Creating a Winning Content Strategy: Using Brand ...€¦ · • Set yourself up for success by...

Expert physicians. Quality hospitals. Superior care.

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Creating a Winning Content Strategy:Using Brand Journalism to Tell Your Story

Patrick J. Kane

Senior Vice President,

Communications and Business Development

Kelly Ahern

Senior Digital & Social Media Specialist


Part 1: The How & Why

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Why CCHC and Brand Journalism?

• Initial goals and rationale included:

• CCHC has great story to tell

• Can’t depend on local media

• Ads and press releases different vehicles

• Influence 5,000 cases to Boston

• Highlight our physicians as local experts

• Tie to corporate strategic objectives and service line promotion

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Where Do You Begin?

Tips for starting a brand journalism site:

• Identify your audience

▪ Clients/customers/patients

▪ Employees

▪ Your community (local, regional, state)

▪ Key stakeholders or investors

• Identify your resources. Who will:

▪ Do the writing? In-house team or freelancers?

▪ Collect story ideas?

▪ Reach out to your community for experts?

▪ Design, build and manage the site?

▪ Manage the email distribution?

▪ Edit stories and monitor for accuracy, corporate politics, etc.?

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Our One-of-a-Kind Model

At Cape Cod Healthcare we opted for a freelancer model, which

presented its own unique challenges and opportunities:

• Communication and collaboration

▪ Weekly touch-base during newsjack calls

▪ Monthly meeting for check-in and camaraderie; monthly guest speakers also provide topic inspiration and ideas

• Establish writing guidelines, consider:

▪ Will it be AP, or your own version?

▪ Character length for headlines and teasers

▪ Developing a consistent voice among freelance writers

▪ Keyword review, tagging and social media promotion

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Why You Need a Production Schedule

Production is more than just story management; it is the process which

keeps the site fed, readers engaged and your audience wanting more:

• Set up a newsjack schedule

▪ Who will attend, where will you mine for stories?

• Develop a real-time, living production sheet

▪ How will you track the status of stories?

▪ Who will be responsible for managing the content pipeline?

• Create and follow a strategic editorial calendar

▪ How often will you distribute your newsfeed – daily, weekly? What day and time?

▪ How will stories be promoted across social media? Will they be integrated into larger multimedia campaigns? When will videos run?

▪ How and when will you communicate to employees?

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Leverage Your Internal Champions

Marketing your news site and its content is crucial to capturing your

audience – and your local media’s – attention

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• Set yourself up for success by alerting

internal groups:▪ Exclusive, personalized announcement to

employees and key stakeholders

▪ i.e. Welcome and overview video from your

exec team or CEO

▪ Get buy-in and acceptance from internal folks first to

help external promotion

▪ i.e. Encourage submission of story ideas and social

sharing. Consider an internal contest to drum up story

topics.


Engaging the Public

• Let people know it’s coming

▪ Consider a pre-launch email campaign to alert your audience that the site and your first newsfeed is coming soon

▪ Let them know what they can expect

▪ State what’s in it for them

▪ Tell them what email address to look for

• Support the launch with an external blitz

▪ Will you run ads? Where – print, digital or both?

▪ Do you have collateral for social media? You’ll want graphics, photos and video.

• Consider how you will collaborate with local media

▪ Reception from local media was lukewarm

▪ Do not expect them to pick up your stories and run them verbatim

▪ Get creative with pitches

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Part 1: Takeaways

• Determine your business case, why is brand journalism right for you?

• Identify your audience and the type of content that appeals to them

• Determine your structure

▪ In-house editorial team or freelancers?

▪ Daily or weekly newsfeed?

• Create and utilize a real-time, dynamic production sheet

• Bring internal champions into the fold

• Let the public know it’s coming and what to expect

• Get creative with local media collaboration

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Part 2: The Basics

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Do Your Homework

Before creating your brand journalism site, do your research:

• How does your audience currently feel?

▪ How much do they know about you or your proposed topic

▪ What are their current feelings and sentiments toward your brand?

▪ How do they currently get their news?

▪ Leverage extensive interviews, audits and focus groups

• Identify who will be your key vendors

▪ Local, regional or national web developer

▪ Email distribution vendor – research these well!

▪ Promotion or media partners

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Consider How Traffic Will Flow

• Where do you want to drive traffic?

▪ Link keywords and terms to credible

online resources

▪ Create layers of information with your

corporate sites

▪ Don’t forget internal link love – create

inbound links that will keep people within

your site and content

• Social referrals are important

▪ Use tools that will allow you to track link

clicks and conversions.

