January 31, 2012
Every hospital has unhappy customers. The question is not if you have them but what will you do with them?
Every hospital makes mistakes. With as many patients that come through our doors and with as many varied points of contact, it‘s inevitable there will be unhappy customers. Plus, many customers are not in the best frame of mind to begin with, which means they are often easily agitated. No matter how much customer service is stressed, there will be screw-ups. There will be disgruntled customers.
Instead of looking at such occurrences as a disaster, it can become a positive branding experience if handled properly. Instead of an upset customer who becomes a noisy distracter, the goal is to convert him into a brand loyalist who sings the hospital’s praises. The unhappy customer should not be viewed as the enemy but as an opportunity to characterize the brand as responsive and caring.
So what do you do when you make a mistake? Four simple steps:
1. Apologize. Disarm the angry customer by apologizing upfront.
2. Listen and empathize. Listen and don’t try to defend the hospital. Let the customer know your hospital cares.
3. Address the problem. Try to fix the problem and satisfy the customer as much as possible.
4. Offer to correct the problem. The customer wants to know the hospital will do everything possible to prevent the problem from happening again.
5. Follow up. Contact the customer and let them know what has been done to fix the problem. This is essential for customer satisfaction.
Research indicates it costs five times more to get a new customer than it does to keep an existing one. So it’s important to keep customers, even the ones that have bad experiences. Solving customer problems not only keeps customers, it also helps build brand loyalty.
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Patient Experience, Uncategorized | Tagged: Ad Agency Tuscaloosa, Advertising Agency Huntsville, healthcare marketing, Jimmy Warren, Lori Moore, Marketing Firm Alabama, marketing in southeast, Nancy Siniard, Unhappy customers, Unhappy Patients | 
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Posted by Jimmy Warren
December 29, 2011
Traditional married couple households are no longer the norm.
The typical family, a man married with kids, now represents only 20% of households in America. The 2010 US Census indicates that households with married couples make up only 48% of households and married with children are only one in five. In contrast 45 million women are heads of households, which is double the number in 1980.
Women are more in control in American households than ever before. Women are heads of households and women earn much more money than just a few years ago. In 37% of married households, the woman makes more money than the man. In the last 30 years female’s income has risen 59% while men’s income has increased only 4%. One reason for this increase is only 14% of women had a college degree in 1980 compared to over 30% today.
And also contributing to these numbers of women who are heads of household is that as the population ages, women who live longer than men, will become an even larger majority of all adults.
To hospital marketers, women have always been the primary targeted audience. With these rapidly changing numbers the importance of targeting women is even greater. Women are heads of more households, they make more money than ever before and they make healthcare decisions. Therefore it’s imperative we understand women, what motivates them and how they make healthcare decisions.
It’s also important that as women take on a more active and stronger role in American households we must tailor our healthcare services to meet their needs. We must deliver healthcare in ways, places and times that fit their needs. And we must market in mediums that effectively reach this influential market.
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Posted by Jimmy Warren
December 28, 2011
Social media snafus happen. It’s what you do when they happen that matters.
You read about them almost everyday. Somebody makes a mistake and posts something that’s inappropriate or is potentially damaging to the brand. From the Red Cross, Chrysler and Southwest Airlines companies face uncomfortable situations. Some handle it well and some don’t. More damaging than the original blunder is when a company doesn’t address the issue or doesn’t handle it well.
Michelle Ponto with News10 in Sacramento wrote a story quoting Josh Morgan of Edelman Digital and Lori Bertelli of Augustine Ideas about steps to take to help minimize the damage if you are faced with a social media nightmare. The steps are very applicable to healthcare marketers who face such critical issues.
1. Before you say anything on social media, take into account everyone who could be in your audience, not just the people you know for sure are in your audience. Remember, not everybody thinks exactly the same way you do.
2. Before you open up any type of social media forum, have a policy in place that lets people know that certain types of speech aren’t going to be tolerated and that the platform is being moderated.
3. If you find yourself getting emotionally involved in something online, take a step back. Don’t let commentators get you riled up as you could end up saying something that you regret.
4. Think about who is doing your social media postings. An intern may be comfortable using Facebook and Twitter, but are they the right person to be representing your brand online? It is easier to teach someone who knows your brand/business about social media than it is to teach someone who only knows social media about your company.
5. Set up multiple administrators on all social media accounts just in case you can’t get in touch with someone when you need to – or they leave the company.
