Category Archives: Healthcare Marketing

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Posted in Brand Strategy, Healthcare Marketing

Tagged digital marketing, healthcare marketing, online reviews, patient experience, reputation management, social media

Last call for healthcare marketers

Posted on September 10, 2015 | Leave a comment

Do you have a healthcare marketing success story? Are you willing to share how your well your health system is doing when it comes to digital marketing? Here are two last chance opportunities for marketers to contribute to the growing body of knowledge about new and emerging practices in the healthcare marketing field.

But act fast! Tomorrow – September 11 – is the deadline for both.

Participate in a survey, then kick back at Starbucks.

My friends at Klein & Partners and Greystone.net are conducting a market research study on the state of digital marketing in healthcare. Healthcare marketers who take the 10 to 12 minute survey will receive a $10 Starbucks gift card. That’s enough for a Salted Caramel Mocha and a Pumpkin Spice Latte. Participants will also receive a report of the survey results.

Submit a proposal to speak at the Forum’s annual conference.

Last call to submit a speaker’s proposal for the 21^st Annual Healthcare Marketing & Physician Strategies Summit, which will be held May 23 – 25, 2016 in Chicago. This meeting always attracts an impressive group of healthcare leaders seeking to learn, but also to share, innovations and best practices in marketing, strategy and physician relations.

You can learn more about the conference and submit your proposal online at the Forum for Healthcare Strategists website.

Posted in Digital Strategy, Healthcare Marketing

Tagged digital marketing, Forum for Healthcare Strategists, Greystone.Net, healthcare marketers, healthcare marketing, Klein & Partners.

Five ways to rock healthcare marketing in 2015

Posted on January 26, 2015 | 1 comment

More than ever, healthcare marketing executives are being held to a higher standard of accountability for return on marketing investments. The basis for competition in healthcare is changing and health systems are racing to put in place the services, capabilities and structures to be successful in the new value-driven world.

This sweeping change requires a shift in thinking for marketers, a blueprint to transform healthcare marketing operations, strategies to forge critical allies across the health system, and capabilities to demonstrate ROI. So, let’s make 2015 the year we disrupt our healthcare marketing past and fully embrace the new.

Where to start?

Welcome the science of healthcare marketing. Make this the year to build a robust marketing information technology center. Optimize investments in CRM, call center, digital and search marketing by hiring the smartest marketing analytics minds you can afford and setting them loose to aggregate, integrate, interpret and share customer data. Use that information to drive real-time decisions about customer, product, promotion, pricing and channel strategies.
Add consumer pricing to the marketing mix. High deductibles, tiered networks, individual health-fund management of health savings accounts (HSAs), and a growing number of retail health options are giving consumers more incentives to shop price. And they want straight answers about the cost of services (when consumers say cost, they mean price). Marketers must help bring about a shift in thinking from pricing merely as a means to recover costs to pricing as a strategy to establish value. Competitive pricing will require greater-than-ever alignment of customer, product, channel, marketing and service delivery decisions.
Do a radical makeover of the marketing department. If the marketing team is still organized, staffed and resourced to primarily promote things, then run, not walk, to the nearest whiteboard and start mapping out a new future. Business creativity – not advertising creativity – is the key to delivering profitable growth over the long haul. Restructure the marketing department to drive the health system’s growth strategy, and build the capabilities and skills to develop markets, launch new products, create valued customers and drive innovations in service delivery.
Build a mutually-accountable partnership with operations. Marketing expenditures that generate consumer demand are wasted when prospects are lost because there is no mechanism to convert them into actual customers – or retain them as loyal customers. When it comes to marketing ROI, it takes a village. Marketing, clinical operations, physicians, nursing, purchasing, IT, finance, human resources and others must work together and be mutually-accountable for results. Stop investing marketing dollars on programs that have service delivery problems, but do come to the table as a willing partner to help solve those problems.
Make customer experience a strategic priority. Leverage every available research finding, case study and soapbox opportunity to help executives, service line administrators, doctors and others gain a deeper understanding of what it means to be consumer-centered and what it will take to deliver a valued experience. Customer experience is not about HCAHPS scores. It’s about building brand loyalty through innovative products, services and personal experiences that make customers feel appreciated and willing to be your best brand advocates.

