What Healthcare Marketing Can Learn From Target
I rarely go into stores. Ever. If I can get it on Instacart, I will find $30 worth of stuff to buy, just to get my order delivered. Thanks to the pandemic, I think I’m allergic to walking into a store — except for Target.
Target is the only store that I look forward to going to. It’s the only store that my kids look forward to going to. And the reason I still enjoy going there is that Target has taken what would be a mundane experience of running errands and turned it into something special.
It’s hard to put into words exactly what that special something is, but I think most working moms walk into Target and they feel this instant sense of peace. A feeling like everything is going to be okay. It’s always so clean. Everything seems perfectly organized.
We could all learn a lesson from Target — and especially hospitals. Here are some things that I think hospitals can take from the Target shopping experience and make it a part of the patient experience.
1. Anything that can be done at home should be done at home.
Even before the pandemic, Target had this brilliant drive-up service, allowing you to shop in their app, make your purchase, and then pick up your order in the parking lot.
Hospitals, in turn, are learning something from this approach — or rather, they’re remembering something. Before hospitals became the norm in the early 1900s, most medical care was given at home.
We’re going back to this approach in large part because of the pandemic. When no one was able to visit the hospital, the only way certain patients could get certain services was to have those services done at home. As a result, hospital administrators discovered that this led to better outcomes, lower costs, and better patient satisfaction.
Many services can be moved to the home or car space. When you’re having a baby, for example, you have to get blood pressure checks that could be done in the parking lot. No one who is 9 months pregnant should have to ask themselves, “Why did I have to get out of my car for this?”
2. Show — don’t tell.
Target’s desktop website, mobile site, and app all do an excellent job of showing a shopper everything they need at a glance. This is something that all companies can learn from.
Typically, when our clients call us for help with their web content and content strategy, one of the big issues is that everything on their site is buried. The content that consumers really would be looking for is buried. It takes three clicks. It takes several. You have to scroll and scroll and scroll, which is not necessary.
There are different ways that a hospital’s website could be more like Target’s web experience, where they present you with as many options as possible at a glance. With just a quick scan, you can see what you’re looking for, see what you want, and put it in your cart.
Focus On These Website Features
- Mega menus: Users should find exactly what they are looking for — without having to scroll.
- Fat footers: When a user makes it to the bottom of a page, there should still be somewhere to go.
- Tiled landing page: If a user can see it, they can easily click on it.
Retail websites make it easy for the user to do what they went there to do — and what the company wants them to do as well: buy things. By tapping into the web conventions consumers are already used to from their retail experiences, your healthcare website can be more usable and more successful.
3. Brag about your diversity.
When I walk into my Target, they have an entire shelf of beauty products that are created by women-owned companies. They have a display of products from black-owned, black-women-owned companies, Latina-women-owned, and LGBTQ-owned companies.
If you are interested in supporting a certain group by buying their products and services, Target makes it easy. Hospitals could take a cue from that and start to really promote the administrators and clinicians who reflect the groups you most need to reach.
There’s no reason somebody should come to your website and see only white male doctors, or worse — standard stock photos of a bunch of skinny smiling people. If you have a diverse team, broadcast it. Put it out there front and center. Let your patient audience know, “We have people who can relate to folks from all different walks of life, who can connect with your lived experiences.”
4. Show me how beautiful you are.
Target can make anything look beautiful. I mean, they have toilet scrubbers that are just gorgeous. They have storage bins that are stunning. And when you actually go to the store or onto the website, the space where Target displays these products looks a lot like a living room or a kitchen. They don’t simply show you the product, they show you how beautiful this product would be in your own home.
Many hospitals have made a lot of capital investments to increase the beauty factor of their physical location. But how many times do they hire a professional photographer to help them show that beauty off?
If you have invested in sprucing up your space, the next investment should be hiring a photographer or videographer to create some kind of virtual tour of that space. Patients shouldn’t need to come into your hospital to know how beautiful it is.
In healthcare, we could all learn a thing or two from Target. With just a few changes, the patient experience on hospital websites — and in the actual hospital — can be elevated from just so-so to the Target experience.
Looking to beautify your hospital’s website? CareContent can help with content strategy, creation, and promotion.
Guide To A Great Provider Directory
I’ve moved a lot in my adult life, leading to a pretty common list of Google searches upon settling into a new place. Those “The truck is unloaded and you’ve eaten half a pizza and are wondering if you made the right choice” kind of Google searches. You know the ones.
Megan’s Post-Move Search History
- Primary care providers in “Insert City Here”
- Ice cream shops near me
- Thrift stores in my area
- Birds in my state
While all of these searches are equally important — to me at least — one of them probably has more relevance to your healthcare organization. (It’s the birds, of course.)
Okay, it’s the search for providers. Potential patients looking for a new provider might come upon your healthcare organization through a Google search or a word-of-mouth recommendation to check out your practice.
To get that potential patient to make an appointment and get in the door, your healthcare website is doing a lot of heavy lifting. Yet no matter how much work has gone into making that journey happen for a user — to them, it has to feel effortless.
If they’re looking for a primary care provider, they should be able to find one. If they’re looking for a specialist, that information should be at the tip of their fingers.
