In over a decade of working with mental health companies, I’ve discovered an interesting idiosyncrasy. While many have websites with an impressive array of expert content, their content marketing is not working for them.

This is for one simple reason: they don’t have a content marketing strategy.

At first, this seemed strange to me. These were companies that had built themselves from the ground up, with innovative solutions to complex mental health issues. To do so, they had clearly worked with a comprehensive strategy.

All other aspects of their business worked together using specific avenues to achieve specific goals. Why should their content writing be different?

The answer soon became evident.

Like businesses across all industries, many mental health companies don’t see the value in a content marketing strategy. However, they do see the value in mental health content.

The Difference Between Content and a Content Strategy

The commitment companies have to creating mental health content is admirable. It comes from an integration of their core values into every aspect of the business.

Sharing mental health articles helps create awareness and offers value to those who read them. Just as is the case with their products and services, content writing advances the mental health field, helping those most vulnerable.

If your content is already doing important work, what is the need for a content strategy?

Is it just about making more money?

The Why of Content Marketing

A content marketing strategy should certainly lead to increased revenue by bringing a wealth of potential customers to your website. But it’s not just about your bottom line.

On the contrary, while your business and content each advance the field of mental health on their own, they will make a significantly bigger impact as part of a unified strategy.

Not only will your content improve sales of your important services and products, but it will also help you meet the needs of those clients in a more comprehensive way.

To demonstrate this, here’s an example of how The Empathy Hub designed an effective content marketing strategy for a company offering a unique treatment for elderly sufferers of OCD.

When we came on board, the business’s website already had a blog providing useful information and guidance about the disorder.

In addition to enhancing their blog and writing weekly newsletters for their mailing list, our comprehensive content strategy included a database of resource articles about day-to-day challenges faced specifically by elderly people with OCD.

These articles blended easy-to-understand information with valuable advice that could be implemented with ease. We further recommended that they take steps to highlight this database on their homepage, so as to cater to clients who lacked the confidence to further explore the site.

The company’s website no longer served as nothing more than an information resource. It became the first port of call for their target demographic, as it provided practical value they could use.

Furthermore, since the content was based on the philosophies underlying the company’s treatment approach, potential clients who reached the articles through searches understood how their services would improve their lives.

The Empathy Hub will design a content strategy for your company with the dual goal of boosting your marketing as well as the value of your content. Here’s how we go about it.

A Free Consultation

We start with a free consultation, usually over video call, but with voice calls and even emails an alternative option. I prefer to keep meetings brief without compromising on what’s necessary to share with each other.

As such, I do as much research on your company as possible beforehand

In this initial meeting, we get to know each other to see how well we mesh.

This way, we ensure we can work together productively without having to spend hours aligning on values and principles for each piece of content.

I will ask questions to get a clearer idea of where your company is and the goals you’re working towards; your current customer and your ideal leads; your strategy and what you feel is missing; and your budget.

This will also give you the chance to query how I’ll be able to help you achieve your ambitions.

After our call, I’ll put together a proposal for a marketing strategy and quote, only sending additional queries via email for extra information if absolutely necessary. I aim for accuracy in this strategy and quote but it is a starting point, with the details negotiable.

Ultimately, you know what’s best for your company. I will guide you to solutions, but your instincts play a crucial part.

The process of crafting your content marketing strategy follows the below general principles.

Analysing Your Needs

Having discussed your goals and strategies in our consultation, The Empathy Hub will do an analysis of your specific content marketing needs.

This differs greatly from company to company, which is why a custom strategy is always necessary.

For example, some companies already have a blog and mailing list, while others are starting from scratch. Some companies are looking to grow by partnering with industry leaders, while others are focused specifically on customer consolidation and growth.

This analysis is not a one-and-done deal. Rather, it is a process that continues throughout the creation of your content creation strategy, adapting according to what comes up as we work.

Creating an Audience Persona

An audience persona is the content marketing version of a buyer persona.

Your company’s buyer persona(s) already help(s) you specialise your offerings and ensure your marketing is targeted at the right people. That being said, an audience persona for inbound content marketing requires a slightly different approach.

Unlimited, Affordable Opportunities

It is important to keep in mind that not every member of your audience needs to be a potential customer. In fact, a huge proportion of readers for most content created as part of your strategy will have no need for what you offer.

This is intentional.

An advertising expert designing a TV spot or print ad needs to specifically focus on catching the attention of potential customers. After all, opportunities are both limited and expensive.

Content writing is different because there are endless opportunities that come at an exponentially lower price.

With content writing, you cast a wider net, using a number of different strategies. The main focus will always be those who your company serves, but speaking to a larger audience offers a number of benefits.

