branding

Health Communication vs. Content Marketing

This week, I was honored to join an excellent line-up of digital health communicators at the NIH Digital Summit. I was part of a panel focusing on “reaching patients and people where they are,” where I was joined by Robert Burchard and Erik Augustson - two government health intervention designers. I had ten short minutes to make my pitch that, when it comes to providing citizens information, the field of health communications is being overshadowed by big consumer brands and their exploding interests in content marketing. Here’s a recap of my central message.

I believe that we, as digital health communicators, are in a daily tug-of-war. We’re competing with brands for attention from the same target audiences, and now we’re both using valuable content as a way to elicit a behavior. They call this “content marketing” and we call it “health communications.” And, it may come as no surprise, that brands are winning in this struggle. Specifically, I think they’re doing a better job at leveraging existing target audience behaviors, driving deeper engagement, and focusing on high-quality content. I see this as problem for those of us in public health because we’re working towards a goal loftier than product sales. We’re working towards a nation of healthier Americans. So it’s important that we find a way to enhance our efforts and do a better job competing with these brands.

While our end goals may differ, there are several things we can learn from brands and adopt into our own work. Specifically, I think we need to:

  • Get personal. Tell stories. Drive deeper engagement.
  • Focus on channels that build engagement.
  • Build a relationship with the online community.
  • Build brand affinity for our organizations.
  • Establish more public-private partnerships.
  • Continuously evolve in tiny increments.

Ultimately, we’ll do a better job competing in this ongoing tug-of-war if we remember that: It’s not about the channel. It’s about engagement. We should be putting our energy towards building a consistent, positive relationship with our target audience through meaningful engagement, regardless of the platform or channel. We may never be able to compete with the amount of money big brands spend on marketing, but we can offer a unique value proposition: as public health communicators, we are the only ones with the end goal – not of sales or profit margins – but of improving the health of the communities around us. Let’s work together to do a better job of holding our ground in this tug-of-war, of making sure that our science-based messages get heard among the brand chatter, and of working together to create meaningful engagement that will help us make progress towards our goal of a national of healthier Americans.

For more on this presentation:

Key Takeaways from the 2015 Edelman Trust Barometer

Edelman and MM&M recently released The 2015 Edelman Trust Barometer: A Closer Look at Health with a number of interesting insights into how the global “general population” and “informed public” views health industry. Here are a few of the main data points and related key takeaways for public health communicators.

  • Search engines are now the most trusted source for general news and information among the informed public of all ages, and millennials lead the group with 72% using search engines as their preferred source. Takeaway: Ensure your websites are optimized for search engines through the use of quality content, keywords, and metadata.
  • Academics, industry experts, company technical experts, and “persons like yourself” remain the most credible spokespersons for businesses in the health space. Government officials or regulators rank last, with CEOs ranking only slightly higher. Takeaway: User-generated content continues to be an essential part of health information dissemination, especially when content creators are highly matched with a specific target audience’s demographics.
  • “Hospitals, clinics, and other medical care facilities” are one of the most trusted subsectors of the health industry, and private insurance companies were the least trusted. Takeaway: Look for opportunities to build public-private partnerships with hospitals, especially those known for providing high-quality consumer health content, such as the Mayo Clinic. Partnerships could include cross-promotions, co-branding, and shared content development activities.
  • Eighty-percent of all respondents reported they bought a product or service because they trusted the company behind it. The reverse was also true, with 63% reporting they refused to purchase a product or service because they lacked trust in the company. Takeaway: Brand integrity is an essential part of health communications and should be applied to both organizational communications and health campaigns. A structured communication plan and style guide can help achieve brand consistency, especially across a large organization with multiple teams responsible for creating health content.
  • “Innovations,” especially those in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries, are perceived to be driven more by an interest in making a profit than by improving health. Instead, informed public respondents cited “contributing to the greater good” as a key driver of their trust in businesses. Takeaway: To build brand trust, develop a regular process for collecting and sharing information on how your organization is having a positive impact on the wellbeing of others. Whenever possible, post personal stories from employees or partners to add user-generated content to the mix. 

For more data and analysis, read the full report.