That’s where your provider directory comes in — and why it needs to be a good one.
A Good Provider Directory Should Be Usable
This might sound like a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised by how many provider directories are not easily usable.
For most people, unusable can mean a clunky interface, a slow loading time, or a search and filter function that is unreliable at best — and nonexistent at worst. All of these small inconveniences can create big patient frustration. Each is a ding against your healthcare organization and your credibility.
But usability isn’t only for the people using your site. Your provider directory is also under yet another scrutinizing eye: Google.
While keeping Google in mind might feel like just another task on your to-do list, it’s actually a pretty exciting one. With the right information, you can have a big impact on your visibility on a Google results page.
You need to make sure your pages are filled with the right information — and that that information is tagged correctly for Google to find it. Physician information comes with its own tag schema that can boost a page in Google’s local search.
Become familiar with the kinds of info you need to include, and make sure to collect it for each individual provider profile.
Top 3 Qualities Of A Good Provider Directory
- Valid data that is kept up to date — like location, phone numbers, and insurances accepted
- Information for patients to make a decision (depends on organization goals, intended user interaction)
- Good search and filter function to easily find the providers that are relevant to a user
Your Provider Directory Is About Your Providers
On the backend of creating a provider directory, there are a lot of moving pieces. There may even be some office politics, too.
But for your patients and their user experience, it has to be all about the providers.
Your provider directory — done well — gives a human face and personality to what otherwise would be simply a name on a screen. Credentials and specialties alone won’t tell potential patients what a provider is actually like, but simple additions to a provider’s page can.
Consider including things on a physician’s profile page like:
- A warm and welcoming headshot
- A short bio explaining their background, medical, or educational journey — even interests or hobbies
- A provider video that shows them talking about themselves and in their own environment
Google also rewards longer content, so including more information can have exponential benefits in addition to increasing the amount of time a user might stay on a particular page.
Wondering what this could look like? Here’s a provider profile from one of our awesome clients!
Provider Directories Aren’t One And Done
While many healthcare website trends ebb and flow with time, one thing that probably won’t change is users coming to your website and wanting to find a physician. This makes provider directories a worthwhile long-term investment.
But just because provider directories as a tool aren’t going out of style any time soon, that doesn’t mean you can create it and forget about it.
Data clean-up is an area that a lot of organizations underestimate in terms of time and effort. Though it may not be something you do until after your directory is set up, it’s actually a critical step in ensuring a good directory.
“When it comes to provider directory longevity, it’s important to have a clear process for data governance, ownership, and maintenance. Without a detailed and agreed-upon process, data can become out of sync and stale over time.”
Crystal Choi, CareContent Operations and Project Manager
In one study conducted by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, they found that more than half of the provider directory locations assessed had at least one inaccuracy. This alone is a good reason to double-check the information in your provider directory.
- Does a provider currently practice where your directory says they do?
- Is the contact information for each provider accurate?
- Is a provider actually accepting new patients if it says they’re accepting new patients?
At the end of the day, bad data in equals bad data out — and a poor experience for users. If your directory says Dr. Smith is a physician at your practice but moved out of state 2 months ago, it doesn’t matter how beautiful or welcoming their page is. It’s still out of date.
The Power Of Your Provider Directory
Depending on the size of your organization, building or revamping your provider directory might feel like a Herculean-sized undertaking. You may be thinking, “We have thousands of providers — I wouldn’t even know where to start.”
But isn’t that all the more reason to make sure potential patients can find someone quickly and painlessly?
Or maybe you’re thinking, “We’re a small healthcare organization — we don’t have that many providers to comb through, anyway.”
But isn’t that a good opportunity to show patients you offer the same high level of quality as larger institutions?
No matter the size of your healthcare organization, everyone can benefit from a more efficient provider directory — and CareContent is here to help.
Does your provider directory need some love? Here’s how CareContent can help you figure out where to start and create something that WORKS.
What Is UX, Really, And Why Does It Matter For Your Healthcare Website?
Imagine you’re stepping into an elevator on your way to the 62nd floor for a big interview. Maybe you’re running a few minutes late, and you’re extra nervous. You have a coffee in one hand and your portfolio in the other.
You go to push the button for floor number 62 and find … Instead of going in an order that makes sense — 1 … 2 … 3 … — with the higher floors at the top of the panel, all of the numbers are out of numerical order.
Thankfully, elevators don’t work this way. We have expectations for how an elevator is set up, and these expectations allow us to get in and out effortlessly. And when there are changes, we hope that they make our experience easier — not harder.
In general, people want to be able to get things done — to accomplish the tasks that they set out to do. This is true whether they are trying to get to their interview on time or to make an appointment with a provider through your healthcare website.
Making these tasks easier is where user experience comes in.
What Is UX — Or User Experience?
So, what actually is user experience? Also called UX, and user experience design, you may have heard a wide range of terms and buzzwords attempt to explain this field.
When trying to understand what UX is, it can be just as helpful to understand what UX is not.
User Experience (UX) Is Not:
- Visual Design
- Graphic Design
- Customer Experience
- Service Design
User experience isn’t just making stuff pretty. It also isn’t even just making sure everything “works.”
