MARKETING ROUNDS

The Marketing Rounds Manifesto

This is the last post to Marketing Rounds for the foreseeable future.

I’d like to use this post to share with you what I’ve learned as a healthcare marketing blogger and what my hope is for the future of healthcare marketing.

The 3 Types of Bloggers

As I’ve followed hundreds of world-class, good and not-so-good blogs over the years I’ve found there are essentially three types of bloggers: journalists, experts and entertainers.

Journalists are bloggers who report on what’s happening in the world.  They’re not thought leaders, but they excel at discovering interesting people, best practices and industry trends.  We read them because they solve a need we have: reliable, actionable information with the least time investment.  Publishers Lunch is a world-class example.

Experts are our thought leaders.  They offer new frames through which to interpret the world.  We read them because they challenge our beliefs and habits.  They make us feel smarter.  Great examples of expert bloggers are Seth Godin, Guy Kawasaki, Chris Anderson and Kevin Kelly.

Entertainers are our release valve.  We go to them because they provide escape from our daily grind.  Examples include everything from Post Secret to people’s personal journals.

An interesting trend I’m seeing on Twitter is that these same three categories are taking shape.  The Twitterers with the most followers (and respect) either report, challenge or entertain.  The rest tweet without focus and/or over-follow to manipulate their numbers.

Marketing Truths

We write and blog and tweet because we believe we have something worth saying and want to connect with others.  We believe there is something wrong in the world or something important being missed, and we realize that someone needs to say something about it.

After waiting a while, we realize no one is going to say what needs to be said, which leaves us with the unfortunate realization that we must be the ones to speak up.

Thus we blog, tweet, publish, etc.

Here is what I think I’ve been trying to say through Marketing Rounds:

1. Marketers should NOT be limited to managing one “P” in healthcare.  It is generally assumed that healthcare marketers can’t manage all four Ps of marketing.  And that we’re left with only one P - promotion.  I completely disagree with this line of thinking.  I disagree because the “4 Ps” are about product marketing, not service marketing.

I believe that healthcare marketers should manage the “4 Ps” of service marketing.  

Product: In healthcare, the product is the service.  And the service is only as good as the customer’s experience.  So the first “P” of service marketing is an “E” - experience.  Operations folks don’t (or can’t) see the customer experience through customers’ eyes.  But marketers can.  IT folks don’t (or can’t) see customers’ website needs through customers’ eyes.  But marketers can.  Let’s admit it, the service experience markets.

Price: Sure, product price is irrelevant in healthcare, generally speaking.  Consumerism is trying to change that, but hasn’t on a significant scale yet.  But I would argue that price is really “cost”.  When a product marketer researches the best price, they are really trying to find an acceptable answer to the customer’s question, “How much will this product cost me?”

Money isn’t the only cost, though.  I would argue that time is more valuable than money.  And the number one complaint in healthcare is wait time.  Improve throughput.  Fix the wait time.  And you’re marketing with the service-oriented equivalent of price.  The second “P” of service marketing is a “T” - time.

Place: McDonalds is famous for its real estate strategy.  Walmart is a leader because of its product grouping (or shelf real estate) strategy.  Amazon has a brilliant warehousing and distribution strategy.  What “place” is really about is convenience.  Manufacturers want to get their product in customers hands as easily as possible.  Distribution and retail have been key to this strategy on the product side.

On the service side, it’s still about convenience.  Make sure your patients can access you.  Make sure the doctors prescribing your treatments aren’t hurting their patients (both physically and economically).  The third “P” of service marketing is actually a “C” - convenience.  Make it as easy as possible for your customers to use your services.

Promotion: So now we’re to the only “P” we’re expected to be managing.  Our job is to get ink.  To run ads.  To mail postcards, newsletters and magazines.  To host events.  Get the word out.  Promote.  Promote.  Promote!

The delusion is believing that this is what our prospective customers care about.  They’re all sitting around wondering about us.  “Wonder what ACME Healthcare is doing these days?”  Waiting patiently for the next thing we have to tell them.  We know this is true because this is how we spend our lives...constantly wondering what’s going on at the local hospital and factories and salons.  Waiting for the next ad and direct mail piece and newsletter.  I joke, but you get the point.

I’d like to propose that the last “P” of service marketing is NOT promotion.  It’s a “S” - story.  A good story can improve our customers’ lives.  But it must be an authentic story that engages them in ways THEY CHOOSE.