The healthcare world is changing whether we like it or not. How we embrace or resist the change will determine our fate. A bold vision, big ideas and a plan to transform the way we do marketing offer a far better chance for success.

Posted in Healthcare Marketing

Tagged Chief Marketing Officer, customer experience, healthcare marketers, healthcare marketing, healthcare marketing executives, marketing performance, marketing ROI

A lively healthcare marketing discussion in New York City

Posted on November 1, 2014 | 1 comment

What a treat it was this past week to join the smart folks from National Research Corporation and their super smart healthcare marketing clients at NRC’s Market Insights Fall Consumer Collaborative in New York City. We spent two days delving into healthcare research findings, exploring changes in the healthcare industry and brainstorming ideas to advance marketing practices.

I had the opportunity to lead a discussion on Customer Decision Journey Mapping – a method to help healthcare marketers discover the touch points or “moments of truth” that most influence consumer decisions to select, use and advocate for healthcare services, providers and brands. By gaining deep insights into how consumers learn about, seek and evaluate healthcare providers – and how they judge the experience – marketers can better focus marketing investments on activities that convert seekers to brand loyal customers.

The slides from that session are embedded at the end of this post.

On a side note, I thoroughly enjoyed seeing the new One World Trade Center from my room on the 32nd floor of the conference hotel. What an impressive building!

Click here to learn more about the webinar and register for the program.

Posted in Healthcare Marketing, Marketing Leadership

Tagged customer decision journey, customer journey mapping, healthcare marketers, healthcare marketing, marketing ROI, National Research Corporation, NRC Market Insights

Evidence-based Healthcare Marketing Webinar Rescheduled

Posted on July 6, 2014 | Leave a comment

One of our healthcare marketing panelists has been called for jury duty during the week this program was originally scheduled. See the new date and time, session description and link for registration below.

Evidence-based Marketing: Rethinking Measurement
New Date and Time: August 21, 2014 – 12:30 to 2:00 p.m. EDT

Healthcare marketers face increasing pressure to make the most of their marketing investments. The C-suite wants accountability for outcomes – volume, revenue, greater customer loyalty – and assurance that the health system is strengthening its competitive position.

The bottom line is that marketing is becoming more science than art. Today, sophisticated tools and marketing analytics provide great insights into customer needs, values, drivers and behaviors. They inform our decision-making, shape strategy, focus investments. When actionable information is combined with rigorous planning, innovative ideas and disciplined tracking, marketing executives quickly close the accountability gap.

Welcome to evidence-based marketing.

On August 21, 2014, I’ll join Marian Dezelan, Chief Marketing Officer, and Chris Boyer, AVP Digital Marketing Strategy, for North Shore–LIJ Health System (Great Neck, NY) on a webinar to discuss how an evidence-based approach to healthcare marketing can better focus your strategy and produce measureable results. Marian and Chris will share how North Shore-LIJ’s marketing department applies evidence-based marketing techniques for personalized targeted marketing, patient engagement and making the most of marketing data.

Sponsored by the Forum for Healthcare Strategists, the webinar is scheduled from 12:30 am to 2:00 pm EDT. The session is complimentary for Forum members; non-members can participate for $125.

I hope you’ll join us. In fact, gather your team, order in lunch and make time to learn together.

Click here to learn more about the webinar and register for the program.

Posted in Digital Strategy, Healthcare Marketing, Marketing Management

Tagged Chief Marketing Officer, evidence-based marketing, Forum for Healthcare Strategists, healthcare marketing, marketing performance

Evidence-based Healthcare Marketing: Rethinking Measurement

Posted on June 2, 2014 | 1 comment

Welcome to evidence-based marketing.

On July 10, 2014, I’ll join Marian Dezelan, Chief Marketing Officer, and Chris Boyer, AVP Digital Marketing Strategy, for North Shore–LIJ Health System (Great Neck, NY) on a webinar to discuss how an evidence-based approach to healthcare marketing can better focus your strategy and produce measureable results. Marian and Chris will share how North Shore-LIJ’s marketing department applies evidence-based marketing techniques for personalized targeted marketing, patient engagement and making the most of marketing data.

Sponsored by the Forum for Healthcare Strategists, the webinar is scheduled from 11:30 am to 1:00 pm CDT. The session is complimentary for Forum members; non-members can participate for $125.

I hope you’ll join us. In fact, gather your team, order in lunch and make time to learn together.

