How to use video effectively as a healthcare marketing tool

This year, Mayo Clinic made big headlines for hitting 1 million subscribers on their YouTube channel, a huge accomplishment for the international health system. Video tends to be a part of most organizations’ marketing strategies, but unfortunately, many organizations see limited views and engagement with their video. 

Some may employ a “if you build it, they will come” approach, where video content is created and posted, but not promoted. Others may be investing more in optimizing and promoting while still seeing limited success from their efforts. Video can be tricky, so we wanted to take time to share what we think makes Mayo Clinic’s video marketing so successful and what lessons you can take away from it for your own efforts.

Is video marketing worth it?

Before we dive into the tips and best practices, let’s address this fundamental question: Should you do video marketing at all? Consider some of these statistics:

• Online video consumption is on the rise, with the average person watching 17 hours of video online every week. - Oberlo
• YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world (after Google), and more than 1 billion hours of content is watched there every day. – Search Engine Journal

Suffice to say that there’s a huge audience for video, and many users enjoy learning and browsing the Internet through video content. But unless you’re a whiz with a smartphone and video editor, creating high-quality video typically requires outsourcing to a videographer or bringing on one in-house.

It’s important to consider:

• What your marketing goals are
• How much of your budget you can devote to video creation
• How much of your time you can devote to optimization and promotion

If you have limited time and budget, video optimization may fit more into the category of “nice to have” rather than “need to have.” Video content often helps drive consideration or affinity for your organization and doctors, rather than being a serious lead generator. If you need patients in the door right away, you may focus your time and dollars on harder-hitting tactics, like search engine marketing. 

Your role as a healthcare professional

Let’s face it: The Internet is full of bad health advice. We know that early intervention saves lives across many diseases and conditions, and patient education most often starts online. Searching for health-related information is the third-most common thing individuals do online. By providing reliable and medically-sound information to patients, organizations can guide patients toward making better care decisions sooner. It doesn’t hurt either if they choose to schedule an appointment with your doctors!

What types of video content should you prioritize?

While promotional videos and patient testimonials have their place, they rarely fit the natural habits of individuals watching videos online. Not to mention, they’re often some of the more expensive and time-consuming types of content to make! If you have a plan to air a commercial or to promote a patient testimonial, go for it. But we’re here today to discuss some of the unsung heroes of video marketing. 

How to videos

How to videos are some of the most popular forms of content, especially in video format. Some of Mayo Clinic’s most popular videos are those that teach people how to do things, like this video on how to remove ticks with 8.7 million views or another on how to use an insulin pen with 1.3 million views. 

Q&A or AMA (ask me anything) videos

Question and answer videos are probably a little easier to stage and record, but live “ask me anything” videos are also a very popular format. A moderator can still decide which questions to answer and which to ignore. These can videos can be filmed in a panel/interview format, recorded with a preset list of questions, or shot as livestreams. Mayo Clinic structured this popular video covering athletic performance with 1.2m views as an interview with a doctor.

These types of videos are a great way to answer questions from your common patient FAQs or those discovered through SEO research. 

Educational or explainer videos

Beyond answering common questions or providing how-to’s, you may have other educational content that doesn’t fit into the categories above. This video from Mayo Clinic demonstrates the menstrual cycle and how fertility works, providing education to patients about reproductive health.  With 26 million views, it’s clear that this video is very useful for many people. 

Behind the scenes / “with me” videos

If you’ve ever seen a “get ready with me” or GRWM video, you know that people like the go behind-the-scenes! Helping patients get behind the scenes can provide peace of mind and confidence about the type of care they will receive. Consider taking patients behind the scenes with surgery or surgical recovery, diagnostics and imaging, medicine or urgent care, and navigating cancer care. Do more than just explain; show them! It is important to ensure that your environment is staged but does not expose the personal information of patients. 

This behind the scenes video from Mayo Clinic shows a fiberoptic endoscopic evaluation of swallowing (FEES) study. With more than 7 million views, this video helps ease patient anxieties by showing the process and helping them understand the benefits of the procedure. 

Reaction videos

You’ve probably seen reaction videos before on social media, where a person is reacting to the latest dance trends or a funny video. But how can reaction videos fit into a healthcare business strategy? 

Positioning your clinicians as experts reacting to big news stories and health trends can be a valuable way to show expertise and dip into buzz-worthy topics. Sometimes reaction videos can be a bit dramatic or even sarcastic, and business brands would likely want to stay away from this kind of tone. Avoid reacting to individuals and focus instead on debunking or shedding light on the headlines or the big trends. 

How to SEO optimize your healthcare videos

Unfortunately, just because you build it does not mean they will come. Using SEO best practices in your YouTube account can help ensure that your videos reach their intended audience. Take these best practices into account for success:

Choose your topics based on SEO research.

There are a lot of tools out there to help businesses understand what their audiences are searching for, but it doesn’t have to be that complicated! If you’re creating a video about a certain service or condition, perform a search in Google or on YouTube yourself! 

Google’s auto-fill for search, “People also ask” panels, “Things to know” panels, and “People also search for” panels will give you a plethora of ideas, all focused on the most commonly searched-for questions. 

Describe your video well when you upload it. 

Add keyword or key phrase-focused information to accompany your video. In particular, focus on:

• Video title – Make your video title descriptive about the topic. Use your keyword or key phrase. Consider using a frequently asked question format.
• Video description – Use your description to include other keywords or phrases people might be searching for. Ensure that it’s an adequate and in-depth description. Link to your website and include a call-to-action.
• End tags – Set up an end tag so that the video points to a next step. This can help keep people engaged in your channel.
• Playlists – Add your video to a playlist with other content that users might want to watch next. 

How to make your healthcare videos ADA accessible

Video content can be challenging for individuals with certain disabilities. As a healthcare organization, it’s important to help ensure that you meet the healthcare needs of patients of all abilities. Ensuring that your channel is ADA accessible will not only help you serve underserved patients, but it can also help with SEO and bring more patients in your door. But if that’s not enough reason, United States law and the Department of Health and Human Services both require healthcare businesses to provide accessible content for individuals with disabilities. 

Focus on the following to make your videos accessible on YouTube:

• Closed captions – YouTube will autogenerate closed captions for users, but these can be incorrect. It’s important to review them and correct any errors. Closed captions should also be used to help describe imagery, music or other meaningful sounds. Live video must have closed captions. 
• Audio descriptions of visual content – The voice on the video should explain any images or complex visuals being shown in the video.
• Transcriptions – Provide a transcript of the video with a description of the imagery, music and any other concepts shown in the video.

Need help?

Here at Full Media we specialize in healthcare digital marketing, offering our clients expertise with search engine optimization and accessibility.  Drop us a line!