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Pay Attention to Audience Behavior

Analyze how and where your audience

is accessing your content:

• What technology is being used?▪ Is your content meeting the needs of the

different devices being used?

• What are the top locations driving traffic?▪ Any surprises here? How can you target

communities that aren’t reading yet?

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Desktop50.75%

Mobile35.77%

Tablet13.48%

Access Points


So, How Did We Do?

• 894 stories published

as of 6/27/18

• 5-6 new stories added

weekly

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How Did We Tell Our Story?

• 596,400+ sessions on the newshub to-date

Top 5 sources include:

• Directincludes homepage URL, unique story links shared in newsfeed

• Email

• Social MediaFacebook, leading driver of social traffic

• Internal Intranet

• .ORG Homepage

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Weekly Newsfeed

• Weekly newsfeed sent to

51,000+ subscribers

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Weekly CCHN Avg. Health & Fitness Industry Avg.

Open Rate 18.07% 21.93%

Click Rate 35.33% 2.57%

Unsubscribes 0.11% 0.39%


Part 2: Takeaways

• Do your homework

▪ Research your vendors carefully, look for partners who are experts in their field

• Leverage interviews, surveys and focus groups to gain feedback from your intended audience

▪ How do they currently feel about your brand?

▪ Where do they currently get their news?

• Put the user experience first when designing your site and newsfeed

• Consider how traffic will flow and behave

▪ Always strive to build inbound links

▪ Social referrals will matter, make sure you track links appropriately for ROI

▪ Tweak your content and deliverability methods as needed to reach new audiences

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Part 3: Video

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Why Use Video for Storytelling?

• The strengths of video storytelling include:

• Everyone can relate to a story

• More concise than a sales or marketing pitch

• Can be cost-effective, especially when shooting with a homegrown style

• How to use video in your storytelling:

• Video interviews or testimonials

• As b-roll or background footage to support a storyline

• As social teaser content to encourage readers to click and read the full story

• As a visual how-to manual

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Using Video on Social Media

• Directly embedding video on Facebook helped

to drive significant traffic to Cape Cod Health

News and corresponding stories:

Example: Shea’s No Limit Youth Basketball Association

▪ 19,425 people reached on Facebook

▪ 7.1K video views on Facebook

▪ 198 reactions on Facebook

▪ 106 video shares on Facebook

▪ 23 comments on Facebook

▪ 1,333 page views on newshub in first 48-hours

▪ 1:53 average time on page

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Part 3: Takeaways

• Video is great for storytelling because:

▪ Everyone can relate to a story

▪ It is much more digestible and concise than a sales or marketing pitch

• Video can be used in a variety of ways, some of our favorites include:

▪ Patient testimonials

▪ Q&A with physician experts

▪ Behind the scenes and how-to manuals

• Explore all of your options, video doesn’t have to be costly

• Get social with your video content!

▪ Use embedded segments or portions of a longer video to drive interest and targeted

traffic back to your story/blog/site

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Part 4: Social Media Matters

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Social Media & Content Marketing

• Basic social must-haves:

• Your own branded accounts

• Social sharing buttons on blog and in newsfeed

• An editorial calendar

• Story sharing on your own pages

• How to use social media to fuel your content:

• Address something current

• Share the right content at the right time

• Tap your audience for ideas

• Optimize images appropriately

• Pay attention to analytics▪ What demographics are engaging?

▪ What’s being shared, when and by whom?

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Sharing Matters24

Social Media accounts for approx ¼ of our traffic referrals

Top 3 platforms are: Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn


Social Origami

• What is ‘social origami’?

• Slice and dice for maximum exposure

• Multiple messages from a single source

• Tailor posts to each unique audience

• Repurpose, repurpose, repurpose

• Don’t recreate the wheel

• Teaser content is your friend

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Infographics

• Why use them?

• Compelling and attractive

• Easily scanned and viewed

• Capable of going viral

• Promotes brand awareness

• Increases traffic

• Shows an expert understanding

• How we used it

• Visually depict how CCHC preps for

summer visitors and health needs

• Broke out individual panels for more

sharing

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Part 4: Takeaways

• Social media can be a significant driver of traffic if done right

▪ Share your content on your own branded accounts

▪ Make sharing easy with prominent social share buttons

• Empower your internal champions to share

▪ Explain what sharing is and how it works

• Embrace social origami

▪ Create multiple posts and messages from a single source of content

▪ Always look for ways to repurpose content down the line

• Experiment with infographics

▪ They are compelling and easily capable of going viral

▪ They allow you to show your expertise on a given topic

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Part 5: Next Level Integration

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Integration with .org29


Service Line Engagement30

Heart & Vascular

Brain, Spine & Nerves

Bones & Muscles

Women's Health

Cancer Care

Sessions by Service Line


Another Access Point to Physicians 31

• 19,900+ sessions to the Physician Finder

• The average user spent 1:51 minutes onsite

once they reached the Physician Finder


Were Physicians Engaged?

