January 14, 2013
Many pundits are declaring the demise and even death of traditional advertising. They are premature. They are wrong.
I just read an article by Bill Lee in the Harvard Business Review. In the article he declared, “Traditional marketing – including advertising, public relations, branding and corporate communications – is dead. Many people in traditional marketing roles and organizations may not realize they’re operating within a dead paradigm. But they are. The evidence is clear.”
Lee gives three pieces of evidence for the death of marketing. First, buyers are no longer paying much attention. Several studies have confirmed that in the “buyer’s decision journey,” traditional marketing communications just aren’t relevant.
Second, CEOs have lost all patience. In a devastating 2011 study of 600 CEOs and decision makers by the London-based Fournaise Marketing Group, 73% of them said that CMOs lack business credibility and the ability to generate sufficient business growth.
Third, in today’s increasingly social media-infused environment, traditional marketing and sales not only doesn’t work so well, it doesn’t make sense. In fact, this last is a bit of a red herring, because traditional marketing isn’t really working anywhere.
There are others who have made similar predictions. But I will say, it’s not true! True, marketing is changing. True, social media and relationship marketing is playing a more significant role in the marketing process. And true, consumers have more control and more power. But none of that means traditional marketing is dead.
I could go on and on and on with success stories of brands that are effective using traditional marketing. Traditional marketing is still such a dominant and influential force in our culture. Brands are being made and enhanced everyday using traditional marketing methods.
On a personal level, our agency does work every day using traditional marketing methods that render sales growth and increases in market share.
And traditional marketing works in healthcare. Yes it’s changing. Building authentic customer relationships is of supreme importance. And healthcare marketers must always be open to change. They must be willing to experiment with new strategies. But it’s not time to abandon traditional strategies and tactics. And for those who say marketing is dead, aren’t looking in the same places I am.
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Hospital Marketing | Tagged: Lori Moore, Nancy Siniard, Jimmy Warren, Advertising Agency Alabama, Ad Agency Tuscaloosa, Advertising Agency Huntsville, Traditional Marketing, hospital advertising agency, healthcare marketing firm | 
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Posted by Jimmy Warren
December 27, 2012
PR and publicity are important tactics in creating positive “buzz” for a hospital’s brand.
PR has always been an important tool of every healthcare marketing department. But there has been a major shift in the healthcare industry that includes the resurrection of public relations. Many ad budgets have been cut. Less is being spent on traditional media. But in many cases more is being spent in PR and publicity.
Generally, PR has been the poor, ugly stepsister to the advertising function. PR was just a way to keep the hospital’s name in the newspaper and for hospitals to pat themselves on the back for their community involvement. PR was considered free and regularly not much more than an afterthought in the marketing plan. It was an add-on to an advertising campaign or something done to keep the management team and board happy.
But today, many hospitals are placing much more emphasis on PR. In addition to moving some of the budget from traditional media to new media, event marketing, social media and mobile marketing PR and publicity is playing an increasing important role in the marketing department’s strategy and efforts. With a shift toward customer-generated media, PR becomes more critical to the hospital’s marketing efforts.
“PR plays into the whole ‘buzz Marketing’ trend”, stated Tony Mikes of Second Wind. “PR is very much about brand awareness, so we can certainly accord some of the credit for PR’s emergence from the shadows to the rise of branding as a critical marketing tactic.” Creating “buzz” and keeping the hospital’s name in the news and on the lips of influencers and consumers are extremely important. As marketing becomes more consumer-driven and consumer- controlled, PR and publicity can play an even bigger role and sometimes more effective role than advertising in enhancing the brand in the minds of the consumers.
PR and publicity are also important for place-based media efforts. Pre-promotion of staged events creates attendance and media coverage while post-promotion extends the chatter.
PR should no longer be an afterthought, but an “automatic.” PR and publicity can boost the hospital’s brand organically and authentically. Complimenting and enhancing all the other marketing activities.
