Healthcare Content Marketing: How Much Should It Cost?
It all starts the same way: Your healthcare organization needs to reach a certain audience online. Maybe you’ve been producing healthcare content for years, and now you have so much that you don’t know what to do with it. Or maybe you’ve just realized that content is your ticket to engagement, and you’re just getting started.
The end goal is the same, too: When your audience encounters your content, you want them to to raise their hand and become a patient, client, member, etc.
So, how much should that action cost?
Content should be considered a long-term investment, not an expense. That said, expect to make a bigger investment if …
You Need Strategy.
It’s one thing to have already ironed out your healthcare organization’s content solution. Now, you just need help executing. But if you’re looking for insight, ideas, and solutions to challenges, then the content team that helps you is more than just an extra set of hands.
Ideally, they come in on the front end when you’ve discovered the content challenge. They can get to know your organization, your challenges, your business goals, and your audience. Then, they apply years of expertise, experience, and lessons learned to pitch ideas and solutions.
Read this twice: Solid ideas are the pulse of a strong content solution. Ideas are what distinguish you from your competitor—ideas about compelling topics, distribution channels, etc.
You want your content team to be a pack of rabid problem solvers and idea generators—and don’t expect that to be cheap.
You’re Looking For Experts.
Think of it like this: The average family medicine physician makes $225,000 annually. But a neurosurgeon—around $700,000. Why the difference? One is a specialist, offering something that you can’t find on a shelf—and you need it.
Many of our clients come to us because we are healthcare content specialists. We only work with healthcare organizations, so we know the space inside out.
Good luck trying to ask a lower-cost general interest content team to work on a project about a very technical healthcare topic, like the mechanism of action for a new drug or anything dealing with the Affordable Care Act. The acronyms alone will give them a headache.
Plus, you’ll spend precious time getting them up to speed on healthcare when they should be learning about your healthcare organization and your goals. And in the end, you may have to redo it all.
If you choose to go with a specialized healthcare content team, expect to pay for brain power, not just taskmasters.
You Need The Groundwork Done.
Content audits. Social media promotion. Analytics. Tracking down subject matter experts. These are common and important aspects of many content challenges, but they take a lot of time. And you can’t have an intern doing this unless you just like headaches.
Ideally, the same content team who tackled your strategic challenge can roll up their sleeves and execute the solution. That way, they can circle back to the strategy to build on what works and improve on what doesn’t. Plus, you’ve already developed a relationship with them.
So now, you’re paying them to lend their expertise toward taking these tasks off of your plate.
How much is that worth to you?
The Best Approach?
Let your prospective content partner know your ballpark budget. Save everyone some time, and put it out there. If you don’t know your budget, ask the prospective content partner to throw out a number. Then ask yourself: Is it worth it?
If you’re with a healthcare organization and curious about pricing for healthcare content solutions, shoot me an email (kadesha@carecontent.com), and I’ll let you know how CareContent charges.
