2009 June | Dose of Digital - Digital Marketing in Pharma and Healthcare

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The Future of Digital Relationship Marketing in Pharma

I’ve found that I’m answering more and more questions about relationship marketing in pharma, so I wanted to provide my perspective. Most pharma companies have some ongoing relationship marketing program typically in the form of a newsletter or other regular email or direct mail-based program. But there’s a lot more to relationship marketing than the occasional email especially when it comes to digital.

Relationship marketing is exactly what is sounds like. It’s marketing that involves an ongoing relationship between customer and company. “Relationship” is of course the key word, but often times, it’s really just a one-way communication:company to consumer. That’s going to have to change. A few trends in pharma and healthcare are going to make this happen whether we like it or not. Understanding these trends is going to be critical if your relationship marketing program is going to bring value to customers or be piled in with the rest of the spam out there.

Here are six emerging trends that every pharma and healthcare company needs to consider not just in regards to their relationship marketing programs, but in all their marketing efforts.

Healthcare Information 24/7 — The information that consumers will have access to and will use to make decisions will continue to increase in volume and availability.
Consumers As “Physicians” — With the staggering increase in bloggers, user-generated media (such as YouTube), and social networking, end users are creating and controlling more and more of the content available online.
Internet = Trusted Source — All other forms of media already fall behind the Internet as a source for healthcare information for most Americans.
It’s Their Data, Not Yours — In the future, consumers will have more control of their healthcare records and history.
Healthy Social Networking — Because of the sheer number of people utilizing the Internet, it is possible to find people who share the same experiences as you.
Constant Contact, Constant Care — Some technologies to monitor patients’ health, now in early development, which still are largely cumbersome and not embraced by the public, will become more widespread.

If you want more information on each of these trends, then you can download my full white paper on this topic: The Future of Healthcare Relationship Marketing (1340 downloads)

You can download more publications and presentations on the “Pubs and Presos” page.

If you want to be informed of any new white papers I publish, just fill out the form below. Your information will only be used for this purpose and will never be shared under any circumstance. (Note: this form will not work in email clients or within Feedburner. Please click through to the post to fill it out.)

Posted by Jonathan Richman in The Basics on June 30, 2009 | 2 Comments and Tweets »

What Pharma Can Learn from Pringles

Yes, Pringles. The potato chip. Actually, technically speaking, they are potato crisps. Crisps or chips, I realized that there’s something that Pringles can teach pharma and healthcare. First, some backstory and a disclosure.

Last week was the Cannes Advertising Festival. It’s the Oscars of the ad world for those who aren’t familiar. The awards are given out in many different categories, but since this is a blog focused on e-marketing, I’m going to just talk about the “Cyber” category, which is all about digital. The Cyber awards represent the best of the best in digital marketing in every industry. Why do I suddenly care so much about the Cannes awards and Pringles? Well, our agency, Bridge Worldwide, happens to be the digital agency of record for Pringles. And, we created a banner ad (yes, banner ad) that won a Gold Cyber Lion award.

The more I looked at the ad, the more I thought that it just might relate to pharma. How can a Pringles banner ad tell us anything about digital marketing in pharma and healthcare? Great question. First, before we move on, check out the ad. Follow this link to check out “Can Hands.” The banner’s in the lower right…just keep clicking as long as you’d like. People who have commented on the ad call it “the only banner you’ll love to click.” You need to check it out for the rest of the post to make sense, so we’ll wait.

Now, if that didn’t at least amuse you, I’m not sure what else to tell you. I’m getting to the tie-in with pharma, but just so you know, I’m not going for some cheap publicity for this ad by writing about it here. It doesn’t need my help. Much to our surprise, this ad was (and still is) the talk of the Internet over the weekend. It’s showed up on the front pages of Reddit, Fark, and Buzzfeed. Of course, it’s been all over Twitter as well with well over 2000 tweets and more than 14,000 clicks on the shortened bit.ly URL alone. The link to the ad demo was the 4th most tweeted on all of Twitter on Saturday according to Twitturly. Without giving away too much confidential information, this ad has been viewed more than 125,000 times in the past two days. People going out of their way to see an ad.

So why am I telling you this? Simple, does anyone ever go out of their way to see your ad?

Let’s get a few things out in the open. Consumer packaged goods isn’t pharma. I know it. Remember, I used to be a pharma marketer, so I haven’t forgotten the rules. Pringles has a whole different set of rules compared to pharma. I know it. I also know that potato crisps or chips or whatever isn’t the same as treating a disease. Got it. But, let’s put that all aside for just a minute. Let’s look at what’s possible. For me, this is the only way we find things that are truly different, unique, and stand out with our customers.

