Blogging is a long-term marketing strategy that allows businesses to feed readers free, yet helpful information, therefore boosting traffic, increasing trust in the brand, and establishing a good relationship with customers.
Some companies don’t consider blogging as an essential part of marketing. This happens more notably in the senior care industry.
“It’s not converting.”
“It’s not useful.”
“It doesn’t generate clients.”
These are the usual remarks I get whenever I talk to care providers.
For many people, blogging may appear as an ineffective strategy. It’s a passive way to grow the business. But it’s also more than just content that populates the pages of your website. It is valuable content that enables your business to engage with clients, create brand awareness, and build authority in the industry over time.
Blogging isn’t a “publish blogs today, get 20 times traffic tomorrow” scheme. The value of blogging is similar to a fitness regime. It takes months or even years before you see results. But once it does, it will be like getting a power boost 100 times over.
Care providers must understand that a blog page is not a “money page.” It’s a business strategy that doesn’t directly affect revenue. Unlike a sales page, a blog page doesn’t focus on selling the product and its benefits. Its message doesn’t aim to persuade people to reach out to their pockets.
Blogging is all about providing value to new and existing clients, plus showcasing your knowledge in the industry. It sets the stage and conditions the web visitors for the next phase, which is buying.
Blogging in the Healthcare Industry
Blogs reached the mainstream in the mid-2000s. Due to the hype and its simplicity, everyone ventured into it.
But it requires serious effort and time to maintain a blog, which people didn’t expect. Efforts weren’t sustained. So, in the end, many blog sites failed.
However, this wasn’t the case for everyone. Those who nurtured their blogs like a baby exploited their content to market their services, improve Search Engine Optimization (SEO) ranking, and build a trusted brand.
I’ve done thousands of searches for senior care sites. I noticed that many businesses don’t utilize a resource page in the form of a blog page. It’s such a loss. Most senior care sites that top the search results are those with blogs. Just imagine—with a blog, you can improve your SEO ranking. If your site has a good ranking and consistently appears on the top of the results pages, you get more clicks, more traffic, and more opportunities to convert visitors to clients.
While blogging may not generate results on the spot, it’s an effective tactic for long-term marketing. If you invest today, you’ll eventually yield good results.
Top Three Benefits of Having a Senior Care Blog
Within the family, the decision to choose a care provider usually falls to the adult children. Often, it’s a lengthy decision-making process.
If you’re in the healthcare industry, optimizing a highly educational resource library can help adult children make a sound decision fast. As a result, they can act immediately and avoid putting their loved one’s health issue on the back burner.
What influence does a blog page have to convince families or seniors to enlist your care service? Today, we’ll go through the benefits of having a blog for healthcare companies.
1. A blog serves as a self-education resource page.
Nowadays, seniors are equally tech-savvy as their adult children. They’re becoming proficient at using mobile phones to search for information.
The concept of obtaining answers for health-related questions in a mere single click is extremely appealing to seniors. Thus, it drives older adults to optimize technology to get information in the most convenient way without leaving their homes.
So what information do seniors usually seek? Some of them may be looking for valuable tips to become self-sufficient. Others may want answers to questions like, “What are the common symptoms before a heart attack?” or even useful pieces of advice to manage diabetes.
Precisely at this point, you can position blogs as a resource page where you can answer the most commonly asked questions of the older adults.
But this resource page isn’t only for seniors’ use. Most adult children are getting involved in their elder parent’s care program. So they do a lot of research to self-educate, too. Your blogs will support their need to learn.
If the adult children are in the process of choosing a care provider for a senior member of the family, an up-to-date blog page is a great learning material to get to know your company and the services you offer.
2. It creates brand awareness.
Blogging is an effective tactic to raise awareness about your brand. By consistently sharing useful content about the most pressing health issues, you can make a good impression.
If your business is new, launching a blog is a great strategy to grab people’s attention. How? You can join local online groups or communities with the same interest as you and share your blogs there.
Make sure, though, that your blogs are useful and informative. Otherwise, you’ll only leave a wrong impression. Doing this will improve your brand’s visibility and ultimately make people aware that your business exists.
But remember, blogging is a long-term content strategy. It’s not a “launch your blog today and get raving clients tomorrow” system. The progress of blogging can be slow, but it’s definitely certain.
Another advantage of having a blog page is, it can be an extension of the Services page. You can publish posts that expand the services that you offer.
For example, if you offer respite care, you can write about how respite can help family caregivers remain mentally and physically healthy. A post with this topic delivers a broader and insightful perspective to future clients.
People crave information, but they don’t want to work hard to get it. They want to see all the answers they need in only one place. Thus, having a blog page where you can satisfy people’s need for knowledge will give you an unfair advantage over your competitors.
3. It engages families.
These times, most purchases are completed without face-to-face interaction. It’s one of the perks brought by the internet.
Most entrepreneurs are moving their businesses online to automate buying transactions. To put it simply, the web is a place where customers and businesses meet. The senior care industry is no exception.
Although care service is based upon personal interaction at first—from the adult children meeting an advisor for a care consultation—blogs open an avenue for care providers to engage with families after the first meeting. This keeps the newly found relationship going, which also translates to more opportunities for care providers to convince the families to choose them.
Through blogs, the company can reconnect with its prospects as many times as possible. Well-written blogs keep prospects warm, which is an advantage to the business.
Conclusion
Blogging never promises overnight success. Instead, it’s the opposite. The reason why thousands of businesses fail at blogging is they’re not consistent. They give up too early.
Blogs progress slowly and require hard work, time, and money to sustain. Initially, it may seem useless, especially if no one reads your blogs. But don’t lose focus because that’s normal. Eventually, things will change. Once you start getting ten web visitors, it’s easier to push the number to 100, 1000, or even more.
Building a profitable blog can help you in many ways, such as increase SEO ranking, build authority in the industry, and make your brand more visible and trustworthy.
