The health care industry is lagging when it comes to joining the digital age and adopting inbound marketing. Many manufacturers are still using traditional advertising and don’t understand why they’re not seeing more engagement.
Well, that’s why they’re not seeing more engagement. Traditional advertising continues to become less and less effective because the way consumers interact with your brand has changed.
When you’re a consumer in your everyday life, where do you start looking for the information that you need? Probably by searching online. Your customers will too. Their first interaction with your brand is no longer through word-of-mouth or a TV spot, which means creating the right digital presence is paramount.
Inbound marketing provides the highest quality leads for sales. And adopting this practice isn’t as hard as it sounds. First, you need an inbound website that attracts promising leads who have demonstrated interest in your products.
Here’s how to set up your animal health manufacturing website for maximum ROI.
Give the People What They Want
Use your homepage to say who you are and what you do. State it clearly and simply so they know they’ve come to the right place. Attention spans are shorter than ever these days, so your goal should be to grab consumers’ attention and hang on to it for dear life. The only other thing on your homepage should be a simple navigation bar leading them to your “about us” page, contact information, product offerings, and causes you support.
Be Transparent
Use your About Us page to tell a compelling story that demonstrates your leadership and innovation in animal health. You can also use your About Us page to highlight causes you support. Or, if corporate social responsibility is a more important part of what you do, create a separate page just for your causes.
Connect
Your Contact Us page should be clean and simple (and updated!), with easy-to find ways of getting in touch. Include links to your social media channels for maximum engagement. Still haven’t set up your social media accounts? Here’s the lowdown on creating and optimizing your social profiles.
Brag About Your Products
Ideally, you want to provide a digital catalog that details your product offerings, information, features, and benefits. Be sure to point out notable differentiators and all the things that make your products unique. A few ways to amp up this page: Provide training on how to use the products (bonus points for videos), post testimonials and positive reviews demonstrating that others have had good experiences with your products, and direct your customers to where they can go to buy the products.
You may consider adding e-commerce functionality here; this is certainly an option in a rapidly growing market. Another option for adopting e-commerce is simply to sell via other online retailers (more on that here).
Talk the Talk
You should consider having a blog page (like we do). Well-written, informative articles will help you rank higher on Google, get found by potential customers, and establish yourself as a thought leader in animal health. Videos are another effective way to add value and boost engagement. Plus, including some friendly faces from your office helps the consumer get to know the people behind your brand in an approachable way.
Integrate Powerful Calls-to-Action
CTAs link your website’s pages together and take consumers on a journey through related content. Articles answer questions, but they can also cause new questions to arise. By anticipating these questions, and strategically placing links to answer them, you keep prospects engaged and on your site for longer. Every page on your site should offer a Netflix-style experience (you watched this, now watch this). Provide viewers with a next step, help them navigate your site as easily as possible, and empower them to create their own experience.
Listen to the Data
Tracking and analyzing how people are spending time on your website are critical in determining the effectiveness of your current strategies. These insights can help reveal the ways your customers make decisions and allow you to optimize your future content based on their needs. Analytics will also show you which strategies underperform so that you can trim the fat and focus on what works.
Make the Google Bots Happy
If you’re not taking the time to optimize search engine rankings, how are prospects ever going to find the content you’ve worked so hard to create? A little bit of time invested in keyword research will go a long way to maximize ROI from your inbound marketing efforts. No clickbait. When someone clicks your link in the Google results, they should get the experience they were expecting to get.
Be Human
We’ve talked a lot about the digital world, but nothing will ever replace human interactions.
The key to building your digital presence is to remember that whether the person clicking on your site is a large distributor, a vet practice, or a single pet owner, there is a still a live person behind that click. Your customers are looking for valuable content and a personalized experience. Offering that will win you their trust, and possibly their business.
Begin your journey to an effective inbound website by identifying opportunity areas and setting realizable goals. Contact EPiQ Animal Health to learn how we can partner with you to audit and optimize your inbound website.