The best of digital – 2011
As we glance in the rear view mirror at 2011, it is worth noting that the year brought us some shining examples of practical and perky applications, websites and platforms that can keep us engaged nearly 24/7. While I believe that we stay too connected to our techno-gadgetry, I find that a recap of the best of the year is worthy of a quick audit.
The following is a compiled list of the “best of” 2011 in several categories.
The 50 Best Websites of 2011 – TIME Magazine
The 50 Best iPhone Apps of 2011 – TIME Magazine
The Best Blogs of 2011 – TIME Magazine
Top 10 iPhone Medical Apps for 2011 – MobiHealth News
Apple’s Top 5 iPhone & iPad Apps of 2011 – iMedicalApps
Top 10 Marketing Sites, Apps and Tools of 2011 – Larry Chase’s Digest
Top iPhone Apps for Online Marketing – Business Marketing Blog
22 Social Media Marketing Management Software & Services – TopRank
Enjoy!
Campaign microsites no longer optional
Learn how health care organizations are using their microsites to enhance their campaigns.
Introducing clinical technology to consumers
The Physician-Tech Confluence
We are fortunate to be living during a time when medical innovations save more lives than any other time in history. Clinical technologies have changed medicine in such a way that the practice of healing has been transformed from a human-to-human touch to a human-to-EMR-to-clinical technology-to-human procedure.
With this evolution of medicine comes a change in message – physicians heal in confluence with clinical technology. So how should marketers talk to prospective consumers about complex new procedures and technologies that can influence treatment decisions?
Through the Voice of Patients
Consumers do not need to know the details or the mechanics of a procedure. Health care consumers respond to the voice of patients who have been through a procedure or treatment successfully. Marketers, please avoid the temptation to mention high-dollar investments in technology. Let patients talk about their experiences in their own words. A sincere, short and occasionally emotional, synopsis is powerful. Any traditional advertising message longer than 20 seconds is too long. Consider promoting technology with technology. The following are three options to explore:
Video: Telling the Story
Video stories and testimonials featuring patients are powerful. They can be used on your web sites, DVDs, and YouTube® as valuable patient education tools. Encourage patients (post procedure) to discuss their initial concerns, the process, reliefs and outcomes. Technological benefits are revealed in their stories – shorter recovery time, non-invasive options, tighter surgical borders, etc. Videos should be short. With the exception of a video of the procedure itself, video stories should not exceed 5 minutes. Use interactive graphics to illustrate when needed.
Blogs and Microblogs: Having the Conversation
Allow patients to blog about their experiences while under the care of new technologies. They can tweet about their daily experiences, create a diary that consumers follow and encourage comments on postings. While it is difficult to rally ‘fan’ or ‘like’ support on Facebook for a clinical technology, there is a tremendous opportunity to contribute to condition-oriented communities and invite consumers to learn more about medical technologies.
FAQs: Answering the Questions
Finally, let’s not forget the power of the FAQs. Evergreen and ever-growing, these venues allow questions to be answered publicly and accurately by medical professionals. They work well as anchors of information when using blogs and videos to draw attention to clinical technologies.
How can marketers create campaigns that break the “healthcare mold” but still resonate with consumers?
Most health care marketers follow one or more of the following themes:
- Attractive doctor telling the story of how he or she is “just like you;”
- Lineup of “star” doctors with a voiceover paraphrasing, “you deserve the best and we have the best doctors around;”
- Patient giving a testimonial stating that they had given up hope until they found XYZ hospital and their capable doctors;
- Artistic shots of high tech equipment or research prowess; or
- In the case of children’s hospitals, photo shots of kids with obvious aliments, smiling and happy as they receive treatment in the hospital or resuming their normal lives.
All can be effective.
While many campaigns are good, very few health care campaigns are great. They fade quickly — leaving us to scramble for the next creative concept designed to capture three seconds of attention we are often allotted by the consumer.
Where are the health care campaign equivalents of “gecko” ads or Mac vs. PC ads? Can hope and healing become so captivating that it goes viral and becomes a YouTube phenom? Possibly.
So how can we breakout and create effective and memorable campaigns? Currently, we spend a significant amount of our advertising funds on concepts, designs and production.
- Consider engaging with an out-of-market research group with no ties to your system or your agency to conduct consumer preview testing. Do not get too concerned with local participation. Local audiences come to the research table with their own biases. Health care consumers often align with community demographics – rural, inner city, or suburbs, etc.
- Use advertising to build your brand and increase awareness. Advertising is rarely the influential factor in health care decision-making. Effective marketing to health care consumers requires a complex combination of traditional advertising, public relations, community participation, physician support, new media and patient advocacy.
- Your breakthrough, experimental “playground” is new media. Try applying formulas that are successful in other industry verticals and test it with consumers through new media.
- Bring in fresh ideas by engaging with local college marketing, communication or advertising students in campaign development or formal brainstorming. Let them have creative license to think about creative messaging. It is a fertile ground for new perspectives.
Break the mold and perhaps you’ll be the one to take hospital marketing to the next level.
