Creating top-notch content isn’t easy, and for many healthcare marketing teams, resources—time, money, talent—are chronically tight. Fortunately, you can reuse, recycle and repurpose content to streamline your workload and get results.

The key is to be intentional as you’re creating your marketing calendar. When planning a piece of content, follow the “rule of three”—i.e., envision at least two additional incarnations in which it can live. For example:

Write a series of related blogs on a popular health topic, such as diabetes management or living with heart failure. Then:

• Combine them into a downloadable e-book or whitepaper.
• Use them as the basis for a series of automated, targeted emails that help your potential patient along his or her journey to care.

Add at least one timely, relevant statistic to every blog you write, and:

• Turn it into a visual that can become a social media snippet. The human brain is said to process visuals 60,000 times faster than text.
• These visuals can also be repurposed to enhance an e-book, break up a PowerPoint presentation or get more attention for a press release.
• Add several such statistics, then create an infographic. One study showed that patients who received health statistics in infographic form are almost three times more likely to understand their condition.

When you create a patient-education webinar:

• Turn it into a YouTube video.
• Use it as a source for one- to two-minute clips for social media or website posting.
• Use the webinar content for a blog post, e-book or FAQ.

Create a patient story, i.e., a case study that tells how your healthcare services led to a positive outcome. Then:

• Feature it on your website and/or hospital’s publication with a photo.
• Promote the testimonial on social media with a powerful quote and a visual.
• Make sure you do a video interview with the patient for use on your social media platforms. Eight in 10 video marketers say video marketing generated leads and directly increased sales.
• Send the text and photo or video to local news outlets, who increasingly welcome good content that they no longer have the staff to create.

Produce a steady stream of “evergreen” how-to content and blogs. Certain health topics will consistently rank high at certain times of the year, such as managing spring allergies or avoiding winter falls. Other reliable topics include guides to managing common, chronic conditions like obesity, cardiac disease and diabetes. Build a robust library of such content that can be drawn on again later (with updates as needed, of course). Then:

• Make a story into a quiz: “How much do you know about [topic]?”
• Turn the content into a Q&A with a new doctor you want to introduce to the public.
• Transform it into a “listicle”—an article in the form of a list, with short, punchy items. It’s easier to digest “5 Ways to Eat Less Sugar” than to read 700 words on the topic. (By the way, the most effective number of items for a listicle is five.)

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