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Why do I feel so lucky to specialize in healthcare marketing? Simple. Because it’s about people, not widgets. It’s about saving lives. Improving lives. Making a difference. And using my God-given talents towards something of real value.

Not only that, but I find there are many caring, nurturing professionals in the healthcare field who are truly committed to helping others. They inspire me. Then there are the brilliant scientists and physicians pioneering new ways to give people better, longer lives (ok, ok, some could use a few tips in humility, but once you get beyond that, they are far from boring!) You get to build new brain cells daily as you learn about amazing new high tech advancements. And there are other health benefits as you’re always well-informed on the latest and greatest prevention screenings and disease symptoms. (Warning: healthcare marketing is probably not the best field for hypochondriacs!)

I must admit there are some days I feel a twinge of depression as I tour yet another CCU, patients hooked to machines, their families surrounding them in despair. Or worse, witness yet another elderly patient lying painfully alone, staring up at the unchanging ceiling. Of course, I’ll never forget the first time a cute, bald, little pediatric patient was wheeled by me on his way to the MRI. My day was rudely interrupted by involuntary tears rolling down my then oh-so-young marketing director cheeks.

And maybe that says it all. The content of what we communicate about wakes us up. This is about life and death and it reminds us of all that we have. Our health, our kids our parents, siblings, friends. A sunny day, a bubble bath…all those wonderful things in our everyday life that we tend to take for granted. Not so easy when you’re in healthcare marketing! Behind the heartbreaking stories you find heroic healthcare professionals and patients who revive you. I can’t get that emotional lift from marketing home equity loans or cars.

To each her own, but I’m sticking with healthcare. How about you? Why are you in healthcare marketing?

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This year’s media party was a real treat! The Detroit ad community is filled with intelligent, unique, and valuable players. Events like this bring us media folks together and help keep the momentum going. It’s not often that an advertising agency holds a party for media sales reps, but if we don’t show mutual respect and appreciation for one another, we really don’t have true partnerships that result in strong campaigns for our clients. Judging from the photos, it appears that everyone had a Spooktastic time. Looking forward to next year!

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OK, this is not about holiday gift giving, this is about creating and maintaining a database for business.  There are lots of sophisticated and complicated software packages out there and some excellent industry-specific systems available.  I am not going to review those but rather I am addressing ideas and techniques for your average small business.  A digital mailing list is worth its weight in gold.  <<WARNING: STUPID METAPHOR… digital lists don’t weigh a thing!>> If you have any stupid metaphors you would like to share… please send them along.  ANYway, as I was saying, lists are valuable.  And costly.  And require a lot of attention.  But well worth the effort. 

A well-maintained mailing list lets you quickly and easily communicate with you best prospects for new business.  It keeps your name and good news in front of your friends, influencers and champions.   Properly deployed, it builds your business, builds goodwill and can have a positive impact on your bottom line.  But like any powerful tool, it can be misused, too. 

How To Build A List: Purchase lists of prospects from various sources.  Build your customized list from organizations and associations.  Add personal contacts.   Make it someone’s job to enter names into a database and discipline yourself and others in your organization to enter names into the database.

How to Maintain A List:  Assign someone to call and confirm names and titles at least once a year.  Perhaps this could be some sort of punishment. 

List Tips:  If you have Microsoft Outlook, use it.  Learn it.  It is great.  Buy yourself a DYMO LabelWriter, a nifty little printer, inexpensive and powerful.  It checks addresses, prints labels.  Really worth its weight it gold. 

What To Do With Your List:  Develop an opt-in e-newsletter.  Send out company “good news”.  Send seasonal gifts to your best prospects.  Send out white papers.  Send sensible direct mail.  

What Not To Do With Your List:  Send unsolicited, unsubscribable emails.  Send dumb, unbranded stuff.  Neglect it. 

In Conclusion:  Yeah, this is so NOT the latest and greatest technology news.  Nor is it deeply insightful.  Or sexy/cool/trendy.  It is plain old fashioned good advice.  From your Mom.  Or someone who could be.  Except she’s in your office.  Or managing a snappy smart ad agency.  Now go wash your hands.  And send everyone in your database and email about it.

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Turn on any of the so-called investigative shows like Dateline or 20/20 almost every night and you can still see the classic PR drama unfold.  Some slimeball suspected of bilking old ladies out of their nest egg is hustling toward his car as a sweaty cameraman and frothing reporter chase close behind. “No comment. No comment” he says, hiding his face with one hand and searching for his keys with the other. 