Elizabeth L. Scott
escott@ravennewmedia.com
Raven New Media & Marketing
Healthcare for your brand on a budget
When funds are scarce and investments are heavily scrutinized, you owe it to your shareholders to assess your brand’s state of wellness. Here’s why. –iMediaConnection.com
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What are the best, cost-effective ways to increase patient satisfaction and the patient experience?
I’m going to take an unconventional stab at this one. “Patient satisfaction” can be simple…’hospital’ should be about hospitality and patient satisfaction is the result of helping people.
I may get some flak for saying that, but we, in health care, have made ‘patient satisfaction’ a beast to manage. The pressure to increase Press Ganey scores, the long litanies of procedures, policies and recommendations are often not helping our patients. It is easy to become mechanical and too busy to take time to address anything outside of our immediate job responsibilities.
Most of us have been a patient at some point. While it is natural to want to leave the worst parts of a patient experience behind us and just move forward, I would encourage us to remember one thing that was frustrating, frightening, overwhelming, emotional, isolating, impersonal or disappointing about an experience and find a way to make it better for the next person who comes along. This means getting involved. Don’t just send an email with a suggestion. Get active. Consider the following:
Small changes in habits
- Set aside 10 minutes to get up from your desk, out of your department and head toward the parking garage, the hospital lobby or waiting room and help someone.
- Make it a personal mission to do at least one kind thing for a person you don’t know. It doesn’t have to be a patient. Consider family, friends, hospital volunteers, etc.
- Give a sincere smile to everyone.
- Look into people’s eyes.
- Avoid shop talk in the hallways and elevators if possible.
- Pay attention.
- Slow down. Don’t buzz pass visitors unless there is an emergency.
Random acts of kindness
- Cover the cost of a cup of coffee or muffin for the stranger behind you in line.
- Feed a parking meter that is running low.
- Roll a stranded wheelchair back to its designated place.
- Offer to walk a lost person to his/her destination.
- Buy a couple of cafeteria gift cards and give them out occasionally to weary-looking people in waiting rooms.
- Donate books, crossword puzzles, or blank note pads that can be used in a doctor’s waiting room. Better yet, “adopt” a waiting room or busy hallway and get permission to help make it a friendly, inviting place. May I suggest immediate care centers!
You can do it!
– Elizabeth L. Scott
Developing a Social Media Marketing Plan
Developing a Social Media Marketing Plan – www.healthleadersmedia.com
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Social Influence Marketing Strategies & Tactics to Win Customers
Lots of helpful hints for using social media to win business.
How do you see social media marketing for hospitals progressing over the next few years and what can hospitals do now to get a leg-up on their competition?
As a professional who is actively involved in helping hospitals and health care systems develop social media programs and policies, I am happy to address this topic.
I fundamentally believe that social media will transform communications and revolutionize hospital public relations. If hospitals embrace social media in the relatively early stages, the advantages over their competition will last for years to come. The later a hospital waits to get in the game, the more work, money and time it will take to make social media effective.
To get a leg-up on the competition:
1. Treat social media as a “program,” not a project. Build a plan. Learn about the multitude of social media options – there are thousands of channels. Become well-versed in the business advantages and disadvantages of the different types of social media – video sharing, social communities, micro-blogging, virtual worlds, etc.
2. Establish your organization’s name on social media channels. There are a limited number of identities out there. If yours is taken, you may have to resort to unintuitive options. Stake your claim.
3. Educate everyone – your C-suite, your employee population and your department. Social media is new to many. It is also misunderstood. It is your job to educate everyone appropriately and build advocacy from within first.
4. Test. Don’t do everything! Experiment and discover what works and what doesn’t. Be smart and selective. Don’t post every video to YouTube or spread your messages too thin among channels. Move quickly and stay nimble.
5. Commit to reporting your findings. Treat this program with the importance it merits. If you report your success or report choices to drop channels or convey specific messaging, it will help you map your program and support your planning strategy. You will also discover that by building awareness of your fans’ comments, you will find even more support for your program (internally and externally).
6. Use with care and take the high road. Do not use these channels casually. You are representing your brand. Don’t fall into the trap of marketing to your listeners. This is a conversational medium. Never use this as a gorilla tactic to slight the competition. Always be honest and transparent.
7. Understand the business value and use of the channels. It is fundamentally different establishing your organization’s identity in social media from your own casual social use. It is a business tool with measurable value.
8. Create a policy. Don’t leave your organization unprepared. Every hospital or health care organization has to understand the proper use of social media and how an employee should represent him or herself online.
9. Be creative and sincere. The public can sniff out a professional and will quickly lock you out. Speak as a person. Ask, ask, ask what they want to know or track about your organization. The public is in charge. Remember, they are bombarded by messages, so creativity counts.
10. Jump start your program with a professional. It is a challenge to get started and maintain momentum for your social media program. Bring someone in to help you with workshops, planning and even internship programs.
Drop me an email if you’d like more information, Elizabeth L. Scott escott@ravennewmedia.com.
