Bswift’s Content Marketing Strategies and Process for Generating Leads — Case Study of a Top-Ranking Health Tech Company
Bswift has been ranked as one of the top 25 companies in the healthcare technology sector.
Bswift is a B2B is cloud-based healthcare benefits technology solution which aims at helping the companies with their administration of the healthcare benefits for their employees. Their cloud-based benefits administration and exchange products are their core products. The benefits experts developed Bswift as an intuitive software which also streamlines HR and payroll processes. Other services include a call center, dependent verification, COBRA administration and FSA administration. The company was established in 1996.
The company’s content marketing strategy has not only brought them clients, but it has also established them as a thought leader in the industry. Their strategy has also given them a broad exposure and their brand awareness reaches wider audience. Before we dive into the content marketing strategies, it is very important to understand the process behind the strategies. It is important to know the factors that contributed in the making of a successful content marketing strategy for Bswift. This is why we will first discuss the step-by-step process and then finally discuss the strategies in the Step 7. Below is the complete step-by-step breakdown of Bswift’s content marketing process and strategies and how you can apply these principles to boost your own health tech business.
· Step 1: Identify the ideal customer
· Step 2: Identify customer needs
· Step 3: Identify the target audience
· Step 4: Identify content marketing goals
· Step 5: Identify the content that attracts the target audience
· Step 6: Identify what distribution channels to use to reach the target audience
· Step 7: Content Marketing Strategies
Step 1: Identify the ideal customer
The first step for the company was to identify their ideal customer. Following are the criteria for their ideal customer
1. Large scale company
2. Must provide health care benefits to their employees
3. Must have number of employees ranging from 2k to 72k
Their previous clients belong to various industries such as Insurance, Restaurant, Gaming and Entertainment, Manufacturing, Construction and Pharmaceutical.
This shows that the company does not have a specific niche and it will serve any industry as long as it matches the above-mentioned criteria.
Step 2: Identify customer needs
Now that the ideal customer is clear, the next step for the company was to identify their customer needs. Bswift’s products and services help the target companies with the administration of their employee healthcare benefits. The company looked into the problems faced by the health benefit administration of their target customers. They figured out what their needs are, what would they like to learn more about and what are their pain points. They figured that the administration staff would like to learn more about employee management, how to keep their workforce engaged, how to complete their tasks more easily and efficiently and how to save time and money by placing organized administration systems.
Step 3: Identify the target audience
You may assume that the target customer should be the target audience of your content, right? Wrong! Let me explain.
When it comes to the content marketing, there is a difference between an ideal customer and a target audience. A large company has multiple divisions e.g. accounts administration, marketing, operations, PR, quality control, HR etc. etc. While your target customer may be a large company, your content may not appeal to all the divisions inside the company. So, in the case of large companies, it is important to find out which division within the company would you like to engage with your content.
In Bswift’s case, the administration division that deals with the healthcare benefits of the employees, within the large company, is the target audience.
Step 4: Identify content marketing goals
Now that the company became clear on the audience and the customer, the next step was to identify what Bswift wanted to accomplish with their content. Knowing about the goals helps in giving a clear direction to the content. Following are the goals for Bswift’s content marketing.
1. Engage the healthcare benefits administration of large companies by providing them with informational content about employee management.
2. Brand awareness
3. Collect prospect emails
4. Generate leads
5. Establish the company as a thought leader
6. Build trust and social proof by sharing client testimonials and highlight the company’s achievements, awards and accolades.
7. Build relationships with referral partners for healthcare benefits.
Step 5: Identify the content that attracts the target audience
Based on the customer needs and Bswift’s content marketing goal, it was time to become clear on the content. Taking cues from the findings of the Step 2, the company started developing content ideas around employee management and benefits administration. The content type is mostly educational and informative. The content was carefully designed to not only meet the needs of their target audience, but also to accomplish Bswift’s own content marketing goals at the same time.
Step 6: Identify what distribution channels to use to reach the target audience
Next came the modes of distribution for the content. To identify the right distribution channels, the company had to find the mediums where their target audience mostly hung out. They branched out to voice, video, text and social media, HR publications and B2B platforms like LinkedIn.
Step 7: Content marketing strategies
Finally, let’s dive into the final content marketing strategies which were devised after collecting the data from Step 1 to Step 6.
· Podcast
· Blog
· Whitepapers
· Testimonials
· Webinar
· Social Media
· Guest Posting
Podcast: Bswift started a podcast called bWise in Jan 2020. It releases a one 30-min episode per month. The podcast series focuses on business learning and what has created success for the top business leaders.
A common theme in all the podcast episodes is the discussion about employee management, delegating tasks to employees, keeping them engaged and happy which is the ideal topic for attracting their target audience.
The guests on this podcast include CEOs and Presidents of HR, Insurance and employee management related companies.
Distribution channels: Spotify, Itunes, Stitcher, Soundcloud and iheartradio.
How are they generating leads?
1. By bringing their ideal customers on the podcast show as their guest.
2. Attracting target customers by engaging them with the podcast content.
3. Building relationships with potential referral partners by inviting them as a guest on the show.
Blog: The blog content revolves around educational content related to workforce management, benefits administration and latest news and updates in the Human Resource sector. This type of educational content helps them attract their target audience and potential customers to their website. The articles also provide the latest updates about Bswift such as awards, press release or events organized or sponsored by Bswift.
Whitepapers: Bswift offers free whitepapers which are how-to guides and infographics about employee engagement and benefits administration. This accomplishes their goal for establishing themselves as the authority in the industry. It also attracts and engages their prospective clients.
Testimonials: The Customer Stories section on the website provides testimonials from previous clients in the form of written case studies and video testimonials. This accomplishes their goal of building trust and social proof.
Collecting Emails via Webinar: The webinars are designed as a lead magnet which requires the viewer to access them by providing their business email address. Again, the topics of the webinars revolve around educational content about Healthcare Benefits, Employee Management and Customer Experience.
Social Media: Bswift redirects the target audience to the main content on their website by posting mini excerpts from the main content to the social media channels like Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. They also have a YouTube channel which mostly have content which explains the Bswift products and services.
Animated Business Explainer Video: Bswift has also made some short-animated explainer videos which describe their products and services in an easy-to-understand format.
Guest Posting: Bswift writes guest posts and promotional articles on Human Resource related authority publications such as HRO Today. This creates a brand awareness for the company by providing them an exposure to a larger audience.
Bonus marketing strategies (not related to content marketing)
Idea Exchange Conference: Every year the company organizes an annual conference which attracts hundreds of companies and people related to employee management and HR industries. Not only does this help them generate large amount of leads, but it also establishes Bswift as an authority in the industry.
Awards and Competitions: The company also competes for awards in HR related industries which helps in further expanding their network of potential clients.