Imagine that Pringles was a pharma product for a minute. There’s no fair balance here, but it wouldn’t require it. The brand name is mentioned (if you click a few times), but nowhere does it include the “indication:” potato crisps. I guess this makes this banner a reminder ad then.

We pharma people love and hate reminder ads. We love them because we can promote the brand without the clutter of fair balance, but we hate them because we can’t get in any key messages. Regardless, pharma spends a lot of money on these. My point? If Pringles were pharma, this ad would be regulatory compliant. Just saying.

Now, just to be clear, I’m not recommending that every pharma company make an ad like this. The whole talk about regulations is all academic. No pharma ad could probably get away with this tone. I’m actually not recommending that anyone make an ad like this. It’s been done. No one can really create a “never-ending banner” like this one anymore. But what I am saying is that there’s something for pharma to learn here.

This is what pharma banner ads look like today:

The Premarin Banner (with the cloud) on the bottom at least has some animation, albeit odd and “icky” animation.

I’ll just leave it at that rather than ask a lot of questions about what purple rain has to do with vaginal dryness.

Now, don’t feel bad if you think you banner ad stinks. Most banner ads are terrible regardless of the industry. Pharma isn’t a special exception. But, as the Pringles banner shows, there’s a way to make any advertising interesting and engaging. It just requires looking at things differently. So instead of relying completely on agencies that only have pharma experience (and pair it up with ours that might be about the same), maybe it’s time to look beyond pharma to see how everyone else is doing it. We know that we can’t do the exact same things other industries might try because of regulatory issues, but I also know that doing the same things we’ve always done in pharma isn’t good enough anymore either. This might be one of the times where the answer lies outside of our industry.

To be sure, I’m not recommending that you run out and make banner ads. I have no idea if you need banner ads or if they are part of your strategy. I want you to look bigger picture and realize that there are whole groups of really smart people that we don’t listen to because they aren’t in the pharma club or don’t know the handshake. Last time I checked, the pharma industry wasn’t doing that well at least compared to historical results. Maybe there’s no time like the present to start trying a new approach. Your equivalent Pringles banner ad may be a really innovative disease management tool or amazing caregive support website. Just keep going until you make whatever it is you are doing something that you can imagine people sharing on Twitter. Do you think we thought this would happen for a banner ad for potato crisps? Yes and no.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned since starting to work at my current company, it’s this: it takes very little extra effort to make something great. It takes a lot of effort something to get started and slightly more to make something good. Once you get to “good” though, there’s really not more you need to do in order to get to great. You do need the right people with the right kinds of thinking and the right amount of time and resources, but those are the ingredients. Of course, I’m making it sound really easy and leaving out one important piece: you need some brilliant creative people. It only takes one idea, but you need people who are constantly coming up with them to find the one. Fortunately, we happen to have these folks. (Read the blog “Can Hands” creator, Jason Bender, co-writes).

So, who’s ready to do things differently? If you are, but don’t see how it’s possible, here’s my offer: You pay for the normal costs to get to “good” and I’ll pay for the additional thinking required to make it great. Don’t think it’s possible to make something share-worthy in pharma? Then challenge us. I’m glad to make it public challenge if you’d like (and put the reputation of this blog on the line) just to be able to show that it’s possible. It’s time for something different in pharma and healthcare. The only question is who goes first. If you’re ready, head over to the contact page and let’s get started. One caveat…this has to start with a “big pharma” company because if it can be done there, then it can be done anywhere. So, if you’re a top 20 pharma company (and I know you’re here), you’re eligible for this offer.

We’re ready for your challenge. All this talk about Pringles is making me crave a Super Stack.

Posted by Jonathan Richman in Next Steps, What If on June 29, 2009 | 8 Comments and Tweets »

Twitter App Just for Pharma Regulations: Twegulate

While meeting up with some industry friends here at CBI’s 2nd Annual Bio/Pharmaceutical Emerging Media Optimization for Consumer-Focused Marketing conference, we talked a lot about Twitter. There’s also been a lot of debate about a recent addition the the Twitter-verse courtesy of Novo Nordisk. They recently launched Race with Insulin and promptly did something no other pharma company has ever done. They sent out a tweet with a pharma brand name. Here’s what their page looks like:

You’ll notice about the smallest fair balance fine print I’ve ever seen, but they’ve got it there. Their branded tweet was this:

After this went out, the industry bloggers promptly went into action. It was started by Ross Fetterolf, VP Digital Strategy at Ignite Health, who called this tweet “A Historic Day.” He closed his post with this: “I wonder if Charlie’s 125 followers have their Levemir flexpen’s primed and ready to inject along with Charlie when it’s time for his next dose. We’ll have to wait and see.” On the other hand, John Mack published a blog post about this tweet called: “Novo Nordisk’s Branded (Levemir) Tweet is Sleazy Twitter Spam!” He called the tweet nothing more than a “reminder ad.” John further added: ”A reminder ad of any sort — whether in print, TV, Web, or Twitter — is, IMHO, a form of spam. I consider, therefore, Kimball’s unabashed product endorsement Tweet a particularly sleazy example of Twitter spam. We certainly do NOT want to see more Tweets like this and I disagree with Ross; I sincerely hope that this Tweet is NOT used as a “model” for other drug companies who want to adopt Twitter as a marketing vehicle.”

I’m with John here. But there’s been quite a lot of debate back and forth on this. Supporters of the tweet say that those with diabetes do talk about the brands they use all the time in everyday language, so this is normal for them. Others, like me, might agree with that, but don’t agree that any person would normally mention their drug’s generic name and where to find prescribing information. Can’t quite picture that coming up in conversation.

I’m fine with Novo Nordisk trying this. In fact, I applaud them for doing it. I also realize the realities of what can be tweeted and what can’t and how fair balance must be used. Debate continues on how pharma can do branded tweets that are even better. However, has anyone stopped to think that maybe, just maybe, this isn’t a feasible channel for pharma brand marketing? Maybe disease state information, but not branded information. John Mack also thought of this idea: “Charlie Kimball’s [the driver who Novo Nordisk sponsors] Tweets would be much more interesting if he stopped posting about cleaning his race suit, taking Levemir, etc, and told us a little bit about how he FEELs being a race car driver with diabetes, how he deals with the unique problems his medical condition gives him, etc. THAT would truly be inspirational!”

That I can get behind. The reality is that if you do have to include fair balance in every tweet, you can’t have authentic conversations, which is what Twitter is all about. Stop trying to get a brand message into everything, pharma friends. That’s not the answer to everything.

However, knowing that my comments or John’s are unlikely to dissuade the most determined pharma brand manager, those of us at the conference tried to think of a tool that pharma could use to Tweet without worrying about running into regulatory issues. Steve Woodruff came up with the big idea. Twegulate. Well, I couldn’t help but run with the idea, so I rushed back to the hotel and created it. Here it is for the first time anywhere…Twegulate:

What’s great about Twegulate is that Important Safety Information (ISI) is automatically included in every tweet. You can’t adjust it, you can’t delete it. Because the ISI is so long, it doesn’t leave many characters for the rest of the tweet, but you do get a full eight characters. You can use this to add updates such as: “Not much” “Hello” “Good Bye”. Not hugely engaging, but it’s a start.

Unfortunately, I don’t expect Twegulate to be launched anytime soon. We really don’t need it. As it stands now, pharma companies are doing it on their own with existing tools. Our automated tool probably doesn’t have a market. Oh well, so much for retiring this week.

Posted by Jonathan Richman in Next Steps, Twitter on June 26, 2009 | No Comments or Tweets Yet »

Live From CBI Emerging Media Pharma Conference

Today and tomorrow, I’ll be at CBI’s 2nd Annual Bio/Pharmaceutical Emerging Media Optimization for Consumer-Focused Marketing conference. I’m speaking today (I’ll make the presentation available later).

You can follow all the goings-on at right here. Through the magic of Twitter, you’ll get live updates from me and many industry leaders who are also here.

If you have questions, send them in. Chances are someone here can answer it.

Also, you can view and download my presentation by following this link: “If You Build It, They Will Come…Or Will They?”

<a href="http://www.coveritlive.com/mobile.php?option=com_mobile&task=viewaltcast&altcast_code=30270300be" >CBI Pharma</a>

Posted by Jonathan Richman in The Basics, Twitter on June 25, 2009 | No Comments or Tweets Yet »

Is Pharma Ready for the New iPhone (or any iPhone)?

In case you missed it (and welcome back to Earth if you did), Apple is releasing yet another version of the iPhone: the 3GS. In today’s post, I’m not going to tell you why this upgrade is going to dramatically change the way pharma markets its products using digital. Because it won’t.