Posted in Healthcare Marketing, Marketing Leadership

Tagged Chief Marketing Officer, evidence-based marketing, Forum for Healthcare Strategists, health system marketing, healthcare marketing, marketing accountability, marketing ROI

Are you seeing greater consumer scrutiny of healthcare prices? You will.

Posted on April 21, 2014 | 2 comments

More and more, I hear from healthcare colleagues that the number of consumers inquiring about healthcare prices is increasing. Some just want to know what a specific procedure or drug will cost. Others want to understand their out-of-pocket contributions. And many, many more complain about prices and pricing structures that, quite frankly, just don’t make sense.

It’s ironic that I ran across this Huffington Post article – More Proof that American Health Care Prices are Sky High – just when my husband called to let me know that the price of the eye drops prescription I had asked him to pick up was $208.00. Our health insurance company wanted to consult with the provider about alternatives before approving and paying for the script. It was 7:30 in the evening and the doctor’s office was closed – meanwhile my eyes are nearly swollen shut from the overabundance of pollen we’re experiencing this year. So we shelled out the $208 and will spend the next few days making multiple phone calls to try and align this patient’s needs with the doctor’s recommendations and the insurance company’s procedures.

I was curious about the cost of the drug when I read this blog post regarding the latest data from the International Federation of Health Plans, an industry group representing health insurers from 28 countries including the United States. The author’s point is that American patients pay the highest prices in the world for a variety of prescription drugs and common medical procedures.

So I looked up pricing for the eye drops on drug retailer websites from several countries, including the UK and Canada, and found that prices for the very same prescription (brand name, strength, dosage, etc.) were significantly less – around $40 (with free shipping). That’s about $8 per ml, whereas we paid $41.60 per ml. I’m talking about a bottle of eye drops that barely stands 1½ inches high. The pharmaceutical people have some explaining to do.

In fact, all of us who work in this industry do – about how prices are established, why there is so much variation across providers, products and services, why it cost so darn much. As healthcare marketers, we’re removed from pricing decisions, which are core to branding, positioning and marketing strategies for both wholesale (contracting) and retail (out of pocket) relationships.

Personally, I hope we see consumers ask more questions – and demand more answers – about the price of healthcare services and goods. And I hope we as an industry will have good answers.

It’s time to bring pricing into public view.

Posted in Healthcare Marketing, Marketing Leadership, Marketing Strategy

Tagged Chief Marketing Officer, healthcare consumers, healthcare marketers, healthcare marketing, healthcare pricing, pricing transparency

Part 4. Invest to build a high performing healthcare marketing team.

Posted on February 27, 2014 | Leave a comment

Final post in a four-part series.

Marketing resource allocation planning is critical to assuring that limited marketing funds (and FTEs) are focused on marketing initiatives that have the best potential for driving revenue growth, improving overall business performance and positioning health systems for long-term success. Parts 2 and 3 of this series described the first two decision points in resource allocation modeling:

First, what businesses, clinical programs or market expansion initiatives offer the best opportunity for growth and profitability?
Second, within priority programs and service lines, what strategies and tactical initiatives will best achieve marketing goals?

The third decision point is: what infrastructure investments are required to optimize marketing performance and ROI? In other words, what capabilities, technologies, skill sets, business partners, processes and tools are necessary for the marketing team to effectively execute marketing strategy? Building a high-performing marketing team and the systems to support them are strategy-critical investments that will generate significant returns over the long term.

What should you consider?

