Intangibility. The absolute biggest challenge of advertising in the field of healthcare.

I feel for the marketing folks at healthcare technology companies. They’re consumers, they see the Coke ads, the Nike ads, all the slick auto advertising, and they want something cool too! And they deserve it. Don’t worry, I’m not going to start talking budgets. I’m also not going to start using intangibility as an excuse. It is possible to do great ads for intangible services and products (within a budget too!). It’s more of a creative challenge, but it is possible.

I guess you could argue that technology products aren’t completely abstract. You could use a computer to represent technology. Of course, we’re not selling PCs, we’re selling software, middleware, systems, portals, whatever, so let’s fill the screen with a big blurry screen shot of 3pt type or show a group of administrators pointing and smiling at a computer screen. Obviously, this doesn’t work, so we focus on the benefits.

So the next challenge of healthcare technology advertising is that just about every competing company touts the same benefits. Increasing revenue is a big one, especially for a Clearinghouse. So let’s show a giant dollar bill or a big stack of money. Our audience is smarter than that. This type of advertising might seem to work in a focus group due to its obvious message, but what is it really doing to your brand long term? It cheapens your brand. It lacks intelligence. So what is another benefit of many healthcare technology companies? Let’s say Electronic Medical Records is the “product”, then the benefit is often efficiency which hopefully leads to better patient care. Is this a stretch? And even if it’s not a stretch, how do you show “efficiency” in an ad and still stand out from the competition? Happy patients are often seen in healthcare advertising and we used to be able to get away with that, but the stopping power just isn’t there without some kind of creative spin in this world of advertising overload. It’s too common.

So what’s the answer? The answer is dig deeper.Dig past the obvious, dig for something unique to your company, something to grab attention first and foremost. Think about the ad’s environment. What will stand out in the healthcare environment? Think of objects that can represent the benefit that have nothing to do with healthcare and look for ways to relate it back to healthcare immediately with the copy. Or think of healthcare or technology objects that you can play around with or put in unexpected situations in order to get the point across in a way that’s not overdone and cliché. This article, “Ten Myths About Selling Intangible Services,” brings up a very good point. It says that “The biggest difference between selling “things” and intangible services is the pivotal role of trust. Trust is even more critical to selling intangible services than it is to selling things.” Oh how true this is! So, if you can find a valid truth, and execute it in an interesting way, you have a winner.

Here are a few examples:

Capario, one of our clients, offers customized, easy-to-use revenue cycle management solutions. What does this mean? What’s the benefit? Well, the benefit is improved cash flow for physician practices. So do we show the doctor drowning in a stack of cash or do we dig deeper to find a concept that would lift a brand by portraying its personality, get attention, and get the point across in an intelligent and believable way? The nugget, the believable piece of information was, that according to a recent independent study by KLAS®, claims submitted via Capario are paid on the first payer submission at least 90 percent of the time. Awesome. It makes our job much easier when the client really has an excellent product or service to sell. But how do we visualize that? Just a big headline that says “according to a recent independent study by KLAS®, claims submitted via Capario are paid on the first payer submission at least 90 percent of the time.” Not bad, but would you stop to read it? OK, how about a pie chart with the same statement? Not bad, but would you remember it, would it make you “like” Capario, would it make you think that Capario had a nice “brand personality”, make you want to get to know them? We had to keep digging. Why does our target audience care so much about getting paid? Well, it makes their life easier right? So what have we got? We’ve got a factual statement, a pie chart, and the concept of “easy”….GETTING PAID THE FIRST TIME. EASY AS PIE. We literally made a pie chart out of a cherry pie which tied in perfectly to Capario’s brand colors and style. Click here to view the ad. OK, so admittedly it’s not rocket science, but it’s an interesting visual, that stands out in the technology space, while still giving a clear and believable message with a little bit of personality. By the way, we also gave away a cherry red Dell computer which again, was a perfect tie-in to the brand and this particular concept.

Another one of our clients is the AMGA. The American Medical Group Association. This client is different to most of our clients because they are a membership organization not a technology company. The intangible benefit of “networking” was our challenge in this case.See the 2 ads we developed: one for Medical members and the other for Corporate. Both ads visualize the intangible in a way that’s unique but not so far removed that the message isn’t immediately understood.

Another one of our clients which was recognized in a KLAS® report is Precyse Solutions. I like this ad because it uses the dictation devices to make their more intangible product and service tangible and combines it with the typical “thumbs up” imagery to create a simple believable message in an interesting way.