I wish I could capture these “4 Ps” of service marketing in a clever acronym.  I tried, but it sounded too corny and forced, kind of like bad marketing.  Looks like we’re stuck with ETCS (Experience + Time + Convenience + Story) for now.

2. Marketing should not be a department.  It should be an organizational discipline like customer service, with ALL employees trained and accountable.  This means the role of a marketing leader is not as a generalist who manages specialists (agencies and consultants).  The role of a marketing leader is as an organizational brand therapist, brand architect and trainer of front-line staff.  Marketing is now won or lost in the customer experience, not department activities.

3. Healthcare marketers’ roles aren’t subservient to clinicians (i.e. those who do the “real work” in healthcare).  We can actually save and improve lives.  There are thousands of people walking around at high risk for disease or have a life-threatening disease and don’t know it.  Only marketers have the skills and toolbox to connect with these individuals and influence them to take action.

I’d argue that we have a responsibility to influence those at risk to get screened and seek treatment even if we know they won’t choose us.

4. The era of marketing and PR as the organizational fluff factory charged with making the ordinary “appear” extraordinary is over.  The future of healthcare marketing is helping extraordinary services spread in authentic ways.  Any ordinary services are on their own until they figure out how to become extraordinary.  

I think that should be the new screening requirement for our organization’s services to justify getting marketing resources allocated to their growth.  Marketing is too valuable to waste on mediocrity.  I believe marketing’s tarnished reputation is due to our attempts to market anything and everything.  We’ve set ourselves up for failure.

5. Marketing is NOT about service excellence or exceeding expectations.  Marketing is about being aspirin.  Ritz Carlton “exceeds expectations” not because they actually try to exceed expectations.  They 1) prevent most headaches and 2) quickly eliminate any headaches that do arise.  Most hotels give travelers headaches.  Ritz addresses those headaches, which naturally exceeds the expectations of travelers who are used to living with headaches.

Don’t spend your time trying to “exceed expectations.”  You can’t possibly quantify that.  Invest your time in eliminating your customer’s headaches.  Then you will automatically exceed their expectations.

Where Do We Go From Here?

As much as I would like to believe that interest in and demand for quality healthcare marketing blogs will increase in the future, I don’t.

Marketing is about meeting customers where THEY are.  And I believe the majority of healthcare marketers are not reading healthcare-specific marketing blogs.  As I look at Google trends, Healthcare 100 Trends, Marketing Rounds trends and the website grades of all healthcare marketing blogs, I don’t see interest on a significant scale.

In other words, I can’t find enough headaches out there to justify making more aspirin via this blog.

Therefore, it’s time I experiment in other ways to connect with and engage healthcare marketers in meaningful ways.

Here’s my plan:

1. Spend less time talking about healthcare marketing and more time doing it really well.  Measurably.

2. Report “from the field” with occasional articles, tweets and guest posts through other media platforms.

3. Work to garner enough grenades, data and demand to publish a provocative, non-academic healthcare marketing book.  What’s out there is good.  It’s just too old school and boring.

My goal has always been to connect with people who are smarter than me and learn from their experiences.  I will continue to do this through Twitter and other platforms.  Please join me there.

Also, this is not the only blog I write.  If you have enjoyed the “heart” behind what I’ve written on this blog, and if you practice a spiritual approach to the world that emphasizes serving and caring for others, you might enjoy it.

I am always available and interested in questions, challenges and feedback.  Please don’t hesitate to reach out.  Just click the “email me”  link in the right column of this blog.  I'll try to respond as soon as possible.

Thank you so much for reading Marketing Rounds over the past year.  It’s been a very enjoyable journey.

I wish you much success in making a positive difference in this world!  What you do can really matter.

Which kind of marketing are you doing?

Most non-marketers define marketing as making the ordinary appear extraordinary.

Most modern marketers define marketing as helping the extraordinary spread.

Which one of these are you spending the majority of your time working on?

What is the Weekly Probe?

Have you seen this site?  What do you think?

Marketing as a Value Metric

Marketing is critical to healthcare organizations.  But not only for the obvious reasons.

Marketing is a core metric for measuring an organization's values.

If an organization's marketing messages are org-centric, the organization is strategically and operationally misaligned.  It may care more about itself than its customers.  And it may mistakenly see itself as a product or service manufacturer, instead of a customer manufacturer.