At its simplest, user experience is how a person experiences a specific product, like your healthcare website. User experience design is when we center that user experience — the users’ abilities, limitations, needs, and values — in our design processes from beginning to end.
If you’ve read some of our other posts on the CareContent blog, you’ll know we love a good bee metaphor. Queen bee roles, anyone? That’s why we love the honeycomb model of user experience.
There are seven facets that make up the user experience honeycomb. Your healthcare website should be:
- Useful
- Usable
- Accessible
- Findable
- Desirable
- Credible
- Valuable
In this model, it’s important that good UX goes beyond our ideas of just “usability.” User experience is made up of multiple parts— like a honeycomb. When fit together, they provide a strong foundation for user experience.
But they are also worth examining on their own, meaning with limited resources or budget, you can still choose one meaningful facet of UX to focus on and see meaningful results.
Why UX In Healthcare Matters
Understanding UX is one thing, but being able to understand why it matters — and express that to the powers that be — can be a little harder.
Bad UX is Bad For Business
In a 2020 survey, 50% of healthcare consumers said that their whole experience could be ruined by a bad digital experience with a provider — and 26% would switch to a new provider if it meant a better digital experience.
Source: Accenture
The elevator example is easy to understand, especially because it’s a task we do often enough to be able to see where a breakdown in ease or experience happens. But we take a lot of what we do for granted with digital tasks. Digital technologies have become so sleek (and minimalist) that we don’t always reflect on how they’re actually working.
Except we do notice when they’re not working.
You notice when an online form is hard to fill out — even if you can’t put your finger on why. You may get frustrated if a website loads really slowly or if the colors are particularly harsh on your eyes. Your whole experience with a healthcare organization can be defined by one bad experience with their online scheduler.
“User experience is understanding the business needs, user needs, and the data, so you can play with tangible variables to obtain the desired results. A UX designer understands those business needs and user needs — and is able to find the sweet spot in that Venn diagram to create the best user experience.”
Cris Romero, UX Designer & Web Designer, CareContent
Having a good user experience is key to any product, service, or website — and this is even more true when it comes to healthcare.
People who come to your healthcare website may be looking for health information or a provider. They may want to feel comforted or assured. The appointment they’re making may be something they need to get done on their short lunch break or it may be something that they’ve been building up the courage to do for a long time.
Whatever the case may be, ensuring a good user experience will help them accomplish their goals.
Make Good User Experience A Healthcare Priority
While incorporating user experience design into your digital strategy can feel like a big task, ultimately, it’s important to remember that — like anything else — it’s a process. It takes time to get things right. Just making changes that you or your organization think will create better UX solely for the sake of making changes won’t get you where you want to go.
It’s important to leave room to ask yourself questions about the changes you’ve made and to measure their impact.
Are people clicking on the buttons you’ve designed?
Are users accomplishing tasks more efficiently — and have you asked them?
From testing to designing to measuring results, centering users and their experience at the heart of your work will lead to better outcomes for you and your patients.
At CareContent, we eat, sleep, and breathe user experience. We believe that centering users is the best way to get results. Learn how CareContent can help you with your UX needs.
Choosing A CMS: Drupal, Sitecore, And WordPress Review
From online shopping to social media to news sites, we are constantly on the web for work, fun, and information. The list of websites we all engage with every day is long — but the number of websites in existence is even longer.
There are an estimated 1.88 billion sites that make up what we know as the world wide web. But how often do you think about the behind-the-scenes activity that allows these sites to exist in the first place?
Probably not that often unless you are a web designer or developer. But if you’ve been tasked with choosing a Content Management System (CMS) for your organization, you may be unsure of what makes one CMS better than another.
What To Consider When Choosing A CMS
- Ease Of Use — Don’t pick a tool you can’t use
- Cost — Don’t pick a CMS you can’t afford
- Learning Curve — If your team can’t master it, it’s not worth it
Transferability — Choose a CMS that can still be used if your team of developers changes
As with any choice you make for your healthcare organization — like branding colors, organizational values, or what to include in your newsletter — what’s “right” is entirely up to and dependent on your specific organization.
Here’s a review of three common content management systems to help you choose what will work best for you.
WordPress — The CMS For CareContent
WordPress runs nearly 40% of the internet.
That’s not a typo — 39.5% of websites are powered by WordPress. Among them are the popular TechCrunch, Variety, and Yelp. The CareContent site also uses WordPress and is in good company with some tech, news, and culture giants.
So, why is WordPress so popular? What about this tool makes it ubiquitous to the very nature of “websites” nowadays?
- It’s easy to get started. WordPress prides itself on being user-friendly and intuitive for content creators and designers. Even creators with limited website or CMS experience can get the hang of WordPress quickly and produce a simple site in just a few hours.
- It’s highly customizable. WordPress’s content editor is straightforward but allows you a large range of flexibility. From themes to widgets to plugins, WordPress offers editors a lot of choices.
- It’s mobile-friendly. Responsive, accessible design is important for allowing users across a range of devices to access your content. WordPress has many options for plugins that can ensure your design adapts to screens of all sizes.
Without wanting to wax poetic, WordPress isn’t the only CMS out there — and it’s not the only good one either. The platform you choose to host your website will depend on your business goals and needs.