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Leave a Comment » | Branding | Tagged: Ad Agency Alabama, Advertising Agency Huntsville, Branding, healthcare public relations, hospital pr, importance of public relations for hospitals, Jimmy Warren, Lori Moore, Marketing Firm Alabama, Nancy Siniard, public relations trends, Second Wind, secondwindonline.com, Tony Mikes | Permalink
Posted by Jimmy Warren
October 17, 2012
Another tagline bites the dust!
Avis drops it’s branding line “We Try Harder” …after 50 years.
Avis Car Rental has recently announced they are dropping their iconic brand positioning line, “We Try Harder,” and replacing it with “It’s Your Space.” Whether that’s a smart move will be determined but from an outsider looking in, I might have to question the move.
“We Try Harder” was introduced in 1962 by Avis with the help of DDB and became the brand’s promise about the quality of its service and as a way to position itself against the category leader Hertz. It was a huge success for Avis. In a matter of a single year, that campaign reversed the company’s fortunes, helping it to go from losing $3.2 million to turning a profit of $1.2 million for the first time in 13 years. It worked! And it identified a brand.
Now it is being replaced with “It’s Your Space.” One has to ask, what promise does that line really deliver? The firm is repositioning itself to appeal to business travelers who spend a lot time in rental cars and trying to communicate that time inside a rental car is where business travelers can recharge or be the most productive time while traveling. Maybe it will work but it seems a stretch to me.
Maybe it was time to abandon the old line since Avis had fallen from the number two car rental company to number three behind Enterprise Holdings (Alamo, Enterprise, National) and Hertz. Maybe the company had stopped trying harder. Or maybe they indeed do need to reposition itself for business rather than leisure travelers and this was to way to do it. But you sure hate to see a classic, effective and company-defining line disappear.
For hospital marketers, branding lines come and go. And I would be one of the first to say they need to be periodically updated and changed as the brand and the market landscape changes. But it should be a strategic move based on sound research and not just on a whim. Internally we may get tired of a branding line but it is often long before it becomes ineffective with the consumer. And with a line like the one used by Avis to brand, position and define the company and which is firmly implanted in consumers’ minds, marketers need to be very cautious before making a change.
There are some very solid reasons a branding line should be changed from time to time but we must be sure it’s a strategic reason and not just because we are tired of the old one. If the one we are currently using was strategically developed and implemented and it was effective, about the only reason to change is because the brand, the market or the competitive landscape has changed. We must be very sure there are strong reasons to give up the brand equity that has been developed with the current line to start over with a new one.
Again, I’m not against changing lines but only after research and deliberate consideration. And as hospital marketers, we must be sure the new brand positioning line is better and stronger and connects better with our audiences. For Avis, I’m not sure “It’s Your Space” does that. I just wished they had tried harder.
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Posted by Jimmy Warren
October 15, 2012
For the two political conventions TV viewership was down and social media usage was up.
The recently completed Republican and Democratic political conventions revealed the dramatic changes occurring in media usage. Television viewership plunged, depending on the night, from 25-40% from 2008. And according to Nielsen the television audience was decisively older with very low number for viewers 18-34. There were ten times more viewers 55 or older than 18-34.
But on the other hand, social networks and online saw a dramatic increase from the conventions just four years ago. Several news organizations offered live streaming feeds online and both parities saw significant traffic on their respective YouTube channels. The two conventions have also been one of the most talked about events of the year on Facebook. But even there, the audience trended older. Twitter was perhaps the biggest winner among social media options. Where information is shared in increments of 140 words or less, Twitter only registered 365,000 tweets between the two conventions in 2008. But this year the Republican convention alone drew 5 million tweets. About 14,300 a minute during Romney’s acceptance speech, according to Beth Fouhy of the Associated Press.
These numbers just confirm what is obvious. Media consumption is dramatically changing. Now consumers are not tied to their living rooms and a TV set for news and information. With laptops, tablets and smartphones, consumers can gather information wherever they are. On demand. Media consumption occurs anyplace online access is available. And the information is often gathered by consumers in small increments of time and bits of information and not necessarily long format like a 3-4 hour convention coverage on television.