Dr. Neil Baum is a nationally recognized urologist, speaker and author. His most recent book, Marketing Your Clinical Practices: Ethically, Effectively, Economically, Fourth Edition, is an updated and revised edition of the best selling guide to medical practice marketing, including new topics and advanced techniques. Dr. Baum also provides thoughts on various topics through his blog.

Times are tough for doctors. Reimbursements are decreasing and overhead costs are escalating. As a result, doctors’ incomes are declining. There are no signs that the current administration is going to resolve this situation to the benefit of physicians and their practices. So what are doctors to do? I suggest implementing a marketing strategy during these difficult times.

Here’s a little historical perspective:

At the time of the Great Depression two companies dominated the packaged cereal industry: Kellogg and Post. When the market demand for packaged cereals decreased, Post did what most businesses do when demand declines: tightened its belt and reduced its marketing and advertising budgets. What did Kellogg do? It was the contrarian who did the opposite and doubled its ad budget. As a result, even with the economy in the tank, it increased its sales nearly thirty percent and today remains at the top of the packaged cereal industry.

It is of interest that when times are tough, most doctors and medical practices behave more like Post— i.e., cut back on their investments, marketing, and practice promotion —than like Kellogg—i.e., put money into new investments and new procedures, increase office space, add more doctors, add ancillary services, and increase marketing efforts.

Economist Roland Vaile has found that businesses that keep ad spending stable or increase it during recessions see their sales hold up significantly better than those that don’t. A study of advertising during the 1981-1982 recession found that sales at firms that increased advertising, or at least held it steady, grew precipitously in the next three years. In comparison, only slight increases were seen at firms that had slashed their budgets. A McKinsey study of the 1990-1991 recession found that companies that remained market leaders or became serious challengers during the downturn typically had increased their acquisitions, R & D, and ad budgets, while companies at the bottom of the pile had reduced them (Surowiecki J, Hanging tough, New Yorker, April 20, 2009).

Medical practices are similar to other businesses that have a product or service to offer their customers/patients. So, let’s look at some examples of marketing that practices can consider during this economic downturn. Perhaps, as a result, we can be the Kelloggs of the medical profession rather than the Posts. So read on and let’s put a little “snap, crackle, and pop” into our marketing efforts.

Everything about marketing a medical practice can be counterintuitive. It starts with the very basic thought, “Hey, I’m a doctor. I shouldn’t have to market” to “OK, all my colleagues around me are marketing, so I’ll do what they are doing.”

Here’s some food for thought: Promoting your services is not about yelling the loudest to the world that you are brilliant. Or putting an ad together that lists all of your services. We call that the “push” method. You are pushing yourself onto the world hoping it sees what an expert you are. 

A much better approach is the subtle “pull” method. This involves strategically educating your preferred, would-be patients so they seek you out because they believe you are the expert they need to solve their problems. 

For example, let’s say you know you are very good at treating urinary incontinence. So, how do you let the community know you are good at caring for incontinence? Answer: you educate prospective patients using instructional platforms. This pulls patients toward you, since they now see you as the expert on the one subject they are most passionate about at the moment.

I guarantee that if you help patients with their incontinence, they will trust you so much, they will return to you to help them with their other urologic conditions—and bring their families, friends and colleagues with them.

We in marketing call this, “Riches in the Niches.” Get known for one thing, and customers/patients will keep coming back for more.

Bottom line: Marketing and practice promotion is an effective way to attract new patients to your practice. It is reasonably inexpensive and it does generate results. Ready, aim, market!

Qik: We talked a few weeks ago about lifecasting and tools such as Ustream that allow users to stream live videos from their computers, so the next logical step would be live streaming from a phone. Qik is a mobile video platform that can stream live video to the Internet right from a cell phone. Now anywhere you go, you can share your experiences live at the click of a button with any friends or strangers that happen to be tuned in. The service can be linked into e-mail, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook, and there are already mobile apps available for Android phones.

