Have you ever been so turned around while driving in a new city that you ended up in some random location that’s nowhere near where you wanted to be? You eventually get there, but you arrive feeling frustrated with yourself, wondering how in the world this could have gone so wrong.
The same thing can happen with your online content marketing.
You have a general idea of the type of content you want to provide but somehow, you end up creating random social posts on the fly or writing a quick blog article that came out of left field. Plucking ideas out of thin air and hoping they’ll strike a chord with your ideal patient isn’t the best way to go about it. But you know you need to be doing something but have no idea about where you’re going.
So how about we change that? It’s time for you to have a better way to design and execute your marketing strategy! Here are three simple steps to help you create a content marketing roadmap – one that makes sense for YOU.
1. Get Clear About What You Want
The best content marketing plan supports what you want to achieve in your practice. So, before we get down to the brass tacks and nitty-gritty details, let’s first think through your goals for the next year.
Take a few moments and jot down the answers to the following questions:
- What kind of growth do you want to have next year?
- What are new services or products you want to launch and when?
- What holidays or community events do you want to promote?
- What conferences will you be attending?
- When will you be out of the office (vacations, holidays, conferences)?
- Has your target audience or ideal patient changed? What have you learned about them? How have they evolved?
- What days or times of year are really important to your patients or your practice?
These are all questions that will help you get a better idea of what you want your marketing roadmap to look like. Now you’ll be able to begin creating content around the answers to these questions. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves… first you need to:
2. Decide On What Type of Content You’ll Write – and When
Once you have a general idea of how your year is going to look, now it’s time to start diving into the content. It’s soooo easy for content marketing to get super overwhelming, fast. So, let’s keep it simple.
First, decide what type of content you want to create next year.
- Do you want to focus on blogs?
- What about kick-starting that monthly newsletter? Or perhaps writing short emails?
- How about being more present on social media through regular posts and videos?
- Maybe you want to try your hand at postcard mailers or flyers?
Decide the type of content you want to include in your marketing. Then, decide how often you’re going to publish each type. If you’re not sure about the frequency, here’s what we recommend as a good starting point.
- Blogs: Twice a month
- Email newsletter: Once a month
- Shorter emails: Weekly or every other week
- Social posts and videos: Two or three times a week
Once you decide on the type of content and its frequency, let’s bring it all together in one content marketing calendar!
3. Map It Out
First, download an editable 2022 calendar so you have all your content ideas in one place.
Once you download it, fill in all of those important dates and milestones you identified in step one. Then, write in the dates you want to publish your content (e.g. blogs on the 1st and 3rd Wednesdays, newsletters on the 2nd Tuesday, etc.).
What you’ll end up with is a comprehensive calendar that shows you:
- the major goals you have for the year and their timing
- important seasons, events or dates for you and your patients
- your content marketing deadlines
Now it’s time to pat yourself on the back – you’ve mapped out your plan!! But how do you actually get all this content written?! I’m so glad you asked…
How to Have a Hands-Free Approach to Content Marketing
Because you’re the rainmaker and the one running the show in your practice, chances are your plate is pretty full. Fortunately, there are a variety of ways you can knock out your content with minimal effort on your end.
Here are three of them – they’re listed in order of the most hands-on to the least.
1. Create your first drafts through voice text or dictation.
You’re the expert at what you do. You know your material like the back of your hand. So, you may not need to do an intense amount of research to write that blog or create a quick email.
Once you decide on the topics to write about, create your first draft by voice texting it into your phone. This is a deceivingly simple way to beat writer’s block and crank out your content at warp speed. Plus, since you’re speaking the content, it helps your material have more of a conversational flow.
Once you have it as an audio file, upload it to any transcription service and viola! Your spoken words have come to life and are now in written form. You can then clean up any funky transcription misspellings and tweak your copy the way you want it.
Here are two of our favorite transcription tools:
2. Leverage automated software.
Anything you can automate or schedule ahead of time will make your life much easier. Once you have all your emails, social posts, and visuals created, pop those babies into your favorite scheduling software (consider Loomly or Buffer) and leave the rest to them.
When it comes to your emails, just load them in your CRM (Customer Relation Management) software, set the date you want them to go out, and then check it off your list – DONE!
3. Outsource your content marketing.
If you’re not sure all this content creation is something you want to tackle this year, you can always outsource it. As a wellness practitioner, your patients look to you for advice and guidance with regard to their health which is why a content marketing strategy is so important.
At Clinical Catalyst, we love taking all the content marketing pressure off your shoulders. By providing biweekly blogs, weekly emails known as Health Tips, and a slew of other resources, we make your workload a little lighter and keep your patients talking about you all year long.
The best part about the content marketing provided by Clinical Catalyst is that all of our content is vetted by an actual healthcare practitioner – one just like you who understands the importance of providing relevant content for your patients. We’d be honored to help – just reach out and we’ll help you find the best solution for your practice and your patients.
Create Your 2022 Content Marketing Roadmap Today!
Regardless of whether you decide to create your own content marketing roadmap, or you let someone else carry the load, it’s never too late to begin thinking about the kind of information your patients would benefit from. Make sure you start the year off with a bang by knowing exactly what your content strategy will look like.
Cheers to a beautiful year full of wonderful patients and incredible content!
