A lot has changed in the last 18 months. You might find yourself going to physical stores less. You may be working from home full time. Or maybe you’ve gotten real tight with your local delivery drivers.
COVID-19 has altered the fundamental ways we go about accomplishing many different tasks. And in the process, digital marketing has become even more essential — not to mention more competitive.
If you’re producing many different types of content already, you’ve taken a step in the right direction for staying relevant and engaging to your audience. Videos might be a key part of your content strategy, but if your videos are boring, you may actually be doing more harm than good.
Why Video?
“Videos convey tone and emotion associated with your brand in a way that words cannot. You can tell your prospective audience that you’re an organization that truly cares about and listens to patients — or you can show it through curated audio and visuals.”
Nicole Pegues Riepl, Multimedia Content Designer, CareContent
In order for your video to stand out and be more than just background noise, it needs to be engaging. It needs to be interesting. It needs to be good.
Here are 3 ways to make sure your healthcare website video is worth watching.
1. Capture Audience Interest With Strong Characters And Storytelling
Take a second and think back to a book or movie that you didn’t finish. Maybe it was boring. Maybe the characters didn’t seem real or compelling. Maybe it was about a topic you just weren’t that interested in.
The same applies to the videos.
Finding The Right People For The Job
“If you’re creating a video where people are speaking, finding the right people is absolutely key. They can enhance the authenticity and attractiveness of your organization — for prospective patients and employees alike.”
Nicole Pegues Riepl, Multimedia Content Designer, CareContent
There are 7 basic story plots that can help you flesh out a video for your healthcare website. These basic story arcs are not the only ways you can tell your story, but they are the tools writers have used for thousands of years — from the Epic of Gilgamesh to the most recent plotlines on your favorite sitcom.
Here are the 4 that can best help you frame your own videos and stories.
- Overcoming the monster: Your subject has overcome a great obstacle or challenge that is threatening them or their family. This plot can be useful for framing patient testimonials where they have overcome an illness or injury.
- Voyage and return: Your subject travels somewhere new and brings new knowledge back. This can be a great story arc for providers or for resident video bios.
- The quest: Your subject sets out to acquire something or go somewhere. This is another useful plot for patient — or procedure videos — especially if a patient was able to travel to your hospital to receive care they couldn’t find elsewhere.
- Comedy: A light or humorous story with a happy ending. A comedy plot doesn’t necessarily mean that the story is “funny,” but rather that it has a lighthearted tone and a happy ending. This can be a good angle for any videos featuring children or families.
Learning more about how storytelling works is just one way you can tell better stories through the healthcare videos you produce.
2. Use Your Time Wisely
If you’ve ever been to a long meeting and thought, “This could have been an email,” then you know what having your time wasted feels like.
Don’t make your audience members feel the same way. If they’re taking time to watch your video, each and every second should add value either in the form of new information, an answered question, or simply entertainment.
To make sure your audience actually gets to that information, answer, or entertainment, you have to draw them in right away.
You only have 8 seconds to capture the attention of Gen Zers, and that number only goes down for video consumption. According to Facebook, you have 3 seconds (THREE SECONDS!) to capture a viewer’s attention — regardless of their generational status — if you want them to keep watching a video.
Whether you’re in the planning, recording, or editing stage, keep in mind how you can best fill the time frame you have. Whatever story you’re telling or service you’re selling — jump right into the important stuff and get to the point.
3. Be Real
While healthcare continues to become more consumer-oriented, patients have more choice than ever about the care they receive. This is a driving force in many changes to healthcare, but two main points stick out:
- When it comes to the patient journey, your organization is selling a service — one that patients will get cheaper, better, and more conveniently elsewhere if they can.
- While your healthcare organization may be in the business of selling, you don’t want your marketing to just be about the selling.
And since you are selling a service, your healthcare videos should be engaging and well-produced — but they should also be genuine. This is where videos can make a key difference.
Setting An Authentic Tone
“Don’t claim that your organization is one way in your video messaging, but in real life, it’s the opposite. People will either see through that or discover the truth when they use your services, and they won’t hesitate to be vocal about it as a warning to others.”
Nicole Pegues Riepl, Multimedia Content Designer, CareContent
This means using patient testimonials that capture the energy and personality of your patients. It means getting that candid B-roll of your providers doing their job to cut in between an interview. It means having conversations with your marketing team about the voice of your organization.
There are many definitions of “realness” — and your version of real might look completely different from another organization. The important thing is that you decide what that target is and orient your videos toward it.
Lights, Camera, Action
Video can be used for patient testimonials, physician introductions, virtual tours, or even to explain a procedure — and that’s just scratching the surface. A well-produced and engaging video can give your healthcare website a fresh feel while also communicating important information to your audience.
At the same time, while it can be tempting to turn everything into a video, slow down. It’s better for your time and strategy to determine what will most benefit your audience and what you can effectively produce.
Focus on the videos that will best serve your goals and your audience’s needs. Then, set out first to do both of those right.