Past Words of the Week
Posterous, Ning, API, Lifecasting, Crowdsourcing, Meme, Social bookmarking, Trackback, Twitter Grader, Authority, TweetBeep, Compete, Astroturfing, WEGO Health, BackTweets, PDR.net, socialmention, Twazzup, Health Exchange, Health Tweeder, DIDGET, Thoora, Google Buzz, bit.ly, E-patient, Alltop, mHealth, Augmented reality, OpenID, ROI, #hcsm, Medpedia, Almost.at, Hashtag, FollowFriday, Beta, Microblogging, Sidewiki, Meta tags

A few weeks ago, I was in Massachusetts visiting a sick family member. This is the area where I began my healthcare sales career back in 1983, and I had a great time remembering those early days. I was a sales manager at a ComputerLand, kind of an old version of BestBuy. One of my customers developed software to manage medical practices, and they bought their PCs from my store. (By the way, just as a point of reference, these PCs either had two 5 1/4” floppy disks—one for software and one for data—or had one floppy disk and a built-in 10 megabyte hard drive. The de facto standard of the day was the IBM XT.) I quickly became enamored with software, and a short time later I took a sales position with the software company. Their name was National Medical Systems, the application was called Med-1, and they were ultimately acquired by Misys.

My territory included Worcester and Springfield, so I spent a lot of my time visiting physician practices around the large BayState Health System in Springfield and University of Massachusetts Medical Center, an up-and-coming teaching hospital in Worcester. Whenever I was in Worcester, I liked to frequent a popular diner called the Parkway. Great food, friendly employees, reasonable prices. It was at the Parkway that I learned one of my earliest, most valuable sales lessons. As I sat down at the counter for breakfast one day, lo and behold, one of my “A” prospects was sitting right next to me. What a coincidence!

After a bit of small talk between gulps of coffee, I said something like: “So, Dr. Patel, can you see how this practice management solution will make your office run more smoothly and make your office manager’s work so much easier?” I felt if I could use this time to convince him of the overwhelming merits of our application, I might even walk out of breakfast with a sale!

He replied, “I have very little interest in making my office manager’s life any easier. I already pay her well, and she should work hard for the money.” Ouch! After a little more awkward conversation, I agreed to follow up with him later, and as I was leaving the diner, I realized I had blown the sale. But I had learned a valuable lesson: I can only make the sale if I a) KNOW what the prospect’s pain points are and 2) can ease said pain. And in the software business, sometimes the market doesn’t even know they HAVE the pain your product will ease. If they DO know, do they also know there are products available to ease the pain? And if they know that, do they know that your company offers those products? And if they know that, do they know the unique value proposition that makes your product a leader in the field?

Too often, we assume we know what our prospects want, need and what will motivate them to buy. We can’t take that for granted. We need to do the research. Ask the tough questions. And gear our sales presentations to those exact needs.

On the bright side, the eggs were great.

Posterous: Posterous is a site that allows anyone to post any item of interest to the Web at any time, then provides the user with a custom URL that they may then share via their social networks. Acting as a sort of hybrid of a blog and Twitter, all a user has to do is send an e-mail with an attached photo, video, MP3, or other file, to the generic inbox. The site instantly responds to the user’s e-mail with a custom URL that will host whatever file that was sent. Similar to services like TwitPic, Posterous users’ information can be shared instantly and publicly.

Past Words of the Week
Ning, API, Lifecasting, Crowdsourcing, Meme, Social bookmarking, Trackback, Twitter Grader, Authority, TweetBeep, Compete, Astroturfing, WEGO Health, BackTweets, PDR.net, socialmention, Twazzup, Health Exchange, Health Tweeder, DIDGET, Thoora, Google Buzz, bit.ly, E-patient, Alltop, mHealth, Augmented reality, OpenID, ROI, #hcsm, Medpedia, Almost.at, Hashtag, FollowFriday, Beta, Microblogging, Sidewiki, Meta tags

While the contractual details of basketball player LeBron James’ signing with the Miami Heat have been completed, we are now witnessing the public dissection of how the move was made, which is sure to continue for some time.

A quick recap: Last Thursday, ESPN hosted the LeBron James show, dedicated to the announcement of where James has decided to play in the upcoming season. Dan Gilbert, spurned majority owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers, issued a public letter decrying James’ decision. Which then led to Jesse Jackson’s inflammatory quotes disparaging Gilbert’s letter. On Monday, the NBA announced that it was fining the Cavaliers’ owner $100K for his “ill-advised and imprudent” words. While many have railed against ESPN for the announcement show spectacle and criticized James for his lack of communication with the Cavaliers’ organization throughout the process, many parties are now lambasting the Cavaliers’ owner even more for his response – not only for the content but also for the non-traditional font he chose for his public letter. Dan Gilbert’s visceral, seemingly impetuous reaction letter was met with the same criticism as James’ decision. The truth is, communication errors are continuing to be made by all sides.

