You know it was a great workshop when you took away so many great points you couldn’t even fit them all into one blog post!

As I mentioned in my Invest More Time in Developing Content for Digital Properties post, I recently attended the content marketing workshop at the Healthcare Marketing Strategy Summit in Scottsdale, AZ this week.

One great insight I heard is the fact that truly great content marketing happens at the intersection of user needs, resources and business strategy.

As Ed Bennett, Scott Linabarger and Shel Holtz explained, to create great content, adhere to the following strategies:

1. Align with business needs. Some content is simply going to be more valuable to the organization than others, so focus on strategically important specialties and then partner with your service line marketing folks to understand what moves the business. Content is a long-term strategy and not an event, so meet regularly to identify, prioritize, review and plan. At the Cleveland Clinic, Scott Linabarger asks the following questions to determine what content will be most valuable: What will people travel for? What do we do best? What do we offer that is unique? Where are the growth opportunities?
2. Be user focused. This applies not only to the writing style that you employ but also to the content you choose to develop and the way you deliver it. Start with a general idea of user needs and then refine with analytics. For example, Cleveland Clinic noticed an increase in food-focused searches on its site around 4:00 pm on weekdays. Why? Most likely consumers are getting hungry or planning dinner. An interesting insight, but what can you do with that information? The Clinic started regularly posting recipes in the late afternoon with great success. To ensure that they’re posting recipes that their audience wants, they occasionally ask their Facebook followers what they’d like to see. A typical morning post might be about breakfast choices, information to help in planning your day, or a topic about things that are interfering with a good night’s sleep. Mid-afternoon is often recipes. While a late night post could discuss how doing yoga improves sleep.
3. Editorial calendar. It’s hard to consistently deliver great content if you’re waiting for a spark of inspiration. Plan in advance what content is needed and commit to a regular schedule.
4. Stretch your content investments by leveraging a range of formats. Look, for example, at how McKinsey Quarterly unbundles research reports – they offer a summary abstract, the full report, the full report in eBook format, along with podcasts, short video interviews and sometimes even infographics.

For more information on content marketing and content production for your website, check out Geonetric’s white paper on Web writing for healthcare and learn more about the latest in content marketing trends.