Posts Tagged ‘Digital Strategy’

Four Free Social Media Tools We Use at HCB Health

There are many free tools to help you maximize your social presence. Photo: Creative Commons from Widjaya Ivan

In healthcare marketing, it can be an advantage to use social media to learn about fast-moving trends and interact with customers. Fortunately, a range of powerful tools can make this easier.

Here are four free and and easy tools HCB Health uses to enhance our social media efforts: Continue reading »

Make Your Mobile Efforts Simple for the Best Patient Results

The WebMD app has been downloaded more than five million times on the iPhone and iPad platforms.

We’re living in an era of accelerating technological change.

Nothing endures but change.
- Heraclitus, around 500 BC

The smartphones in our pockets are more powerful than desktop PCs of the recent past. You can access the same breaking information while hiking in New Zealand as when shopping on New York’s Fifth Avenue.

For consumers who increasingly use the internet to help manage their health, the changes are exciting, empowering and bewildering.

For medical device marketers who promote increasingly sophisticated (and effective) devices, there are virtually limitless ways to reach potential patients. Continue reading »

The All-Mighty Online Banner

HCB Health is currently running a banner ad campaign for Fluoxetine60 that targets psychiatrists and other medical specialists. The campaign has delivered a CTR of .14%-.21% (depending on the site) and has helped increase client site traffic by +50%.

Wow, it’s hard to believe the online banner has been around for 18 years. I remember the day that first banner launched and how I honestly thought it was a fad, or maybe a trend, but definitely not a tactic that had long-term staying power. But the evolution and longevity of the banner has proved me wrong and I continue to be impressed with its ability to evolve as consumers’ online habits have evolved. And dare I say I’ve actually become an advocate of the banner, consistently touting its effectiveness and its fundamental place in any digital media recommendation. Continue reading »

RIP SOPA/PIPA: Why Healthcare Marketers Should Take Note

In the aftermath of recent Internet blackout protests, featuring big players such as Wikipedia, Reddit and Major League Gaming, the Web community rallied against proposed Internet regulation laws — and won. The people have spoken, and the bills are dead.

So, what does this have to do with medical marketing? Let’s look at the facts. Continue reading »

Striking a Balance: Emotive Websites that are Usable

During an internal creative review meeting for a hospice website this week, I heard something that I never thought I would hear: “That call-to-action is too strong.” You could almost hear the wheels start spinning in everyone’s mind.

After discussing the call-to-action further, we realized that the problem wasn’t the CTA itself, but an unbalanced execution.

Half of the room thought that the website was not emotionally branded enough and the CTA was too much, too soon. They believed it needed to be about the connection first and foremost. The other half of the room agreed that the emotional branding was very important, but that the usability of the site needed to come first.

They’re both right. We just needed to strike a better balance. 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 »

iPad Apps: Cutting-Edge Sales Tools for Superior Products

Before joining the account team at HCB Health, I spent a number of years as a medical sales field rep. One job specifically required me to sell $275k+ pieces of capital equipment to surgeons. At the time, my only sales tools were paper-based brochures and my winning attitude. While I found success by forming positive surgeon relationships, I often wondered if superior sales tools would make me a more successful salesperson?

Today, developing those superior sales tools is a hefty part of my job at HCB Health. I make it a goal to lead the pack in terms of how our clients market to surgeons. For many of our clients, those superior tools are iPad-based.

iPad apps can be a unique, creative and efficient way to sell your product. The best of these are tailored to a client’s products, goals and sales rep needs. Below are a few different approaches we’ve taken to best accommodate various medical equipment products and sales: Continue reading »