Online Health Information Trends for Cardiovascular Marketers

October 1, 2012

Prioritizing online efforts to fuel your marketing mix can be tricky.

While there’s no question that patients are seeking online health information, it’s sometimes hard to pinpoint the best places to target messages.

A new infographic from Mashable highlights current trends in how consumers are accessing healthcare information and engaging with social networks.

Here are some notable finds:

People who visit doctors more frequently are also more likely to turn to online sources such as WebMD or YouTube. Are you developing relevant content for this segment of engaged patients?

Parents are more likely to seek online information, and people in their 30s are the biggest fans of blogs and patients communities. I suspect this behavior extends to people who are seeking information about their own parents’ health. Adult children are certainly important influencers for cardiac care.

WEbMD still leads the pack in terms of the most accessed online resource. Have you checked out their geo-targeted advertising possibilities? We’re having good luck there for some of our clients.

Patients still trust traditional communication more than digital or social. Even in this age of online frenzy, don’t neglect more traditional media and PR as part of your mix.

More people are still accessing online information via their PCs vs. smartphones and tablets. This will not deter me from recommending that you get your mobile strategy in order. But, I agree it’s critical to make sure the rest of your online content, including your regular website, is updated and relevant first.

What advice do you have for maximizing online efforts?

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Posted by Julie Robinson

Four Tips to Boost Cardiovascular Marketing Direct Mail Response

July 2, 2012

Direct mail is not dead.

Don’t get me wrong. I love email and online marketing as much as the next digital guru. But those of you who know me well can hear me saying, “They’re just another tool in our toolbox.”

Based on recent campaign results for our clients, I’m convinced more than ever that cardiovascular marketers can generate excellent results with strategic, targeted, well-crafted, “traditional” direct mail.

It’s an excellent medium to reach residents who are new to your area or to engage with new patients through offers of screenings or heart-healthy educational content.

However, it’s not necessarily enough to just mail once and to expect miracles. Direct mail, like any media, can benefit from frequency.

An excerpt from “Strategy & Tactics for Boosting Direct Mail Response,” a new 122-page report from Direct Marketing IQ, features best practices from leading direct mail experts. It highlights four ideas to consider:

  • Re-mail the original package to the same target audience.
    • As with any message, timing is everything, and a re-mail could catch people just when they need your services. We’ve had great luck with the strategy — often generating more than 50 percent more response than we got with the first round.
  • Send anew mailer execution to non-responders.
    • Highlight a different benefit. The theory is that if one approach doesn’t work, you go back to the prospect with a different pitch.
  • If your offer is good for a limited time only, be sure to play that up.
    • People tend to respond more if there’s a sense of urgency. For example, if you have packaged screenings into a package price, think about setting a time limit: “Your eligibility for this final offer expires on December 31, 2011.”
  • The last contact with the prospect can be a postcard.
    • 
Postcards are inexpensive, and your message is instantly visible. Our clients have had great success with follow up postcards. It’s certainly an easy strategy to consider.

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Posted by Julie Robinson

Worst Heart Habits: Great Content for Cardiovascular Marketers

May 9, 2012

Lifestyle choices may account for more than 90 percent of heart attack risk, according to new research. And even small changes can make a big impact.

I saw a great post from Healthline that identifies six of the worst habits for your heart and looks at how to turn them around.

Too much TV

  • People who spend four or more hours per day on screen-based entertainment have double the risk of a cardiac event vs. those who spend two hours or less in front of the tube.
  • The risk of dying prematurely is much greater for those who are heavy screen watchers, even if they also exercised.
  • Recent research also shows that too much sitting can be just as bad for your heart as smoking. (I hope you’re walking around reading this post on your mobile phone.)  I’m tempted to start scheduling more meetings while walking. Seriously.

Negativity

  • A Harvard review of 200 previous studies found that an optimistic outlook might cut heart disease and stroke danger by 50 percent.
  • The association between an upbeat attitude and reduced cardiovascular risk held true even when they took the person’s age, weight, smoking status, and other risk factors into account.

