mommyjenlin

If tech marketers as a group were to be identified as a persona, one of our attributes would be "over-achiever".  While in school, we strove mightily to get A's, win awards, be the champions.  Our drive to be the best is our great strength.  But its over-application can also be a great weakness. Under today's conditions getting straight A's is impossible.  Tech marketing has never been the kind of job you can leave at the office at 5:00 (and who leaves at 5:00 anyway?). On the positive side, you get to work on the exhilarating cutting edge, with fascinating problems to solve, with smart, interesting, people all over the world. But the C-Suite and sales people are never satisfied. Results from our work are often ambiguous. You learn to just accept that your work will never be done.  However in recent years, that persistent mania has kicked up a notch. To the day-to-day, add the time it takes transforming marketing to the self-educated buyer and the digital world....

Why Christmas Happens Now Christmas for e-commerce merchants is happening right now. Christmas happens now because Google is setting their index. There is usually one BIG October Google surprise (to insure PPC payments go UP), but content that is winning now will probably keep on winning right through the holidays (and Vice Versa). Christmas is happening now because Internet marketing teams are looking hard at their numbers to figure out what is HOT and what is NOT. HOT products get special attention (and more inventory). NOT HOT products are moved to the "wait and see" or "not going to happen" areas (a lost limbo of a place). If that sounds like e-commerce is one big GUESS you aren't far off. What is or has been HOT so far is no guarantee of hotness in October - December. There are always 4Q surprises too. 4Q Surprises are products that weren't hot but got an Oprah mention or some other huge boost and suddenly became hot. E-commerce merchants can ONLY play ...

To tweet or not to tweet, that is the question?   Faced with a dizzying array of possibilities from twitter to facebook to YouTube,   LinkedIn, Instagram   and others, healthcare providers are struggling with developing a comprehensive social media strategy to manage their brand, become transparent and contain a communications crisis. Understandable really.    Some of the concern comes from not understanding the power and uses of social media and how consumers are the new paparazzi.   Some comes from trying to figure out how a social media strategy fits into the overall marketing plan. Some is purely from executive ignorance in not understanding the place and uses of social media in the life of the healthcare consumer. In many cases its all of the above and others, including and by far the most pervasive, the never ending paralysis by analysis planning loop and engaging in that quest for the perfect best practice before proceeding. It's not just a facebo...

Many technology companies have directed their marketing and sales teams to look for business beyond the traditional IT customer.  The secret to marketing to the line-of-business executive is to think like they do. Huh? Is this a secret? Imagine you have a cute little terrier that you love dearly but who chews up everything in sight.  You fear that you will have to give the dog away if he keeps wrecking things.  As a super-busy person you rarely have time to read articles, however, one of the articles below will stop you in your tracks. Which one?        a) Animals around Our Home        b) Dogs: What do they do every day?        c) Why We Love Terriers        d) How to Stop Terriers from Destroying Your Home You know that the answer is D.  And if each of the authors had a dog training business, which one are you most likely to contact? Everyone...

As I look across the hospital and health system landscape, one thing that has struck me for the most part, is that little attention is paid to social media outside of using it as a billboard for various programs and announcements. Doesn't matter whether or not if it's a clinical service or wellness program to heralding quality awards, its static. There seems to be a lack of creativity and engagement that one would think is the hallmark of a vibrant healthcare consumer engagement strategy on a social media platform. But then, maybe that is the problem and the solution? That there is no vibrant social media strategy to engage the healthcare consumer, so it just becomes another marketing channel to yell at someone about how you provide " world-class" care. Okay, that's a little synclinal, but healthcare is evolving in ways we didn't imagine which includes how networked the healthcare consumer is today. Yet we continue to reach out to that networked healthcare con...

Back in December of 2010, I wrote about the changing role of healthcare marketing in the context of PPACA. Earlier this week a reader asked if it had changed nearly two years later. Sadly, not much has changed in the current state and role of healthcare marketing. Oh, we have added an expanded social media and online practice, but much of the changing role and strategic marketing leadership that I envisioned with the passage of PPACA hasn't taken place. It's pretty much standard operations as in the past. And that is disappointing. Understand that I am not talking about pharma, medical device manufacturers, insurance companies, suppliers and retailers moving into the healthcare space. They get it. They understand the power and importance of marketing. This is for all the other healthcare providers that are still trying to operate like its 1990. What I wrote about two years ago, still stands. Healthcare organizations are falling behind daily in their marketing, with little room...

Though there are many great examples of healthcare marketing across the country, it seems that these are far and few between. This is a shame really because of all the talented marketers that are in the industry. More often than not, we let well meaning individuals who have no formal training or clear understanding of marketing hold sway over the direction. I do understand the leverage that CEOs, docs, product managers and others hold over marketing. At the end of the day, he or she that signs the check or has the backing wins, right or wrong. And there is way too much of that in healthcare marketing. With non-marketing trained people running the show causing chaos and confusing tactics with strategy, companies fall behind in markets and are either sold, became acquisition targets since they underperform, or die a slow and painful death. So how do you exercise marketing leadership in that kind of environment? You need to understand the needs, politics and marketing understanding of the...

With the acceleration of mergers and acquisitions across all healthcare verticals, the question is posed for your consideration, how do you communicate with your consumers, patients or plan members about a merger or acquisition? Do you communicate on a personal level what's going on at all, or do you rely on the news media to carry the story? This is an important question. After all, most organizations, if they are paying any attention to communications detail, are decent at communicating with physicians and employees about what's going on. Timing can sometimes be an issue internally, especially if a news reports hit the street before employees know. But commonly, where most healthcare organizations fall down in the communications chain, is how they communicate the merger or acquisition with patients, consumers, and vendors. They are important audiences and you need to control your message with them as you do internally and with the media. In the age of social media where every...

Strategy and effective marketing operations is everything today in healthcare marketing . And if you have a bad strategy or no strategy, combined with marketing operational deficiencies, then no amount of tactical execution will overcome ineptitude. If you don't have a good strategy, any old road will get you to where you want to go, with significant inefficient resources utilization in cost, human capital and loss of return. Some of the verticals in the healthcare industry, are notorious for no strategy and just plain bad marketing operations, following the herd and just keeping the internal audience happy with what they want. Here are the signs that you have a bad or nonexistent healthcare marketing strategy/operation: 1. There is no marketing plan. 2. The marketing plan is not integrated with the organizations business and financial plan. 3. Your brand messages are not clear, and are not integrated across internal and external audiences. 4. The CEO sets the marketing priorities ...

To tweet or not to tweet, that is the question? Faced with a dizzying array of possibilities from twitter to facebook to YouTube, LinkedIn, flicker and others, healthcare providers are struggling with developing a comprehensive social media strategy to engage their customers. Understandable really. Some of the concern comes from not understanding the power and uses of social media and how consumers are the new paparazzi. Some comes from trying to figure out how a social media strategy fits into the overall marketing plan. Some is purely from executive ignorance in not understanding the place and uses of social media in the life of the healthcare consumer. In many cases its all of the above and others, including and by far the most pervasive, the never ending paralysis by analysis planning loop and engaging in that quest for the perfect best practice before proceeding. In these situations it is about internal marketing leadership. As the marketing expert in your organization, you ne...