If you were at the AMA/AAF Cleveland Chapter mashup on April 20th, you heard Amanda Todorovich, Content Marketing Director at the Cleveland Clinic, present “7 Keys to Content Marketing Success.”
Amanda took us through her seven keys, demonstrating how each step validates her department’s success on behalf of its audience, Clinic customers and nearly 50,000 health care professionals—locally, nationally and around the world.
Here’s what we learned and find out why she included a “Color of Pee” example in her presentation.
When Amanda came to the Clinic in 2013, she had a staff of two. Because of community need and a result of its success, the department now includes a staff of 24. Their signature output, “Health Essentials” has evolved from 250,000 views per month to over 40 million projected in 2016! Health Essentials is provided by Cleveland Clinic to benefit patients, the general public and healthcare professionals with medical, health and wellness news, and information and insights from Cleveland Clinic’s experts designed to help people make quality decisions about their healthcare… and it is by all measures a success.
How was that done? It turns out Amanda and her team members were simply giving the people valuable after-care information while strictly adhering to her 7 Keys to Content Marketing Success:
1. Define Success: What is the end goal? Know where you are going
2. Content Strategy: Engage users in daily conversation using health, wellness, and clinical content unique to the Cleveland Clinic
3. Find Passionate People: The department features people who have been on the job from under a year to 40 years; people who care and want to improve their product
4. Develop Distribution: Share your messages with online sources such as Yahoo!, NewsCred and Outbrain
5. Mine & Mind Data: Measure & test & test again. Never be content with content. Invest in analytics, surveys; put data to work
6. Communicate & Collaborate Get feedback and buy-in to realize unified content
7. Be Aggressive: Set your goals high, make it amazing
The process works because of keen collaboration between the content marketing staff and the doctors and health care professionals who help write and approve all articles. The far-reaching Clinic hopes to deliver useful, helpful, relevant content to people all over the world. One great example is the Color of Pee infographic, created as content on the Health Essentials site. It has received over 5 million views since first posted in 2013!
While the Cleveland Clinic may not be a typical B2C or B2B organization, its marketing success is undeniable. As Clinic CMO, Paul Matsen put it, “The work of our Health Essentials team plays a critical role in building the national reputation of the Cleveland Clinic. Our unique and engaging content helps to make digital communications the leading source of new awareness for the Clinic.”
Attendees found the presentation was a valuable look at what it is like to take content marketing theory and apply it on a grand scale for a major local organization. For those interested in continuing the conversation, keep an eye out for our next monthly Content/Digital Marketing Special Interest Group meeting for AMA members!