CHPRMS Day Two: Chris Bevolo Talks Marketing Measurement

Usually when you blog from a healthcare conference like CHPRMS, you listen, write and post as quickly as possible. With Chris’ presentation on Thursday, December 2, I knew that would not be the case.

His enlightening presentation on measuring healthcare marketing was a call-to-action for marketing professionals to better prove their worth as budgets, strategies and staff positions continually appear under the cost-cutting microscope.

In a world where many executives view marketing as an expense; Chris wants to help you demonstrate the value marketing efforts bring to your organization. He never suggests measuring is easy, but proving results builds a measurement discipline in your marketing program, puts efforts into perspective and shows what works.

His five steps for measurement:

Define the activity.
Pinpoint what you’re going to measure (and what you’re not going to measure) and when.

Identify desired metrics.
Will success be measured in financial metrics such as revenue, contribution margin or profit margin, acquisition cost or ROI? Or, will metrics be behavioral, to analyze real action and impact. Volumes, admissions, visits? Referrals? Website traffic or social media activity? Or, is your metric attitudinal such as awareness, perception, satisfaction or simply a willingness to recommend to others?

Set the measurement categories.
After you identify what’s to be measured and the metrics to measure by, establish categories for measurement. Check out page 21 of Chris’ presentation for activities and categories to measure joint replacement surgery volume, seminar attendance and a special joint pain are of the website.

Capture data.
Establish pre-activity numbers so you can measure ongoing and final usage. Establish how long measurement will last. The time length will depend on whether you’re measuring a marketing initiative for micro-level impact or for long-term macro-level results.

Evaluate and report.
Don’t wait. Be objective. And don’t hide bad answers or expect perfection. Chris likened marketing reporting to grand rounds. Rounds aren’t held to assign blame; they’re to see what works or doesn’t. He suggests approaching reporting like science: did an initiative meet your expectations or not? Measurement helps to understand why it did or why it didn’t.

His parting tips?

Negotiate your success up front. Being thorough on the front end inevitably refines marketing objectives. If you’re looking for a five percent bump in orthopedics, that’s a start. Be more strategic. Is success more joint replacement procedures? If so, which kind? Are there specific DRGs or payor mixes?

Be cautious with your objectives and focus on outcomes, not actions.

Create proxy actions. As marketers, we cannot drive heart surgery volume directly. We can, however, engage people in cardiac-related proxy actions that indirectly impact the cardiac program: screenings, measurable behaviors, heart-healthy recipes.

The big takeway? Healthcare marketing measurement will empower your organization’s marketing efforts and you as a marketing professional. Do it!

Learn more at http://www.chrisbevolo.com/ or follow Chris on Twitter @intervalchris.

CHPRMS General Session Day One: Social Media Best Practices from Chris Boyer

The CHPRMS Fall Conference kicked off with a general session featuring Chris Boyer, Senior Manager for Digital Communications at Inova Health System. Chris is a long-time Tweeter at Twitter healthcare marketing hashtags #hcmktg and #hcsm and for good reason. He has great insight for both those wading into social media for the first time and for those who consider themselves experienced users.

Rather than rehash what was a great presentation, I’ll pass along what I found to be my biggest takeaway from Chris’ session: pure positioning.

Many hospitals are positioning themselves with a product mindset: with the subject being a surgery, doctor, da Vinci robot, or new patient tower. But the answer is not a pure service message that’s based on amiability and compassion. He suggests it’s somewhere in the middle: a message that focuses on building trust. Patients want to know that hospitals can effectively address their issues and that they won’t get hurt in the process.

One of the greatest tools for building trust in today’s marketing budget: social media.

Whether your hospital participates in social media or not is 100% irrelevant. The conversations are already happening around you. People are telling several hundred friends about a nice nurse who went the extra mile for their family member in a status update. People are crabbing on Twitter about waiting too long in their doctor’s waiting room. People share triumphs, joys, petty complaints and sometimes untruths mistakenly attributed to your hospital. Social media is an opportunity for two-way communication with fans and foes but you have to be there to take part.

There are a million blog posts out there that tell you how and why to get involved in social media already so rather than go there I’ll share these points from Chris as he wrapped up his presentation today.