Guilty or not, this guy’s fate is sealed. Who in their right mind would hire him after seeing that PR nightmare unfold? Sure, there are plenty of times when it’s in the client’s best interest to refrain from comment, or at least say very little. But the fact is, the days of mumbling ‘no comment’ as your best PR strategy are over.

Good PR today is about transparency.  Let’s look at a few celebrity examples on both sides. Meet your PR team of Bonds, Craig, Grant and Rose.  (That’s Barry, Senator Larry, Hugh, and Pete). These guys have a powerful PR message to deliver, so sit up straight, sharpen your pencil and pay attention.

I know, I know…believe me it’s not an easy thing for a guy to make a serious Hugh Grant reference. That’s why I’m throwing in a Pete Rose blast later. So what in the world can the dramedy player Grant teach us about PR? Truthfully I felt no need to make the connection either, until it was forced on me. It’s not like I spend free time thinking up new Hugh Grant angles. But the Mrs. and I cozied up recently to watch the latest installment in his cookie cutter collection, and then it hit me. This guy is rich. The ladies love him. He’s A-list Hollywood and a box-office cinch.  And as I said to my wife “Isn’t he the schmuck who got busted having sex with a prostitute in a parked car back in the day, while he was dating one of the most elegant women in the world?” Why wasn’t he relegated to the Surreal Life like all the other degenerate d-listers?

Because he did what so many fail to do…he owned his mistake and he saved his reputation. People are more likely to forgive the loveable screw-up than the bitter liar. He took his lumps and didn’t try to talk his way out of it (see Senator Larry Craig and his “wide-stance” story).  Grant protected his marketability.

He knows perception is truth in the marketplace. Look no further than Barry Bonds and Pete Rose, arguably the best two hitters in baseball history. Bonds just broke the most hallowed record in all of sports, and few people care, because he’s allowed himself to be branded a liar and a cheat. Some say he’s the greatest player ever. So why no funny commercials like Peyton Manning and LeBron James? Because no one likes him. His own team let him go, adios to one of the top five players in history just a couple of months after he became the new Home Run King. He’s not marketable outside of San Francisco, not because people think he took steroids, but because they think he hasn’t been honest about it.  Same with Rose, one of the most liked and respected guys in the game now just a trade show autograph hawk. Why? Because it took him 20 years to admit what everyone already knew, and in the process he lost any shred of respectability.  When he finally admitted that he bet on baseball, even then people were suspicious of his motives and the truth. Rose would be in the Hall of Fame today, and probably in a broadcast booth calling games, had he owned the mistake from day one. He didn’t lose his chance because he bet, he lost his chance because he lied.

Good PR no longers means thinking up 101 different ways to say the dog ate my homework. Good PR means using basic communication skills, a dose of common sense and technology to help bring positive attention to your story…be it launching a company or saving your reputation.

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When I watched the video of Ellen DeGeneres shedding crocodile tears over her doggy disaster, honestly my first thought was “This must be sweeps week” or was she possibly trying out for the lead in Rent? So much drama. But as I learned the details of the story, I soon understood her strategy. I’m not saying the emotion wasn’t real. She was clearly upset. The decision to take those emotions public on her show was calculated, and smart. Let’s talk about why. There are so many PR lessons here…taking control of a crisis; staying in touch with the big picture, and not being afraid to use a little common sense.

First a quick summary: DeGeneres adopted Iggy from Mutts and Moms, and after two weeks realized the dog wasn’t meshing well with her other pets. (Why not test the waters before adopting?) She then gave the dog to her friend and hairstylist who has two girls, ages 11 and 12. Iggy bonded and everyone was happy, until the adoption agency called to see how Iggy and Ellen were getting along. They promptly took Iggy (physically took him) from the family and put him back in jail, because DeGeneres violated a term of the contract that says she can’t give the dog away.  This issue came to light early this week when DeGeneres took it public on her show, making an emotional appeal for the agency to return Iggy to the girls.

Here’s a quote from Marina Batkis, owner of the agency.

“If Ellen wants to place dogs and decide what’s a good home, then she should start her own rescue group. But I’m the one doing this and I know what I’m doing.”

Keith A. Fink, a lawyer for Mutts and Moms, told FOXNews.com that the dog will not be returned. “It’s never gonna happen. There is more of a chance that the Yankees are going to win the World Series this year. They are not going to be bullied by the Ellen DeGeneres camp. It’s the Hollywood culture — she thinks she’s above the contract and the law.”

