Archive for the ‘Media Strategy’ Category

8 Tips for Successfully Marketing Physicians

A 2010 national survey by Strategic Health Care Marketing showed that 89 percent of hospitals marketed employed physicians, while 59 percent marketed non-employed medical staff physicians. Marketing, public relations, physician relations and Web departments were most involved in these marketing efforts.

For hospital (and healthcare) marketers, this shift in relationships with doctors means a tremendous change in strategy to support both non-employee community physicians and hospital-employed physicians. It’s critical to approach this landscape with an eye on the future because even more changes will occur as healthcare reform issues are debated and addressed. In the meantime, there are solid strategies to help position employed and non-employed physicians for success.

Speaking from experience, both on the corporate hospital setting side and the agency side, healthcare marketers deal with several similar issues on a regular basis. One of the universal issues I’ve experienced is how to tackle successful physician relations marketing through the lens of the marketing professional. Continue reading »

iPhone Leads Mobile Advertising Push

Last April, we reported on the rise of mobile ad spending. Since then, new data on mobile ad spend has put the iPhone’s iOS operating system at the top of mobile ad venues.

87% of agencies surveyed recommend driving ads to the iPhone according to STRATA

Media buying solutions provider STRATA conducted a survey of ad agencies, finding that 87% recommend driving ads to the iPhone, compared with 62% recommending Android.

These results are interesting, considering that Android accounts for 56% of smartphone share while iPhone racks up only 28%. Let’s see why agencies are recommending iPhone. Continue reading »

Hospital Websites: Beauty is in the Eye of the User

In April, we featured a blog post entitled What Do Consumers Want from a Health Plan Website?, which encouraged health plan companies to tailor their sites to consumer needs. But hospitals and clinics should also ensure that their sites don’t leave a user feeling confused and frustrated.

Hospitals face a complex balancing act. On one hand, visitors to a hospital website want to accomplish many tasks, including finding a doctor, getting directions, making an appointment and evaluating the hospital. But they also want clear and concise pages that are user-friendly. In the information age, in which 140 character tweets and text messages rule the air, people want a multitude of information in quick spurts.

The problem is that hospital stakeholders may not even realize that there’s a problem! It becomes automatic for them to click through a series of links or deal with a messy homepage. The best strategy for an employee wishing to revamp the site is to sit down and pretend to be a prospective patient. Picture yourself as a mom whose kid has a weird-looking rash or someone with an emergency.

Once you have taken on a persona, look at your site with their eyes, and focus on four main questions: Continue reading »

Advergames – The Next Step for Healthcare Marketing?

In a world where as many as 5,000 advertisements are seen daily, many marketers have been finding new ways to reach consumers that aren’t intrusive or bothersome, but are still impactful. We’ve already seen this done with product placement in TV shows and in movies, and it looks like the next area to explore is video games. Advergames, as they are called, are online/offline video games in which brands and products are interwoven into the game. The advantage of an advergame over product placement is that users often actually interact with the product in the game.

Why Create an Advergame?

1. Increase brand awareness – If the game is enjoyable and playable you’ll be able to get higher engagement rates, and with that comes higher brand recall.
2. Target specific brand demographics – Advergames allow the advertiser to create relevant games for their target audiences.
3. Measurable – Able to see who’s playing the game, when they‘re playing it, where they’re playing it and for how long. This gives you more data-driven insights about your target audience than ever before.
4. Increase ROI with lower risk – Advergames are a more cost effective way to create an engaging and measurable experience with consumers rather than many traditional media tactics.

Continue reading »

The “Gamification” of Healthcare

With the diminishing mind share of traditional media among consumers, advertisers are constantly seeking new and innovative ways to reach them with their message. So where have all the consumers gone? How are they spending their free time? The answer might surprise you.

Interactive games keep people fit through healthy competition.

An estimated 72% of all Americans play video games

Today, gaming has surpassed Hollywood as the largest entertainment industry in the world. This meteoric rise in online and console-based video game popularity has become the new Promised Land among marketers.

The trick, it seems, is to create an engaging game that educates while it entertains. Instead of defeating aliens or rescuing the princess, players spend countless hours working toward intangible goals dictated by marketers. This process is known in the industry as “gamification.” Continue reading »

Google Grows Digital Ad Share in New Categories

News Flash: Google is huge! Okay, so maybe that isn’t so much a news flash, but the fact that Google continues to grow is definitely something that remains top of mind for advertisers.

In the week of May 23, 2011, it was announced that Google surpassed Yahoo! in digital display advertising after Yahoo!’s 16-year stint on top.¹ IDC’s latest “Worldwide and U.S. Internet Advertising Report” stated that “Google’s net U.S. display advertising revenue share grew to 14.7% in 1Q11 from 13.3% in 4Q10, while Yahoo!’s declined from 13.6% to 12.3%.”² Continue reading »

Adjust Your Media Planning with Ever-Changing Consumption

I once worked for a guy who loved to say, “Change is good. We should all kiss change on the lips!”

But as a media director faced with the constant whirl of changes in the media industry, it’s not always easy to get cozy with change. Media influences our lives virtually every waking minute of each day (for those of you that sleep with your smartphone, make that 24 hours a day). This obsession with media and proliferation of media choices creates constant shifts in media consumption, both offline and online. And because people now graze through media throughout the day, the media campaigns we recommend to our clients require much more analysis. Media as a whole has evolved into an incredibly powerful entity. Continue reading »

How to Localize a Brand

Even when your brand has national or regional appeal, sometimes it’s beneficial to customize your communications even further to the local markets. That way you show relevance to their unique culture — and show them that they matter to you. Here’s five steps we took to localize the Texas Oncology brand for one of their toughest markets, Amarillo.

1. Conduct Research

Before you start to alter the brand, do your research. Learn about the market — demographics, psychographics and media trends, and then dive into the competitive landscape. Continue reading »