Ignoring Snoring

  • Frequent loud snoring can trumpet obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), a dangerous disorder that magnifies heart attack and stroke risk, if untreated.
  • Ask your doctor about a sleep study if you are waking at night for no apparent reason or have unexplained daytime drowsiness.

Forgoing Fiber

  • Research from the National Institutes of Health and American Association of Retired People found that people age 50 and older who ate the most fiber were up to 60 percent less likely to die from cardiovascular disease, infectious diseases and respiratory ailments, compare to those who ate the least.
  • Another study showed that eating eight servings of fruits and vegetables a day trims the risk of a fatal heart attack by 22 percent, compared to eating less than three.

Failing to Floss

  • One theory is that the same bacteria that trigger gum disease may also spark inflammation inside the body, damaging arteries. I’ve seen other research lately disputing this as a clear link, but still….this link seems to make sense.
  • A 17-year-study published in Journal of Aging Research showed those who never flossed were 30 percent more likely to die than were those who flossed daily.

Smoking Even a Little

  • Some statistics show that smoking even one cigarette a day increases the threat of heart attack by 63 percent and smoking 20 or more cigarettes a day more than quadruples it.
  • Tobacco use also boosts risk for diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and many types of cancer.

These are great reminders.  Sometimes it’s hard to realize how much even small changes matter.

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Posted by Julie Robinson

Four Strategies to Increase Scans for Your Cardiovascular Marketing QR Codes

February 29, 2012

A few simple tips can ensure your audience will scan your QR codes.

The momentum on QR codes continues, even with other mobile technologies moving in. Much to my surprise, a post I did a few months ago on QR codes was the most popular topic I wrote about all year.

Not wanting to be accused of being out of touch with my readers, here’s a follow up with a few great reminders from Target Marketing.

1. Provide Instructions Near the QR Code


While use of QR codes is much more mainstream than this time last year, some people still don’t know what they are. I was recently reminded of this when a person who is arguably a member of the CV marketing target audience sent me an e-mail asking if I knew about this “great new technology.” Yikes.

Anyway, I digress. Simple instructions, e.g., copy that says, “Scan the QR Code with your smartphone” can help. You might also think about adding a visual that shows a smartphone pointing to the QR Code.

2. Give People an Incentive


As with any marketing tool, make sure you have a good reason to use it besides the “cool” factor. Think about how the QR code can make life easier for your audience — accessing a map or directions, contacting you or making an appointment. Then make sure to include the benefit on your printed materials to let people know what they’ll gain from scanning the code.

3. Educate Your Audience Ahead of Time


Promote your QR codes in some of your other media channels. Think about a blog post or an online video that demonstrates how one uses a smartphone to scan QR Codes. Put one on your social media pages or in your email signature for a little while. Talk about them in your e-newsletter. Integrating information about your QR codes in these channels may increase usage on your printed pieces.

4. Shorten the Destination URL

This is similar to the importance of fast load times on your website. The more data that you have in a QR Code, the harder it may be to scan it quickly. Make sure to use a service that shortens your URLs before generating the QR Code.

If you have other tips that are working for you, share in the comments below.

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Posted by Julie Robinson

Do Consumers Trust Your Cardiovascular Marketing Brand?

February 13, 2012

“Trust me.”

We’ve all heard the phrase a million times. But what makes one person or brand’s plea for trust more credible than others?

We’ve recently been exploring this theme with a health system client. Think about your own experience. Which brands have really earned your trust? Why do you trust them? And how does your level of trust influence future purchase decisions?

I recently saw this post about strategies used by financial services brand, Charles Schwab, to continually deepen trust with its customers.

I think many parallels can be drawn between financial services and healthcare in terms of why it’s critical to gain consumer trust. Both industries handle people’s most vital information and transactions. Money and health are arguably two of the most critical and, certainly, most personal aspects of running the business of life.

Schwab’s well known “Talk to Chuck” campaign, works to truly understand consumer concerns about working with a brokerage firm. Messaging speaks candidly about those concerns in real, human terms.