• 145+ physicians featured, over

¼ of our medical staff

• In addition to another 40+ RNs,

dietitians, PTs, etc.

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The Intranet Needed a Facelift33


New Intranet 34

• 68,000+ sessions driven from the intranet

→ This is nearly 69% of all referral traffic to-date


Packaged Content Works 35

CCHN Extra Avg.

CCHN Weekly Avg.

Health & Fitness Industry Avg.

Open Rate 30.21% 18.07% 21.93%

Click Rate 38.93% 35.33% 2.57%

Unsubscribe 0.05% 0.11% 0.39%


Extra Extra, Read All About It36

EMS Week Stroke Month Local Advocate Exclusive


Getting Deeper37

• The Journal

• Created as a result from select audiences wanting

more in-depth scientific and medical information

• Expansive coverage focused on a single subject

• Sophisticated look at the level of healthcare

available here on Cape Cod


A Look Inside38

• Elevated style

• Visually compelling

• Printed on heavy stock

• Digital Flipbook


Part 5: Takeaways

• Integrating multiple platforms is a lot of work, but it pays off

▪ A seamless way to share content across corporate site, intranet and newshub

▪ Helped to meet our goal of service line engagement

• Engage the right experts

▪ Show them the ROI and they’ll come back for more

• Ignite passion within your internal audience

▪ Integration with the intranet provides extended visibility and opportunity

• Pay attention to what your readers are doing and what they want

▪ Heavy mobile usage led to development of app

▪ Interest in packaged content resulted in special editions

▪ Thirst for more science led to creation of The Journal

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Part 6: Merging Storytelling with Ads

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The Approach

• Large scale multimedia campaigns for main service lines, included:

• TV commercials

• Print and digital advertising

• Gatefold over Sunday issue of local newspaper

• Social media marketing

• Brand journalism and sponsored content

• Direct email

• Search marketing campaigns

• Internal communications

• All pointing back, with a CTA, to a campaign landing page

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Sponsored Content

• Why leverage brand journalism stories in paid content placements?

• Local media wouldn’t pick up and run as-is

• Allowed us to control the content and style

• Included links back to newshub and writer’s byline

• Enabled us to track referral traffic with custom links

• Tied into additional advertising and campaign metrics

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Results from First 4-Week Flight43

Broadcast

• 234,449 households reached

• 167,000 impressions

Web

• 6,113 pages of neurosurgery

content have been viewed on

CapeCodHealth.org

Social Media

• 24,943 people reached by our

top 3 Facebook posts alone

• 788 reactions and 1,431 link

clicks to neurosurgery content

Sponsored Content

• 440,209 sets of eyes were

served CCHN content on

CapeCodTimes.com

• 3,410 clicks to campaign landing

page

Digital Ads

• 1.03M sets of eyes served

creative on CapeCodTimes.com

and mobile site

• 953 clicks to campaign landing

page

Direct Email

• 67,350+ emails sent in targeted

distribution

• 7,117 opened and 799 clicks


But Does it Really Drive Traffic? Yes…44

4/25 – Campaign Launch

Dr. Houle spine surgery story

live on Cape Cod Times

5/2 – Ben Anderson patient

testimonial and video live on

Cape Cod Times

5/9 – Dr. Coppa

endopituitary story live on

Cape Cod Times

5/16 – Carol Penfield patient

testimonial and video live on

Cape Cod Times


Part 6: Takeaways

• Try merging storytelling with large multimedia campaigns

▪ Allows for further content visibility

▪ Enhances positive brand awareness

• Give sponsored content a chance

▪ Provides a collaborative alternative when working with local media

▪ Chance to capture and attract new audiences

• Cohesive, coordinated campaigns make an impact

▪ The addition of storytelling alongside advertising provides a human touch

▪ Helps to break down complex issues into easily digestible, relatable information

▪ Drives targeted traffic and clicks

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Part 7: Challenges & Lessons Learned

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1. Email will (most likely) be your leading driver of traffic

→ After Year 1, we migrated to a new email distribution partner

2. Technology matters to the user experience

3. Leverage your internal audience, turn them into brand champions

4. Content origami is key to exposure, growth and your sanity

5. Consistently market your newshub and content offerings

5 Important Things We Learned


Questions?

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