The 2019 Trends for Content Marketing in the Healthcare Industry
The report State of Healthcare Content Marketing is designed to deliver insights from the healthcare industry in regards to content strategy.
The report sampled responses from over 50 healthcare marketing executives in 2019, generating useful insights, possible trends in the industry and how healthcare brands plan to adjust in the near future.
Content Marketing Being Adopted Across the Industry
The vast majority of healthcare marketers (77%) are already deploying content for marketing purposes, with another 18% planning to implement content marketing strategies by the end of the year.
The trend is showing a continual increase in the active use of content marketing among healthcare organizations, as reflected in the survey data (2017–69%; 2018–83%; 2019–95%)
Goals for Content Marketing
At the top of the list for why healthcare brands use content marketing, remains brand awareness, according to the report. However, healthcare organizations increasingly use content to drive patient volume and revenue growth with nearly half (45%) citing lead generation as the primary goal.
The trend for content marketing goals reflects how healthcare organizations prioritize their brand image, while aiming to generate and convert more leads. The top five goals for content marketing in 2019:
- Brand awareness
- Engagement
- Lead generation
- Patient loyalty
- Lead nurturing
Content Marketing Remains Highly Effective
Along with content’s increased prevalence as part of the healthcare marketing mix, this year’s survey respondents are nearly unanimous (99%) in describing their content marketing strategies as effective.
Content Marketing Strategies
Nine in ten marketers already have a content strategy in place or plan to have it by the end of 2019, however only 27% have taken decisive actions to formalize the plan.
According to the report, this development is consistent with last year’s report and likely reflects the challenges of matching an increased demand for content with the available resources to align with business objectives.
Tracking and Analyzing Content
Half of respondents (54%) said they have a system in place to measure and track the ROI of their content marketing. At the same time, one in five (22%) do not track ROI for content marketing at all. The difference between adoption and demonstrated achievement is likely a result of competing priorities, lack of CRM to take advantage of content-generated opportunities and still new initiatives related to lead generation.
According to the report, the percentage of respondents who said they are successful at tracking the ROI of content marketing fell from 65% in 2018.
Consistent Budgets for Content Marketing
Similar to previous years, almost all of surveyed marketers expect their content marketing budgets to increase or stay the same.
With 2019 content marketing budgets remaining consistent year-over-year it reflects that content marketing is becoming a staple in a marketer’s modern toolkit.