Structure, staffing and skill set of the marketing team. Is the team optimally organized and staffed to execute and manage against strategic priorities? Do they possess the skills required in today’s complex and competitive world – including business analytics and strategic thinking skills? Can they mobilize and align clinical, administrative and other functions to execute marketing strategy? Are they fluent in digital media and skilled in web, social networking and mobile technology platforms?
CRM and call centers. Next, evaluate the capabilities, systems and processes to capture and respond to customer inquiries (both consumer and physician), and to capture, analyze and manage customer level data. Today, marketers are moving toward integrated customer contact centers that better leverage call center, web inquiry and CRM capabilities in order to connect customers with services, capture data to improve marketing decision-making, and measure the effectiveness of marketing investments.
Digital marketing capabilities and systems. One of the biggest challenges facing marketers today is the pace of change and shift in investments required to ramp up digital marketing. Web, search, social media and mobile marketing are no longer optional – nor should they be secondary priorities. There is no better time to stop funding tactics with marginal returns (among my favorites are billboards) and plow those dollars into the staffing, training and systems to become digital marketing experts.
Decision support systems. The key question for marketers is “do we have the information needed to inform our decisions about strategy, investments and outcomes?” Competitive intelligence, market research, trended performance data (e.g. volume growth, revenue, margin, etc.), market projections, industry trends, segmentation studies and other robust information sources are vital to effective marketing decision-making.
Business partners and outsourced support. What to build in-house versus what to outsource is often a tough question. The rule of thumb is that if it’s not critical to core operations or a core competency in which you’re willing to invest and nurture, then outsourcing is probably the best alternative. Business or outsourced partners include advertising agencies, digital marketing firms, call center operations and research firms, among others. A periodic review of contract terms and performance is always a good idea.
Shorten your “to do” list. Often, one of the more difficult tasks for marketers is to eliminate activities that do not contribute to growth and improved competitive performance. But in today’s environment, “squeaky wheels” must give way to an evidence-based approach to marketing investment. The key to success is focusing your time – and dollars – on fewer, more impactful activities.

Conclusion

More than ever, chief marketing executives are being held to a higher standard of accountability for return on marketing investments. A disciplined approach to marketing resource allocation planning is required to understand what programs, services or segments will best drive growth and improve business performance, and what activities and support systems will contribute most to those initiatives.

Both top-down and bottom-up approaches to marketing resource allocation planning are necessary; top down for strategic marketing planning across a health system’s portfolio of service lines and growth initiatives – and bottom up to develop specific marketing plans and budgets within each priority program.
Most important, perhaps, is to use a data-informed approach to gain organizational commitment to stay on strategy.

Read the series:

Part 1 – The secret to healthcare marketing ROI? Focus. Focus. Focus.
Part 2 – Focus marketing investments to improve business performance.
Part 3 – Let strategy drive healthcare marketing decisions.

Posted in Healthcare Marketing, Marketing Leadership

Tagged Chief Marketing Officer, healthcare marketing, marketing budgets, marketing leadership, marketing planning, service line marketing

Women are social content producers, brand promoters

Posted on January 3, 2014 | Leave a comment

Healthcare marketers have long known the influence that women have when it comes to the consideration, selection and use of health and medical services. They can be your best word-of-mouth advocates, or most harsh critics. It doesn’t take long when browsing through social media sites – Facebook, Twitter, blogs, message boards, consumer review sites such as Angie’s List – to produce significant evidence of how women engage in discussions about health topics AND about healthcare providers. The good, the bad and, all too often, the ugly.

A recent study by SheKnows, a women’s media platform and a lifestyle site, provides interesting insights into how women in different age and lifestyle segments use technology and social networks to build their relationships and personal identities. Here’s a quick snapshot of the findings from “Content Producers and Brand Promoters.”

Women are producing content at record speed and exerting influence over millions of consumers they have never met.
56% of women share product recommendations through social media.
35% of Millennials recommend products on social media at least once a month and follow, on average, 22 brands.
44% are more likely to go to a brand’s social media page to log a customer service issue than to call the company on the phone.
Women trust content produced by their peers; 63% of women ages 18 to 65 consider a friend on social media far more trustworthy than a blogger, a celebrity, or a website editor.

The online study was conducted by Harris Interactive in July-August with over 1,000 U.S. women ages 18-65 who have consumed digital content. For more insights on women and social media from this study, you can download (with a simple registration) the whitepaper, “Marketing to the ‘Likeable’ Mom: A Report on How Family, Brands, and Technology Influence Her Social Identity” at http://www.sheknows.com/whitepaper. You can also read the full press release on the study at PR Web.

Posted in Content Marketing, Healthcare Marketing

Tagged brand management, Chief Marketing Officer, healthcare marketers, healthcare marketing, social media, social media marketing, women's health

Share your healthcare marketing expertise

Posted on January 1, 2014 | 2 comments

The Society for Healthcare Strategy and Market Development (SHSMD) is seeking experts in the fields of healthcare marketing, digital strategies, analytics, strategic planning, public relations, physician strategies and business development for speaking and publishing opportunities.