6. Make it easy to do the right thing when you are setting up your policies.
7. Own a mistake and do it quickly. Don’t try to hide from it. It’s not going away.
8. Have a friend or an editor check things out. It might seem funny to you, but it may not be to everyone.
9. Understand that you can’t control social media. Instead, be ready to react and take ownership when something does happen.
10. Don’t be insulting or come off defensive. All it takes is one bad post to create a social media nightmare.
Very sound advice. Advice that could be very helpful if your hospital or healthcare organization faces social media missteps.
Leave a Comment » | Social Media | Tagged: Ad Agency in Alabama, Ad firm in Huntsville, Advertising Agency in South, Advertising Agency in Tuscaloosa, Augustine Ideas, Edelman Digital, healthcare marketing, Hospital Marketing, how to handle social media mistakes, Jimmy Warren, Josh Morgan, Lori Bertelli, Lori Moore, Michelle Ponto, Nancy Siniard, News10, social media mistakes, social media policy | Permalink
Posted by Jimmy Warren
December 27, 2011
Moms use social media more than average internet users
Are moms important to healthcare marketers? If so, then you better get social. Moms use social media to communicate, stay in touch with family and friends, exchange information, be entertained and a host of other reasons. eMarketer estimates that 23 million US moms are on Facebook…moms with children under the age of 18 use the site at least once a month. That’s well over two-thirds of all online moms in the country compared to just over 50% of all online users.
Overall 26.5 million moms use some sort of social media. That’s almost 20% of all social media users.
Females are the primary decision makers when it comes to healthcare decisions, and moms are usually the chief decision maker for their family’s healthcare needs. That being true, healthcare marketers need to get social. Moms are on social media sites interacting and gathering information. And of course they are extremely interested in health information for themselves and their families.
So we need to be engaging those moms where they are. On social media sites. It certainly requires work. And it requires more than just setting up sites to post ads or promotions for the hospital. It requires engagement. It’s not easy. It requires quality content. It requires responsiveness. And it requires the efforts and cooperation of more than just the marketing department.
Moms are definitely social. They are proving it everyday online. And it provides great opportunities to connect and build brand loyalty. Healthcare marketers should take notice.
Leave a Comment » | Social Media | Tagged: Ad Agency in Alabama, Ad Agency in South, advertising firm in Huntsville, advertitising firm in tuscaloosa, eMarketer, healthcare marketing, Jimmy Warren, Lori Moore, moms on facebook, moms use of social media, Nancy Siniard, specialize in healthcare marketing, specialize in hospital marketing | Permalink
Posted by Jimmy Warren
November 19, 2011
QR Codes are becoming more and more popular but they aren’t appropriate for every use. 
QR codes are everywhere. And aren’t they cool? They are great at providing additional information and for engaging consumers. Brands like Starbucks and Lady Gaga are using QR codes very effectively to build loyalty and many retail brands are using QR codes to provide additional product information.
In fact, worldwide usage of QR codes is growing at more than 20% annually and barcode usage in North America is growing at a 42% clip.
But despite this rapid growth and the usefulness of QR codes there are some uses, which make no sense at all. B.L. Ochman writing for Ad Age gave some examples of some poor uses of QR codes.
1. QR codes on billboards, too high ad too far away to get a clear scan.
2. QR codes in subways and places where there is no cellphone reception.
3. Barcodes in TV spots when by the time you can grab your phone and find the scanner the spot is over.
4. QR codes with no instructions. Not everyone knows how to use a QR code.
5. Using a proprietary code so you need a specific type of QR reader. Most people will not bother to download a scanner just to read one particular scan.
There are many other bad uses of QR codes. Some that don’t make sense at all. You probably have seen some yourself.
So the point for hospital marketers is that QR codes can be very useful. But it is not something to use just because everyone’s doing it. Not just because it’s a new fad. Its use should be strategic and it should be easy and useful. Clear instructions and the benefits of accessing the scan are imperative.
QR codes is a technology that should be used and can be extremely useful in healthcare advertising. Perhaps in more than any other industry, within the healthcare arena, QR codes can be the mechanism to deliver very valuable information that can’t be delivered in an ad or flyer or poster.
Do we use QR codes in hospital advertising? Of course! But make sure it makes sense and delivers a true benefit to the user. Not just because it’s cool.