Woa cowboy…someone needs a hug. We are still talking about finding a good home for a dog, right? Here’s our first PR lesson: never lose sight of the end game. Isn’t it the mission of a doggy adoption agency to place pets in loving homes, thus preventing them from being euthanized? Didn’t Iggy end up in a loving, responsible home? This is supposed to be a positive, feel good effort — but the tone and language coming from the adoption agency has a nasty edge. The agency lost control of the message, and generated enormous negative press by letting their emotions cloud their judgement and vision. I realize rules are in place throughout society to help ensure a better quality of life for all, and in this case for Iggy. But come on people, let’s use a little brain power before sticking your paw in your mouth. Rules are only effective if they result in their intended purpose.

Which leads us to lesson number two: use some common sense. Why why why do so many companies fail to mix a little street smarts into their daily decision making, especially with PR opportunities in play? This agency is in the business of giving wayward pups a second chance, or in Iggy’s case third and fourth chances. He’s now in a new home, his fourth environment in less than a month. The owners of the agency look like heels, the family and girls are upset and without their beloved pet, DeGeneres blew a week of shows on this topic and police are investigating death threats. The agency had to close temporarily because of the backlash. Whew, talk about losing focus.

Mutts and Moms could have, and should have, come out of this with more business than Santa. DeGeneres gave them the opportunity to turn around a bad situation, at the same time saving her own reputation. She owned her mistake — our final PR lesson for the day. She grabbed control of the story before anyone else could, and she steered the “crisis” in her favor. She knew before she went on the air how the adoption agency would react. They had already taken Iggy, and certainly there had been tense conversations between both camps. DeGeneres used her platform, and the agency’s missteps, to her advantage.

The agency could have made their stance about the rules clear and expressed concern, thus saving face with their community, yet taken the obvious step of evaluating Iggy’s new family and undoubtably giving their blessing. They would have earned immediate monster PR, and DeGeneres could have taped a fun show with Iggy, the new family and the director of the agency…a home run for everyone.

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Standard demographics have been tossed around marketing discussions with as much care as cucumbers out of a salad shooter.  It’s amazing that such a critical aspect of marketing is reserved to a line item in a plan.  With changing demographics and a diminishing mass market, thoroughly defining the target audience is becoming increasingly important.  Not putting forth the effort in calibrating this dimension can cause leaks in your marketing plan and leaks result in wasted dollars – the days of reaching the homogeneous masses are gone, gone, gone. 

Segmentation tools are now essential.  They have been under construction for decades, and the dynamics of our world are making these tools more valuable than ever.  They consider geographic, behavioral and psychographic aspects that help define the best candidates to target and offer direction on how to do it. Two random women ages 25-54 have can have completely different lifestyles.  One can be married, with kids, works full-time as a mother, watches TV only in the morning, listens to R&B music, shops online at Ann Taylor for her clothes, and never has a chance to make it to the movies.  Another woman within the same age range can be divorced, a single mom, works full-time in the office, listens to country music, watches TV only at night, shops at Banana Republic, and goes to the movies twice a month.  If you tried to catch both at the same time because they fall within the same age range, your chances would be rather slim.  If I added that the second woman through a segmentation analysis was 120% more likely than the first woman to buy your product, what would your marketing efforts include?  Would you place an ad on the Today Show or Desperate Housewives?  Would you do a promotion with Ann Taylor or Banana Republic?  If you had an endorsement, would the creative feature Alicia Keys or Faith Hill?  Does it sound to good to be true because the answers are included in the description of the target? It’s not.  It just takes more thought, more time, and more consideration to uncover who the target is and what they are like.  The benefits reaped outweigh the additional effort.   You’ve now just managed to hit the bulls-eye versus the wall surrounding the dartboard. 

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Dan Heath, coauthor of “Made to Stick”, and Director of Corporate Education at Duke University, was my favorite keynote speaker at the SHMSD conference. Aside from being annoyingly young (!!!), he was funny, full of his own stickiness, and had 4 strong key points (which will save you from having to read the whole book):

1. Break Decision Paralysis.

We all have too many decisions to make. Case in point:       When physicians were given the option of trying new Medication X or doing hip surgery, 47% tried the new med. Give the docs a 3-way decision - either Medication X, Medication Y, or hip surgery and the percentage decreases to 27%.

Another example: He cited a hospital that touts its 11 Core Values. Yes, ELEVEN. ” A hospital with 11 Core Values is like a country with 11 prime ministers!” he cajoled. Much chuckling, then a downward shift of the eyes among the audience…many of us guilty of way too many core values…!