First, hospital marketers have to realize the role social media has and will have now and in the future. You have to change your message and how you market it. Facebook isn’t going away and it’s somewhere people live; it’s not like search. People do not spend hours sharing and liking on Google.

Second, if your organization is not participating you have to start or risk being left behind. If you participate in social media already, you have to get better.

Third, you need a good social media policy (so everyone knows the rules), to open doors (so everyone has access) and you need a plan (so you’re not wasting the precious little time you have).

Fourth, you need the right team and you need to target the right audience. And last, you need to measure. Rather than striving for friends, fans and followers, search for deeper meaning. Broaden your reach. Build your reputation. Cultivate relationships. And measure your results.

Chris shared several great case studies. The first, from Swedish, promoted their sleep lab services. The second was Innova’s Fit for 50 wellness initiative.

He shared way more than what I have covered here but it’s a lot to think about whether you’re tweeting, blogging or still watching from the sidelines. How will you move forward?

What can hospitals learn from a modern house?

Photo by Kim Foster-Tobin /The State

The State recently ran a story about a modern house under construction in Columbia. A collaborative effort of Celtic Works and Studio 2LR, the house is the right size and right price for a first-time home buyer and it’s no vinyl-clad oversized style popular of late.

The house has been on Facebook since early summer with the makers posting construction photos and information about the construction.

So how does this relate to healthcare and social media?

We’ve heard healthcare providers voice concern over using social media because of the possibility of negative comments and posts. It’s a valid concern as that will inevitably happen at some point because no one or no organization is perfect. Not me, not you, not Mayo Clinic.

The makers of this modern house know people are already talking: at church, to other neighbors, friends and family members and even in the grocery store line. The same is true of healthcare audiences. Conversations about staff, doctors and services happen because they are part of people’s lives. Tuning them out puts you at a disadvantage.

The makers of the house have embraced social media as a strategy knowing with the risk comes potential for tremendous benefit.

The house will unite an audience of fans who support this particular project and the larger scope of modern home design, the companies who believe in it and in all likelihood the attention of the person who will purchase it. Equally important, their social media strategy brings positive and negative conversations to the partners in a public forum.

While communicating with fans and addressing criticism aren’t the real reason the collaboration is using social media, they are very good reasons. Make social media a part of your healthcare marketing strategy to bring the same opportunities to you.

You cannot manufacture a movement.

Notice how more and more people are declaring “things” movements these days?

You know, something that inspires people and catches fire in best way possible. Movements unite people on behalf of causes they believe in. Without belief and passion, a movement has no life.

A textbook case on how movements happen is The Lance Armstrong Foundation’s Livestrong. Rather than being created overnight, it grew and evolved into a cancer-fighting movement. It sparked globally in 2004 after Lance Armstrong wore the then-unique yellow band during the Tour de France. The band inspired people not because Lance wore it, but because of the cancer-fighting mantra adorning it.

The Lance Armstrong Foundation didn’t set out to create a multi-million-dollar fundraising brand. They simply gave their cancer-fighting community an identity and then shared it with others, over the years staying true to the real inspiration behind Livestrong.

So when it comes to movements are they created? Or do they just happen? I think the best thing you can do for a movement is give it the opportunity to rally and inspire people.

Whatever you do, don’t declare it’s a movement unless it genuinely is one.

Raising employee and patient satisfaction with social media.

Use social media to engage your customers! It seems like this is all anyone talks about these days – “the 10 best tricks,” “the three worst pitfalls” and don’t forget to tweet.

What if we dropped back a level and first engaged our employees. The Mayo Clinic did just that. In 2008 they launched a blog for employees called “Let’s Talk” to help explain and discuss a new strategic plan. They implemented an online vehicle allowing staff to propose ideas that could better their working environment or patient care. The Mayo Clinic also posts department blogs, videos and more for their staff. The point being, that the employees learn what the organization is doing from multiple channels and multiple points of view. They see their colleagues’ ideas and thoughts about proposed initiatives. They are part of the discussion and not on the sidelines waiting for whatever comes their way. They have a vested interest in the organization.

Maybe this is one of the reasons the Mayo Clinic is featured in Fortune’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” and why they have low-turnover rates and high patient satisfaction ratings.