Leave a Comment » | Hospital Advertising, Social Media | Tagged: 2D Barcodes, 2D barcodes for hospitals, Ad Age, Ad Agency Alabama, Advertising Agency Hunstville, Advertising Agency Tuscaloosa, B.L. Ochman, healthcare marketing, Hospital Marketing, Jimmy Warren, Lori Moore, Nancy Siniard, QR Codes, QR codes for hospitals, Succesful use of QR codes, Successful use of Barcodes | Permalink
Posted by Jimmy Warren
October 25, 2011
Your hospital will live or die by its brand. What can help make your brand stronger? Here are five tips to improve your hospital’s brand.
Here are excerpts from an article from Becker’s Hospital Review by Lindsey Dunn after interviewing Steve Rivkin, founder, Rivkin & Associates, a healthcare branding and communications consultancy, and co-author of Repositioning: Marketing in an Era of Competition, Change and Crisis (McGraw-Hill, 2010).
1. Think of your brand as a promise. A hospital’s brand is a promise of what the consumer should expect and how the hospital will perform. Think about a brand in the same way as a person’s reputation. You earn a good reputation by doing the right thing, doing it well, and doing it consistently. And just like a reputation, a brand is a living entity — it evolves, and it is enriched or undermined by your actions.
2. Understand your strengths, weaknesses. Any hospital’s branding efforts should begin with an understanding of its market share, strengths, weaknesses and consumers’ perception and beliefs about its services. Consumer research should ask community members what they think is important when choosing a hospital, how the hospital is perceived and how it compares to competing facilities. This research will reveal if the hospital is preferred, and if it isn’t preferred, will give some indication of why it’s not preferred.
Mr. Rivkin notes that consumer perceptions don’t always match reality, but it’s perceptions that influence volume.
It’s action first, communications second. Eighty-five percent of changing a perception is what you actually do, and only 15 percent is what you say about it.
3. Differentiate. After identifying areas of strength and improvement, hospitals should determine what differentiates it from competitors and whether that point of differentiation is important to consumers. Potential differentiators include:
• The patient experience— for instance, best customer service/patient satisfaction scores in the market;
• Centers of excellence for specific service lines;
• Heritage/history in a community;
• Highest rated physicians;
• Industry awards received (top hospital lists, Magnet status, etc.);
• Newest technology/cutting-edge procedures; and
• Widest range of services in market area.
4. “Sell” the brand to employees first. After determining how a hospital will position itself, hospital leaders should sell that identity or brand first to its employees. “Your workforce is a critical part of a branding program. Everything starts with your own people. Don’t expect to persuade the folks outside about much of anything, unless the people inside believe it first.”
5. Market the brand and connect it to the bottom line. After gaining buy-in from employees, hospitals should take their branding messages to the public through public relations efforts, advertising, direct marketing and other methods. Hospital marketers should be careful to quantify the results of all efforts. Measuring return on investment will direct hospitals toward the most effective marketing tactics.
Your brand is one of your hospital’s most valuable assets. Great attention should be given to its care. The stronger the brand the more successful your hospital will be.
Leave a Comment » | Branding | Tagged: Ad Agency Huntsville, Ad Agency Tuscaloosa, Advertising Agency Alabama, Advertising Agency South, Beckers Hospital Review, Branding Your Hospital, Change and Crisis, healthcare branding, healthcare marketing, Hospital Marketing, Jimmy Warren, Lindsey Dunn, Lori Moore, Nancy Siniard, Repositioning: Marketing in an Era of Competition, Rivkin and Associates, Steve Rivkin | Permalink
Posted by Jimmy Warren
October 24, 2011
Healthcare executives have many misperceptions about social media. Here’s debunking 10 of the most common ones that commonly undermine business strategies according to Garreth Bloor, writing for memeburn.
It’s worthwhile to look at these myths as they apply to healthcare marketing. 
- Myth 1: “Social Marketing is great because it’s free.”
Even if social media doesn’t cost very much, it does require a tremendous investment of time and energy. And healthcare marketers have very little time to commit to new projects. Especially ones that will be ongoing and continual.
- Myth 2: “Everyone’s doing it, so I need to.”
Even though so many have jumped on the social media bandwagon, many are not doing it well. Doing it half-hearted or without a clear objective and strategy could do more harm than not participating at all.
- Myth 3: ” I can just post our press releases on social media.
