By Rachel Gregory, Editorial Production Manager
As a brand, you will no doubt have a content review process that forms a key part of your consumer health content creation. It’s how you ensure your health information is robust and can be understood by the people it’s made for. Content review has a very real impact on a finished product or resource.
At Thrive, we work with a select group of medical advisory board members. We also engage in user review, and user testing, on the daily. We wanted to share some advice about working with reviewers of health content.
First, let’s define the types of health content review, and reviewers, that we’re referring to:
User review means involving members of your target audience in the production of your new product, advert or resource. This process can apply before, during and after its creation. It helps you to make sure what you’re working on suits the people you’re trying to reach. Users might be tasked with looking at design, wording, how easy something is to understand, or even its functionality. Your user group could well be involved in initial research in the form of panel discussions, surveys or focus groups.
Expert review is asking experts in the healthcare field to check that what you’ve produced, or are working on, is robust in terms of current medical information. No amount of research can replace expert review, or peer review. That’s because what happens in real life is nuanced. This type of review might also involve other things, such as creating brand new health content like written pieces, or reels for social media.
No matter how your brand tends to engage people to review health content, the main thing to bear in mind is that you should make it easy for your reviewers to be brand ambassadors.
Here are our top five tips for doing that:
- Know your brand and communicate what you stand for.
Give reviewers a reason to work with you. Medical advisors or peer reviewers are clinicians, many of whom work for the NHS. As such, they are likely to be time poor. If you don’t have a strong sense of purpose as a brand, it can be a hard sell.
Explain what’s in it for them. Sure, you might be able to pay them. But the chances are that even if you can, that’s not going to convince them to review your content, what with the competing pressures of work and home life. They’re likely to receive lots of review requests. But if they’re on board with what you stand for then that’s going to help your cause. Tenfold. Hone your pitch!
- Acknowledge their input.
Most medical reviewers will expect to have a by-line or acknowledgement against content they’ve reviewed. Listing their name and their job title in any credits, shows you’ve consulted healthcare professionals. It’s also an outward way to convey your respect for those experts.
- Build confidence among user reviewers – both in themselves and in your brand
Like experts, user reviewers are bound to be pushed for time. They might be unsure about what’s involved in the process of content review, and whether they will manage to do it. Make it clear what will be required of them from the ‘job description’ or the callout at the outset.
Again, with users, your best bet is to recruit and retain people through your message and your mission. This is simpler if you are a not-for-profit or if you have ties to a charity. But even if you’re a purely commercial brand, and the piece you’re planning is mainly about boosting brand recognition, is there a wider mission behind what you do? What is your social impact? Perhaps explain the purpose of the background research that’s going to be involved in this project, and what good could come of that. Then, live your values by being a great team to work with.
- Show people they matter
Get in touch with reviewers after some time has gone by. In an ideal world, you should try to have some stats and facts about the impact of what you produced, to share with them. That will allow them to see what they have helped you to create as well as the changes or impact their input has had.
Tell them how they helped you to bring about change. Not only is this a kind and polite gesture, it’s also more likely that they’ll opt to get involved in future rounds of feedback. It’s going to help with brand loyalty. Plus, it’ll get your name out there as a company that cares.
- Engage with your people
Remember, user reviewers are a subsection of the people you are aiming to reach. Ergo, they’re part of your target audience. They might be potential customers. They can become your biggest fans and cheerleaders through seeing how you work, i.e., watching you do thorough content review that leads to high-quality content.
Engage with them on social media. If they feel like your brand is proud to know them as a person, and they feel like they know you too, that can go a long way towards boosting your brand through word of mouth – thereby reaching, and helping, more people.
So, there you have it – our top tips for brands looking to get the best from the health content review process. Really, it all comes down to having a strong sense of your brand values, and making sure reviewers feel valued, too.
Rachel is Editorial Production Manager at Thrive. She is responsible for coordinating projects as well as editing and delivering engaging health content.
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