For healthcare marketers, it doesn’t tell us that traditional media is no longer effective, but that we must consider and explore other non-traditional mediums to be relevant and reach a broader audience. And that is especially true if we want to reach the younger audience. Only a few healthcare organizations have a marketing staff large enough to have a presence everywhere but every organization should be active in one or two. Choose the one(s) that could be most effective for your brand and for which you can develop a good competency and consistent use and go for it.
We might not have learned much from watching and listening to the conventions on whatever medium we used to consume them, but one thing we did confirm is that consumer media consumption is indeed shifting. And we must embrace it.
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Leave a Comment » | Internet, Social Media | Tagged: Ad Agency Alabama, Ad Agency Tuscaloosa, Advertising Agency Huntsville, Associated Press, Beth Fouhy, healthcare marketing, Internet, Jimmy Warren, Lori Moore, media consumption shift in healthcare, Nancy Siniard, Nielsen, Social Media | Permalink
Posted by Jimmy Warren
August 31, 2012
The National Labor Relations Board issues guidelines for social media in the workplace. 
The NLRB may not be the ultimate authority on social media for healthcare marketers but their recommendations can be very helpful. After reviewing social media policies of businesses, they discovered that many businesses were risking infringing on employee free speech and labor rights and issued guidelines and recommendations.
Mikal Belicove reported some of the agency’s findings in an article for Entrepreneur. Here are six recommendations that should guide a hospital’s social media policy.
1. Know and follow the rules.
Employees should be encouraged to read and understand the social media policy. The policy should clearly indicate what is not appropriate and what will not be tolerated in regard to the use of social media.
2. Be respectful.
The policy should state that employees are expected to be “fair and courteous to fellow associates, customers, members, suppliers or people who work on behalf of the employer.”
3. Be honest and accurate.
Never post anything based on rumor or assumption. Make sure all posts are accurate and true.
4. Post only appropriate and respectful content
Always be respectful and maintain confidentiality. Never represent yourself as a company spokesperson or speak for the company unless specifically authorized.
5. Use social media at work for only work related activities.
Don’t use company equipment and time for personal messaging.
6. Don’t engage the press.
Don’t speak to the press or engage the press in any social media activity without prior approval.
Certainly this is not an exhaustive list for a social media policy but it’s helpful in regard to what’s permissible without restricting employees’ work-related rights.
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Posted by Jimmy Warren
August 29, 2012
The number one piece of advice offered by marketers about social media is “Build relationships.”
As healthcare marketers continue to engage consumers with social media, it’s always good to heed the advice of others. Regina Wood conducted an online poll on LinkedIn of 300 marketers and asked what’s the most important piece of advice they had for social media. The results were published in Healthcare Communication News.
The results were:
- Build relationships with your followers (57 percent)
- Have a personality (20 percent)
- You can’t control your message (7 percent)
- Have a crisis plan in place (6 percent)
- Other (9 percent)
And some other pieces of helpful advice the respondents shared:
1. “If you don’t have anything valuable and positive to say, don’t.”
2. “You can never take it back!”
3. “Be consistent—don’t just tweet or post for a couple of days and then decide it doesn’t work for you!”
4. “Use social media for professional purposes only. Keep personal specifics to a minimum so you’re never embarrassed by anything on internet.”
5. “Good manners will serve you well in your interactions.”
6. “If your post has any potential to embarrass you at all—no matter how infinitesimal—it will; the Internet is forever.”
7. “Set a time limit.”
8. “Don’t venture out until you’ve tidied your room. In other words, your company website needs to be in good enough shape so that when you’re out there drumming up attention for yourself on social media and people come looking, your site gives them a reason to stay.”
All of these are handy pieces of advice. Let the wise take notice.