How an organization perceives itself is reflected in its marketing messages, because marketing messages focus on those who matter most to the organization.  As brand therapists, we can diagnose a brand's root problems based upon the symptoms we see.

For marketing messages to put the customer first, the organization has to be operationally aligned so that the organization's collective attitude is authentic at its customer touchpoints.  Otherwise, the organization can be perceived as manipulative or harmful.

Who matters most according to your organization's marketing messages?

Are You A Boring Presenter? There Is Still Hope...and Help!

Do you still use PowerPoint or Keynote slides that have bullet points on them?

Do you typically end presentations to the sound of air blowing through the vents?

Are giving speeches the energy equivalent of doing the laundry?

I hate to tell you this, but you may be boring.  Not a boring person.  But a boring presenter.  And there's something wrong with an experienced marketing professional giving boring presentations, isn't there?

I won't tell anyone if you won't.  Now quick, read this.  Then click on the links.  And let the learning begin.

Garr Reynolds writes a blog (and now a book) called, Presentation Zen.  He's read worldwide and has changed the way PowerPoint slides and presentations are given.  Some great tips are here.  And his book is here.

Guy Kawasaki (who doesn't know who he is), is another "guru" with great PowerPoint advice.  He calls it The 10/20/30 Rule of Powerpoint.  If you think this just applies to venture capital pitches, you are missing the point.  CEOs I've shown this to love it and have said they wished all presentations followed this rule.

Finally, Working the Room is a great book on public speaking.  Is it on your shelf?

If you've read this post, you have no excuses.  The resources are available.  The only thing standing between you and a standing ovation, or at least applause, or at the very least, eye contact, is practice, practice, practice.

Good luck!

Two Ways To Do Your Job

1. Do what's expected.

2. Do what's effective.

In an ideal world, these two would coexist.  What's expected is effective.  And what's effective is expected.

But the real world is far from ideal, isn't it?

What's expected (run an ad, send a news release, etc.) is not necessarily effective.

What's effective (building relationships, encouraging dialogue, etc.) is not necessarily expected.  As experienced marketers, we understand that what works today appears to contradict the traditional marketing tactics our bosses once read about in a textbook.

However, what's expected can be easy.  Simply run the ad you can move on to other pressing projects.  Just send the news release and check it off the to-do list.

What's effective, in work and life, takes time.  Friendship.  Cooking.  Health.  These take planning.  And preparation.  And patience.  Not to mention experience.

To get the best (i.e. most effective) story from the media takes a trusting relationship and honest communication.  And that takes time to earn.  To run an ad that connects means understanding our customers' worldviews, embracing them and building a communications bridge that connects us around common needs.  That takes time to get right.

It seems our frustrations as marketers flow out of this duality.

On one hand, we want to do a good job in the eyes of our organization.  On the other hand, we want to do what's right and authentic and meaningful to our organizations, our boss and ourselves.

How are you pulling this off?  I'm curious.  How do you successfully handle these two job requirements?  And how do you work with your team to do what's effective and expected?

We would love to learn from your experience.  Please share!

And please email or tweet this post so others can share.  The more ideas we have, the more we can help each other.

Two Qualities of a Great Marketer

There's marketing know-how.  And there's marketing execution.

There are those who seemingly know everything there is to know about marketing.  It's history.  It's evolution.  It's architecture.  It's current state.  The gurus.  They key players.  Even the latest gadgets and trends.

Then there are those who can take a mediocre idea in a mediocre market with a mediocre organization and do magic.  They can engage customers and attract attention.  They can fill up events.  They can get the phone ringing.  They can get the media to care.

Obviously, we're all a mixture of both.

But how would you rate yourself on these two qualities?  What's your percent split?  How would you rate your staff?

If you had to choose one upon which to stake your career, which would you choose?

My experience is that most healthcare organizations look for and hire know-how.  And that's primarily what they get.

I met a young woman once who pitched me on a Relay for Life sponsorship.  She was 10% know-how and 90% execution, at best.  I hired her as soon as I could.  And she turned out to be one of the most talented marketers I've worked with to date.

Which begs the question, can execution be taught?  Or are some marketers simply more talented and naturally skilled than others?

Please share your thoughts.

Where Do We Go From Here?

Healthcare planning, marketing, business development et al is a funny world in many ways.

On the one hand, we're trained to be at the cutting edge of communications.  Yet, we're trapped in the bubble of our own organizations and have little contact with each other outside of annual events.  We're connected with our customers, but not with each other.

