mommyjenlin

Of the 235 respondents in a November IDC survey, nearly 40% had not implemented a marketing automation solution (yet). Not implementing a marketing automation solution may be the ultimate career limiting move for today's marketers. Digital marketing has exploded in scope and complexity making it practically impossible to efficiently and effectively reach your target audience without a fully realized marketing automation infrastructure. If you haven't gotten started you are already way behind the ball. 40% have not yet implemented marketing automation Source: Marketing Automation: the Rise of Revenue, IDC #255860, Dec 2010 . n = 234 Marketing automation is a must have for today's marketing and sales organizations. There is a wide array of online sources readily available to buyers that can significantly influence purchasing behavior. As a result, marketers must maintain a pervasive and continuously refreshing digital presence. Frequency is emerging as the most critical capab

It has been a most interesting healthcare year. One filled with great change by the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, large fraud settlements along with the usually ethical and moral failures, mergers, acquisitions and the glimmer of an economic recovery. There is optimistic hope for the future. Enough said as all the major healthcare publications run their year-end retrospectives, tops tens, best and worst…. well, you get the idea. So before I going to much further, I would like to extend a most sincere wish for a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all my readers around the world. Readership of Healthcare Marketing Matters has increased greatly over this past year to over a 1,000 page views a month and read daily world-wide. I hope that you have found these writings to be informative, maybe even educational and occasionally irreverent. But most of all, thank you for reading and commenting. So my last Healthcare Marketing Matters blog for 2010 is about

Salesforce.com held its annual user conference December 6th to 9th in San Francisco. It was unusual in that very little of the messaging from Salesforce.com itself was aimed at sales people. The company has clearly and emphatically hammered its stake in the ground as the cloud platform provider for the enterprise. Marc Benioff and other top SFDC execs spent all of the general session keynotes on four key ideas: Platform Cloud Social Mobile If that were a word cloud of the transcripts of the keynotes "platform" would be the biggest and boldest of the four. The company made several significant announcements about how it is enhancing and building out the enterprise cloud computing platform of the future – much of it aimed at CIOs and developers. First however, there were a couple of items that will be of interest to sales and marketing people: Full integration of Jigsaw. Jigsaw, the "crowdsourced" contact database will now provide dynamic updates to records, greatly re

Have you ever considered using Quick Response(QR)Codes in your healthcare marketing? Do you even know what a QR Code is? For those who may be unfamiliar with QR codes , they were developed by Toyota subsidiary Denso-Wave in 1994 for tracking parts in vehicle manufacturing. It is called QR Code for Quick Response Code because it is intended for its content to be decoded at high-speed. The QR Code is a two-dimensional code consisting of black modules arranged in a square on white background. It is readable by QR scanners, mobile phones with a camera and smartphones. QR Code™ is a registered trademark of Denso Wave Incorporated. QR Codes are used with regularity in marketing in most other parts of the world.  The U. S. lags in use. Its About Convenience This is really a convenience application aimed at mobile phone users. And I think it has great application for use in the healthcare industry. Mobile-tagging as it is called, provides you the ability to communicate information to a

Recently, I have been seeing a large amount of advertising directing individuals to come to a hospital or physicians office, clinic etc., at a specific date and time, usually at the physicians or clinicians convenience, for a health and wellness program. That is so 1990s. In this day and age, with internet savvy audiences and patients who are networked to the web, social media, information and such, it seems silly that most healthcare providers would continue to offer only one way for individuals to access health and wellness programs. If you're not using webinars, then you're not meeting your customers needs. And it's pretty easy to do. Using WebEx, Talk Ready, Go To Meeting for example, a 30-45 minute health and wellness seminar can be given on a day and tme more convenient for your audience. They can be recorded and archived on your web site for consumer play back at anytime of their choosing. You now begin to build up a library of self-generated health information that

Much has changed in 2010. One could say a titanic shift that has created a tsunami that is in its early stages of being felt. With that in mind, it begs the question of what is, or will be the role of healthcare marketing going forward? Healthcare reform simply will not be repealed. Adjustments will be made and the legal challenges will continue to be filed for several years, but overall repeal is a distant dream of the far conservative right. Despite the public pronouncements, a significant amount of money in the billions of dollars in future revenue and earnings is at stake for all the players to allow for regression. In a time where the majority of individuals and families have some form of health insurance, I believe that marketing will have a role to play that is much different and more important than today . In an age of healthcare consumerism with patients controlling their health information, (and yes individual health information is the property of the patient, not of the