“Once you get over the learning curve, WordPress is super user-friendly — this makes it easy to pass along knowledge for how to use it to clients and teammates. Collaboration is key, and WordPress makes that easy.”
Crystal Choi, Operations and Project Manager, CareContent
Sitecore — Powerful, But Burdensome
Sitecore is another incredibly powerful content management system that runs popular sites for businesses and organizations such as Xfinity and Mayo Clinic.
What are some of the advantages and disadvantages of this particular CMS?
- Make robust analytics reports. Sitecore’s native analytics allow you to look at the quantity of views, but also the quality of interaction with your site. Using a metric called “Engagement Value,” you can better see how your site is performing.
- Present content in multiple languages. If you’re looking to natively present content in more than one language — without using a tool like Google translate — Sitecore allows you to do so.
- It’s cost-prohibitive. Sitecore can do a lot, but it also comes with a sizable price tag. Compared to other similar CMS options on the market, the upfront cost is considerably more expensive.
The majority of concerns with Sitecore is its burdensome installation and implementation process. In other words, it simply takes too long to get going.
Sure, it comes equipped with all the bells and whistles you could ask for, but this leads to it having a pretty steep learning curve. Many users who choose this platform do so with the intention of using those said bells and whistles — but never do.
Drupal — Free and Community-Driven
Another CMS worth exploring is Drupal. Drupal is a free, open-source platform, and you probably interact with it without even knowing it. To see a site build in Drupal, you can check out sites for the University of Oxford, the World Wildlife Fund, and Drupal itself.
“A free CMS?” you might be asking. “What’s the catch?” All told — if it’s a good choice for your organization — there isn’t one.
Here’s some of what Drupal can do:
- It’s pretty powerful. Drupal is capable of managing just about any amount of content, and any scale of site. With a variety of content types, modules, and themes available, the only limit is your imagination (or your skillset).
- It’s highly secure. Drupal is a particularly secure CMS, making it the choice for many government agencies and security-oriented organizations. Drupal highly prioritizes privacy and security with regularly installed updates.
- A strong community. Because Drupal is an open-source platform, it does not come with the same level of customer service or IT support as other CMS options. But what it does have is a strong and supportive community that creates, uses, and improves the software.
While the common theme of Drupal reviews is that it can do just about anything you could possibly want it to do, it is worth mentioning that not just anybody will be able to do it.
Drupal necessitates a higher level of coding knowledge than a site built on WordPress, meaning you need to know how to code or you need a web developer on your team. This isn’t necessarily a good or bad thing, but it is important to keep in mind when reviewing the capacity of your current organization or your client.
“Content management systems have come a long way over the years, but at their core, all CMSs are created equal. It’s your goal that makes a difference. Whatever the goal of your website is, that will determine if and how a specific CMS benefits you.”
Cris Romero, UX Designer/Web Developer, CareContent
The Bottom Line
So, is one better than another?
At CareContent, WordPress is the best content management system for our needs. It lets us easily post new content, embed new media like quizzes, and communicate our services clearly with potential clients.
WordPress also, in turn, works for many of our clients’ own websites — but certainly not all.
If there were one right way to do things, it might be easier, but we’d all also probably be out of a job. While the choices might feel overwhelming at times, start by asking yourself what your organization needs, wants, and can manage. Then make the CMS choice that makes sense.
At CareContent, websites are our bread and butter. Learn how we help our clients leverage theirs for more reach, engagement, and return on investment.
Do Healthcare Websites Age Like Milk Or Wine?
Whether you’re just beginning to build your healthcare website or are interested in a redesign, it is a huge part of your healthcare organization’s identity. Your website communicates your services and — just as importantly — your values.
You can look at it from a marketing, business, financial, or accessibility perspective, and the conclusion will be the same — your website is a key factor in your organization’s success.
The Healthcare Market Is Competitive
In the next few years, 42% of Millennials are expected to switch practices and physicians. With plenty of options — and plenty of healthcare websites to compare — your website has the power to speak to many potential new patients.
Source: Solutionreach
What features on your healthcare website have the longest shelf life — and which ones need to be updated more frequently?
Like A Fine Wine, They Stand The Test Of Time
At CareContent, we spend a lot of time building healthcare websites. Through research and analytics, we identify best practices to create dynamic and long-lasting content. We want your healthcare website to not just survive the test of time, but to thrive through it.
If you’re looking for features that last, here are some of the ones we’ve seen in our work that have the best potential for a long life.
Provider Directories
Your patients will always need to be able to easily access the medical professionals working within your healthcare organization. Even if the method changes — think telehealth and patient portals — being able to easily locate names, faces, phone numbers, and clinic locations will continue to be important.
For this reason, one feature on your website that will always be a good investment is your provider directory.
Provider directories connect patients with their current providers, but they can also be instrumental for new patients choosing a provider. If your provider directory is unusable, hard to locate, out of date, or nonexistent, patients may not be able to find the information they need. This is frustrating for your patients, and it can also mean a loss for your organization.
Blogs
While specific blog posts might be time sensitive, having a blog as a feature on your healthcare website gives you a place for that relevant and ever-changing information.
Your blog can share important healthcare news, health and safety information, or more personal insights into your organization’s providers — just to name a few.
