AAAGENCY
Posted on January 20, 2016 by AAAGENCY on Health, Healthcare

Compliance and Marketing: The Healthcare Industry Dilemma

Healthcare Marketing comes hand in hand with compliance. With government regulations that put the Healthcare industry under a microscopic spotlight, marketing experts working with healthcare businesses have to be extra careful of the information that they put out there.

While this seems like a very daunting task, the benefits are well worth it. The healthcare is at a great advantage when they take on content marketing as more and more people are resorting to the Internet for medical and health research. Pew Research shows that 72% of internet users searched online for health information in the past year. In addition, healthcare is the second most search for service online.

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This means that there is a wide open audience out there, ripe for the picking. You just need to figure out how to reach them while remaining in compliance with healthcare regulations.

To truly be successful in healthcare marketing, there are four truths that you have to deal with:

  1.     Marketing and Compliance must come together to build great owned content
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        Content marketing is extremely important in the healthcare industry. Consumers are looking for relevant and useful information and that’s what you need to capture information. At the same time, healthcare marketers need to ensure that the information they put out there is accurate and in compliance with all healthcare regulations.

This is why marketing and compliance have to work together to ensure that any content the company publishes, be it a blog post, Facebook update, webinar or video, is both useful and within law.

  1.     You must have a system in place to avoid disasters

        When a retail company posts inaccurate information, it can mean a bad review, complaints and a retraction, when a healthcare company does the same, it can mean all that plus some legal trouble.

        Marketing must always work with compliance professionals from the get go to ensure that they are within regulations every step of the way and avoid any future disasters. It’s good practice to set up an approval hierarchy in place to ensure that everything you publish won’t give you future setbacks.

  1.     Content Marketing Paves the Way for a Positive Reputation

        Even if you have the best medical practitioners in your arsenal, positive reviews won’t come pouring in if you have not built your online reputation. And to do that, you have to establish yourself as a thought leader in the healthcare industry through content marketing.

        92% of consumers worldwide admit to trusting earned media above all other forms of advertising. Consistently putting out quality content that marketing and compliance have both approved, increases your chance to reach a wider audience. And with more people reading your material, there are more chances for them to share your content, giving a business the reputation as a leading expert in their industry. That’s when the positive reputation comes in.       

  1.     It is Not Impossible to be Creative and Compliant

        Working with regulations doesn’t inhibit your creativity. In fact, it should encourage it. Just because you’re working with stringent laws doesn’t mean you still can’t put out engaging creative content to your consumers. And that’s the thing, content still has to be engaging and relatable in order to be readable and shareable. Your content still has to reflect your brand. So how exactly can you do that?

  •      Make compliance briefings a regular part of your schedule. Marketers should be constantly updated, with the help of a legal team, on the latest laws and regulations passed.
  •      Have an approval hierarchy. Don’t be afraid to get creative with your content but make sure that an approval hierarchy is in place so every content is reviewed for compliance so you can have a personality while remaining completely legal.
  •      Create a guideline specifically for marketing. Set up guidelines internally that will remind marketers specifically what they can and cannot do with different platforms like social media, blog posts and more.