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Leave a Comment » | Social Media | Tagged: Lori Moore, Nancy Siniard, Social Media, Jimmy Warren, Ad Agency Tuscaloosa, Advertising Agency Huntsville, Ad Agency Alabama, Regina Wood, Healthcare Communication News, best social media advice, building relationships on social media | Permalink
Posted by Jimmy Warren
August 27, 2012
Social media mistakes damage reputations and brands. Learn from the mistakes of others.
Although not specifically directed to healthcare and hospital marketers, an article written by A.J Ghergich, CEO of Authority Domains, and appearing in SmartBlogs from SmartBrief offers some very helpful comments about mistakes brands involved in social media should avoid. The article is repeated here in its entirety.
Imagine you built up a vast social media following — but because of one small oversight, your reputation started to crumble right before your eyes. Sadly, this scenario is not that farfetched, because some businesses leap into the social media arena without understanding how to maintain a relationship with their customers while avoiding some obvious pitfalls.
By studying some mistakes by other companies that have resulted in negative exposure, you can learn how your business can avoid a similar fate. Here are five easy-to-avoid mistakes.
- Being crass about current events. Last year, designer Kenneth Cole used the publicity of an international crisis in Cairo to post about his products. He even used the hashtag #Cairo to try to build buzz and reach others who were searching for tweets on the crisis. The reaction was so strong that you won’t find Kenneth Cole’s old Twitter account anymore. It has been replaced. Reacting to current events can be plus for your brand, but consider how some people might react if it looks like you’re trying to capitalize on a very serious situation. Be respectful and tread lightly when talking about current events. Take a minute to put yourself in another person’s shoes and ask how your post could be perceived. It’s possible that if Kenneth Cole had taken a few extra minutes to think through his tweet, he may have decided not to publish it.
- Getting too personal. Be careful when posting personal content, whether or not you feel it is valuable. Your customers consider your social accounts the face of your brand. Bob Parsons, Go Daddy founder, posted a video of his trip to Zimbabwe on his blog. In the video, Parsons told the audience how he kills elephants because they damage crops, which endangers the lives of the starving locals. After Parsons published the video, the media outlets ran with the story, and some customers boycotted Go Daddy and its services. Though Parsons explained the story in more detail, the damage had already been done. Regardless of whether Parsons was doing a good deed, this type of personal content is not appropriate for customers. Occasional personal content is effective for creating connections with your customers, but keep it light and don’t antagonize people.
- Being spammy. Resist the temptation to capitalize on the popularity of another company to promote your products. Habitat UK tried to take advantage of the trending topics #Apple, #iPhone and others to acquire some traffic. Unfortunately, the strategy backfired because the tweets had nothing to do with Apple computers or any of its products. Tweeters posted negative messages to Habitat UK’s account, complaining about its “spammy” behavior. Your customers are not stupid. They know when you are trying to manipulate the system. Stay genuine, and don’t piggyback on other companies’ successes. It will only make you look desperate.
- Putting your account in the wrong hands. The people who tweet or posts on your company’s behalf have the fate of your company’s image in their hands. What they post could potentially damage your reputation. Invest enough resources into finding the right people who will put their opinions aside and prioritize the integrity of your company. Ensure your social media managers understand the essence of your company culture and how you want your brand portrayed.
- Pretending your mistake didn’t happen. If you ever make a mistake, own up to it and apologize. Your customers will respect you for admitting your mistakes and you can save your brand from any negative backlash. People forgive transparent mistakes much more than they excuse complete denial.
Like all marketers, those in healthcare would be wise to learn from the types of mistakes mentioned and not repeat them.