Having a blog on your healthcare website creates a space for your healthcare organization to be a part of the conversation and to generate a recurring interest in your website. A blog can grow with your organization and with the changing trends, so while it’s a good, stable place to share content, it should never be stagnant.
Contact And Scheduling Information
While a good portion of a patient’s scheduling journey happens on your website, 88% of appointments are still scheduled by phone.
So, while your website may be impacting a potential patient’s desire to schedule an appointment, there’s a good chance that they pick up their phone to seal the deal.
Whether it’s a phone number, address, or an online scheduling form, be sure to make that clinic contact information accessible. And accurate. There’s nothing worse than thinking you’re calling one location only to have someone in a totally different department answer the phone.
Preventing Your Healthcare Website From Going Sour
In addition to maintaining website features that will remain evergreen, you don’t want to forget to keep up with the times. Ignoring these shifts in culture and technology can leave your website to age like milk — and quickly go sour.
Whether it’s new trends in content or the generational needs of your community, here are some things to consider when identifying the features that require more routine maintenance.
New Content
If this past year has shown us anything, it’s that the digital assets of healthcare organizations are only becoming more valuable — when done well.
If you want to diversify the kinds of content on your website, consider:
These forms of media require different talents, resources, commitments, and investments, so you’ll want to think through your organization’s goals — and capabilities — before choosing the best fit for you.
Generational Needs
Generation Z prefers to access their test results and communicate with their provider online. And you only have about 8 seconds to capture their attention — that’s not a lot. This means your content not only needs to be easy to find and easy to navigate, but it also needs to be aesthetically pleasing and visually compelling.
But this doesn’t only go one way. While you are making considerations for your younger audiences, you will also want to think about the way that older users are interacting with your digital content as well.
Almost 60% of adults aged 65 and older are now regular internet users, and that number will only continue to go up. It is short-sighted to assume that only younger audiences are using — and benefiting from — your digital content. Consider the value of user experience testing with audiences of all ages.
Website Accessibility
One thing you will want to continually be reassessing is your website’s accessibility. Your content should be usable for people with disabilities and be ADA compliant.
Because website accessibility takes into consideration the different needs of your healthcare website users and the different accessibility tools they may be using, this isn’t something that is “one and done.”
While accessibility standards will continue to evolve, here are some consistent accessibility considerations that won’t go stale:
- Images with alt text
- Videos with text captions
- High contrast color schemes
What’s Next?
Your healthcare website is a critical asset to your organization’s success. Dedicating time and resources to its development — or even redesign — can help you attract and retain patients regardless of changing digital trends.
These are just a few of the different moving parts in your website. Developing a site that works and grows with your users can be tricky — but not impossible. If you start by setting clear goals and prioritizing specific website features, your patients will thank you.
Contact CareContent if you’re interested in building a website that works. We’d love to work with you.
These Post-Pandemic Healthcare Trends Are Coming Your Way: Is Your Hospital’s Website Ready?
Crowded bars, maskless shopping, businesses operating at 100% capacity — in many parts of the country, it feels like we’re no longer in the middle of a global pandemic.
As life in the US is starting to get back to normal, one of the questions we’ve been asking is, “Are changes we made during the pandemic going to be permanent?”
It does look like there will continue to be opportunities for many employees to work from home. And if dreams come true, curbside pickup will be here to stay, too.
When it comes to healthcare, it looks like COVID-19 will change certain aspects of the industry for good.
Here are some of the predicted post-pandemic healthcare trends — and what that means for your healthcare organization’s website.
Trend #1: Promoting Telehealth Offerings
Telehealth usage skyrocketed during the pandemic. And even though usage has declined since in-person visits resumed, the vast majority (88%) of Americans want to continue telehealth after the pandemic. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has even expanded telehealth coverage, so it doesn’t look like telehealth is going away any time soon.
Patients of all ages use telehealth, but the ones who are most likely to keep using it are millennials (those born between 1981 and 1996) and Gen Zers (those born between 1995 and 2012). About 33% of millennials and 41% of Gen Zers prefer virtual visits to in-person ones — compared to just 9% of baby boomers.
What This Means For Your Website
Boost your marketing of telehealth services and focus on how to reach the audience who wants those services. Remember that when you’re marketing to this age group, you’re more likely to get results if you keep content short and sweet. Gen Zers also are known to think pragmatically and to be very busy, so drive home how practical telehealth is for them with their packed schedules.
Trend #2: Rethinking Usage Of Healthcare Services
Wasted services, like unneeded scans or unnecessarily aggressive treatments, can harm patients and are expensive. It’s estimated that overuse contributes between $75.7 billion to $101.2 billion to wasted healthcare spending in the US every year.
During COVID-19, more than 40% of US adults chose to forgo some or all of their healthcare appointments or tests, including emergencies. For some patients, this meant not receiving life-saving care. But for others, it didn’t make a difference — or even benefited them.
The amount of delayed or missed care gave medical researchers data they have never had before as well as insights that could prevent unnecessary or overly aggressive treatments, and excessive costs.