”
Not really. It requires much more. The social environment is not another platform for you to promote your hospital. Rather it’s a place to take part in a conversation, in people’s everyday conversation and be there to provide useful information to your readers on their terms.
- Myth 4: “I need to be everywhere, dominating every type of social media.”
Not true. Be present where your patients and potential patients are. And do only what you can do well. The best thing healthcare marketers can do is to invest your time and energy into one or two sites your audience use regularly.
- Myth 5: “Twitter is a tool for egomaniacs to tell people what they had for breakfast.”
This a myth coined accurately by journalist Eric Rice. However, as her research has found, tweeting gives your hospital a more “human” face. They can see your brand personality. Twitter helps turn your organization. Appealing and engaging.
- Myth 6: “Facebook is more for my kids, not for my business.
”
Facebook ‘ fastest growing audience is women 40+ It has become a very adult medium. It allows you to enhance that “human” feeling with photos, helpful healthy tips and ongoing discussions with your customers.
- Myth 7: “Social media won’t take much time.
”
An estimate of 1-2 hours per day may be required to actively participate in the conversations being conducted and created on social media. A busy healthcare marketing director will not likely be able to effectively maintain a social presence if it becomes just another task on the “to do” list.
- Myth 8: “The threat of receiving negative public posts and complaints is too high
.”
Consumers are already commenting in their offline and online social circles. It’s better to be part of the conversation so you can strategically defend your brand and respond in a timely way to problems. Being where the discussion is allows you to address existing problems and discover brewing issues before they get out of hand.
- Myth 9: “This thing’s useless – I tried it for a month and it didn’t work.”
Social marketing doesn’t give you instant, measurable results. It will take time for people to find you, warm up to you, and start adding to your conversations.
- Myth 10: “Our customers don’t use social media sites.”
The audience is there and they’re going to have their conversations with or without you. Take your primary target demo and look how many within your marketing area use social media. It’s easy to research and you might be surprised.
For healthcare marketers, participating in social media is not easy. It requires a commitment of time and energy. And perhaps dispelling some of the myths will be helpful.
2 Comments | Social Media | Tagged: Ad Agency Alabama, Ad Agency Huntsville, Ad Agency Tuscaloosa, Advantages of Social Media, advertising agency in the south, Disadvantages of Social Media Marketing, Garreth Bloor, healthcare marketing, Hosptial Marketing, Jimmy Warren, Lori Moore, memeburn, Myths of Social Media, Nancy Siniard, Reasons NOT to do Social Media Marketing, Reasons to do Social Media Marketing, social media for healthcare, social media for hospitals | Permalink
Posted by Jimmy Warren
October 22, 2011
A current trend for brands is to communicate a singular message across several demographic and cultural audiences instead of communicating different messages to different social cultures and demographics. 
For years, marketers have watched as America has become more and more culturally diverse. In response to this diversity, brands have looked at different demos and cultures and developed somewhat different marketing strategies for each. But as a result of the 2010 census, a new trend is being discussed and is emerging. It is being called cross-cultural marketing, aimed at a general market that is more of a mosaic than a melting pot.
Stuart Elliot, writing for the New York Times states that “cross cultural marketing is aimed at appealing across demographic groups to appeal to consumer similarities rather than differences. By contrast, traditional multicultural marketing is directed at specific demographic groups like Hispanics, African Americans, Asian Americans, women, etc.”
For quite some time now marketers have grouped audiences into segments, which emphasized their differences. But now researchers and marketers are looking more to being cross-cultural and emphasizing those things the groups have in common. Advertisers no longer want different messages segmented and targeted to different audiences but fewer messages or maybe even one primary message that seek to appeal to the common traits among differing groups. It’s more of a mashup of cultures.
This has probably been the primary approach most healthcare marketers have always taken. Because there is a universal need for the products and services we provide, it’s easier for us to take a cross-cultural approach to marketing. But we have sometimes segmented markets and tailored our message specifically to these separate markets. It makes sense to seek those commonalities and similarities across various cultures and communicate a singular message. It certainly will make our brand stronger.
Leave a Comment » | Branding, Hospital Marketing | Tagged: Ad Agency Alabama, Ad Agency South, Advertising Agency in Huntsville, Advertising Agency in Tuscaloosa, Cross Cultural Marketing, healthcare marketing, Jimmy Warren, Lori Moore, Marketing Across Various Cultures, Nancy Siniard, New York Times, Stuart Elliott | Permalink
Posted by Jimmy Warren
October 21, 2011
Research shows Americans ignore internet ads more than advertising in any other medium.