This, of course, is changing.

There are some great healthcare marketing blogs.  Two favorites are Chris Bevolo's Interval blog and HealthLeaders Media's MarketShare.  There are more, and I hope to feature all of them at some point on this blog.  To meet and share the personalities behind these generous resources.

And then there's Twitter.  You can find Marketing Rounds here.  And a wonderfully smart and quirky cast of healthcare marketing characters.  I've recently become very excited with the dialogues that are happening on Twitter.  You should join us.

So where does that leave Marketing Rounds.

I've decided to really focus this blog.  It was originally called H Story and was focused on how hospitals can best tell their story to their customers (in ways that matter to the customers).  Then Marketing Rounds focused on the hospital as brand.

Today and for the foreseeable future, Marketing Rounds' obsession is healthcare marketers.  I'm interested in connecting with, challenging and being challenged by marketers who have dedicated their careers to serving patients, physicians and hospital CEOs.  Not just hospital marketers, but vendor/supplier marketers, physician marketers and consultants.

I believe there are a lot of frustrated marketers out there.  (I've been one of them.)  Frustrated because we want to market in relevant and meaningful ways.  We want to understand how to sell our organization, our marketing and ourselves without selling out or selling our souls.  We want to challenge conventional wisdom.  We see that the future of marketing lies not in marketing as usual, but in training a community of "non-marketers" to do the real marketing with us.

I call this brand therapy.  Our goal is to help our organizations understand who they are, where they've come from and where they're going.  Our role is to be the voice of our organization and its customers, and help them better understand and communicate with one another.  

You can expect new posts here on Mondays and Wednesdays.  A random post may wander in on occasion if there is good reason.

I don't want to burden you with too many posts.  Personally, I'm finding it hard to keep up with bloggers (and news feeds) that post daily or more.

As always, I encourage your feedback and would love to hear from you any time.

If you're not already a subscriber, please add this blog to your feed reader or receive it by email.  You will find these subscription tools (Feedburner and FeedBlitz) in the right hand column of this site.  I'm not in the spam business, so don't worry about receiving junk from me.  I hate it as much as you!

Are You Bernays or Wondermun?

It's been over 10 years since this article by Malcolm Gladwell was published in The New Yorker.

In the wake of the fluff post, this makes for great reading.

Here's a hint as to where Gladwell arrives:

"Marketers don't want to spin us. They want to hold us perfectly still, so they can figure out who we are, what we want, and how to reach us."

How to Break Free From the Fluff Factory

Are we in the fluff business?

In the past week, I've had three separate individuals ask me about what I was "spinning" these days.  I've also had two individuals say, "I need you marketing gurus to make this sound better," as if that's the primary job of marketers.

Let's accept that many assume that we're in the fluff business.

Sorry.

That means our job, as perceived by many, is running a fluff factory (i.e. puffing things up beyond their natural state).

Anything a marketer does to contradict this assumption will likely be interpreted as incompetence.  After all, if a fluff factory worker can't or won't fluff, then they aren't doing their job, right?

Ouch.

So what are our options?  How can we, who are trying to practice the art AND science of marketing, change this perception?

Here are three ideas.

1. Be the customer's voice.  

This means asking tough questions on behalf of our customers: Why should I choose you?  What makes you better than my other choices?  Can you prove what you're telling me?  If I ask around, what do you think I will hear about you?  Why should I trust you?

2. Practice mirroring.  

What I mean by this is finding a situation where the executive, physician or whoever is a customer.  Then walk them though the psychology behind what gets their attention, how they form opinions and how they choose.  

For example, were a doctor to suggest we need an ad in the newspaper, I would ask that doctor which section of the paper they think best.  When they respond, I ask them to tell me the most recent ad they remember seeing there.  This helps steer the discussion toward where our customers get their information.  And what they trust and pay attention to.

3. Collect metrics.  

Make sure you capture reliable data about every marketing tactic you use and what it accomplished.  Set up ad-specific landing pages and phone numbers.  Measure response volumes.  Then use these facts to challenge the misperceptions and biases that exist.  (By the way, we hold misperceptions and biases too, as marketers.  Metrics keep us honest and grounded, as well.)

For the record, the primary job of marketing is not to make average things appear excellent.  The primary job of marketing is to spread products and services worth spreading because they do the greatest good for our organization, our customers, our environment and society.