People want to be a part of something they are proud of. It’s human nature. If they are part of the team they won’t want to be the person who drops the ball. And if they are happy and invested in their job they are one of the best ambassadors your brand can have.

I once worked with a company whose mantra was “take care of your employees and they will take care of the customer,” a pretty basic but important idea. You can tweet all you want about successes or new services, but an unhappy employee personally sours the patient’s or customer’s experience. So the next time you think about how social media can promote your brand, think close to home first.

 

USC Spotlights CDC Social Media Efforts

Looking for a great example of a “best practice” in healthcare social media? A good place to start is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

I recently attended a presentation at the University of South Carolina’s School of Journalism and Mass Communications featuring Dr. Glen Nowak, the CDC’s Chief of Media Relations. Dr. Nowak shared the CDC’s communication strategy and efforts to multiple audiences through social media channels like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Daily Strength, RSS, YouTube, Flickr, iTunes, and even Second Life.

Nowak said he was originally doubtful about how successful some channels would prove to be. Case in point: podcasts. He wondered how many would listen to a CDC podcast. Turns out that number is about 50-60 thousand per month. And YouTube? During the flu outbreak last year, more people watched CDC videos within YouTube (2 million) than from within the CDC’s website (160,000). They are also exploring alt-social media such as Second Life. Last year, virtual avatar visits to the CDC island for seasonal flu shots did convert into real-world vaccinations.

The CDC is heavily focused on creating widgets and portable content that people “can take to their own (social media) places.” They are also looking ahead, testing ways to communicate with the 87% of the population that are mobile subscribers. This is critical, he notes, for all healthcare communicators when you consider the average user’s phone is within an arm’s reach for 19 hours a day.

The CDC is leveraging social media to get information out quickly, expand access to content, reach more diverse audiences, tailor and target messaging. And they are helping other healthcare communicators do the same. Check out their helpful toolkit here. And look at some of their metrics here.

Even better, please share your social media successes in the comments!

TAG writer is Lesson 11 guest blogger

When Eric Dodds of Brains on Fire came to speak at last month’s AAF meeting, it was an inspirational jab in the arm. Lucky for me, it happened the day before I volunteered on an all-night CreateAthon for local nonprofits. In my day-after, sleep-deprived haze, I tweeted Brains on Fire to share the movement-based work we created for one project. A few e-mails later, I am Lesson 11 guest blogger.

Read my post here and read other Lesson 11 posts here.

Have a Lesson 11 story of your own? Share it with them. Real-life stories like these stoke their creative inferno.

From Ps to Rs; a shift in consumer expectation

As I continue dissecting my notes from the SHSMD conference in Chicago, building from my thoughts on the theme as well as the overview of its content, I’ve realized that my reporting on the marketing evolution is of little benefit – it’s done. Now what?

The only way to successfully adapt to this new environment is by transforming your communications strategy.

While speaking at SHSMD, Phyllis Marino of MetroHealth in Cleveland, Ohio, stated the 4Ps of marketing are obsolete. The new consumer is no longer interested in your mix of Product, Price, Promotion or Place because they now demand a more personalized approach.

With this expectation shift, the 5Rs are the new principles for ensuring the strategic focus of your marketing efforts is modified to appeal to this highly consumer-centric environment.

Recognition. Only with a clear, compelling identity and message will your audience differentiate you from the competition. You need to define what your name stands for and be able to connect with your audience in a more meaningful way.

Relevance. Your audience wants to readily see the link between what your company offers and how it fills their needs; be it accomplishing a task, solving a problem, education or entertainment.

Response.  It’s a dialogue – not a monologue. Therefore, you need to also listen to the consumer and be able to quickly respond to their informational needs.

Receptivity. What they want when they want it, not when you want to deliver it to them. The consumer has his own schedule and doesn’t want to adapt to yours. This is the reason why the internet is now the CENTER of the consumer universe.

Relationships. It’s no longer about connecting the dots; it’s connecting people. If you want to establish a lifetime commitment, you need to think what will keep your audience engaged for the long-term. Till death do you part.