What This Means For Your Website
The trick is to draw people in ethically. Amp up marketing of essential services that people often skip, like routine physicals or vaccinations. Advertise smoking cessation programs or free mammograms that will get potential patients in the door. Make sure that you focus just as much on what’s going to most benefit your patients’ health as you do on your profits.
Trend #3: Fighting Misinformation
The internet opens the door for misinformation — and that door was blown off its hinges during the pandemic. As people spent more time online or watching TV during quarantine, they had increased access to false or misleading information.
Some of this misinformation had devastating consequences.
For example, in the 8 days following the start of the rumor that injecting oneself with disinfectant would help them fight COVID-19, reports of accidental poisonings with household disinfectants in the US increased 121% compared to the same period the year before.
What This Means For Your Website
Throughout the pandemic, healthcare providers became increasingly active in combating misinformation — often on social media. Many attained influencer and brand-like status on platforms like TikTok and YouTube. Providers who have achieved that status have major followings and a megaphone to fight misinformation about other medical topics, even when the pandemic is over.
Having a following isn’t surprising. A Pew Research Center research study found that 74% of US adults trust that their physicians care about patients’ interests all or most of the time.
Use this to your advantage. Choose a few providers to be voices of your hospital, on both social media and on the website. These providers will be seen as trusted members of your community and can help fight the spread of misinformation — throughout the rest of the pandemic and beyond.
Trend #4: Focusing On Diversity And Inclusion
Not only was 2020 the year of COVID-19, but it was also marked by racial reckonings and cries for change in the US.
The racial divide in healthcare isn’t going to change overnight. But committing your organization to improving, and truly following through, is a start. And your communication efforts should reflect that commitment.
As healthcare professionals know, COVID-19 and race are deeply intertwined, with Americans from racial and ethnic minority groups having a greater risk of getting sick and dying from COVID-19, and a lower likelihood of getting vaccinated, than white Americans.
It has become a new era of diversity and inclusion in the workplace — especially in healthcare — and it is essential to be ahead of the curve.
What This Means For Your Website
Americans in minority groups want to go to providers who look like them, and their health improves when they do.
In addition to bolstering your efforts to hire a diverse team, step up diversity in marketing. Use your organization’s providers in marketing materials rather than stock imagery and footage. If you’re planning on using testimonials, make sure that the patients who share their stories represent your entire patient population.
Listen to Modern Healthcare’s Next Up podcast episode (hosted by CareContent), “Dealing with two crises Pt. 2.”
Just remember that at the end of the day, the real way to make a difference is to make actual improvements and not give out empty promises. Marketing your organization as committed to diversity and inclusion efforts shouldn’t be a smokescreen. Make sure that your organization’s culture lives up to what you’re marketing.
And that goes for your entire website.
You provide your patients with amazing care — and your website should show just that.
Whether it means making a few quick updates or doing a complete website overhaul, keeping your online presence in line with the latest healthcare trends is essential. Let the team at CareContent help you get started.
4 Websites That Say “Nope”: Lessons In Good Web Design
In my industry, we call it your “bounce rate”: the percentage of visitors who land on your homepage, then hop on down the bunny trail to some other website.
That means they never click on any of your links. Never look around. Never get to know who you are. And never become your client.
What causes it? Many things, even just typing in the wrong web address. But visitors also tend to switch channels when they see outdated content, eccentric design, links drowning in a sea of copy … visual blunders.
This is why smart web design is so important.
Good Web Design Gets You Good Metrics … Relatively Speaking
Now, it’s true that about 55% of people spend 15 seconds or fewer on most webpages. So don’t feel bad if your bounce rate is high. We all seem to have a shorter attention span than a goldfish these days.
On the other hand, some websites do hold visitors longer. What’s a “good” span of time? Viewers who spend 3 minutes on your website are twice as likely to return as viewers who spent just 1 minute there, researchers have found.
Three minutes. Not really a long time. So, here’s the question: How do you grab them?
Generally, your website has to:
- Interest your target audience
- Answer questions with up-to-date content
- Inspire trust
- Be easy to use
- Be visually attractive, with things like bullet points (see what I did there?)
You can find dozens of tips to make a website user-friendly on the web. But it starts by asking a basic question: At first glance, what does our website say about us, as an organization?
That said, here are 4 statements to avoid at all costs.
1. “We forgot to take our Adderall.”
This is the Yale University School of Art, so we’ll give them a pass for the, er, outre design. However, a business needs to be more “Bill Gates” and less “Andy Warhol,” obviously. Being taken seriously is kind of a prerequisite to inspiring trust.
Here’s a far more powerful design from Cardinal Health’s website:
A splash of color, some beautiful imagery, and a message that goes to the heart. Nothing wrong with this artistic approach.
The takeaway: It’s best if “artful” is also tasteful.
2. “We’ll give you 3 guesses to figure out what we do here. Ha! Strike one.”
This is AintWet.com, and it takes several clicks to understand what they’re actually selling. (It’s hats and T-shirts, by the way. I think.)
This website is an extreme example of a communication breakdown. Forget brand identity: Your website can’t make any statement at all if the nature of your business isn’t clear.
That seems obvious, but it’s a basic step that gets overlooked. Compare Aintwet to UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital:
They could have picked a generic hospital building. Instead, they picked a kid. This really says “we’re all about children,” and it hits a home run. (Bonus points for matching the kid’s shirt with the U.S. News and World Report badge.)