But you knew that already.

(Please share any ideas you have by posting a comment.  Feel free to pass this post onto to someone you think it could support.)

Everyone's a Marketing Expert

I would rather that title read, "Everyone's a marketer."

If we can get there eventually, we'll have done our job.  As for now, everyone's a "marketing expert."

I once worked with a CEO who was a self-proclaimed "billboard expert."  Despite the fact he had maybe taken one marketing class circa 1970.  Hadn't read a book on the subject.  He had no studies in psychology or sociology.  He had no data.  No benchmark.  He simply liked looking at billboards and that made him more knowledgeable than the average "marketing expert," I guess.

Doctors are "marketing experts" too.

If anyone would be data driven, you'd think it would be doctors.  Assess the symptoms.  Diagnose the root problem.  Prescribe a solution based upon best practices and benchmarks.

Nope.  They want you to run ads with them in it (with the scary piece of equipment behind them as they glare at the camera with their arms crossed) because this is supposed to evoke confidence in undereducated patients desperately searching for a new doctor.  Of course, these same images on billboards make for good marketing too.

And the key, these "marketing experts" tell us, is that our ads should look and sound like our competition's ads.  After all, that's what our patients expect from a healthcare provider's ads.  We wouldn't want to confuse them.

But, it doesn't stop there.  Nurses are "marketing experts."  Office staff are "marketing experts."  Administrative assistants are "marketing experts."

Why on earth did we choose a profession that's so unscientific and simple, that anyone with any type of background and training can do?

It appears to me that marketing has a marketing problem in healthcare.  And that's a problem we've inherited, as healthcare marketers.  In addition, we're typically working with only one of our four Ps.

So we have a choice.

We can keep doing marketing as usual (with our one P).  Or we can challenge and change what marketing means for the next generation of healthcare marketers.

Which do you choose?  And how do intend to influence this change?

Please share!  I'd love to hear your ideas and thoughts.

Dear Healthcare Marketer, Who Is Your Customer?

Is it healthcare executives?  Is it patients?  Is it physicians?

Or is it your boss?  Or your CEO?

There isn't a wrong answer here.  But there's a lazy answer.  The lazy answer, of course, is all of them.  And if we're trying to market to all of these customer bases, we're probably not effectively marketing to any of them.

Because marketing requires consistency and intimacy to work organically.  We have prove we care.  We have to prove we're trustworthy.  We have to prove we get results consistently over time.  And we have to keep showing up to help.

Where do you spend your time?  

Is that your true customer?

Is that the customer that yields the greatest return on investment for your organization?

Does your boss and/or CEO agree with your answers?

(Hint: if they don't, you have some decisions to make.)

Are You Committing the Most Common Marketing Sin?

So, what is the most common marketing sin?

Me marketing.

Here’s how it happens (and what you can do about it).

How It Happens

“Hey marketing person, we need to get the word out on (fill in request here).”

Although, “get the word out” is a decent definition of marketing, what the requester is really saying is “Hey marketing person, we want you to tell as many people as possible about (fill in request here).  And if you can land us in some newspapers, on the radio and on TV, then we’ll be nice to you until next time we need something.”

Talking about yourself or your organization is boring and irrelevant.  No one cares.

Case in point, you’re not reading this post because you care about me.   You’re reading this post because you care about yourself.  And you should!

This blog is only as good as how it helps you be a smarter, more innovative and relevant marketer.  It spreads only if you choose to spread it (which still makes it about you).

Were I to start talking about myself, you would grow bored (because of its irrelevance to you) and move on to the next blog.

What You Can Do About It

Ask this question of each and every marketing communications piece you currently have active: Who is the focus of this marketing message?

If your organization, product or service is the focal point (i.e. “we care,” “we’re award winning,” “quality is job #1,” “we’re your choice,” etc.) you are a sinner.

The marketing messages I’ve seen work best are customer-centric (i.e. “eliminate your back pain,” “save money,” “improve yourself,” “feel better,” “save time,” etc.)  I’m willing to bet you’ve experienced similar dynamics.  Please share them with us in the comments section.

Repent and go forth to serve your customers.  Focus on THEM.  Talk about THEM.  Solve THEIR problems.  Do the jobs THEY need done.  Isn't that why you're organization's in business?

When they see you’re in it for them, then they just might (one day) be in it for you.

(PS - this applies to your personal brand in your organization as well.)

What is Brand Therapy?