Fortunately, spokespeople in the healthcare space have typically taken a more measured approach, and for the most part have heeded the advice of counsel to use clear, coordinated and well thought-out communications. The LeBron James example is a reminder that professional scrutiny and dissection will continue long after the ink is dry on a given news announcement. In the world of public perception, how and when something is said is often as important as what is said. As we venture into the world of social media – an area where people tend to be less censored – this need for measured, coordinated and appropriate communications is especially necessary. A strong public relations voice needs to be a crucial part of corporate decisions – not just for outbound announcements and press releases but at the planning table as well. Beyond providing advice on corporate messaging, public relations should take into account how a given message will be received by different audiences in an evolving business climate. What’s more, organizations need to be mindful that with the advent of the Internet, communications now reside in cyberspace for an indeterminate amount of time, enabling people to access communications for years to come.

While your next public communication may not be at risk of a $100K fine from the NBA, remember that the implications of your words may be more far reaching than you think.

Ning: Ning is a site that allows anyone to create a fully functional social network for as little as $20 per year. This is a great tool for people who share similar hobbies, interests or ideals to get together on the Web. With features such as groups, photos, chat, RSS feeds and forums, along with each member’s unique profile, a Ning network has many of the same capabilities of the social networking giants Facebook and MySpace. Ning is also a creative tool for companies to use to disseminate information and recruit new employees.

Past Words of the Week
API, Lifecasting, Crowdsourcing, Meme, Social bookmarking, Trackback, Twitter Grader, Authority, TweetBeep, Compete, Astroturfing, WEGO Health, BackTweets, PDR.net, socialmention, Twazzup, Health Exchange, Health Tweeder, DIDGET, Thoora, Google Buzz, bit.ly, E-patient, Alltop, mHealth, Augmented reality, OpenID, ROI, #hcsm, Medpedia, Almost.at, Hashtag, FollowFriday, Beta, Microblogging, Sidewiki, Meta tags

A recent global survey by Marks & Clerk, the UK patent firm, suggests that big pharma is rapidly approaching a “patent cliff” and will be more dependent than ever on its biotech brethren for the development of successful and profitable drugs in the years ahead.  The survey found that bio/pharm may be entering an even cozier relationship than they already have, resulting in a slew of mergers and acquisitions. 

Conducted among 400 biotech and pharma execs in the U.S., UK, Europe and Asia, the survey revealed a pessimistic view of the innovation capabilities of big pharma. Fully 82% of executives had little faith that big pharma would be able to innovate sufficiently to replenish shrinking drug development pipelines, resulting in a marked increase in acquisitions to augment that deficiency. Nearly three-quarters predicted substantial merger activity within the next two years, with increased activity beginning as early as next year.

These predictions suggest that the environment for biotech companies seeking partners or exit strategies has greatly improved. So In addition to shoring up balance sheets, tightening operations and demonstrating the clinical value of compounds and drugs, there are numerous actions to be taken on the marketing and communications front to ensure that a company is putting its best foot forward.

The most strategic and often most cost-effective approach to improving a company’s visibility and stature is to fully integrate marketing and communications to ensure that positioning, messages, strategies and tactics of all the marketing disciplines are in alignment and are able to deliver the company brand and story most forcefully.  And it is important to note that this integration certainly now includes social media which is absolutely transformational  in the way that individuals and companies get information and communicate with each other, and are able to disseminate information and strengthen their brands.  A few things to consider:

A strategic public relations program is one of the best ways to raise visibility to broad industry audiences in a way that educates about the company, its science, management, goals, intellectual property and pipeline.  This program may contain many components including byline articles and opinion editorials placed in leading trades or business publications, executive speeches and appearances at important conferences and blogs on the company website or other online media.  All of these tactics, if orchestrated strategically, are very effective in raising a company’s awareness in a credible way. Key to this program is Thought Leadership, and this is especially important as it relates to acquisitions.  The acquirer wants to know they are acquiring talent and intellect as well as substances in development or products on the market. Thought Leadership programs usually include byline articles written by scientists or executives involved the success of the company, opinion editorials, and white papers which demonstrate leadership and knowledge both on the scientific and business sides.  Being an acknowledged thought leader may also result in a premium at acquisition time.