If you have intriguing insights, practical case studies, brilliant ideas or lessons learned that will support healthcare marketers, planners and communicators in professional development, you can submit an online proposal to contribute in one of three ways:

SHSMD Connections Annual Conference, October 12–15, 2014 in San Diego, CA. More than a 1,000 planning, marketing and PR professionals attend this annual event. Speakers are needed for 3 hour workshops, one hour concurrent sessions and 10 minute rapid-fire talks.
Serve as faculty for SHSMD U Online Courses and Webcasts. These online programs are offered throughout the year in one of three formats: 2 week self-paced online courses, 5 day self-paced mini-courses, and 60-75 minute webcasts.
Write an article for Spectrum, SHSMD’s member newsletter. Published every other month, each issue contains feature stories about best practices and case studies in healthcare strategy, marketing, and communications.

The deadline for submissions is January 31, 2014. Follow this link to get started: SHSMD 2014 Call for Proposals.

Posted in Healthcare Marketing

Tagged Chief Marketing Officer, healthcare marketers, healthcare marketing, SHSMD, Society for Healthcare Strategy and Market Development

What are your content marketing plans for 2014?

Posted on December 12, 2013 | Leave a comment

Content marketing continues to top the list of must-have capabilities for effective marketing operations. Here’s a quick look at 2014 content marketing trends from the folks at Uberflip.

Posted in Content Marketing, Digital Strategy, Healthcare Marketing

Tagged Chief Marketing Officer, content marketing, healthcare marketing, marketing trends

Susan Alcorn awarded SHSMD’s highest honor

Posted on October 1, 2013 | Leave a comment

Congratulations to Susan Alcorn, senior vice president at the Jarrard Phillips Cate & Hancock, Inc. (Nashville, Tenn.), who today was awarded the 2013 Award for Individual Professional Excellence from the Society for Healthcare Strategy & Market Development (SHSMD). SHSMD’s Award for Individual Professional Excellence is the highest honor the Society can bestow on one of its members. A well deserved honor!

Click here to read more.

Posted in Healthcare Marketing, Marketing Leadership

Tagged healthcare marketing, healthcare marketing communications, SHSMD, Society for Healthcare Strategy and Market Development, Susan Alcorn

Positioning for population health management: the healthcare marketer’s challenge

Posted on June 13, 2013 | 1 comment

With the implementation of the accountable care act, and the creation of Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), patient-centered medical homes, and other new delivery models, healthcare marketers face new challenges.

How do you position your organization for population health management?
How do you present the organization as a credible and valuable partner for wellness coaching and behavioral change?
How do you communicate the benefits of new delivery models to consumers, and drive choice to your network?

My friends at BVK (Milwaukee) recently conducted a national research study conducted to explore consumer attitudes about wellness, prevention, population health management and accountable care, and to gain insights that will help healthcare marketers position and market these services.

Joel English, managing director at BVK, will be presenting highlights from this study on a Forum for Healthcare Strategists Webinar that I’ll be moderating on Wednesday, June 26 at 11:30 a.m. CDT. We’ll be joined by Jeff Cowart, former SVP for growth and sales at Baptist Health System in San Antonio (Jeff recently joined the Barlow/McCarthy team). He’ll address how Baptist Health, Detroit Medical Center and Abrazo Health (Phoenix) are tackling the critical strategic and marketing issues involved in a population health strategy, and the unique approaches they are taking to market their ACOs.

This is a great opportunity to learn more about the opportunities and challenges for healthcare marketers in positioning health systems for success in the new world of accountable care. I hope you will join us.

Forum for Healthcare Strategists Webinar
Positioning for Population Health Management: The Marketer’s Challenge
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
11:30AM – 1:00PM (CDT)

Click here to register. Registration fees are $89.00 for Forum members and $119.00 for non-members.

Posted in Healthcare Marketing

Tagged accountable care act, accountable care organizations, Forum for Healthcare Strategists, healthcare marketers, healthcare marketing, population health management

Five big trends, five key roles, five bold moves for healthcare marketers

Posted on May 14, 2013 | 2 comments

Next week, long-time colleague Candace Quinn (Brand Equals Experience) and I will present a keynote address at the New England Society for Healthcare Communications Spring Conference in Newport, Rhode Island.

