Health & wellness brands can include third-party content into their content strategy to improve overall marketing performance. Click here to learn how.

Improve Health & Wellness Marketing with Third-Party Content

5 Ways Health and Wellness Brands Can Leverage Third-Party Content to Improve Marketing Performance

<a href="https://www.hubspot.com/marketing-statistics?hubs_post=blog.hubspot.com%2Fmarketing%2Fcontent-marketing-plan&amp;hubs_post-cta=70%25%20of%20marketers%20actively%20investing%20in%20content%20marketing&amp;_ga=2.117551809.937055568.1612197837-459735040.1599253409&amp;_conv_v=vi%3A1*sc%3A210*cs%3A1612382065*fs%3A1591975941*pv%3A256*exp%3A%7B%7D*ps%3A1612299195&amp;_conv_s=si%3A210*sh%3A1612382065422-0.7335173226370957*pv%3A1">Seventy percent</a> of marketers invest in content marketing. The upside: content marketing is said to <a href="https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2017/10/stats-invest-content-marketing/#:~:text=Content%20marketing%20generates%20over%20three,it%20also%20generates%20more%20leads.&amp;text=Outbound%20marketing%20is%20the%20old%20way%20of%20doing%20business">generate 3x the leads but costs 62% less</a> than other digital marketing channels. The downside? Producing first-party content (content you create yourself) can get expensive. Which is why it’s critical to include third-party content as a staple of your <a href="https://cms.union.co/services/performance-media/content-marketing">content marketing mix</a>. Here are five ways health and wellness brands can leverage third-party content to improve marketing efforts.

Often when marketers consider adding third-party content to their content marketing mix, they immediately turn to blog posts and articles. Don’t get us wrong, blog posts and articles have their place, but third-party content can be so much more than just written words on websites. 
We encourage you to go broader in your definition of third-party content. YouTube videos, podcast episodes, press features, even <a href="https://union.co/articles/2021-performance-marketing-trends">user-generated content</a> are all examples of third-party content that can add a much-needed boost to your content marketing performance.

1. Tap into the full spectrum of third-party content

Don’t be that brand that’s continually shouting at, and selling to, your audience. This “me me me” strategy may work for short-term revenue bursts, but it’s no way to build an active, engaged audience that stands the test of time. Sharing third-party lifestyle content can be a low-cost, high-reward way to contribute to your content mix. Publish content that your audience will find entertaining and/or educational to drive engagement and nurture their needs. 
You can also use lifestyle content to subtly sell your health and wellness products or services by selecting content that illustrates your target audience’s desired state. The unspoken assumption they’ll make is that your brand can help them achieve their goals.

2. Nurture your social and email audiences with third-party lifestyle content

Did your brand get featured in an article? Maybe one of your C-suite executives got quoted in a thought leadership piece? Whatever the catalyst, earned media placements need to be a part of your social media content mix. 
A recent study from <a href="http://resources.bazaarvoice.com/rs/bazaarvoice/images/201202_Millennials_whitepaper.pdf">Bazaarvoice </a>found that earned media posts drive four times the brand lift compared with paid media. <a href="https://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/article/2012/consumer-trust-in-online-social-and-mobile-advertising-grows/">Ninety-two percent</a> of consumers say that they trust earned media over other types of marketing.
As you share your earned media placements, look for opportunities to incorporate these posts into your paid marketing efforts. The options are endless, but we leverage earned media to introduce health and wellness brands to new audiences (through promoted posts) and to jumpstart customers that have stalled during their customer journey (through retargeting).

3. Promote your earned media placements on social channels

Don’t silo your third-party content-sharing efforts. Look for cross-platform opportunities to take full advantage of third-party content engagement. 
As an example, with a little technical wizardry, you can use third-party content engagements from your email marketing efforts to support your paid marketing campaigns. How? By creating custom audiences based on content engagement: 
<ul><li dir="ltr">Share a piece of third-party content that is relevant to your audience (and your product) to your mailing list. </li><li dir="ltr">Segment your audience based on their engagement with the third-party content. </li><li dir="ltr">Use this data to create custom and look-alike audiences on your preferred paid media platforms. </li><li dir="ltr">Create and show paid media messages that echo the spirit of the third-party content. </li></ul>
Be sure to include measurement and attribution on the backend of your advertising efforts to calculate ROI and determine how you can scale your campaigns.

4. Create custom and look-alike audiences based on third-party content engagement

Content syndication can be an effective method for establishing your brand as a thought leader in your industry while building brand awareness among your target audience. Which is why many health and wellness brands use content syndication platforms to promote their first-party content pieces. It’s also beneficial to use these platforms to promote third-party content. 
As Allie Robbe, our Programmatic and Paid Social Supervisor, explained it: “For example, if you sell supplements for joint health, you can syndicate third-party articles that objectively promote the key benefits of having healthy joints – helping to subtly build association between your brand and the desired state of your audience.”
While these articles won’t mention or promote your brand directly, the brand name will be listed as an article sponsor. This not only helps to build brand awareness, it also adds to the credibility of the brand to foster brand trust.

5. Incorporate third-party articles into your content syndication strategy

A well-balanced content marketing strategy needs to incorporate a mix of first- and third-party content in order to be successful. Test, evaluate and refine your content marketing strategy to identify the mix that works best for your customers and your bottom line. 
Need help? As a performance marketing agency that specializes in the health &amp; wellness space, we have deep experience working with our clients to identify how best to incorporate first- and third-party content into a holistic performance marketing campaign. If you’re ready to take action, <a href="https://union.co/contact">we’re ready to talk</a>.

Master the mix to increase your content marketing ROI

Union is a creative &amp; performance marketing agency that creates omni-channel campaigns, unleashing creativity on a data-driven world, helping brands produce memorable, measurable and repeatable results. Obsessed with data-driven performance, we believe every marketing dollar should be viewed as an investment. Our clients expect a meaningful return and we prove the ROI of our work with quantifiable data.

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