However, one other announcement from Apple came out at the same time and went largely unnoticed. This little detail will change the way pharma markets its products in digital. While explaining all the cool features and enhanced speed of the new iPhone 3GS, Apple also told us that the current top of the line model, the 3G, will be reduced in price to $99. $99 dollars versus a current cost of $199 or $299 (depending on memory) is a big difference. $99 is one of the those magical buying points where something starts to look really affordable to people. In fact, in a recent study done by Neilsen prior to the announcement, they noted, “…the second most important factor-noted by 20% of respondents-as to why people did not pick the iPhone was its price.” It doesn’t take a lot of calculations to figure out that there’s going to be a huge increase in iPhone sales because of this decrease.

So, how does this affect you as a pharma marketer?

With more iPhones (and any other smartphone with a browser), more people can instantly get quality information no matter where they are. For you, this means in their doctor’s office, a pharmacy, a hospital. It essentially allows patients to immediately double-check their doctor’s recommendations. Picture someone who was just prescribed Lipitor walking out of their doctor’s office. Let’s say they have an iPhone. What’s the first thing they do when they leave that office? If it’s me, I check out Lipitor on my iPhone and see what it’s all about. This is going to become more and more the norm as these types of phones become the standard instead of just another high-tech gadget.

So, when your patient checks out your site on their iPhone, what do they see? Let’s consider our friend who was just prescribed Lipitor. If he checked out the Lipitor site at home. This is what he’d see:

Not a bad looking site. Front and center patient stories. Clear navigation. Good.

What about on the iPhone? The iPhone browser has one big limitation; it doesn’t recognize Flash. Flash, as you know, is what’s responsible for much of the animation you see on the Web today. Chances are that if you see something moving around on a webpage, it uses Flash. As far as the iPhone is concerned, Flash doesn’t exist. So, your very expensive to develop Flash piece (the patient stories) on the Lipitor site looks like this on the iPhone:

No more patient stories. Everything else still works, but you’re missing your big feature and there’s an ugly blank spot on your page that makes it look like it’s broken somehow.

Who else has the problem? I looked through the sites of some of the top-sellers out there and found a few more plus one that does it right (almost).

One that I found that goes on the “needs improvement” list is Actos. Here’s their website:

Here’s the iPhone version:

So long strange, talking, bacon-man (and the sound as well because he does talk in the Web version, but not on an iPhone).

One other site that I actually wrote about very positively in a recent post about addressing caregiver needs, looks great on a full browser, but not so much on the iPhone. It’s Exelon Patch.

Full Web version:

It includes the engaging visuals that really speak to someone caring for someone suffering from Alzheimer’s. However, when you look at it on the iPhone…

All the visuals are gone and you’ve got a page filled with tiny words.

So, is there a way to fix this? Absolutely. What’s more, it isn’t very difficult to do. Correcting the way your site displays content is critical so that users of smartphones (including the iPhone) can view it properly, but there’s one other even more important reason you need to ensure that you have an alternative to Flash on your site. It’s called Google. Perhaps you’ve heard of it. Turns out that Google doesn’t like Flash all that much either (at least Google’s spiders don’t). Google cannot read Flash. It basically doesn’t exist. This oversimplifies the issue a bit, as Google can see some elements of the “behind the scenes” parts of Flash, but for the most part it can’t. Here’s a good article explaining some of the details if you’re interested. So what if Google can’t see it? If it can’t see it, it can’t index it, which means it can’t consider it in the rankings for search. Bad news.

So, here’s the deal. You’re beautiful website…

…looks like this to a search spider:

Not pretty, but that’s okay. Google doesn’t rank on pretty. However, it’s not okay if all your important keywords aren’t showing up here. If they are buried in the Flash, Google doesn’t see them. In this case, much of the content of the Iams site is contained in Flash and isn’t seen by Google. Interested in seeing how your site looks to Google? Here’s a great tool.

It turns out that there’s a great compromise that is a really simple programming fix and one that you should be requiring your digital developers to do. Essentially, you create two versions of your website. Relax, it’s not twice the cost. All you are going to do is create second version using some programming techniques that ensures all of your content that was included in your Flash piece is visible to search spiders. You can direct which page is seen through a really simple programming technique that allows you to check either browser type or other parameters that ensure the right visitor sees the right page. So, you can show search spiders one thing and regular people another. You can also show an iPhone version to iPhone users. You don’t need to understand the technicalities of how to do this, but if you really want to, contact me and I’ll get you in touch with one of our developers (no charge of course).

