Healthcare Video Marketing: Strategy or Spaghetti Against The Wall?

Healthcare video marketing is a powerful communications and engagement tool for healthcare organizations. You can use healthcare video marketing to your advantage on your website, on YouTube, Instagram, Vimeo, LinkedIn and other video or video-supporting networks.

So why are so many healthcare companies falling short and failing to capitalize on the impact of video marketing?

Common video marketing challenges for healthcare organizations

• No video marketing strategy
• Time requirements to create videos
• Video production requirements (equipment and expertise)
• Cost of video production
• Scripting for the videos – time and expertise required
• Limited or no expertise in optimizing videos for online searches

Benefits of video marketing for healthcare organizations

• Many people prefer watching videos compared to reading about healthcare topics and resources
• Videos can be more engaging and emotionally compelling in telling your story, which results in higher conversion rates
• High search volume on YouTube for health topics and resources
• Potential for first page organic ranking of videos in Google searches
• More active engagement and response to your email marketing campaigns

It all starts (or should) with your video marketing strategy

What do you want to achieve through video communications and influence? More attention, enhanced image, better branding, more conversions from people who watch your videos?

How about attracting and retaining more patients, clients or customers? Would that do it for you?

Your goals for video marketing should inform your strategy – and your video communications channels.

For example, did you know that roughly 60% of Instagram users and viewers are between 18-29 years of age? Does this match the age demo of your preferred target audience?

Your goals, as well as your target audience demographics, will also inform the topics, content, imagery, style and even the length of your videos.

If you don’t begin with strategy, you are just throwing a lot of “video spaghetti” against the Internet wall and hoping some of it sticks somehow. Not exactly putting the odds for measurable success in your favor, is it?

Video Style

Depending on your audience, topic, script and budget, what video style should you use?

• Live action video?
• Explainer video animation? (2D? 3D? Whiteboard?)
• Stop motion video? (Live? Digital?)
• Infographic video?

Scripting

It’s always a good idea to have an actual script for your video (and even shot storyboards in some cases). This seems obvious but you might be surprised how many people just turn on the camera and wing it – often with disastrous results.

Your strategy, topic and target audience should determine the length of the video. And the length of video can often dictate the script. What is shown and heard during the first 15 seconds of your video? The answer is certain to be very different if your video is 15 seconds versus 15 minutes.

What motional “hot buttons” do you want to push within your video viewers? What action (if any) do you want a viewer to take as a result of viewing your video?

All of these considerations go into the approach and content of your video.

Video Production

Your strategy, topic, audience and budget should also influence your approach to production.

Even for live action video, you can choose to use a more informal, even ad hoc video style for some audiences and topics or you may need more sophisticated and “professional” production values for other audiences and topics.

Of course, different video styles (including animation, infographics and stop action, among others) will dictate your approach to video production.

Irrespective of production considerations, you should always use professional, experienced video production services and personnel (whether you have these resources and capabilities within your healthcare organization or you need to engage external video production services).

Video Editing

As anyone familiar with production of videos already understands, the “magic” of great videos happens during the editing process.

Editing is particularly impactful to live action as well as stop-action videos, but it also applies to animated and infographic videos.

Video production is a dynamic process and is equal parts technology and art. Great video editors are both technicians and artists. In fact, technical video capabilities is almost a commodity.

It’s the eye and the artistic communications sensibility of the video editor (often working in collaboration with a producer or director) that determines not only how the video looks but also the emotional connection and influence of viewer reaction and behavior.

Video Optimization

OK, so now you have a (hopefully great) video. How are you going to use it? How are you going to distribute and share the video?

From an online search optimization perspective, the knowledge and skill that go into optimizing your videos will directly affect how many people are exposed to (and potentially influenced by) your video.

Optimization techniques for your videos will be different for videos featured on your website compared to optimization of videos for YouTube, for Google search and for other video platforms.

This article is not intended as a how-to guide for video optimization. (That information will be published in a future article.) Just be certain that you have someone on your team or externally with the expertise needed to get the most optimization benefit for your videos across all of your communication channels and platforms.

For more information or discussion about your video marketing strategy, contact Lonnie Hirsch at Forefront Healthcare Consulting 800-924-5447.