Brand therapy is what marketers like you do.  I hope.

Brand therapy asks questions of its brand(s).

Who are we?  Who do we think we are?  Who do our customers think we are?

What are we saying vs. what are we doing?

What events from our past have shaped us?  How?  Where is our pride?  Where is our fear?

What do we stand for?  What are our values?

Who are our tribes, our communities, our fans?

How do we help others?  How do we hurt others?

What’s our story?  How does it matter?

If healthcare marketers are to earn the respect of the CEO, it’s time to quit being agency managers.  It’s time to quit being generalists.  It’s time to quit doing the same thing and expecting different results.

It’s time to be the best at something.

It’s time to understand how our organization fits together and makes money.

It’s time to have the courage to challenge our organization’s purpose and actions.

It’s time for marketing to move out of the marketing department and improve its image.

This is your job.  This is my job.

Let’s get to work.

20 Questions We Need to Demand of Healthcare Marketing (and Some Bonus Qs)

1. Why is marketing a 2nd class citizen in hospitals?

2. Does marketing really matter to hospital CEOs?

3. How should marketers market their marketing to their c-suite?

4. Why are nearly 75% of hospital marketers women and nearly 75% of hospital CEOs men?

5. Is that last question a source of the disconnect between healthcare CEOs and their marketers?

6. Why are healthcare marketers so disconnected from one another in today’s world?

7. Which blogs are most healthcare marketers reading regularly?

8. Is healthcare marketing primarily a sales tool or a relations tool?

9. Is market share a myth?

10. Is the almighty “halo” a myth?

11. Why do patients choose a hospital?

12. Why do patients choose a doctor?

13. Why has the public lost trust in US hospitals?

14. Why are hospital bills so dang high, but so many hospitals supposedly struggling to survive?

15. Are hospital CEOs worth what they’re paid?

16. How do we tell a star hospital CEO from an average one?

17. Why are their no real rock star hospital marketers?

18. What are outdated, ineffective marketing practices in healthcare?

19. Who is the hospital’s real customer - the patient or physician?

20. Should the future of healthcare marketing be focused on physicians - recruiting them, growing their practices, earning their referrals and admissions?

I have no answers to these questions.  Maybe you do.

Here are some interesting and seemingly unrelated facts:

- At least a quarter of Marketing Rounds subscribers aren’t in healthcare.

- Entrepreneurs, consultants and church leaders collectively make up the majority of Marketing Rounds subscribers.  Not hospital marketers.

- There are not that many really good, consistent blogs dedicated to healthcare marketing and brands.  As a matter of fact, I can count them on one hand.  As a matter of fact, I get more marketing ideas from non-healthcare blogs than I do healthcare blogs.

21. Why is this?

22. Is Marketing Rounds relevant?

Again, I have no answers to these questions.  Maybe you do.

So here’s the plan.  I am taking a sabbatical from blogging at Marketing Rounds.  We will return Monday, April 13th.

During this time I’m going to talk to folks.  I’m going to read and research.  I’m going to listen.  Mostly I’m going to listen.

I may contribute to other blogs and media sites if I can contribute something relevant and valuable.  But, for the most part, I’m taking a break.

The most common problem we run into is busyness.  We get so busy doing stuff that we lose sight of what’s working, what’s connecting, what’s relevant to those we serve.

23. Are we serving ourselves or others?

24. Are we so busy we may be losing touch with those we serve?

25. Are we willing to walk away in an effort to get better at what we do?

Thank you for stumbling upon this blog and sticking around.  Thank you for reading.  Thank you for subscribing via feed or email.  Thank you for inviting others. 

I don’t take you for granted.  And I hope this post supports that fact.

In the meantime, there are 155 posts to peruse here at your leisure.  I’m willing to bet you haven’t read them all!

Don’t forget to check out the blogroll in the right-hand column of this site.  These are great resources and I’m confident you will find valuable nuggets within.

Feel free to contact me at keithjennings@mac.com with questions, comments and ideas.

See you April 13th.

Now go make a difference to those you serve!

Are Trust & Attention Enough For Healthcare Marketers?

Last week I wrote about the towering importance of our hospitals’ ability to earn public trust.  Trust and attention are valuable resources, because they are scarce.

Trust (i.e. reputation and recommendation) is a key driver of patient choice.  Attention is the critical first step in building a permission asset.

But are trust and attention enough?

No.