Let’s just see what it looks like. Someone in pharma has done it ALMOST perfectly. This is the normal Web version of the Seroquel website (note that I cut the page off a bit):

There’s a big Flash piece right in the middle of the page that feature some patient stories. It’s nicely done and looks great, but as we now know, the iPhone (and Google) isn’t going to like it very much. But, AZ (makers of Seroquel) handled this the right way. Here’s the iPhone version:

What you see is that the site explains that it’s optimized for Flash and gives you directions on how to install Flash if you don’t already have it. You still lose the stories, but at least you don’t have a big blank area on the page that leaves people wondering why your site looks broken.

For those paying close attention, you noticed that I said they did this “ALMOST perfectly.” Here’s the problem with this approach. All of the great content that is in the Flash piece is gone. If you use the simulator like I did for the Iams site, none of the patient stories are seen by search spiders. The stories are even narrated and have some good content, but Google doesn’t know about it. However, it’s possible to take that content out of the Flash file and display it essentially in transcript form only for search spiders. You have the transcripts already (because your regulatory team demanded them), so adding this to your site isn’t a big deal. It won’t mess up the look of the site because you can program it so that only search spiders can see the text. It’s a simple fix, but one that is overlooked pretty regularly. With all the competition out there for important keywords in Google’s rankings, you need all the help you can get. Why leave out big chuncks of content when you don’t have to?

In addition, you could invest a little more and make a non-Flash version of the patients stories that is going to be viewable on an iPhone. That was the point of this post after…optimizing for an iPhone. So simply saying, “Sorry, you’re out of luck because you don’t have Flash,” how about offering an alternative using static images or some other technologies that mimic Flash, but without some of the issues?

The big takeaway…make sure that people who are using smartphones can see your website the way you want it seen. Do a little experiment and find out what your site looks like to iPhone users. If you’re not happy with it, contact your developers and figure out how to improve it. Don’t leave your site with a gaping hole in the middle of it. This doesn’t instill confidence among visitors. At the same time, make sure that you are truly optimizing for search. The two really go hand in hand. If you have an issue with how your site displays on the iPhone then you probably have an issue with how Google sees it too.

So, go out and wait on line for a new iPhone 3GS today (or just ask to borrow a friend’s if you’re not quite that gung-ho).

Posted by Jonathan Richman in Mini White Paper, Room for Improvement, The Basics on June 19, 2009 | 5 Comments and Tweets »

Become the Best of the Best in Digital Healthcare Marketing

Ever ask yourself what the best of the best are doing in digital marketing for pharma and healthcare? I do. That’s where I get many of the ideas you see on this blog: watching the best of the best. As I’ve reviewed the best over the years, I’ve realized that they have a few things in common. They all do the same things really well. What I found was that this wasn’t a list of hundreds of things, but that they do four simple things really well and really consistently.

I also realized that this wasn’t just the framework for best in class digital marketing in pharma and healthcare, but that it also probably applies to every other industry as well. If you can follow this framework and successfully hit on all four areas of this framework, I can guarantee your success in the digital space. If you’ve set up your digital strategy well and ensure that it ties to brand objectives, this means that it’ll also drive sales for your brand. Not sure if your digital strategy is actually having a brand impact (i.e., sales)? Then you’d better check out my last post about following your customers’ path for success.

The four tenets of a winning digital strategy in pharma and healthcare

Partner

This simply means that you allow your customers to help set the agenda for the site. You allow them to drive the conversation, recommend what’s important, and/or customize the site to suit their specific needs. In other words, you don’t tell them what’s important, they tell you (and, therefore, other visitors) what’s important.

One great example is Sermo. Sermo doesn’t create the content to tell you what’s important. The doctors that use the site do this. These doctors essentially own the website.

Provide

This is the simplest to describe, but the hardest to do. Provide here means providing tools to help people manage their disease. There are an infinite number of ways you could do this and tools you can create, but the key is creating something that people will find useful and will help them better deal with their disease.

The site that does this best, in my opinion, is Patients Like Me. What makes Patients Like Me stand out is not necessarily the range of tracking tools it makes available (though they are well done and numerous), but rather how the tools can be used to compare your progress to that of other patients. What many companies fail to do well when creating tools for disease management is give you a compelling reason why you should regularly spend time inputting your information in the tool. That is, what will the patient get out of it if they do use it everyday? Getting someone to adopt a new habit like this is very challenging, but as Patients Like Me has shown, it can be done if there’s a real perceived value. This needs to be made clear to people when you initially tell them about the tool otherwise they won’t use it.

