Share Moving Media

Coronavirus: COVID-19

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It’s all anyone is talking about. For many it incites grave concern, while others express skepticism about the actual risk. But whether you’re on the side of alarm or doubt, there’s no denying the impact that COVID-19 is having on a global scale.

And while the public may not have been anticipating this global challenge, the good news is that our industry has given great focus to response methods in times of emergency and disaster.

We’ve been here before

In each new situation, whether it was Ebola, ACA, IV shortages, Hurricane Katrina or another challenge, our community of suppliers and distributors has taken the charge of supporting your customers and providers. Scanning the pages of Repertoire Magazine and The Journal of Healthcare Contracting gives you a recurring theme of prescriptive content aimed at helping clinicians prepare for weathering the storms.

Weather your next emergency

In the event of an emergency

Road to recovery

AHRMM meeting features in depth look at pandemic preparedness

We are a practiced industry that has weathered these storms and will weather more in the future. As healthcare marketers, we have the unique opportunity to both support our community and inspire confidence that there are measures and programs in place for such challenges as coronavirus.

We’ve compiled a short list of Emergency Response Programs and reference pieces to help you and your customers.

CDC’s Supply Chain Disaster Preparedness Manual

Henry Schein’s Disaster Response Program

McKesson’s Disaster Preparedness Response Efforts

Cardinal Health’s How to Prepare for a Crisis

Medline’s Disaster Preparedness Checklist


3 Things Medical Suppliers Can Learn From This Year’s Super Bowl Ads

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Lately everything on TV is so serious – the impeachment, the 2020 election, coronavirus, Ukraine, and on and on. It’s almost as though the news topic has to be horrifying to get noticed. If valid, normal news isn’t getting noticed what chance does a mediocre ad have? Anything but an excellent ad not only doesn’t get noticed but we are conditioned to ignore or block it out.

Why do we look forward to Super Bowl ads? Because only the best brands place their best work during the Super Bowl. Makes sense, right? They are paying $5 million for 30 seconds so they better send their best work.

Here are three observations from this year’s Super Bowl ads that I think every medical supplier can learn from:

  1. Be Memorable!

I, for one, do not think celebrity endorsements work. I would never start smoking Chesterfields because Babe Ruth declares them “the most refreshing!” However, it is more likely to work if you use someone who resonates with your prospects in order to entice them and make them open to your message.

That’s exactly what Dorito’s did with Sam Elliott and Lil Nas X as they get into a dance off to Lil Nas X’s current pop hit, Old Town Road.

https://youtu.be/9OpuHa2vwdk

So, who are some interesting people you could use in an ad that would draw prospects in?

  • Current customers
  • Patients or their family
  • Clinicians
  • Company team members

2. Position Yourself with “Giants!”

Jeep did a masterful job of positioning its Gladiator line with the fun and memorable story from the movie Groundhog Day. (It shouldn’t be lost on you that Super Bowl Sunday was Groundhog Day this year.)

Is there a way to position your brand or product with those who are giants in the mind of the prospects you’re trying to attract? Maybe you feature a joint charity, collaboration or industry initiative you worked on together? Some possible “giants” to stand with could be:

  • High-interest IDNs like Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, Kaiser Permanente, or UPMC
  • Best-in-class supply chain leaders
  • National GPOs
  • Distribution partners
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnhzGUcENWo

3. Be Authentic!

In advertising,the opposite of “authentic” would be “playing it safe” or producing an ad that “fits in.” Google hit it out of the park with its Loretta commercial. It was a real tear-jerker for those of us that have lost loved ones and wish our memories with them could be more accessible or organized. The ad shows an elderly gentleman on his computer who says, “Hey Google…show me photos of me and Loretta.” And that’s what exactly Google delivers – pictures, movies and content of the man and his late wife.

Medical suppliers save lives and enhance the quality of people’s lives every day, so how can we bring those stories to life?

Here are a few ways to be authentic in your advertising and promotions:

  • Deliver a story
  • Show, don’t tell
  • Get to the value, not features
  • Differentiate!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xSxXiHwMrg

Here at Share Moving Media we are committed to helping suppliers gain market share to IDNs and through distribution. I’d be thrilled to chat with specifically on ways to make sure your content, promotions and ads are:

  1. Memorable
  2. Positioned with giants
  3. Authentic

To set up a 30-minute, complimentary content review and brainstorming session, please call me at (770) 263-5262 or email me at jpritchard@ShareMovingMedia.com.

Understanding Your Audience: The Value in Market Segmentation

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A “one-size-fits-all” strategy rarely works beyond socks and gloves—it’s certainly not a technique successful companies use to target or understand customers, or both! In this day and age audiences are receiving messages from all directions. So how do businesses ensure that their message isn’t lost in all the noise?

Market (or audience) segmentation is defined by a business dictionary as “subdividing a large homogenous market into clearly identifiable segments having similar needs, wants, or demand characteristics.” This strategy allows businesses to accurately target new customers and understand the needs of existing customers.

There are four basic types of market segmentation strategies: psychographic, geographic, behavioral, and demographic. Geographic is perhaps the most commonly used; and demographic, wherein an audience is targeted by variables such as gender, age, income, housing type, and education level, is arguably the most familiar (what new parent hasn’t received a diaper ad soon after their abundant newborn-related Google searches)?

