When you start your own business, it’s imperative to have a marketing strategy to guide you in the days, weeks, and months to come.

If you’re involved in the health industry in any capacity, you know one thing to be true: there’s plenty of competition.

Common examples of health industry businesses include:

• Medical practice
• Home healthcare
• Medical records management
• Medical transcription service
• Medical billing service

While it’s important to provide your customers top-notch service, there are other areas of your business that require your attention. Most importantly, a strong marketing plan, with a focus on engagement, is a must.

How to Engage Your Audience

The way you engage your audience depends on many factors, including your target market, where your market gathers, and what they respond to.

Here are some tactics to experiment with:

1. Content Marketing

Are you generating high quality, actionable content that provides your audience with something of great value?

This comes in many forms, ranging from blog posts and whitepapers to infographics and newsletters.

Content marketing can boost engagement in many ways:

• Build a following
• Build high quality links related to your business
• Earn the trust of your audience
• Establish yourself and brand as a thought leader in your niche of the health industry

If you’re not creating and sharing content with your customers and prospects, you’re missing out on a big engagement opportunity.

2. Social Media

It’s not the best way for every health business to engage with their audience, but it’s something that deserves your attention.

Are your customers active on LinkedIn? Do they spend a lot of time on Facebook? What about Twitter?

With more than three billion people actively using social media, you can be rest assured that some (if not all) of your audience is hanging out on these platforms.

There are many ways to use social media to connect with your audience:

• Share guidance and advice
• Provide industry updates
• Share information on new products and services
• Answer questions

Your content marketing and social media strategies should go together hand in hand. When they do, your chance of success is much greater.

3. Traditional Advertising

Okay, so it’s not something you’ve thought about up to this point. Instead, you’ve been focusing primarily on ways to engage online.

Before you look down on this form of advertising, learn more about the benefits. For example, here’s what you get with direct mail:

• Potential to reach your audience in a way that competitors are overlooking
• Tangible form of advertising that people can hang onto
• Highly targeted
• Highly measurable

You’re not likely to throw your entire budget at traditional advertising, but don’t be afraid to experiment.

Final Thoughts

These three tactics are among the best (and top performing) for health industry businesses. If you’re struggling to connect with your audience, devote additional resources to one or more of these ideas.

For more insights on marketing strategy that actually works for small business, connect with Jay Bean, Founder of FreshLime and Small Business Marketing Expert on LinkedIn and Twitter. If any of these tips have helped you or if you have anything to add, please comment below. We’d love to hear from you!