Healthcare Technology Featured Article

July 24, 2019

What is healthcare PR and how does it work?




Many healthcare businesses hire a PR team either in-house or from an agency to act as their voice out in the world. Public relations teams are specifically hired to use various marketing strategies, both traditional and digital, to get your company out there and into the eyes of the media.

As the world of journalism evolves, fewer reporters now even make it two steps out of the office to source and write stories. The New Yorker claims that much of this is down to Google Search, Facebook and BuzzFeed. 

This now means that PR companies cannot simply send mention requests to the media. Teams have to work to build reputable relationships with both newspaper titles, individual journalists and social media outlets to ensure that news coming out of your business is read by the wider world. 

Yet sometimes, even this isn’t enough. PR companies have adapted over the years to learn exactly how to use other marketing methods, such as social media and blogs, as a much more tactical way of reaching a wider audience. 

As with everything, the modern era has flipped the world of public relations on its head. With that in mind, we’ve created this guide to tell you exactly how healthcare PR teams work.

Objectives

Every time a healthcare PR company starts a new campaign, the team has to consider what they would like to get out of it. For many, objectives will centre around increasing brand awareness, or boosting sales. 

By telling your marketing company exactly what you’d like to achieve, ie a 10% boost in Facebook engagement over 8 weeks, you’re giving them something to strive towards. 

Setting goals has a range of benefits, from keeping the team accountable to making sure your business continues to propel forwards.

Make sure you know the audience you want to target, and keep it realistic. Chances are that your first campaign won’t make huge news, but will be enough to get your business’ name out there and secure a foot in the door.

Content

If there’s anything you should know about marketing in 2019, it’s that content is king. However, this can’t just be any old article, photo gallery or video thrown together in ten minutes, you need to make sure that every piece of content associated with your brand is of top quality.

For a potential customer to stay around, they need to be shown that relevant information comes out of their search queries from the word go.

After all, content helps with link building. Creating content people actually want to read and share will get your name out there.

PR teams have much more time than you to be able to perfect said content, which is why they are so helpful to have around. Content marketing helps to build brand awareness in a way that is already helping the customer - which is perfect for building those crucial workplace relationships.

The team could look at hosting podcast interviews with other healthcare experts, writing ‘how to’ guides, or even creating infographics to help promote your business.

Industry specific publications

Having a team that will get your business’ name featured in industry specific publications is invaluable. After all, it’s more about quality than quantity. Many really specific healthcare publications may not have the readership numbers you’d ideally want, but will have the readership interests you want more.

This puts you right at the centre of attention of the people that really are interested and care about what you have to say.

According to Digital Authority, simply conducting a Google search could help you to find the industry related publications that you would like to reach the most.

Having a browse of different publications will make it really apparent to you as to which ones you’d like to be published in the most, so that you can then explore means of getting in touch and offering content. 

Rise of influencers

Social media has changed the game when it comes to marketing and PR, especially when it comes to influencers. Over the last 5 years, the world has seen a massive rise in the amount of people creating personal brands on platforms such as Instagram to make money.

And now, as young people grow up with these figures, they’re becoming the most effective way to market products.

Reaching out to influencers to promote your service or product will get you instant access to a target audience that you may have been trying to reach for a long time, but so far haven’t received any luck with.

After all, how many young people read newspapers nowadays? By becoming part of the community of young people, your brand will reach a whole new level thanks to the sheer power of sharing on social media.

Customer service

To make sure you’ve providing the ultimate service to the public, you should ensure that all of your staff are trained in customer service.

Treating your customers well and always putting them first is a great way to boost your business, and should never be undervalued, especially in the healthcare industry.

Training every staff member in basic customer service is the best course of action, according to Healthcare Weekly. Having a behavioural policy in place is a great way to ensure your business’ relationship with the public remains steady, and will help to build a great reputation.

Making sure to reply to every comment and review and pick up every call, good or bad, will put you in good stead and show you really care about the service you are providing.

The bottom line

Healthcare PR is all about reaching out to as many potential clients as possible, and the way we do this is now changing. 

To ensure your business is ever-growing, it’s time to start getting heavily involved with social media and caring about the online reputation of your business.

It’s now very well known that your online presence is very much your second shop front, so make sure to look after it and in turn, it will look after you. 



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