 It is also important to make sure your website is up to date, relevant, and reflects the themes your company and the industry embrace and are concerned about. Your company logo, the images you choose for the site and language content that resonate with key audiences, in this case the acquirer, will leave an important, lasting impression if pharma is “shopping around” on the web for potential products and doesn’t already know you. Ensure that your marketing communications materials are sharp, professional, accurate, and reflect the latest advances of your compound in the clinic or your drug on the market.  Spec sheets, fact sheets, Q&As are all important descriptors of your company and its key products and compounds.

Finally, as noted above, social media can reinforce a company’s evolution and momentum by increasing its exposure to those who follow the industry.  A company becomes more visible to all interested players if it has the tools to stay top of mind when it counts.

While mergers and acquisitions are nothing new in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries and there has been a symbiotic relationship between the two sectors for many decades, the Marks & Clerk survey suggests that the continued weakness in big pharma pipelines will intensify the hunt for biotech drug development for some years to come, and biotechnology companies would do well to position themselves for a very different, more open and opportunistic future that hasn’t been seen in years.

API: API (application programming interface) is an interface that allows one software application to interact with another. In social media, the API is what allows sites like Twitter to be used through desktop applications such as TweetDeck or mobile applications like UberTwitter. Shared APIs also allows users’ Twitter updates to display on their Facebook page, and vice versa, and it’s how YouTube videos are able to be embedded on other sites and blogs. As long as developers can take advantage of public APIs, the number of new social media tools and apps will continue to increase, and the capabilities of the most popular networks will continue to amaze.

Past Words of the Week

Lifecasting, Crowdsourcing, Meme, Social bookmarking, Trackback, Twitter Grader, Authority, TweetBeep, Compete, Astroturfing, WEGO Health, BackTweets, PDR.net, socialmention, Twazzup, Health Exchange, Health Tweeder, DIDGET, Thoora, Google Buzz, bit.ly, E-patient, Alltop, mHealth, Augmented reality, OpenID, ROI, #hcsm, Medpedia, Almost.at, Hashtag, FollowFriday, Beta, Microblogging, Sidewiki, Meta tags

Guest post by Robert Meyer, vice president of marketing for Chamberlin Edmonds (Atlanta)

A public relations program is not an undertaking that typically correlates one-to-one with sales.

Strategic PR is intended to increase brand awareness and market exposure. Position an organization as an innovator and thought leader in its market niche. Educate target audiences about industry issues. Inform clients and prospects about products, services, value and benefits.

Without a doubt, the long-term objective ultimately is to boost sales and produce the “green” of revenue. But that’s not to say PR can’t bear fruit in the short term as well.

Not long ago, Chamberlin Edmonds worked with our Dodge team to place a case study in an industry publication. And it caused the phone to ring. We received three direct leads from the story.

Why was this particular story so effective? Because it adhered to time-honored tenets that characterize strategic PR:

• The case study was bylined by the customer and focused on the customer’s results, not upon Chamberlin Edmonds as the vendor. It was a classic example of “show me, don’t tell me.”  The story outlined the challenges the customer faced and how it was able to solve them.
• The case study was respectful to the reader. Healthcare decision makers are savvy and recognize a sales message wrapped into a so-called objective case study when they see one. Our company name was mentioned only once, very late in the story. But readers got the message: We want to achieve those results, too. How can we do it? Who should we turn to?
• The story was placed in an appropriate publication widely read by the Chamberlin Edmonds target audience. No matter how compelling the story, any message will resonate only with readers who identify with the issue at hand and are likewise motivated to seek solutions that will improve performance – both their own and their organization’s. It’s vital that PR efforts focus on strategically developed media lists.
• The case study met the editorial objectives of the publication in which it appeared. Competition for editorial space in all publications is higher than it’s ever been – and all publications have their own rules. Case studies and bylined articles are much more likely to be accepted if 1) they fit into the publication’s planned editorial calendar or story budget; 2) if they are written in a voice and manner that complies with established style guidelines; and 3) if they offer genuine, non-promotional value to the publication’s readership.

It goes without saying that Chamberlin Edmonds was very pleased when our case study reached prospects and opened doors for us. We don’t expect it to happen every time, but we are convinced that a commitment to strategic PR efforts delivers high-value results over the long term. It will boost sales – and help any organization to “go green” in today’s difficult economy.