It may be old-fashioned and fallacious of me, but when constructing a communications strategy based on the 5Rs, I find it easier to tackle them like I would the 5Ws of Journalism: Who (Recognition), What (Relevance), When (Response), Where (Receptivity), Why (Relationships).

The trick always comes with identifying the H.

How have you shifted the structure of your communications strategy?

Breaking the Piñata: When is too much information, too much?

Four days, 6 general sessions, 70 break-out workshops, 119 exhibitors, dozens of exchanges during breaks and luncheons with fellow attendees and the SHSMD 2010 conference is complete.

Rich with content and excited to share these pretty, shiny nuggets of knowledge with you, I’m struggling to find a starting point.

It’s almost like cracking open a piñata and not being certain of the direction in which I should scamper. Which goodies do I want to hoard for myself? Which ones do I want to share with others? Which ones do I find fascinating and you may find irrelevant?

I could craft a summary of the SHSMD conference and provide an overview of all the tidbits I’ve gathered, but the final product would be more like a dissertation rather than a blog entry.

Bursting at the seams, I feel like Adam in Paradise Lost when Raphael warned:

 “But Knowledge is as food, and needs no less

Her Temperance over Appetite, to know

In measure what the mind may well contain,

Oppresses else with Surfeit, and soon turns

Wisdom to Folly, as Nourishment to Wind.”

 Now that consumers have developed an excessive craving for conversation, education and details, what makes for a successful online interaction?

Just like biting into a juicy apple, you want to give your consumer digestible bits of information.

As marketers, we need to get out of broadcast mode where we craft our talking points, add some nice graphics or even a video, and post content to the web as another means of pushing out our messages. As The Cluetrain Manifesto laments, we’re still treating the online market as “eyeballs” rather than as people engaged in conversation.

Similar to chatting it up with a fellow attendee at a conference, you need to have a genuine delivery that leads to a positive exchange of ideas and dialogue. Not too much information where you overwhelm the other person and turn them off. Rather, the right balance of content that leaves them satisfied – and wanting seconds.

I can keep serving up my sampling of the conference, but what are you craving? Click brochure to get an overview of the SHSMD 2010 conference. Then, send me a note at kcionek@adamsgroup.com and tell me what topic you would like discussed next.

SHSMD 2010 Conference: Healthcare on the Winds of Change

Karolynn Cionek reports from the SHSMD  trenches:

One could easily assume the theme of the annual AHA conference in Chicago was selected to address the changing role of the healthcare industry as it relates to the impending Health Reform.

However, as I delved into workshops and chatted with fellow attendees, it quickly became apparent that the underlying current was addressing change as it relates to the communications landscape.

After decades of media stasis, the online arena has fundamentally changed how we communicate with our consumers.  

Traditional, offline strategies relied heavily on interruption and coercion to push information out to the masses. Now, consumers are expecting marketers to pull rather than push by delivering useful content at the precise moment they need it.

A 2009 Pew survey reported 61 percent of American adults look online for health information. Thomas McCormally of Cincinnati Children’s, led the Storytelling and Multi-media workshop to further explain that, of those online, 59 percent have done at least one of the following activities:

• Read someone else’s commentary or experience about health or medical issues on an online news group, website, or blog
• Consulted rankings or reviews online of doctors or other providers
• Consulted rankings or reviews online of hospitals or other medical facilities
• Signed up to receive updates about health or medical issues
• Listened to a podcast about health or medical issues

The Web has become a trusted source for people trying to make a decision or solve a problem – particularly when it comes to healthcare.

That last sentence is key to understanding what exactly changed in the communications landscape: trust. Disruption is being replaced by engagement, persuasion by influence of trusted sources.  

With millions of one-way, seller-spun advertisements bombarding us on a daily basis, even in healthcare, we eventually became numb to the noise. We quickly tired of being sold, turned off and stopped trusting advertising.

With advancements in online technology, marketers have a new opportunity to connect to consumers. Rather than drilling down messages into the lowest-common denominator, you can now interact, inform, educate and provide details that were lacking in the broad reaching techniques of yesterday.

While traditional offline outlets remain vital aspects of an overall marketing campaign, the change comes in acknowledging the new consumer wants more substance. They expect a dialogue.

 As a marketer how are you adapting to this new environment?