The additional value that Patients Like Me brings is that the data you input can be compared to others taking similar treatments or at the same stage in the disease. This leads to you being able to see aggregated data to know what you might expect in the future. All of this allows a patient to see right away how they are doing against “the norm.” It’s very comforting to know that you’re not doing worse than others, but in cases where you are, there is also a clear idea of what might be better. If you haven’t fully explored this site, go do it now.

The tracking tools are fairly straightforward on Patients Like Me, but…

…the data you input is used to form an aggregate of the entire community allowing you to see what others are experiencing and how you compare. That’s what makes it unique.

Balance

This is another one that’s hard for many companies, not just pharma and healthcare. The balance here is balance between brand needs and user needs. Many companies struggle because there is always pressure to get in all the brand messages you can, whenever you can, and as soon as possible.

The best of the best marketing (not just digital) manages to balance two important elements: brand goals and user goals. You really can’t do one without the other. If you only worry about brand goals, then you end up with a big list of product features that no one cares about. If you focus entirely on user goals, then, well, you go out of business. You can do both simply by knowing when to sacrifice one for the other. Providing content in a manner your customers are going to understand and in a medium with which they feel comfortable, delivers on the promise of meeting user goals. You can then add in your specific brand messages and check that box as well. Brand needs and user needs.

Who’s doing this well? Actually, a lot of pharma and healthcare companies do this well…on their unbranded sites. When it comes to their branded sites, it’s a different story. These are very heavily weighted towards brand goals and not user goals. One program I like a lot that shows that you can balance both is for the drug Suboxone, a treatment for opioid addiction. People can start at Turn to Help to learn more about addiction and what treatments are available. Regularly visitors to the Pharma and Healthcare Social Media Wiki will also know that this program includes the first MySpace site for any pharma brand, Addiction411. This is another unbranded page that deals with helping people determine if they have a problem.

Eventually, Turn to Help (above) points to the Suboxone brand site, but not before educating users about addiction and which treatments might be appropriate for them. Brand needs and user needs are both met during the user journey.

Yet another site that does this extremely well is Children with Diabetes. This site was purchased by J&J in 2008 and remained largely unchanged, but required a few tweaks to get into regulatory compliance. To give you an idea of how much user needs are balanced against the brand needs, you’ll barely see any mentions of J&J’s diabetes products on this site (J&J company LifeScan makes OneTouch). In fact, if you click and enlarge the picture below, you’ll notice that the advertisement in the upper right isn’t for OneTouch, but from one of their competitors. J&J let’s anyone advertise on the site, which essentially opens users to all the options available instead of just their products. Can you imagine a Crestor ad on a Lipitor page? That’s basically what this is. Perhaps this goes too far in giving into user needs.

Enlist

This means that you get the help of experts when you aren’t the expert. Too many companies pretend to the be the absolute expert in everything related to their brand and the category. That’s really hard to pull off. What ends up happening is that you aren’t an expert in anything (or perceived that way by customers, which is all that matters). Instead, pick one thing and be the expert in that. Going back to OneTouch, for example, this might mean they should focus on being the experts in diabetes testing. Not diet. Not exercise. Testing. There already are experts in the others, but OneTouch has a solid rationale for owning diabetes testing. Once you establish yourself as an expert, then you are also responsible for referring people to experts in other areas. So, if someone wants diet information, then you should have a ready list of places they can go. This is what consumers expect today. They don’t expect you to know it all, but rather, they expect you to be the best at one thing. Why else would they be talking to you? If you are trying to do too much, then you aren’t going to be seen as an expert.

Even the website that claims to be an expert in healthcare overall doesn’t try to do it all in every disease state. Instead, WebMD enlists help from multiple physicians (who are experts in their field) to help keep the site on the right path and to ensure the information that goes out is seen as “expert” in every way.

Summary

Follow these four tenets to get on the same path as the best of the best healthcare digital marketers. Partner, Provide, Balance, and Enlist. They all have one common thread: adding more value to consumers beyond just your brand. Of note, none of these says go out and do some social media based projects specifically, but I bet many people will take it that way. Instead, look across all the channels available within the broader digital channel and you’ll see that you can accomplish each of these four without social media. So, if that’s an issue at your company, you can’t use it an excuse here.

Can’t get to all four? No problem. Any one of these is better than none and is a huge step in the right direction.

Posted by Jonathan Richman in Mini White Paper, The Basics on June 17, 2009 | No Comments or Tweets Yet »

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