The next iteration of the campaign, “Fuel the Movement” is described in the Schwab Talk blog:

Just like the first “Talk to Chuck” ads that launched six years ago, we truly mean what we say—good investing should start with a conversation. And we believe that it’s our role to listen carefully to clients to understand their unique needs before doing anything else.

We believe that investors today want plain talk. That means tangible solutions for their specific situations and transparency about cost.

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Health care consumers today also want someone who will listen carefully, provide specific solutions and provide cost transparency.

Schwab is engendering trust by addressing concerns and focusing on integrity, candor, engagement, and straightforward actionable ideas packaged in a wrapper of plain talk. In today’s jaded, cynical consumer environment, it’s a refreshing approach that stands out.

Schwab also highlights third-party ratings and customer testimonials on its website to back up its brand promise of “Trust Us.” Healthcare marketers typically have access to both of these third-party endorsements as well.

I think we can all learn some great lessons from Schwab. What are you doing to engender trust for your brand?

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Posted by Julie Robinson

Five Ways Cardiovascular Marketers Can Use Pinterest

January 17, 2012

The surprise social networking success of 2011 may be exactly what your brand needs to boost engagement in 2012.

Pinterest is hot. It came out of virtual obscurity last year to become one of the top ten social networks, and it shows no signs of slowing down.

Pinterest is an image-based platform that focuses on lifestyle issues. It almost looks like an upscale women’s magazine. The basic premise is this: users create and name boards about any subject they like (Places I’d Like to Visit, Healthy Meals, Hobbies, etc.). People post (“pin”) relevant photos and articles on the boards and follow one another based on interests. Photos are displayed in a pin board-type feed that is simple, yet visually appealing.

Today, the audience is heavily female, and there are many topics that are relevant to cardiovascular marketing: diet, exercise, almost every aspect of health and even a Go Red For Women board.

So, how can you take advantage of this community? This article from Mashable offers five ideas.

1. Host Contests

Contests can range from creating the “Best Board” to earning the most Repins. Users could post photos of their best heart healthy meals, best ideas for exercise motivation, or photos of themselves in a red dress to support heart health and awareness. Similar to photo contests on Facebook or Twitter, Pinterest offers a way to build visual between your brand and target audience.

2. Conduct Social Media Focus Groups

You can use boards to get reactions to new developments in your heart and vascular institute. For example, are you adding items to your cafeteria menu, redecorating a waiting room or adding a community workout facility? Because of Pinterest’s commenting ability, it’s an ideal platform on which to introduce new ideas and gather firsthand opinions. As users Repin a photo, you can gather more intelligence, and ultimately decide whether you should move forward with an idea.

3. Showcase Brand Personality

Pinterest’s photos offer unlimited possibilities to showcase your brand’s personality. For instance, you could have a Pinterest Board of photos that features your philanthropic outreach and community events. You can post past and present photos that showcase new construction, past milestones, employee honors, etc. Each Pin allows for a description and a link to the original story. Therefore, you can quickly connect an audience with stories, mission and future plans, all via photo Pin.

4. Display Various Sectors of Your Organization

Larger operations can use Pinterest to nicely organize areas of focus and relay them to the public. For instance, you might host several individually themed boards. One board might showcase physician and staff interests, while a specialty board displays ideas related to specific procedures or areas or expertise. Another board might show photos of employees in action.

5. Showcase Communication Between Brands and Customers

Using Pinterest, brands can create Pins and boards that feature customer feedback and product interpretations, and then showcase them for entire audiences. Customers can further relate to products and services, and brands have a way to thank their supporters by integrating them into their communities. For example, grateful patient stories could be featured or patients who want to share stories of how they lost weight, got in shape, etc. could be featured.  Patients and prospective patients could be inspired to return, and you are creating content that keeps fans constantly involved.

It seems that Pinterest holds immense potential to interact with various audiences. Using the power of image, brands can create buzz around products and services, display more in-depth aspects of their businesses, and ultimately create more personal and visually pleasing social experiences for their audiences.

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Posted by Julie Robinson

New Cardiovascular Marketing Sensation: Know Your Numbers Video

November 4, 2011

A video from Mayo Clinic takes viewers back to the ‘80s with a spoof of the 1982 hit “867-5309/Jenny”. It features actual Mayo Clinic staff and cardiologists.

