Content Marketing in the Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Industry

The pharmaceutical industry is known for its traditional and conservative approaches, which is further constrained by strict legal guidelines. The strict regulations make it more difficult for marketers to create content for marketing purposes.

While content marketing does not deliver immediate results, it is an important marketing channel for any business. Due to the added friction, the healthcare industry has been one of the last to adopt content marketing.

Patient Stories

The most powerful stories a pharmaceutical or healthcare brand can share is how their product or service helped one of the patients. A lot of patients might start feeling better about their own treatment after reading stories online of similar cases.

Ideally, begin the story around a person that has benefitted from some kind of treatment or product.

Tell the entire journey of the patient, from the appearance of their first symptoms to getting the proper treatment. This will let readers relate to the person, finding commonalities in the process and sometimes even alert others experiencing similar early symptoms.

In case you can’t find a patient, you can build your story around a doctor or other healthcare professional, but the patient should be at the top of your list whenever possible.

Furthermore, you can find someone who might be willing to write from a first-person point of view about their diagnosis and overcoming the disease.

As you write these stories, don’t center it around your brand. Focus on telling genuine stories that can be helpful to patients — don’t try to mention your product as often as possible.

Educate Your Audience

Your brand has an expertise in a certain domain, product or service. Irrespective of the specific domain, writing about it and providing readers with valuable insights will position your brand as an authority in the industry.

The simplest type of content is writing about possible symptoms and sign of a disease. Similarly, share ideas on how to prevent certain diseases or recipes that help ease symptoms of a condition.

Besides educating your audience via content, your brand can also raise awareness about specific topics. If there is a taboo topic within a community or a specific issue that is being ignored, try to contribute by encouraging discussions and engaging in meaningful conversations.

For example, a company selling birth control products can launch a campaign to inform or engage with millennials about women’s health and contraception. The content isn’t focused on advertising the product, but is meant to educate and start a discussion with the target audience on health-related issues.

When creating and writing content for a pharmaceutical or healthcare related brand, don’t forget about following the industry’s regulations regarding patient data.