The old adage that “half of my advertising budget is wasted, now if I only knew which half” appears to have a lot of merit. Especially with internet ads. Research produced by 
Adweek/Harris Poll from an online survey conducted by Harris Interactive indicates that:
- 63% of Americans ignore or disregard internet ads.
- 43% say they don’t pay attention to banner ads.
- 20% ignore search ads.
For hospital marketers, those are significant numbers.
Wayne Friedman reported the findings in MediaPostNews. Other media compared to the internet faired much better. Only 14% ignore television ads, 7% for radio and 6% for newspaper. Probably not surprising, 91% of consumers ignore some of the ads they see.
Even out of the largest users of the internet, adults 18-34, 40% of them state they ignore internet banner ads. And of those consumers who have some college education or a college degree, 46% ignore banner ads compared to just 40% of those with a high school diploma or less. There was practically no difference between men and women.
So for healthcare marketers maybe we shouldn’t rush out and totally embrace internet advertising and shift significant amounts of money away from traditional media. Some voices are constantly telling us that our budgets are out of whack because the percentage we spend on internet advertising is typically far below the percentage of our audience who are regularly on the internet.
Sure, we should have an internet presence and take advantage of opportunities of reaching and engaging our target audience. But the number of people using the web is not the only factor to consider. Research is indicating that it’s harder to break through the clutter and gain traction with internet advertising than with traditional mediums.
Internet advertising is viable and should be in the media mix but it’s certainly not time to abandon traditional mediums for the web. Internet advertising and social media are the new kids on the block. But the old standbys aren’t dead yet. In fact, this research indicates less of our advertising on traditional mediums is not as wasted as much as advertising on the internet. But of course for each medium, we are still stuck with the question: which part is wasted and which is effective?
1 Comment | Internet | Tagged: Ad Agency Tuscaloosa, Advertising Agency Huntsville, advertising agency in alabama, Effectiveness of Ads, healthcare marketing, Internet Ad Effectiveness, Jimmy Warren, Lori Moore, Media Post, Nancy Siniard, Traditional or Internet Advertising | Permalink
Posted by Jimmy Warren
October 20, 2011
Overall, adults spend as much time on the internet as they do watching TV while younger adults spend more time on the web than TV.
For the first time, the amount of time adults spend on the internet and spend watching TV is equal - 13 hours each per week. Forrester recently conducted the survey and published the results. Brian Morrissey reported in Adweek that research has already indicated younger adults (18-30) already spend more time on the web than watching TV and now it’s true of 31-44 year olds too.
The losers in the survey were radio (down 15%), magazines (down 18%) and newspapers (down 26%). Continuing the trend of the last few years.
So for healthcare marketers, that begs the question if an equal amount of your advertising budget should be allotted to the web as to TV. Some argue the percentages of ad spend are way out of line and marketers are hanging on to better known traditional media way too much. And there is a tremendous opportunity for those who align their budgets to actual consumer habits.
Others argue in contrast, that television is still the most effective way to build and sustain a brand and that web advertising does not have the impact of television.
As Morrissey stated, one important factor to remember is that over a third of the hours consumers spend on the web are work related while practically all the time watching TV is for leisure and entertainment.
It is obviously true that adults are spending more time on the web and that time is now equal to the time they spend watching TV. But I’m not sure it’s time yet to spend as much of our scarce budget on web advertising as television. Television continues to prove that it is extremely effective building a brand. And when people watch TV they are truly engaged – and actually watching TV. But while they are on the internet, they are often at work or may be searching for specific information with restricts their attention to web advertising. They are more often “on a mission” when they are on the internet than when they are watching TV and thus less likely to notice ads. Sure, one can rightfully argue that people can leave the room or tune out the TV when there are breaks in programming. But research indicates that happens much less often than assumed.
For healthcare marketers, it’s important we take advantage of the opportunities available on the web. And as consumers spend more time on the web, it becomes even more important. It also seems logical to take some of the budget from mediums that are declining in audience share to accomplish this. But the time spent watching television has remained stable over the past 5 years and therefore it remains an extremely viable media option.
It’s an argument that will continue and healthcare marketers will continue to experiment to determine the media mix that is most effective.
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Posted by Jimmy Warren