Check out some of the lyrics:

You need to know your numbers,

Don’t let ‘em get too high

Jenny please watch your numbers

Blood pressure, lipids and BMI

It’s a fun way to encourage people to pay attention to important numbers, blood pressure, lipids and BMI, that can potentially reduce their risk of heart disease.

It also has high hopes of going viral. To see the video on Mayo’s site, it asks you to create a personal profile, which I did. By spreading the video to your family and friends, you then have a chance to win prizes as part of a related contest.

Here’s the body of the email I got after registering:

Dear julieseifertrobinson,

Thank you for registering for Know Your Numbers! Please find your account details and some tips for promoting your profile below.

Profile URL: http://knowyournumbers.me/profile/julieseifertrobinson

Username: julieseifertrobinson
You can login to the site on: http://knowyournumbers.me.

Some Helpful Tips For Promoting Your Profile

All of these steps can be accomplished on your profile.

1.Share your profile URL via Facebook, Twitter and Google+ (http://knowyournumbers.me/profile/julieseifertrobinson).

2.Send email invitations to your friends and family.

3.Include your profile URL in your email signature.

Best wishes and good luck!

Know Your Numbers Team

Interesting approach. I like it. To watch the video on the Mayo Clinic site, click here.

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Posted by Julie Robinson

Six Ways to Improve Your Cardiovascular Marketing e-Newsletter

October 13, 2011

Effective email newsletters can be a key part of engaging patients and prospective patients.

If you’re like most of my clients, you’re constantly looking for ways to attract attention while extending your budget.

Email newsletters can be a great way to provide relevant content and develop stronger relationships with your target audience.

However, with email spending on the rise, what can you do to stand out from the crowd?

This post from consultant Tom Pick has six good suggestions:

  1. Keep your masthead or any graphics near the top of the newsletter shallow vertically, so that readers using the preview pane with images turned off don’t see just a blank box.
  2. Use white space on both sides, or at least on the right side of the template, to improve readability and make the newsletter seem less “heavy.”
  3. For each content item, combine a small graphic, compelling headline, and one – two sentence summary to entice the reader to click through to your site to read more.
  4. Incorporate a “share by email” or “forward to a friend” button to encourage readers to pass along your content. Also include a “view this newsletter online” option, with social sharing buttons on the online version, to encourage social sharing of your content.
  5. Include buttons for your social network accounts in the newsletter to build your following on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and other social sites.
  6. Make use of the footer to provide links to supplemental or less important content: upcoming events, popular past articles, additional newsletters you offer, etc.

What else is working for you?  I would love to see samples of great email newsletters that are generating results.

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Posted by Julie Robinson

Five Steps for Improving Your Cardiovascular Marketing Landing Pages

October 4, 2011

Landing page design is critical in maximizing conversions

Matt Bartlett, Kuhn & Wittenborn Account Coordinator, contributed this guest post.

I recently attended a webinar presented by Target Marketing and hosted by Closed Loop Marketing on website landing pages and came away with five good tips to ensure the design of a landing page delivers great results:

1. Make a good first impression. A Stanford University study in 2003 discovered that 75 percent of web users admit to judging the credibility of an organization based on the design of its website.* Additional studies have shown an individual can judge a website in around 1/20th of a second. If you don’t make a good first impression, potential clients are going to move on – really quickly.

This judging can occur before someone actually visits the site. For example, search for something on Google and hover over one of the results. You’ll see two arrows at the right side of the link. When you hover over these arrows, Google shows a screenshot of the page. If you make a bad impression here, it’s possible an individual will never visit your page.

2. Be clear and obvious. Someone visiting a site should be able to identify the subject of the page in two seconds or less. Immediate concept clarity can be achieved through multiple visual clues.

Relevant images are extremely important, as the brain comprehends images faster than words. It’s also important to have a clear “next step” for the visitor. If you have to, outline steps with numbers and walk the visitor through the process.