2. Violate a Schema.

He had us close our eyes and imagine a picnic. Hotdogs, hamburgers, plaid tablecloth. Then we imagined a diet - celery, carrots, bland food, hunger pains. This is why the Adkins Diet was such a huge success - it “violated the schema” of a diet.  A California hospital that is marketing its posh, dorm-like rooms is another example of an unexpected schema that is working.

3. Be Concrete.

Be specific and sensory in your description. He quoted hospital websites that use overused, nonwords that mean absolutely nothing to our consumers…”tertiary service areas…best practice guidelines…strategies to enhance the continuum of care.” Yikes.

Even funnier was his match.com example. With thousands competing for attention, how do you stand out? He contrasted two entries. One said, “I can make you laugh.” Another said, “The guy above me is married. The guy below me is a stalker.” Which one is more sticky?

4. Connect Emotionally.

Of course, this is my favorite. We in healthcare are guilty of droning on about the newest high tech, thingamajig cyberknife or 64 CT Slice. His point is that we must first get our audience to CARE, to NOTICE our communication. See how we handled promotion of the DaVinci Robot for our client, The Christ Hospital, below. Consumer benefit and umbrella hospital brand is first. We toyed with including a visual of the robot, but as you probably know, that thingamajig looks so scary and impersonal! Our client was wise enough to keep it out.

All in all, Dan Heath’s talk was worth getting up early for!

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Hospital/health system marketing ROI was a hot topic at the recent SHMSD conference in Washington. Something of interest to all us healthcare marketers in this age of C-Suite accountability. I heard some presenters relay case histories, proudly quoting successful “ROI” stats, relative to increased preference ratings, website activity, call center volume, referrals, event participation, patient visits, and calculated column inch PR coverage.  All admirable, measurable results stemming from effective healthcare marketing efforts.

But there is a contrasting point of view that these are not true ROI metrics. That the correct definition of ROI must involve a revenue return connected to the specific healthcare marketing effort. That anything less undermines healthcare marketing credibility. Presenters from M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and Strategic Marketing Concepts offered the following ROI formula:

            ROI = [(Net Revenue - Marketing Expense)/Marketing Expense] x 100

Don’t fret - it’s not too tricky to fill in those blanks. You just need to know the following:

- Revenue collected from volumes driven by the marketing effort (adjusted for ”would have gotten anyway” volume)

- Factor for “cost of services provided” (direct variable costs which Finance must provide)

- Cost of marketing efforts

Ok, before I lose you in accounting jargon, let’s get back to the issue at hand. Which “ROI” definition is correct? My take is it depends on two factors: the available data and your audience.

If you’re substantiating your marketing budget to the CFO, obviously the textbook formula will speak her language.

If it’s a non-financial administrator you’re trying to dazzle, those other metrics mentioned above can be pretty impressive, and may actually be all you have if the necessary financial data isn’t available to calculate the textbook ROI. While in the World of Accounting, it may be more “correct” to give non-revenue based metrics an alternative term (i.e. Return on Expense), ”ROI” is the generally accepted, understood lingo. Hence, while I think it’s optimal to have and use the textbook ROI (and I do think the equation presented is something to strive for), I don’t think it’s a sin to use the term, “ROI”, for all of the above.  As marketers, we know the value of quick-read communication and should use it to our advantage.

I  think the key is to set agreed-upon, measurable goals prior to campaign start, diligently report back on returns and gear future strategy based on returns.

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Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty is back again, with a new viral video. A follow-up to their wildly popular “Evolution” video (Remember that one? Average looking woman sits in a chair and is transformed over about 75 seconds into a supermodel on a billboard? If not, see below).

The new video, called OnSlaught, is compelling to anyone who has daughters. (I have 3, so I’m paying attention.)

Check it out:

IMHO, this video is excellent, on message, compelling and will be shared. It’s just 5-10% short of the Evolution video. Here’s why:

• Evolution came first. Sequels are almost never as interesting because you already know generally where they are going with it. You didn’t know where Evolution was going when it started to play the first time.
• Evolution was more subtle. This one makes a great point. It’s well produced, but it’s like it’s trying harder to be hard-hitting. The other hit us when we weren’t looking. This one still hits us, we’re just looking for it in this case.

What do you think? (If you don’t remember the Evolution video, watch it below… It’s great.)

Cross published on Life Is Marketing

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That was the roundtable discussion I took part in at the SHSMSD conference last week. Where I found myself somewhat alone in my opinion that you should usually go for it with the “best” quality outcome competitive claim you can. “Best” was not a word some of my colleagues were comfortable with…”We don’t like to say ‘best’, because you never know if your rating will change next year”…”We prefer to say we’re in the top x% rather than ‘best’ or ‘better’… “We don’t want to be too competitive.”

