Our culture is undergoing a crisis of trust. Amid misinformation, manipulative messaging, the explosion of AI-generated content and the rise of self-proclaimed experts on social media, real expertise has never been needed more, especially in health and wellness. The Well by Northwell—a brand publication that delivers trusted expertise at moments of truth in people’s lives—is our commitment to the future of healthcare.
Our primary audience is the Chief Medical Officer of the Home — the primary influencer of health decisions. When we study our audience, we see that they’re frustrated with the health information they find. Publishers monetize their anxiety, and other health systems sanitize it through cold & clinical information. The proliferation of AI has also made the health information landscape incredibly more complex. As our audience navigates these challenges, the way they’re consuming health information is evolving.
Our mission is to become a trusted partner. Be there for our audience during life-altering diagnoses, to correct misinformation, and to guide them through challenges and the unknown.
Our goals focus on:
- Brand trust: As a hospital system, our top goal is earning the trust of the community we serve.
- Audience engagement: We focus on building relationships with the community we serve, expanding to new spaces where audiences spend time online (e.g. search, social, publications and WOM networks).
- Business referrals: Draw a line from awareness to activation with the goal of generating appointments for Northwell services.
Our core strategy is to activate & scale Northwell expertise to reach people in moments of need. We aim to close the chasm between health seekers & health experts, while improving overall health literacy. We do this by translating clinicians' expertise into highly relevant and accessible content that helps solve our audiences' real concerns.
We identify these concerns by studying audience behavior, identifying audience questions, emerging topics and TikTok trends to debunk. We’ve built a content operation designed to fulfill this:
- We study our audience on an ongoing basis to identify opportunities for relevance. We triangulate inputs from third- and first-party data sources and internal intelligence to create content that is in-demand for our specific audience.
- We create expert-driven content by engaging Northwell’s vast network of clinicians and applying signature editorial formats designed to meet a specific audience need. Though most content is created net-new, we also leverage AI tools to mine expertise in previously published articles to give content a second life if applicable for a new audience need. Examples of specific editorial formats include:
- Day in the Life [Short-Form Video + Website]. A video diary of an expert’s day. So far, we’ve followed a nutritionist to learn her go-to meal plan & fitness routine as well as an OB/GYN.
- Dear Doctor [Website/Search]: Q&A with Northwell physicians discussing audience questions — including marijuana’s impact on the brain and why you pee when you sneeze.
- Let’s Talk About… [Instagram]: A carousel format designed as mini-guides on broader health topics; inclusive of graphic explainers and visuals as well as short-form videos
- Hack Your Health [YouTube]: Short videos featuring experts sharing quick & easy health and wellness tips that viewers can try at home
- Well Being [Email]: A topic-specific newsletter product designed for audience members interested in fitness, nutrition and recipe content.
- We launch content with a hyper-targeted distribution plan, focusing on owned channels. When we see positive results, we amplify through paid.
- We monitor performance to optimize campaigns & inform future planning.
- Referral business to Northwell.edu: In the past year, The Well’s articles referred 14,000+ visits to Northwell.edu. These referrals are more cost-efficient compared to other marketing activities as measured by site engagement & appointments generated.
- Preference driver for Northwell among aware audiences: In an independent brand survey, on the question “If cost or insurance coverage were not an issue, which of these healthcare systems would you prefer to use for future medical needs for you or your family,” Well visitors were 111% more likely than the surveyed general population to rank Northwell as their #1 choice.
- Record-breaking media spend efficiency: Due to high-quality content & a mantra of “every piece gets its own media plan” average CPLC was 21 cents in 2024 - roughly 4x better than published benchmarks.
- Increasing engagement on search: Despite declines for many publishers for Google search traffic over the past year, The Well increased search visits by 32% YoY in Q4 2024.
- Increased relevance on social media: The Well’s accounts on TikTok and Instagram garnered 7M video views last year.
- Strong email engagement: Across The Well’s editorial deployments in 2024, newsletters garnered a 59% open rate, and all three regular newsletters got at least a 50% open rate. Well Being – The Well’s fitness and nutrition newsletter – was the most engaging, with a 29% click/open rate.
- Performance highs in audience engagement: In 2024, we reached an all-time high with 14M annual content engagements (views across web and video properties), the sixth consecutive year of growth.
Video for The Well By Northwell Health, with Revmade