Our session – Preparing for a New Era of Healthcare Marketing – kicks off at 8:30 a.m. on Monday, May 20. Here’s a sneak preview of the talk:

Five Forces Changing Healthcare Marketing

The new economics of health care reform – the industry is transitioning from ‘pay for volume’ to ‘pay for value’ through accountable care systems and risk reimbursement models.
Market restructuring and emerging delivery models – consolidation and alignment through mergers, acquisitions and strategic partnerships will change competitive dynamics in local markets.
Evolution of brands in physical and virtual environments – healthcare is getting smart about brands as competitive assets that drive business performance, and the importance of brand experience.
Technologies that disrupt and transform – digital technologies are revolutionizing business processes everywhere, and profoundly changing the way patients and providers interact.
Growing, changing, graying, connected consumers – aging baby boomers will be a driving force for healthcare services in the coming decades – not just for ‘what’ is delivered, but ‘how’ it will be delivered.

Five Critical Roles for Healthcare Marketers

Growth strategist – revenue generation is the priority; adopt a strong P&L mindset, drive clear alignment of brand, marketing and sales investments to the health system’s growth strategy.
Brand advocate – invest in the brand; create a powerful, differentiated, competitive brand position, and lead organizational change to deliver brand value, not just promote it.
Digital change agent – web, social networking, search marketing and mobile capabilities – integrated with clinical IT systems, are no longer optional for providers that want to remain relevant.
Experience champion – advocate for customer-centered decision-making and design systems and services that transform customer experience.
Innovation catalyst – bring creative thinking and fresh solutions to systems, programs, services and products that attract, serve and retain customers.

Five Bold Moves to Transform Healthcare Marketing

Change the marketing culture – this requires an organizational shift in thinking about marketing as tactical communications to a discipline that is strategic, cross-functional and bottom line oriented.
Reconfigure the marketing organization – establish a vision, role and scope for marketing as a revenue-generating capability, then restructure marketing operations to support growth goals.
Acquire new competencies, capabilities and skills – acquire expertise in business analytics, R & D, brand building, customer acquisition/retention, CRM/PRM, digital, search and social marketing.
Create a compelling case for change and bias for action – focus marketing investments on strategies that grow revenue and improve business performance.
Communicate new roles, new rules, new expectations – create co-ownership and co-accountability for marketing outcomes across administrative, clinical and business operations.

We hope to see you there. If you can’t make it and would like a copy of the slide deck, just let me know.

Posted in Healthcare Marketing, Marketing Leadership

Tagged brand management, healthcare marketers, healthcare marketing, healthcare reform, marketing management, marketing performance, patient experience

The value of healthcare networking is, well, priceless

Posted on May 5, 2013 | 1 comment

I flew into Phoenix early yesterday to meet with Healthcare Executive Forum (HEF) colleagues. HEF is a self-organized, self-managed group of senior executives that lead strategic planning, business development, brand management and marketing for leading health systems, as well as consultants, experts and thought-leaders in the health industry. Among the members are leaders from Penn Medicine, The Camden Group, Henry Ford Health System, Greystone.Net, Oschner Health System, ND&P, New York-Presbyterian Hospital, Truven Health Analytics, University Hospitals, Healthcare Advisory Board, Partners Healthcare, Studer Group, and many other top notch organizations.

Yesterday’s agenda tackled topics from the latest trends in mergers and acquisitions to population health to brand valuation. Klein & Partners’ Rob Klein shared insights from his annual Omnibus Survey on consumers and healthcare. Today, we’re going to hear about breakthroughs in mobile health, learn how employee engagement played a role in winning the Baldrige Award, and techniques for improving marketing effectiveness.

We’ve been meeting an average of twice a year for nearly twenty-five years to monitor national trends and developments in the health industry, and to share insights, experiences and case studies. Most of our original members are still active, and new recruits have been invited along the way as people inevitably retire or move on to opportunities outside of healthcare.

Often, our sessions are held in conjunction with industry conferences such as the Greystone.Net Healthcare Internet Conference or, as is the case this week, with the Forum for Healthcare Strategists Marketing Strategies Summit. And we also seek opportunities to visit leading organizations and locations where we can interact with companies and leaders forging new paths in healthcare. Over the decades I’ve been involved, that has included Mayo Clinic, Chicago’s Northwestern Memorial Hospital, and the National Health Service in the U.K.

