Mayo Clinic Press is a relatively new venture within Mayo Clinic with a focus on more approachable, everyday health content. 

To support this mission, their key goals are driving increased article reach to their audience.

We had the chance to sit down with Christian Olivelli, Senior Marketing Specialist at Mayo Clinic, to chat about his experience launching a new Apple News channel with FlatPlan.

Mayo Clinic Press’s Apple News strategy and objectives

Before Apple News, Mayo Clinic Press primarily drove traffic to their content via organic search, email, and social. 

Hearing that other publishers were finding success with the platform, Christian pitched his team on delivering existing content into Apple News to drive more article views. 

“We had all this great content, this is another great channel for us to leverage this pre-existing content that we paid for.”

Mayo Clinic Press simplified the complex process of delivering content to Apple News with FlatPlan

Starting from scratch, Christian ran into difficulties setting up the Apple News channel and delivering content. 

He also realized how time consuming it is to send content into Apple News without an automated solution like FlatPlan:

“I don't have to deal with the headaches of pushing all the content through [to Apple News] as a manual developer. [FlatPlan] has been very good about managing that, and the onboarding process was great”

Mayo Clinic Press also took advantage of FlatPlan’s Recirculation widgets and Follow CTAs to maximise the potential of the channel.

Mayo Clinic Press uses Apple News as a cost-effective channel to drive more traffic 

Compared to other marketing channels like social and email, Apple News is one of the most efficient ways to drive traffic relative to the cost of investment.

Mayo Clinic Press’s Apple News channel drives additional reach for existing content, without having to hire another marketer on the team:

“The way I've conveyed it to that internal team is this - there's a significant amount of time and resources associated with each of those channels [organic, social, email]. “  

Whereas for FlatPlan, compared to those other costs for each of those channels…It's well worth the investment considering the gains that we've gotten from it.”

Launching an Apple News channel allows Mayo Clinic Press to diversify their traffic sources

Having heavily relied on organic search to drive traffic, Apple News gave Mayo Clinic Press a new strategic channel to drive traffic:

“Apple News removes that tether to organic search where you're having to do the research based on consumer demand. We can lead the conversation instead of follow it.”

Christian realized that some content which might not perform well in search, would still drive interest in Apple News: 

“Instead of trying to figure out a keyword that they're putting in and writing an article around that topic. You can present people with totally new information on Apple News. 

It's nice to see articles that might not perform as well on other channels do really well on Apple News”

Mayo Clinic Press now generates more traffic without expending significant resources

Since its channel launch 9 months ago, Mayo Clinic Press has driven over 600,000 views on Apple News and built an audience of 6000 followers on Apple News.

“Partnering with FlatPlan to drive content on Apple News has been a huge win for the Mayo Clinic Press team, as we’ve been able to generate significantly more traffic without the burden of expending large amounts of time and resources.”