The Role of Storytelling in Healthcare Marketing in the AI Search Era

We are seeing the rise of AI search now, and that changes everything. Currently, ChatGPT is shaping up to be the initial leader in AI search, and its impact on Google’s share of the search market is just starting to register. So, for healthcare B2C and B2B marketing, this means that being discovered is not just going to happen in search results; discovery will also occur in content generated from these new platforms. The impact? Everyone will be special for one thing, and 2nd place will be like page two of Google (known as “the best place to hide a body” 😊).

So, human connection and offering real value have never been more important.

Let’s look at what this means for digital marketing.

Stories Still Matter Most

Healthcare—and hence healthcare marketing—is built on trust, empathy, outcomes, and relevance. Marketing from here on includes having a brand vision and telling stories that demonstrate that message. This is not limited to long-form content, but consists of every touchpoint. Even the logo tells a story about human connection. Amazon’s logo for a few years was the word with an underline shape. Then, they emphasized the “we have it all” with a link from A to Z in the name, but flipped it to make it a “smile” shape under the word. Above the word would have “said”: we get your stuff from here to there. But to say “we have it all and it will make you happy,” they went with the smile shape replacing the frown shape underscore. This literally pivoted the story of the logo from “we ship stuff from here to there” or “this is such an important word that we underlined it,” to we have it all and will deliver joy. You can see the logic, and it demonstrates the brand message of it being about the experience, not the work to provide that experience.

For content marketing, website messaging, and digital marketing, being number one at something requires getting clear on the brand message and then telling as many stories as possible on every platform and at every customer and prospect touchpoint.

Stories Make It Human and Real…to the AI

Storytelling matters in healthcare because it grounds your brand in results and human connection. Human stories connect to memories, feel familiar, and work in a way that offers and information just don't.

In the AI Search era, it won’t be enough to mimic human stories. They will need to be backed up by your social content, your reviews stack, and your own participation in real places, like learning events. SEO in the early days was “What you say about yourself.” But AI Search is, “What others say about you.” This is true with one caveat: SEO in recent years has already been in this latter stage. But what is key here is that stories and content are not just social testimonials and web pages. The fabric for brand prominence will depend on deep analytics and processes around reputation and relevance.

Types of Stories That Work

So, with an understanding that “stories” means something very big and pervasive in digital marketing, what works? The answer is this: real care stories that will resonate with your target prospects. This is not just B2C patient acquisition impacted by a doc’s reputation on HealthGrades. It’s also—even especially—B2B. Remember, those organizations you are trying to sell into are run by humans. Storytelling works for them, too.

And good stories don’t have to be specific to or even about a patient. Stories that highlight staff culture, company community service, and the work of innovation are solid.

Looking for good stories is easiest when you focus on the story, not the format, for the content. For instance, worry less about whether this story will do well on video. Instead, it’s best to just track and plan it simply as a list of “great stories we should tell.” Then, you can tell it in any and every medium that makes sense.

How to Tell a Great Healthcare Story

Armed with your list of things you think your audience or prospects should know, how should a good story be structured? Start with the problem, then share the journey, and close with the solution and outcome. This flow feels human and real. It can be distilled into something as small as a social media post or as substantial as a video series.

Collecting and creating content using this approach should be done opportunistically. What images, clips, perspectives, graphics, and layouts can spark something special? Whatever that is, that’s the place to tell the story. The more places you tell each story, the better. It’s good to have a story to tell and then develop it into several formats. It’s not overkill to tell a good story as a web page, a social post series (3-5 posts over 1-2 weeks), a video, an email newsletter item, and as supporting content in ads or landers.

The key is to have a great kernel and then get it to pop in front of a lot of people using a big megaphone of planned placements and uses.

Need help getting inspired to tell some great stories? We’d love to help.