With all due respect, I say how can you afford not to? It’s too competitive out there and advertising is too expensive not to make the most competitive claim you can. The relentless pursuit of the strongest, most compelling point of differentiation is a Brogan commandment. If you have a stellar accolade, be it U.S. News & World Report, HealthGrades, Solucient, Magnet, or maybe it’s a local “Top Docs” award, I say shout it as loud as you can WHILE you can.

Granted, there is undoubtedly consumer confusion regarding the myriad of awards in the healthcare marketplace. “What’s a Baldridge Award?” “Top 100 out of what?” “Of the last 3 hospital billboards I just saw, I wonder which award they’re touting is most important?” As healthcare marketing experts, that’s the kind of thing we need to advocate for. We have to help our clients or healthcare organizations simplify the message down to its very core. It’s our job to translate the benefit of the award in a way that makes consumers take notice.

In example, one of our clients, The Christ Hospital, has received the U. S. News & World Report’s Top 50 Best Hospital ranking for Heart & Heart Surgery many years in a row. More compelling, we felt, was the fact that they were 4th in mortality in the country for this category. The resulting ads we developed translated into the striking consumer benefit: best survival at The Christ Hospital, even in comparison to national leaders (which yes, we named).

Which brings us to the topic of name brands, like the Cleveland Clinic, Mayo Clinic and Johns Hopkins referenced in the above ad. Taking the “higher road” may be an appropriate strategy for these national leaders who can rely on their longstanding reputations as academic, research and treatment innovators. But the large majority of hospitals and health systems simply don’t have this brand luxury. When a unique quality outcome award is achieved, I say play your cards well and use it to your best advantage.

By the way, The Christ Hospital ratings did change slightly this year. No biggie. We simply tailored the ad approach accordingly, still using the strongest claim possible.

We all know that transparency of quality indicators and pricing in healthcare is the trend. Consumers can access a plethora of resources like HospitalCompare.com to research outcomes, mortality, volume, pricing, etc. But do they? A couple of my roundtable colleagues testified that in recent focus groups they had conducted, not a single participant had actually used these resources to check hospital ratings. At another conference session, a presenter quoted that 20% of his marketplace was actively comparative shopping for hospital services. This is anecdotal feedback and consumers will definitely get more in the groove of using these tools as they gain popularity and as we, as consumers, must shoulder more and more of our healthcare costs.So in the meantime, don’t we have an opportunity (or you might even say, responsibility) to educate our target audiences on where our hospitals are excelling? I think so. And I also believe in playing your absolute “best” cards — never send a boy to do a man’s job!

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Last month in our Brogan :60 Impact we discussed the launch of Gap’s new ad campaign featuring 12 celebrities enlisted to help save it’s struggling sales. In that same article, we mentioned Macy’s taking a similar approach to increase it’s lagging sales. Now with the release of both campaigns, I have to say I think someone finally got the use of celebrity’s right, that someone is Macy’s.

I caught the :60 version (below) of the spot during a commercial break of my series premiere marathon this past weekend and it actually made me stop and rewind my DVR. I sat and watched it as if it was a series premiere itself and at the end my fiancé and I said at the same time, “that was really good.”

Check it out for yourself then come back and we’ll chat about what makes it “really good.”

So, what makes this so much better than Gap’s (current and past) execution? Well, Macy’s takes a different approach. It brings the brands to life by showing celebrities highlighting and essentially selling their own products. While Gap tries to convince us that the likes of Sarah Jessica Parker and Missy Elliot actually shop and wear Gap clothes on a regular basis.

Remember the JC Penny It’s All Inside Campaign? They almost had it but, not quite. Macy’s takes it to another level, by showcasing the brands (and the personalities behind them) instead of the traditional retail method of simply displaying a mainstream outfit here or a decent pair of shoes there. The spots are focused on the brands and quality of product that Macy’s carries. They are beginning to create a personal relationship with the customers and the brands. Isn’t that what it’s all about anyway, the emotional connection a customer has to a product or service?

Now, will this result in increased sales for Macy’s? I think this will depend on if they continue this customer experience into the stores and through the end of a sale. But, what I do know is with this great creative strategy and solid execution they are definitely in an excellent position for the upcoming holiday season.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the spot. Love it? Hate it? Leave a comment.

Check out the other spots in the campaign here.

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