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1 Comment | Hospital Advertising, Social Media | Tagged: A.J. Ghergich, Ad Agency Alabama, Advertising Agency Huntsville, Advertising Agency Tuscaloosa, Advertising Firm South, Authority Domains, common social media mistakes, Hospital Advertising, Jimmy Warren, Lori Moore, Marketing Firm Alabama, Mistakes companies make in social media, Nancy Siniard, smartblogs, Social Media, social media mistakes | Permalink
Posted by Jimmy Warren
July 30, 2012
Guest Blog Post By Ian Orekondy, Director of Digital Media – UBM Medica
Patients Value Healthcare Professionals for Health Information More Than Any Other Source
After hospitals across the country ramped up their marketing efforts and increased their advertising targeted to patients, research shows that patients continue to cite their physicians as the most valued influence on their healthcare decisions.
So many forward-thinking hospitals are increasingly focusing on cultivating stronger relationships with physicians in their market areas in order to:
- Ensure awareness of key hospital services
- Grow referrals
- Support physicians
- Improve care and quality outcomes.
More Than Physician Relations
Some hospitals are hiring physician liaisons to meet with certain physicians, but many hospitals are going further and partnering with trusted medical journals and online publications to strengthen hospital-physician relationships. They do this by delivering valuable content to physicians to help them manage and grow their medical practice. Additionally, as shown in several recent hospital marketing surveys, many hospital marketers are increasing their focus on digital marketing, and are now figuring out how to scale their physician-targeted digital marketing programs.
Wait, Are Physicians Really Online? Absolutely:
- 81% of physicians now own a smartphone (mostly the iPhone) (Manhattan Research)
- 62% of physicians own a tablet (mostly the iPad) (Manhattan Research)
They are using these devices throughout the day:
- 78% of surveyed physicians access health-websites via mobile devices
- And physician-targeted mobile apps help with diagnosis at the point of care.
- Some hospital marketers are still surprised to learn physicians are now opening their emails more than ever, exchanging emails with patients, and perhaps most importantly for hospitals, they are opening emails from sources they trust to deliver them valuable clinical and practice management content. Physician-targeted email open rates are now routinely in line with consumer/patient-targeted email campaigns.
So how can your hospital engage physicians online?
Valuable Content + Precise Targeting = Engaged Physicians
Focus on providing value:
- Tools: Diagnostic or prediction tools can provide significant value for physicians. For example, Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York hosts “Prediction Tools” on the healthcare professional section of their website. Oncologists and other physicians anywhere can use these tools to predict cancer outcomes or assess risk based on specific characteristics of a patient and of his or her disease.
- Content: Help them save time and money. Physicians are struggling with the business side of medicine, so providing content that helps them manage their practice is a great way to build a stronger relationship with physicians.
- Resources: Many hospitals provide physician directories, directions to give to patients, and CME opportunities – all online.
Demonstrate that you value physicians’ input:
- Creating an online poll and distributing it online to all physicians in your market area is an easy way to engage physicians with your hospital, and gather valuable feedback at the same time. Ask them about a potential policy change, what changes they’d like to see, or simply ask about their overall satisfaction with the referral process. Doing this on a regular basis can pay large dividends.
Ensure that your physician-focused content gains the right physician audience.
- Relying on search engines, YouTube and Facebook works very well when targeting patients, but these tactics lose their effectiveness when it comes to targeting physicians.
- Find a partner (usually a company that already has built trusted relationships with physicians) that can reach and deploy your content to physicians in your market area. Often, even if your hospital has its own physician email list, a good partner can de-duplicate your physician emails from their own list of engaged physicians, and deploy your content only to the physicians you don’t already reach.
- These partners can syndicate your physician-focused videos, PDFs, polls and other resources, and they can often supplement your content or even help you with production.
To recap, physicians are still the most influential sources of information for patients, and they are now fully engaged online. There are now many ways for hospitals to strengthen their relationships with physicians in ways that reflect their needs, save them time and money, and ultimately wins your hospital more business and improves outcomes for your patient population.
Is your hospital already focused on marketing to physicians? Or is your competitor?
Ian Orekondy is Director of Digital Media at UBM Medica, building custom marketing programs for hospitals and pharmaceutical brands. He also blogs at http://searchandsocialmedia.com, and you can connect with him on Twitter @iano1000. Use hashtag #hospitalmarketing.