The rich content and discussions that occur at each meeting, along with the intimate forum of our gatherings, produce a supportive, learning environment. And the trust and mutual respect among the members cannot be understated. We are each unto each other mentors, teachers, students, colleagues and, most of all, friends.

I’m already looking forward to our Fall session.

Posted in Healthcare Marketing, Marketing Leadership

Tagged brand management, business development, Chief Marketing Officer, Healthcare Executive Forum, healthcare marketing, healthcare marketing executives, healthcare trends, strategic planning

This summer, get schooled on health communications

Posted on April 15, 2013 | Leave a comment

Tufts University School of Medicine’s 2013 Health Communication Summer Institute is offering three professional development courses: Mobile Health Design, Health Literacy Leadership, and Digital Strategies for Health Communication. The courses are geared toward health care professionals seeking to remain abreast of the latest in communications trends and innovations.

Here is a description of the three courses with links to additional information:

Mobile Health Design is an online course that examines the impact and potential of mobile devices for consumer health at a national and global level. The focus of the course is on how to design evidence-based health apps that incorporate mobile user experience, predictive analytics, and big data to help people achieve their health goals. The program runs May 22—June 26, 2013.
5th Tufts Summer Institute on Digital Strategies for Health Communication covers how healthcare and public health organizations can develop and implement digital strategies to drive success of their online presence, with a focus on how to use web, social media, and mobile technologies to reach target audiences. The course is offered July 14-19, 2013 on Tufts’ Boston campus.
The Health Literacy Leadership Institute is aimed at those working to improve patient-provider communication and healthcare quality, and those working directly with patients or adult learners in educational settings. Participants will work on curriculum development projects of their choice, resulting in final products that are comprehensive, informed by research, and reflective of best practice. The course is offered June 10-14, 2013 on Tufts’ Boston Campus.

Posted in Healthcare Marketing, Marketing Communications, Social Media

Tagged health communications, health literacy, healthcare communications, mobile health, social media, Tufts University School of Medicine

Straight talk about the state of healthcare marketing

Posted on April 5, 2013 | 4 comments

Earlier this week, I sent an email to a group of long-time and much respected healthcare marketing colleagues with a rather innocent request: one of our health system clients is recruiting a director of marketing and seeking candidates for the position. What followed was a firestorm of comments – about the lack of qualified candidates, murky state of healthcare marketing, unattractiveness of healthcare to people that want to practice “real” marketing – countered by a few expositions on the societal flaws that brought us to this state.

So here are my two cents. By and large, healthcare executives do not really understand the marketing discipline. And I’m not just pointing fingers at the C-suite; as marketers, we’ve made our own beds, so to speak. In nearly every other industry, marketing is considered a strategy-critical, revenue-generating core business capability. But if we’re honest, in healthcare, marketing is still very much structured and primarily resourced around communications activities that are not designed nor hardwired to significantly impact customer acquisition and retention.

Holding on to a narrow view of healthcare marketing as simply promotions wastes marketing investments and sub-optimizes performance.

Changing these dynamics requires straight talk from the chief marketing executive, CEO and other C-suite leaders about what it really takes for marketing to drive revenue growth, build brand equity and improve financial performance.

Let’s get that conversation started:

How is competition changing and what will be required of the health system to compete effectively? Is a plan in place and are actions underway to effect those changes? If not, why not?
Is the marketing department structured, staffed and resourced to achieve revenue targets, build brand equity and improve the organization’s competitive leverage? If not, why not?
Are financial, business and market analytics driving marketing planning, and the decisions for where you focus marketing activities and investments? If not, why not?
Do you have the right people with the right skills sets and the right tools in place to execute marketing strategies that drive patient acquisition? If not, why not?
Are you investing full speed ahead in web, social, search, mobile, CRM/PRM and other marketing systems and capabilities required both now and in the future? If not, why not?
Do marketing and operations work collaboratively, and are they held mutually-accountable for customer acquisition, customer experience, and customer retention outcomes? If not, why not?
Are you measuring marketing performance? If not, why not?

I’m sure there are other questions, but you’ll probably need to order in lunch just to get through these. Tell me what you think. And, if you know a good candidate for that director of marketing position, please give me a call.

4 Comments

Posted in Healthcare Marketing, Marketing Leadership

Tagged Chief Marketing Officer, health system marketing, health systems, healthcare marketing, marketing leadership

Five essential moves to transform healthcare marketing

Posted on April 1, 2013 | Leave a comment

Across the U.S., healthcare marketers are feeling the pressure to deliver greater returns on marketing investments. Changing economics are front and center, and make a compelling case for the role that marketers must play in an increasingly competitive environment.