Crucially, it improves your search ranking, ensuring that many more people will find you, including those who need your product and services.

It also encourages engagement and word of mouth, turning your company into a trusted resource, which builds a lot of confidence in those looking for a provider in your niche.

Furthermore, having a successful blog creates opportunities to partner with popular content creators who have millions of monthly readers.

Growing Your Role in the Industry

Some of your content will speak to an entirely different audience – your peers in the industry.

Thought leadership articles provide the opportunity to build your status as an expert in the field, generating widespread trust in your business and opening up many partnership opportunities.

This, of course, requires creating a secondary audience persona.

The Empathy Hub will generate audience personas for you, using your buyer persona as a jumping-off point for our area of expertise. This will help us continue the analysis of what your company needs in order to reach the right people.

Our Person-Centred Approach to Empathy

The Empathy Hub is not a content writing mill. On the contrary, we are very intentional about our USP.

We understand that empathy is necessary for building connection with readers on a deeper level, creating a relationship that is beneficial for both them and your company.

The Carl Rogers Connection

Our approach to this is based on Carl Rogers’s person-centred approach. Carl Rogers posited his theory in the middle of the last century, but its impact reverberates to this day.

We have come a long way in the therapeutic process from his recommendation of dozens of therapy sessions. But the principles underlying it still inform every mental health treatment.

Person-centred therapy popularised the idea that change comes from within, but the ‘how’ of it goes deeper. Rogers recognised that non-judgemental relationships are a major catalyst for that change.

In other words, the sense that you are accepted in your wholeness enables the development of selfhood. Your dreams come to the fore, and you begin to believe that achieving them is possible.

You realise that ‘failure’ is not catastrophic, but rather an opportunity for further growth.

The Empathy Hub uses the person-centred approach in all our articles on mental health. We ensure that readers find acceptance and safety in each piece of content.

They see themselves represented without judgement, with both implicit and explicit messaging that there is nothing wrong with them – that the fact they are aware of what they are going through is already a courageous step towards self-actualisation.

Your Customer Empathy Profile

A significant part of the strategy process is understanding what your audience personas are experiencing so as to identify what they’re looking for.

We use this information to create your Customer Empathy Profile. This informs the messaging at the core of your content, allowing your readers to feel seen on an authentic level.

Your customer empathy profile forms a crucial part of the content writing strategy we craft for you. It gives you clarity on how your content will resonate with your audience personas – particularly those who match your buyer personas.

The Content Itself

The proposal we provide for you is built on the above foundation. As such, we can determine a content schedule that is both intuitive and highly strategic.

There are specific beats we need to hit for the purpose of search-engine optimization (SEO) and to fit your social media strategy – including the recommended regularity and length of your content. But those guidelines offer ample space for specificity.

Two important components this affects are the topics we recommend and the voice we use.

Every strategy we craft is therefore unique.

We will never copy/paste from one proposal to another.

Our Ghostwriting Policy

All ghostwritten content crafted as part of an inbound marketing strategy should never be credited to the content marketing company.

Businesses benefit from the perception that the words are coming straight from their mouths. The Empathy Hub takes this particularly seriously because of our person-centred, relational approach.

Readers should know that the articles are coming from the perspectives of your company and the experts you employ. It is therefore imperative that we leave no indication that the writing itself is carried out by a third-party.

For this reason, we are intentional about anonymity and will not use your company’s name for testimonials or in any marketing we do.

We will also not link to samples on your site when negotiating with other clients, instead relying on both our website blog as well as our archive of samples we’ve created for this purpose.

The Negotiation Phase

Once we have completed your content marketing strategy, we send it to you via email, including an estimated pricing model.

Since you have put in the impressive work to nurture your project from an idea into a truly exciting business, we treat any feedback and queries with the gravity they deserve. When necessary, we will gladly adapt the strategy.

In some cases, we may provide further explanation for why we recommend keeping the strategy as is, for your consideration.

Our quotes are valid for the calendar year, so there is usually no pressure for you to accept them immediately, at least from a financial sense.

That said, we do have limited availability, and can only guarantee our capacity to work with you for two weeks. We can make exceptions if you are willing to commit to a strategy by way of a contractual agreement.

Let the Work Begin!

At The Empathy Hub, we enjoy the process of creating custom content strategies for each potential client. But it’s the content writing itself, along with the benefits it brings to your bottom line and the value to your readers, that keeps us in this industry year after year.

After our initial consultation, we get to work on the strategy immediately, aiming to get it to you within a week. Then we’re ready to dive straight into the content.

We’re waiting to hear from you about your exciting mental health innovations. Get in touch now and let’s get to work on an empathy-based content marketing strategy that sells!