Two additional requirements exist.

First, market size.  Why invest hundreds of thousands of dollars building, equipping and marketing a program for a market of 46 people?  Obviously, the potential market size must justify the investment.

Second, demand.  No one will buy a product or service they don’t think they need or want.  One of marketing’s jobs is to create demand (through education based upon facts, not manipulation).  Marketing should “get a job done” for customers.

The formula (if there were one) might look like this:

Do You Have a Brand Problem or a Marketing Problem?

If you haven’t earned measurable trust and attention from your prospective customers, you have a brand problem.

If you have earned measurable trust and attention from your prospective customers, but you're not converting them to new and repeat customers, you have a marketing problem.

As we’ve discussed this week, trust and attention are valuable resources.  They are differentiators.  They are what I hope you are spending the majority of your time trying to earn.  Especially if you’re NOT a “marketer.”

And, while we’re at it, I hope Marketing Rounds continues to earn your trust and attention.

If you come to this site regularly to read Marketing Rounds, there’s a time-saving way to get the ideas you seek.  You can have Marketing Rounds delivered to you - by either RSS feed or email.

The two subscription options are in the right column of this site, just above the Lijit search bar.  

I hope you will become a subscriber.  And, if you already are one, I hope you will recommend this blog to a trusted peer.

Thank you for reading!  Enjoy your weekend.

“Why Should I Trust You?”

This question is rarely asked directly.

But it is always asked.  It’s just asked in other words.

Worried about your tax-exempt status?

Make sure you answer this question for anyone who may read your 990 Form.  Especially the IRS.

Prove you’re trustworthy.

Trying to boost your marketing to physicians?  Or trying to improve medical staff relations?

Make sure you answer this question for every physician you speak with.

Prove you’re trustworthy.

Trying to drive patient volumes through call-to-action advertising?  Or health screenings?

Make sure you answer this question for every patient who may notice your ad or promotion.

Prove you’re trustworthy.

When an eligible patient doesn’t choose you, the real reason is that they trust the provider they’re choosing more than you.

When a doctor you’re recruiting chooses another hospital in which to practice, the real reason is that they don’t fully trust what you say you can offer.  Or they don’t trust what your town can provide.

Trust is built through actions.  The words should follow the actions.  The words should support the actions.

According to Ram Charan, CEOs don’t fail due to strategy.  They fail to make decisions, get things done, deliver on commitments and fix people problems.  This applies to marketers too.

In other words, we fail when others no longer trust us to do what's best for our organization.  And in doing this, we jeopardize others' trust in our organization.

What is this Trust Economy Thing?

Yesterday I wrote that the role of healthcare marketing is to build public trust.

In his 2008 ChangeThis manifesto, Chris Brogan wrote, “Marketing spend might start at awareness, but in the Trust Economy communities are king, and ROI stands for Return on Influence.”

What’s your ROI - Return on Influence?

At the turn of the year, Kevin Kelly published his manifesto titled, Better Than Free.  With the internet driving everything toward free, he tackles the question, “What can’t be copied?”  In other words, what has value in a world where everything is free?

Among them, he lists trust.  Trust can’t be copied.

Trust is a competitive position.  Certainly not the only one, but arguably the strongest one.

I hope you take time to read these two manifestos.  And, if you’re not following them already, check out Chris Brogan’s and Kevin Kelly’s blogs.

Are You Positioned for the Trust Economy?

“Marketing = sales.”

“All marketing activity should be designed to sell the organization and/or its products/services.”

“The measure of marketing is sales.”

These are all statements I’ve made in my past.

And, in their purest forms, I still believe these to be true.

But my thinking has shifted for organizations who serve the public.  These include hospitals, churches and other nonprofits.  And could apply to politicians, as well.

Here’s how I’d re-write the above statements today...

“Marketing = trust building.”

“All marketing activity should be designed to earn the public’s trust.”

“The measure of marketing is public trust.”

Why?

Those who are expected to serve others are held to a higher standard than product-oriented companies.

We are required to demonstrate charity.

We rely on donor and volunteer support.

And we have lost public trust.

The two most valuable (and scarce) resources in today’s economy are attention and trust.

So, what are you doing about this?  What are you working on today to earn trust in your organization?  How do you measure trust?

Please pass this post on to someone you think would connect with this today.  And begin the dialogue on how you plan to earn and demonstrate trust, both as a global citizen and as an organization with a mission to serve others.