mommyjenlin

A recent IDC study of large IT companies found that, on average, channel revenue was $3.7 billion. The average internal channel marketing staff of 53 managed nearly 22,000 partners, equating to $12 million of revenue per internal staff but only half a million dollar per partner. Most shocking from the study -- these organizations have an average of approximately 15,000 inactive partners. Active partners only constitute 31% of the channel mix, with the remaining 69% being inactive. Given the expense involved in recruiting channel partners and on-boarding their first sales, it is in the vendor’s best interest to identify the best partners across the entire partner population and enable them to step-up to higher levels of sales performance. Channel Marketing Service and Automation Solutions The traditional method of assigning business development managers to the top 5% of partners, and others to groups of the second 15% of partners, is not scalable. The business development manager assign...

Revenue in hospitals, clinics and physician offices are down. Payers earnings are up because of lack of healthcare utilization. They are spending less. Looming Medicare cuts. Slow pay or no pay from Medicaid programs across the country. Increased self-pays. Lowered insurance reimbursements. And of Congress doesn't act on increase the ability of the Treasury to raise the debt limit, "you haven't seen nothing yet". Healthcare is not a discretionary purchase . There is little if any differentiation between medical providers. With so many individuals out of work, consumer confidence eroding and wage earners fearful of losing jobs, healthcare, whether doctors visits, medication, hospitalizations or insurance purchases, are the last thing on peoples' minds. What is a healthcare provider to do? We all know the drill, cut costs, lay-off staff , hiring freeze, decrease marketing. etc. All retrenchment strategies to "weather the storm." In most cases necessary ste...

Hospital and other healthcare leadership seems to be struggling with the concept of an empowered, informed healthcare consumer who is making active decisions regarding treatment and care, instead of relying on the provider of care making the decisions. This is leading to any number of hospitals and others advertising satisfaction rates, awards for care, no wait ERs and other self proclaimed measures or for example, using web site clocks to potential customers that provide real-time ER wait times, etc. Some innovative hospitals have even been cleaver in their ER advertising and other communication channels allowing potential customers to text a message and get the wait time back. Some ads make claims of being the number one in treatment because of the volume of cases. Most ads are agency quality and well done, while some are clearly created in-house and look it too. Misrepresentation of the data But what I am also seeing is misuse and misrepresentation of data related to quality awa...

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 ...

That question of course, assumes that you believe hospital advertising is appropriate. And you may well believe that it is also a waste of resources. Which I think is a most dangerous position, given the ongoing transformation of the healthcare market from a provider-directed to a consumer-directed or as some prefer a patient -directed model. Arguments aside, what should hospitals be advertising to create an unassailable market position, a strong brand, as well as an enlightened and informed consumer? Remember, when you are marketing to consumers, they don't become a patient until they receive a service from you. So three-quarters of the time in their interactions with you, the "consumer" is only a "patient" during diagnosis and treatment. Should it be being the best at all things or a category of service? How about having the most current technology? Maybe it could be who has the most quality awards and highest patient satisfaction? Or, it could focus on the ph...

Market Intelligence on the Move Transformation continues to sweep its way through the marketing function and no "department" within the function is exempt from change. For this month's CMO Advisor newsletter , we are now focused on the market intelligence area. Compared to its peer departments, Market Intelligence (MI) enjoys relative stability, as measured by the steadiness of the job description, job security and tenure, and budgets. But there is a groundswell of change -- or at least an expressed desire for change. In a recent survey of MI professionals, IDC observes that MI executives are seeking to increase the value they deliver to the organizations they support, and to deliver that value with greater efficiency. Indeed, it is the sentiment of executives that IDC interviewed that "The market intelligence organization will change more in the next 3 years than it has changed in the past 10 years". That is a bold statement. To peel it back, here are the top a...