Build a Blog: #3) How to Create Content Marketing

Build a Blog: #3) How to Create Content Marketing

EXTENDED-CARE MARKETING EDITION

Now that you have a good sense who your target audience is, let’s get them engaged with your extended-care organization blog. First step, start thinking about your audience and your character personas as “readers.” What do readers want? Content marketing.

Content marketing are buzzwords you may have heard. Don’t let the phrase confuse you. It simply means providing your readers with relevant, engaging content that they can use or that they might be searching for on the Internet. Why? Your audience is more likely to reward you with their business and their loyalty, and you distinguish yourself from your competitors.

Here are some examples on how to create content marketing for two key audiences (you may have others):

1. Adult children, who are balancing the demands of career, their own children and their aging parents, will want to read entries such as: Ways to work through differing opinions among siblings on how to care for aging parents, tips for caring for the caregiver, how to stay engaged with a parent in an extended-care facility when you live far away.

2. Hospital discharge planners who want to make referrals that will please their patients and families will want to read entries such as: Testimonials from satisfied residents and families, those written by your on-staff experts about best practices in their fields (for instance, working with dementia patients, getting a short-term joint replacement patient rehabilitated), and news about your staff being on the cutting edge of extended care, for instance, mentions of awards won or your staff presenting to conferences.

Here are more tips to consider:

• Include meatier pieces. There is great debate in the blogging/marketing world on the “right” number of words for an entry. One thing everyone agrees on, while a lengthier entry gets more search-engine attention, quality counts. Our general recommendation: Make sure your entry is at least 250 words long and then take as many words beyond that as you need to provide your readers useful content.

• Do not include a litany of services. Your audience can find your services elsewhere on your website. They come to your blog to get useful content.

• Think outside the box. Realize that Debbie Discharge Planner is also releasing patients to home care. She’s concerned with avoiding hospital readmissions. As a leader in extended-care of similar patients, it is appropriate for you to provide her with content that helps her address this concern. For instance, write an entry on how to better educate patients regarding at-home self-care. In this way, you can speak to Debbie’s concerns even if they don’t immediately involve her sending homebound patients your way. In the meantime, you are building trust with her so that when she does make a long-term extended-care referral, she may more naturally think of your facility.

• Include a call to action. This is the classic last line that tells your readers to do something. For example, you may say, “For more information on our facility and how we might be able to help your family’s extended-care needs, contact us.” The “contact us” phrase should be hyperlinked to your contact page elsewhere on your website. This is one way that a blog entry can turn a reader into a client.

> If you need help building a blog or creating content marketing, give Lazzaro Designs a call or shoot us an email.
> Coming soon: Ways you can “bump up” the effectiveness of your blog: writing and design tips, how to use photos and infographics, as well as setting yourself up for an e-marketing campaign.

Posted Under: Blogging, E-Marketing, Extended Care, Social Media, Tips

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