3. Get relevant. People like to feel unique and be treated with a personal touch.  Good landing page design uses this as an advantage. Landing pages can be customized to know a person’s location and how they came to access the page. If a person feels like the page is customized, he or she is more likely to convert. It’s also okay to ask visitors to designate what they are interested in or what industry they are from.

Another key element is to have more than one landing page. It’s a mistake to have one generic landing page for everyone. Have multiple landing pages that make the visitor think your page is a perfect match for what he or she is looking for. Have different page titles paired with different search terms so that your page looks like the most relevant result on the search page.

4. Make small changes. Not everyone has the budget or time to completely redesign a landing page. For those individuals, there are some simple changes that can really make a big difference. The presenters use a process called R.A.R.E.

Remove extraneous text, decorative images and unnecessary form fields.

Add credibility support, special offers, sectional headings and progress     indicators.

Replace old/small buttons, form styles, low-quality images and links that leave the page.

Enlarge page titles, sectional headings and buttons.

5. Persevere. If you redesign a landing page and it starts performing better, great.  But don’t stop there. There are always ways to improve performance and what the visitor wants is constantly changing. Keep evaluating the page’s design and keep striving for even better results.

This is by no means a complete list of everything that goes into a well-designed landing page, but it’s a good place to start. Though most of these steps are very simple, it always amazes me how often they are overlooked, and how big an impact they can have on a campaign’s success.

*Fogg, B.J., Stanford Guidelines for Web Credibility, Persuasive Technology Lab. Stanford University, 2002 (revised November 2003)

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Posted by Julie Robinson

How Will Facebook Changes Affect Cardiovascular Marketing?

September 29, 2011

It looks like brands will have to become more compelling to get noticed on Facebook. 

The last week or so has seen a whirlwind of changes to Facebook following founder Mark Zuckerberg’s keynote at the f8 conference in San Francisco. Based on an informal survey of my personal Facebook friends and clients, people are confused. What do these changes mean and how will they work?

I found a post that does a pretty good job of outlining the highlights:

1. Profiles are turning into Timelines — a scrapbook of people’s lives.  Timelines will be  a stream of information about you — the photos you’ve posted, all your status updates, the apps you’ve used, even the places you’ve visited on a world map — that scrolls all the way back to your birth. It encourages you to post more stuff about your past, such as baby pictures, using Facebook as a scrapbook.

Timeline will have a lot of customizable features.  It is in beta now and will be opt-in to start. In the long run, it will become the new default profile page.

2. Liking something is “so five minutes ago.” — now you can [verb] any [noun]. The social network has launched Facebook Gestures, which means that Facebook’s partners and developers can turn any verb into a button.

So you’ll start seeing the option to tell the world you’re reading a particular book, for example, or watching a given movie, or listening to a certain song.  A lot of experts think this will lead to major “oversharing,” and it will certainly increase the clutter factor in your feed.

It will also mean that a common metric for brand success – generating “Likes” for your brand will become less relevant.

3. Facebook apps need only ask permission once to share stories on your behalf. This change may be one of the more controversial. Previously, apps had to ask every time they shared information about you in your profile.

But app information won’t clog your news feed, because …

4. All “lightweight” information is going to the Ticker. Status updates, photos, etc. will still show up in the news feed. Game updates and other  “trivial” details have been banished to the Ticker, a real-time list of things your friends are posting now that scrolls down the side of your screen.

5. You can watch TV and movies, listen to music, and read news with your friends — all within Facebook. Partnerships with services such as Hulu, Spotify and Yahoo News help facilitate this activity. The ticker will tell you what your friends are watching, listening to or reading, allowing you to share the experience with them by clicking on a link.

Very interesting. I’m sure brands will fight to get their messages to show up in the Ticker, as it will imply endorsement by your friends.

6. Facebook has more users and more engagement than ever. It has hit 800 million users, and most of them are active. The social network just saw a new record for the most visitors in one day: an eye-popping 500 million.

Despite consumer grumbling this past week, I have a feeling most of those users will get over it and continue using Facebook.

Have you thought about strategies for keeping your organization at the forefront of engagement given the changes? I’d love to hear your ideas.

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Posted by Julie Robinson

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