Healthgrades, Malcolm Baldrige, Thompson Top 100, U S World & News Report and others are making their healthcare quality rankings for various diseases known. And if the hospital or health system is willing to pony up some cash, they too can use those rankings in their marketing and PR efforts. But beyond the obvious campaigning, what I fail to see is how health systems or hospital awardees are communicating in any meaningful way what those quality awards means to the healthcare consumer. As I have written in the past, what is the value of that information to the healthcare consumer? A nice representation of the actual award and saying are in the top 5 percent nationally in (insert disease here) leaves it kind of lacking. Especially when other hospitals you compete against are making the same claim. Wasted Opportunity A shame really. The campaigning I am seeing in its current form treats the healthcare consumer like they are some kind of idiot. It also reinforces what the healthcare

Question... What has many product lines? A multitude of names? Differing marketing communications pieces describing service lines, technology etc? And wonders why they are in survival mode or losing market share? Answer.... Hospitals, home healthcare agencies and specialty pharmacies to name a few of the offenders. Okay, that is probably a little hard but I think you get my point. Branding as a Misunderstood Concept Too many times in healthcare, especially in hospitals, home healthcare agencies and specialty pharmacies, I have seen an absence of brand architecture. The logo and name of the hospital or other provider in multiple colors in different places in marketing communication materials. No standardization of key brand messaging. Field sales teams off and about saying whatever they want too, creating leave behinds that frankly, are amateurish at best. That really comes from a lack of marketing sophistication characterized by little understanding of basic marketing principles, lack

With dynamic changes occurring in the healthcare industry as a result of the Patient Protections and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) , employment of physicians is making a big comeback to the hospital industry. Born of necessity, hospitals and physicians are being driven by reimbursement concerns and opportunities. The drive to create Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) demands a different type of physician relationship. One that is more centralized and controlled to "reap" the revenue benefits of the new healthcare market environment. With this new opportunity to reinvent, revitalize and recapture what previously before had been an adventure on the part of hospitals with mixed results, its time to discuss how one goes about marketing the employed physician. First break from the past...... It's easy to look at this and say we'll just do what we did in the past in promoting employed physicians and be done with it. That is a dangerous mistake in the age of healthcare c

In our most recent survey of CMO's, we asked: "What is your primary Voice by which you go to market? Is your Voice that of: product line; industry; solution; campaign (or theme); customer segment; or job role?" The responses were evenly spread across these six voices. Which basically translates to: "As an industry, we go to market with all those voices at once". I see so many executives struggling with this complex messaging ambition. Mar-Comm executives like to refer to this ambition as their "messaging architecture" but frankly I don't see many of these architectures that would pass the building inspection: it's just too complex. Now, add to this a second dimension: the media in which your voice is carried into the market. Today's marketer has dozens of choices of media to choose from: from traditional advertising to social media tools. Obviously. Finally, add a third dimension of time. New IDC research shows that the average cycle time o

Previously, I authored a couple of blogs on the Re-emergence of Centers of Excellence (CoE) due to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), as well as starting a most interesting discussion on LinkedIn in the American College of Healthcare Executives Group . Those blogs and discussion really focused more on the operational and quality of care characteristics of a CoE than marketing. The point being that with the rise of healthcare consumerism driven by many factors outside the control of healthcare providers, that you could no longer look around and just say that you have a CoE in a particular service-line or disease -state. So, if as a leader in your healthcare organization you have come to realize that the healthcare consumer deserves more than just the old ways of doing things, you have really looked at your self-described CoEs and beefed them up to true reflections of organizational and quality of care excellence, then just maybe you are ready to begin marketing

Savo held their annual user group meeting in Chicago on October 26th and 27th. Two hundred people working on Sales Enablement (SE) attended and a number of very interesting keynotes and customer presentations were given. Jill Konrath provided a very entertaining and sobering take on the challenge of marketing and selling to today's harried (understatement of the year) buyers. The centerpiece of her talk was an improvised role playing exercise in which Jill played a sales executive that was a key target for a fictitious company. The point was to show what everyday life is like for our prospects before we ever try to contact them. It was the start of her day and she had to get a presentation ready for the quarterly board meeting that afternoon. The CMO is the first to walk into her office to complain about sales not following up on marketing leads and they have the "marketing leads are crap" argument. "You were in our lead scoring meeting you have no excuse." &qu

What really was the impetuous for today's blog was a two-page, full-page spread from a major healthcare system. It caught my attention for the fact that there was a lot of copy and it was all about us. I looked for the value proposition and the compelling reason why this is important to me, but could not find any. A very expensive way to talk at someone. With healthcare changing so rapidly, is it time to move healthcare advertising beyond "all about us" to the value and benefit we bring to you , the healthcare consumer. I mean, unless you are a brand new provider in the market, you have been telling your audiences all about your features and benefits for years now. They get it. In today's world, it's about value and benefit to the healthcare consumer. In today's world, it's about the answering the healthcare consumers question of what is my ROI for using you? In today's world, you need to have a compelling value proposition with messaging that provides