Holding on to a narrow view of healthcare marketing as simply promotions sub-optimizes marketing performance and wastes marketing investments. Best practice performers understand marketing as a business discipline aimed at achieving revenue growth and better business performance.

Success requires a purposeful, comprehensive and integrated approach to better understand markets, develop and deliver quality healthcare services, build effective business models, and create loyal customers.

Five essential moves

Creating a marketing or growth-oriented culture may seem formidable in organizations that are operations versus market driven – and many health systems are just that. However, with increasing recognition by healthcare executives that significant change is required for success under new reform mandates, marketers play a key role in helping organizations understand competitive dynamics, discover new growth opportunities, create new lines of business, and enhance points of competitive differentiation .

Here are five essential moves to effect the change:

Transform the marketing culture – David Packard (of the Hewlett-Packard’s) is credited with saying that “marketing is too important to be left to the marketing department.” His point is that marketing, like HR, finance and other core business functions, is a strategy-critical competency for organizations that want to grow, thrive and succeed. This requires an organizational shift in thinking about marketing as tactical communications to a discipline that is strategic (focused on stuff that matters), cross-functional (orchestrated across the value chain), and bottom line oriented (delivers on revenue targets).
Reconfigure the marketing organization – today, many (far too many) health system marketing organizations are structured strictly along functional lines (advertising, PR, events, sales, etc.) and operate primarily as communications service bureaus rather than revenue-generating strategists. Health systems must establish a vision, role and scope for marketing as a revenue-generating capability, then restructure marketing operations to support growth imperatives. Building a unified, high performance marketing operation is job one – investing in the marketing management infrastructure, elevating skills, adopting data-driven planning methods, laser-focusing marketing resources, establishing performance metrics.
Acquire new competencies, capabilities and skills – Historically, healthcare marketing departments have over-invested in communications activities and under-resourced other aspects of marketing practice that drive customer acquisition and revenue growth. Today’s healthcare marketers must demonstrate expertise in market intelligence, business analytics, new product/program R & D, brand building (not just brand promotion), market and customer creation, relationship sales, social commerce, community management, cross-channel content marketing, and more. Customer relationship management (CRM), provider relationship management (PRM) and customer contact or call centers are essential marketing systems.
Create a compelling case for change and bias for action – Data builds the case for focusing marketing investments on strategies that grow revenue, improve business performance, increase brand loyalty and build sustainable competitive advantage. For healthcare marketers, the strategy-critical short list includes brand building, volume building, channel management, new models of care and customer engagement that optimize profitability under reform economics, and leveraging web, social, search and mobile technologies for patient acquisition and retention.
Communicate new roles, new rules, new expectations – The first step for marketers is to forge a robust partnership with administrative, clinical and business operations, and create co-ownership and co-accountability for marketing outcomes. Establish new ground rules, such as: marketing resources will be prioritized to strategic planning, business development, growth and financial performance imperatives. Or that data and analysis will inform strategic marketing thinking and planning, and provide an evidence-based approach to marketing investment. And, my favorite: time – and dollars – will be focused on fewer, more impactful activities; and tasks that do not contribute to growth and improved competitive performance will be transitioned or eliminated.

Now is the time

For health systems, growth and profitability are imperative. New reimbursement methods and emerging business models necessitate a different approach to customer acquisition, a fresh focus on customer retention, and a greater emphasis on customer engagement. And the transformation of marketing practice driven by social networking, search and mobile technologies can no longer be ignored.

Now is the time for marketers to assess the role, functions and performance of marketing departments, and move aggressively to transform marketing from promotions-oriented tactics to growth-oriented strategic leadership. To build powerful, differentiated brands that drive growth, innovation and better business performance. To lead organizations in mainstreaming social, search and mobile technologies that engage customers, build commerce and improve business functions.

Change can be difficult. Yet, will deliver substantial and long-lasting benefits.

This post is number three in a 3-part series. Click here to read parts 1 and 2:

Part 1: Five forces that will change healthcare marketing
Part 2: Five roles for marketers to adopt now

Five bold moves to transform healthcare marketing from Karen Corrigan