The takeaway: Your website should communicate who you are, instantly.
3. “Working with us is as exciting as watching paint dry.”
I don’t know Suzanne Collins, and I’m sure she’s a nice woman. But glancing at her website, you’d never know she authored the best-selling novel The Hunger Games.
You’ve got a great company with great people, products, and services. Don’t turn visitors off with a boring “opening act.” Put on your top hat and coattails, and have some stage presence.
When you get a second, pay a visit to Clarity.io:
Air quality data could be boring. So could the technology that measures it. But Clarity launched a website with sparkling filaments, spinning globes, orbiting electrons, and other eye-catching animation. The Clarity website even won an award this year.
The takeaway: Even a “dry” product or service doesn’t have to mean a dull website. The sky’s the limit on design.
4. “Walk into our lobby and you might see Granny Clampett in a rocking chair.”
This is Mortimer Lumber, a company in Michigan. If their website works for them, more power to them. But I wouldn’t recommend rolling out the “ye olde jalopy” look for your own website.
There are fine antiques, and then there’s old junk. Here are a few signs your website is evoking the Internet’s “Wild West” days from the early ’90s:
- Busy, jumbled pages
- Flash animation
- Tiny fonts
- Wild colors
- Slow loading
- The word “welcome” on your homepage
- No call to action
- A lack of responsive design for tablets and smartphones (Google actually penalizes you for this)
If you’re going for a “classic” look, try something like this, from Kraud.de:
Basic, but sleek and beautiful. Just enough color to make you click. This website got it right.
Granted, Kraud is a home decor firm, so they’re starting with a visual advantage. But your website can soar creatively, too. Ask a web designer about the possibilities.
The takeaway: Simple, elegant web design is always welcome to the eye.
In the end, it’s your website. You can do whatever you want with it. But when you have only a few seconds to capture a visitor’s interest, it’s important to make an instant impression.
Your website says everything about you. Let it make a statement that says, “We’re smart, we’re savvy, we’re on top of the world. And we’re the company you want.”
Need to talk about a website revamp for your healthcare organization? We’re here for you. Get in touch with us and set up a consultation.
4 Healthcare Websites That Don’t Exist Yet … But Really Should
Digital marketing in healthcare is all about thinking outside the box. In fact, sometimes that box—or website—doesn’t even exist yet. Instead, all that exists is a blank space, waiting for its niche to be filled.
From helping hypochondriacs to assisting aspiring doctors, here are 4 healthcare websites that don’t exist yet … but really should.
1. The Healthy Hypochondriac
Being self-aware about your health is good. Knowing your body’s warning signals can alert you that it’s time to get checked out and treated by a medical professional.
Hypochondriacs take that self-awareness to a whole new level. We all know that one person who thinks that the smallest dull pain in his pinky toe must surely mean he’s dying. After all, he Googled it, so that one-in-a-million worst-case scenario must be true. There’s simply no way it’s just an ingrown toenail, right?
But what if there was a healthcare website that encouraged hypochondriacs to step away from the search bar and turn to the professionals instead? That’s where The Healthy Hypochondriac comes in.
This site would allow visitors to list their symptoms. Then, instead of providing them with a long list of results that vary in severity (and likelihood), from “you’ve stubbed your toe and it’s a little bruised” to “you’re definitely dying,” it would display the following message:
Only a qualified medical professional can diagnose your ailment with any degree of certainty. Not sure where the nearest provider is? Here is a list of medical specialists in your area.
The list that follows this message would include contact information for local providers, rather than a prescription for panic.
2. Dude, It’s Time For A Checkup
The problem with the stereotype that men hate going to the doctor—and thus will avoid doing so at all costs—is that it has become a self-perpetuating problem. Guys know they’re expected to want to avoid the doctor, and so they act accordingly, lest they be accused of being unmanly.
One way to stop the spread of this stereotype would be to instead spread the message that “real men know it’s okay to go to the doctor.” How?
Dude, It’s Time For A Checkup would feature multimedia messages from men whose successes span the cultural gamut—athletes, musicians, actors, scientists, entrepreneurs, and more—all sharing why they go to the doctor.
Messages can be targeted by specialty or condition—everything from the importance of having an annual physical to knowing your risk for prostate cancer.
Plus, there’s also the potential for a female-oriented spinoff: Girl, It’s Time To Get A Checkup.
3. Is This Health Info Legit?
Is This Health Info Legit? would be a myth-busting, fact-checking site—sort of like Snopes—but aimed solely at healthcare-related topics.
However, this site would take the mission of encouraging health literacy a step further. Sure, it would provide reliable information on the latest healthcare fads and news—and provide warnings about any misinformation that is making the rounds online.
But the site would also have a section dedicated to helping visitors make their own decisions about healthcare websites’ trustworthiness. How? By encouraging them to question an article’s sources and claims—and reminding them that their doctor can always help them separate fact from fiction.
4. There’s A Doc For That
Not all healthcare websites are aimed at patients. There’s A Doc For That is designed for the aspiring medical professional.