Healthcare is changing at a far more rapid pace that at any time in its history. I am not referring to the pharmaceutical or technological advances which have no doubt improved the quality of care and in most cases, the quality of life as well. Since 1983 with the introduction of DRGs, we as an industry have been touting the benefits of wellness, individual responsibility in health and the patient taking an active role in their healthcare. Much has changed since that time and much has remained the same. But now, the game has really changed . Welcome to the age of the networked patient. The networked patient is someone who has an intense curiosity about their health condition, expects to have an active role in making healthcare decisions and this is most important, they want control of their health information. They use in internet, social media and seek out others. They read and study about their health condition. They ask questions and will seek out alternatives. The look at provide

Any number of healthcare organizations are looking to increase admissions to drive revenue and volume by associated physicians. Some providers are returning to the days of employing physicians and that seems to be making a big comeback due to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPAAC). Here's hoping lessons learned from the last go around of physician employment will result in fewer mistakes this time. Sales staffs are popping up all over like weeds-in-a-field, complete with goals and objectives, territories and sales quotas for specific docs along identified and profitable disease-states. In most cases they are managed by people who have never sold anything in their life. Little understanding of the relationship sales cycle, what is important to the physicians, their needs and ultimately their patients. The first time the sale person comes back to the organization with "This needs to change" request, it all breaks down because nobody internally wants to reall

Living in a large metropolitan area with some pretty well recognized system heavyweights and Academic Medical Centers, I am fortunate enough to see a good deal of hospital advertising. Anyhow, happy smiling patients, doctors looking intently into a microscope, nice building exterior shots and high-tech equipment all promoting a central system brand. High production values and in most cases using hired talent instead of employees. One even made the claim of being one of the top 10 hospital systems on the country. I have said it before and I am saying it again, where is the differentiation? And what does the statement: "We are one of the top-10 hospital systems in the country" mean? So I thought I would go to their web site expecting to see some kind of explanation on the award, but I was sadly mistaken. All the site had in the About Us was top-10 again. Okay, is that in customer satisfaction, financial performance, system integration? What exactly does that mean? Food for thou

The dynamic has changed. With the advent of HCAPHS and the Affordable Care Act (ACA) consumer satisfaction is no longer a nice too have but a got to have in healthcare. Difficult to achieve and tough to beat once you have it, consumer satisfaction with your medical services, regardless of the monikers we place on them, will drive volume and revenue. Revenue for the standpoint of Pay-for-Performance (P4P) programs and volume from consumers selecting you in a very "commoditized" and provider undifferentiated healthcare market place. As you create your networks, Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), Medical Homes (MHs) and other yet undefined organizations, you have the opportunity to "get it right" this time. For the past 10 years, I have been writing and working within healthcare organizations to improve satisfaction. Ten years ago, I had the opportunity to coauthor a book with Ralph Bell, PhD., on satisfaction entitled- How to Use Patient Satisfaction Data to Impro

In the new world of healthcare where price and quality are the key drivers of an informed consumer, sharing a much greater burden of the cost, will begin to demand experiences online that they commonly have with other companies. Online represents a great opportunity for consumer directed healthcare organizations to break from the pack and create an online healthcare experience that is memorable and exceeds an individuals or families experience, expectations. Are you ready for the challenge? Most healthcare sites today are static containing the usual about us, our services location, etc., etc., etc. Little use of video or other creative ways to engage the customer. Notice that I said customer and not patient. Not everyone that comes to your site is a patient or will be a patient. They are consumers looking for information. Could be a competitor too. In any case, when you look at your site, does it: Delight your customer? Create sustainable differentiation? Is adaptable to new opportun

This is my 8th year of analyzing and guiding on tech marketing budgets and allocations and it will be the most dynamic that I have witnessed. Here are the facts and factors, and some guidance thoughts. First, the Macro-Economics of revenues and marketing budgets: Based on IDC's annual Tech Marketing Benchmarks Survey (completed 9/10), marketing budgets for the very largest tech vendors will increase by 3.7% in 2010. (I estimated that it would be 3.5% back in 3/10; and so our forecast was very good.) For the first half of 2010, revenues for tech vendors grew faster than IDC had expected when we began the year. Today, our current forecast is for 5.8% WW IT revenue growth. My sense is that this better-than-expected sales volume in the first half of 2010 took the marketing-planners and budgeters a bit by surprise; and so the marketing investment level for the year will be somewhat behind the revenue growth. Unless of course revenue growth slows in the last quarter. These types of chang