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Posted by Jimmy Warren
July 17, 2012
Social media success is not how many “likes” you have but rather how many relationships you have.
Hospital marketers measure success for their social media efforts in several different ways. The easiest, and probably most often used, method is how many likes you have. It’s quantity. And why not, when attempting to show success it’s easy to point to the number of likes your site has. In fact, it can look pretty impressive in a performance review.
But does that really measure true success? Sure, it’s providing exposure to your brand. And sure it shows some level of affinity to your hospital and it’s services. So it certainly has value. Quantity is important.
But perhaps more important is quality. What is the quality of relationships with those social media friends? Is it just a bunch of contacts who are casual friends with whom you have a passing and shallow relationship? Or is it people with whom you have a real, meaningful relationship? People with whom you have regular contact and you share information and there is value in the friendship?
I would suggest the true measure of success is the latter. Not necessarily how many friends you have on social networks but the quality of those relationships. It’s better to have 200 highly engaged followers on Twitter who interact and share your information than 2000 who hardly even notice your tweets. And it’s much better to have 500 Facebook friends who are engaged, regularly posting and interacting than to have 5000 that just skim over random, and meaningless posts from your marketing department.
Maybe the numbers won’t be as impressive but engaged relationships are worth more than casual friends or followers.
But this kind of success, like any true friendship, requires time and work. It requires going deep. It means taking the time and effort to provide meaningful interaction. It’s not about selling yourself but rather about making yourself available and committing the time to demonstrate how important the relationship is to you. It means understanding your friends and their needs and providing the information, advice and help they want and need. It means investing in the relationship.
Building fewer but deeper relationships may not look as impressive as a large quantity of followers or likes, but it can mean a much higher ROI to your social media efforts.
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Leave a Comment » | Uncategorized | Tagged: Ad Agency Alabama, Advertising Agency Huntsville, Jimmy Warren, likes for facebook, Lori Moore, Marketing Firm Tuscaloosa, measuring success on social media, Nancy Siniard, quantity or quality of likes, relationships in social media, Uncategorized | Permalink
Posted by Jimmy Warren
July 11, 2012
Almost half of Facebook followers of your brand expect a customer service component.
Consumers are expecting brands to provide customer service options in their social networks. A survey conducted by Oracle found that online users of social networks expect pathways to customer service from the social media site. The expectations include click thrus to customer service departments and instant messaging.
Forty-six percent of Facebook users expected brands to provide customer service options through the social network. Twenty-nine percent of blog followers expected customer service options compared to just seventeen percent of Twitter followers.
Not only do consumers expect customer service options, they also expect quick responses. Over half of Facebook users and eight out of ten Twitter users expected responses within 24 hours or less. Social media is always on and responses to concerns and issues are expected quickly.
The most common reason to follow or like a brand on social media networks is to have access to information. The second most common reason is to access comments from other consumers. And the third reason, at forty-three percent of the respondents, is to receive direct response to questions and concerns.
So as healthcare marketers become more active and engaged in social media, it’s important to provide customer service options as a key component to meeting consumer expectations.
As stated in eMarketer concerning this research, “the potential return for brands that stay engaged on social networks is significant. Customers who have a great experience on social media can easily become brand advocates, and are already in the right place to spread the word.”
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1 Comment | Patient Experience, Social Media | Tagged: Ad Agency Tuscaloosa, Advertising Agency Huntsville, Advertising Firm Alabama, brands on social media, consumers expectations from social media, eMarketer, Jimmy Warren, Lori Moore, Nancy Siniard, Oracle, Patient Experience, Social Media, social media customer service | Permalink
Posted by Jimmy Warren
I just read an article by Bill Lee in the Harvard Business Review. In the article he declared, “Traditional marketing – including advertising, public relations, branding and corporate communications – is dead. Many people in traditional marketing roles and organizations may not realize they’re operating within a dead paradigm. But they are. The evidence is clear.”
