of how a relationship works. A good business partner offers more than what you sought them out for in the first place.
Developing recurring content, across a variety of media, to support a business objective typically requires skill sets that are too specific and too expensive to replicate in-house.
Most healthcare companies that want to do content marketing need a partner with the subject matter expertise, team, processes and experience to help.
In many cases, they are looking for a partner because they’ve come to the conclusion that they can’t justify the investment in-house. So they see it as a replacement for a full-time equivalent (FTE) or FTEs.
But long-term relationships are much more than a replacement for an FTE.
Sure, with the right partner, clients find that they are able to focus on projects and other priorities that serve their core business. And the clients understand that a professional process makes it easier on their team.
But there is deeper, more fundamental value when you find the right outside partner. You have an extension of your team that is focused on serving your customers and prospects, just like you are, with solutions that perfectly position your brand.
A good outside partner can serve as a sounding board, and constantly challenge you to focus on the audience’s concerns, and not corporate speak.
The right outside partner’s access to domain expertise is valuable for helping you hone your message.
And the right outside partner starts to show you all the ways content plays a role in moving healthcare customers through their journey, such as building presentations for sales or investor groups, developing training videos, or helping improve their client conferences, to name a few.
Finding the right partner means looking at the reasons they are the right fit for right now, but also for next year and the years to come.
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.