The goal? To educate future nurses, physicians, and other care providers about the wide range of medical specialties out there. The site would feature videos of doctors, nurses, and others giving the real scoop on what it’s like to work in their professions: the ups, the downs, and everything in between.
The site would also provide partnering opportunities for different professional organizations representing the different specialties.
For instance, medical associations could tout the benefits of membership in their organizations, hospitals could show off their cutting-edge research opportunities to draw in new talent, and nonprofits could recruit new providers to join them in their work.
Does your healthcare organization have an idea for a website that’s just begging to be created? Contact CareContent to find out how to turn that idea into a reality.
Content First: 9 Signs It’s Time To Redo Your Healthcare Website
Yes, it’s probably time.
The fact that you’re even reading this blog post indicates that you’ve at least clicked around your healthcare organization’s website and either rolled your eyes, or just let out a long tired sigh.
Revamping your healthcare organization’s website is a huge undertaking: the content strategy, the content creation, the design, the UX. Then, after all that’s done, who’s going to keep the thing updated?
Or maybe you’re not sure. Sometimes, it can be hard to tell if your organization’s website needs a makeover. And I’m not talking about just changing the layout and color scheme. I’m talking about redoing the content on the site, too.
So, how do you know if your healthcare website is in for a redo? Here are 9 signs it’s time to do it—and put the content first.
First, there are the obvious signs:
1. The Content Is Out Of Date.
If no one is keeping tabs on when new content is published—or whether the published content is even still useful or relevant—then it’s probably time for a refresh.
2. The Site Is Difficult To Navigate.
If visitors can’t find what they’re looking for right away—like within a few seconds, at most—chances are they’re leaving. And that’s not a good thing. Hint: If people are spending a longer time on your homepage compared to pages about your services, then it’s possible that they’re not finding the right path to the information they need.
3. The Site Isn’t Responsive.
I really shouldn’t even have to say this, but here it goes. More than two thirds of all health-related searches are done on mobile devices, not computers, according to an August 2016 Search Engine Land report. If your healthcare website isn’t responsive, then … just … I can’t.
4. The Site Looks Outdated.
If people are looking for some Internet nostalgia, they’ll turn to BuzzFeed posts like “6 Websites You’ll Remember If You Grew Up In The ‘90s.” But if your healthcare organization’s site looks like it belongs in one of those posts, it’s time to redo it.
While these are all obvious signs that your healthcare website is due for an update, there are more subtle signs that many people overlook simply because they just might not recognize them:
5. You Called A Web Design Or Development Firm First.
If the last time you worked on your website, you called a web design or development firm first, you probably need to redo your site.
That’s because digital marketing is all about content.
If you did not take a content-first approach to your website and instead relied on a developer or design firm, it probably means you took your old content and placed it into a shiny, new shell.
But that content might not be performing the way you want it. Even if you redesigned your website as recently as two years ago, if you didn’t take a content-first approach, it’s probably time to take another stab at it already.
6. No One Is Tracking Your Analytics.
If you cannot point to the one person or team in your healthcare organization who can tell you how your content is performing, where traffic is coming from, how long visitors are staying on your site, and what content those visitors like best, it’s probably time to for a redo.
I say this from experience. When talking to clients or prospective clients who don’t have a dedicated analytics team or partner, the organization usually has some really outdated features or stale content on their website.
And the reason it’s become outdated is because no one is telling the organization that the content is not performing well. Analytics is all about how the content is performing.
7. Even Your Care Providers Complain About The Website.
It’s probably time to redo your healthcare website if your organization’s care providers say they want the website to be a much more robust resource for their patients.
A bad website makes providers’ jobs harder because they don’t have a centralized place they can point patients toward to get answers to those repeat questions.
If your doctors are complaining about what they think should be on the site, listen to them. What they’re really saying is, “We need to invest in our site in order to make it something that helps us help our patients.”
8. There Are No Interactive Elements On The Site.
If your site has no videos, graphics, or other elements that make it visual and interactive, it’s not going to rank well in search.
Plus, nobody wants to look at a big wall of text. Graphic elements break up dense text and keep people engaged. If your healthcare website doesn’t have visuals, it’s probably time to redo your site.
9. Your Healthcare Website Is Not Ranking In Search.
Ranking in search is so important because that is how people are finding their healthcare providers.
For instance, a September 2012 study conducted by Google found that 44% of patients who looked up information about hospitals on a mobile device ended up scheduling an appointment. That study also found that search brings almost 3 times as many people to hospital websites, compared to the number of visitors who arrive there without searching.
It’s not so much that your site’s landing pages need to rank. Rather, the pages for individual doctors—especially those rockstar doctors who have patients traveling long distances to see them—should show up on the side of a Google results page, along with a picture, quote, and updated office hours and locations.
Google is trying to compile as much information as possible to help people find answers instantly. If a person is looking for an answer or a service that your healthcare organization can provide, Google should know that.
So, if your web content is not ranking well in search, it’s time to redo it.
If you want to cut down on the headache and the hassle of a website redo, contact us today to talk more about how we can help you put content first in your next redesign process.
End the meeting if your healthcare website vendor says this…
As hospitals and physician groups catch up to current expectations for their websites, many are being duped by web design firms. Let’s pull back the curtain on how some website vendors get one over on healthcare clients.