Today, however, we want to discuss psychographic segmentation. This type of market analysis collects and examines the more elusive characteristics of your audience, such as interests, habits, attitudes, emotions, and communication and other preferences. You may be thinking, “That sounds difficult” or “What’s the use of that?” Isn’t it better to know that the majority of your customers are, for example, unmarried, urban-dwelling twenty-somethings?

Of course that type of demographic information is useful, but people who fall within the same demographic profile can still have fundamental differences in likes, needs, and wants. Remember, one size rarely fits all. For example, perhaps half of that demographic is open to purchasing a certain make of car, and the other half wouldn’t be caught dead in that vehicle. Why? The demographics don’t explain it, but the psychographics will.

It may also seem logical to tailor your marketing based on generational perceptions, which requires certain demographical information about your audience. But this type of stereotyping leads to blanket assumptions that are rarely accurate or useful. Overgeneralizing different generations is something that has been going on for, well, generations! I think we all know that not all baby boomers are workaholics who can’t work an iPhone, and not all millennials immediately leave the office when the clock hits 5:00 and only read e-books! Psychographic segmentation allows companies to view their audience in a “made to order” manner (rather than the “one size” generalization) for more tailored messaging.

These two segmentation methods are not mutually exclusive! In fact, demographic information can be a great starting point that allows you to develop an outline of your customer base. Psychographic information allows you to dig deeper, discovering not only what product or service your customer may be interested in but also why. This insight into the motivations of your target audience offers a better understanding of consumer behavior than demographic information can offer. This understanding empowers you to customize marketing to what will hopefully be a more responsive market.

Market segmentation allows you to understand your audience and tailor your message. Demographics can only get you so far—a psychographic analysis of your market could be the route to a better understanding of your customers’ motivations and values.

Holiday Marketing Campaigns for Healthcare Marketers: Have You Made One Yet?

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Every year your audience is bombarded with holiday messages.

To make sure your prospects and customers are paying attention… you need to know what healthcare marketing campaigns will spur them into action.

Plus, people are expecting more campaigns and promotions during the holidays… will you let your audience go to someone else? Or will you keep their attention this season?

The holidays serve as an important time to make sure you’re staying top of mind for your audience. But, it’s not always easy trying to figure out the right campaign to set up.

Here are 2 compelling holiday marketing campaigns you can emulate to launch your next big campaign.

Giving Back (CISCO)

Oftentimes, the simplest campaigns are the most effective.

Back in 2012, CISCO (a networking software firm) put together a noble charitable Christmas campaign titled, “How Do You Give Back?” CISCO created this Facebook campaign and asked their audience to share stories of how they gave back to their community.

So what? Anybody can ask their community a simple question. What’s so special about this campaign?

CISCO created an interesting spin with the campaign. For every response they received, CISCO would donate four meals to the World Food Program.

The campaign blew up. The holiday campaign not only focused on giving (which is a common theme around Christmas), but it created a flurry of engagement on social media.

The reason it worked so well is because people didn’t even have to pull out their wallets to make a difference. All they had to do was write a comment. They knew they would be helping four people receive a meal which made the campaign go viral.

CISCO was not only able to give back during the holidays in a big way… But they were also able to leap above the noise of nearly every other holiday campaign that year. And creating that type of engagement is not an easy task for a B2B company.

Create A Content Series (The Economist)

As soon as Halloween is over, Christmas moves on in (whether you like it or not). You can either take it or leave it, but if you want to have a successful December, I suggest you take it and run with it.

The Economist decided to take advantage of the season at the beginning of December with ‘Advent’. No, they didn’t send out advent calendars filled with chocolate. They sent out a different type of advent calendar. They sent out an advent calendar of content.

They created a digital advent calendar that took you to a new piece of content every day leading up to Christmas. Whether it was a video, a blog post, or a simple tip, they took their audience through an exciting journey leading up to Christmas.

As much as you already know how important content marketing is, It’s not always easy coming up with ideas. This advent calendar is an easy win in any healthcare marketer’s content strategy for the holidays. Plus, you don’t even have to create 25 pieces of new content. You could repurpose previously made content and work it in throughout the calendar.

If you’re thinking it’s still too much content for one month, just do half. Skip the advent calendar and create a “12 Days of Christmas” content experience.

What campaigns moved you during the holidays? Let us know what your favorite holiday marketing campaigns are.

Leverage Your Sales Team’s Customer Insight to Create Great Content

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About a decade ago, healthcare marketers began realizing content creation was an essential part of the modern healthcare business’ marketing strategy. Ever since then, they’ve been working to create content that wins their prospect’s attention and fuels sales.

According to research by SiriusDecisions, sales teams don’t even use 60-70% of marketing content to close sales. This means a huge amount of the marketing budget is going to waste (and content that should be closing sales is being unused).

Content creation is usually run by the marketing team. Healthcare marketers invest a lot of time and money into researching, strategizing, creating, and distributing content. However, there is an untapped area the sales team can use every day to create high-quality content using customer knowledge.

Sales teams are the ones who often interact with your customers the most. You can use these interactions as an opportunity to fuel your content creation.

Here are 3 ways you can get your sales team involved in the content creation process by connecting customer knowledge and sales insights.

1. Develop Customer Personas Before Focusing on Content Creation

Before you can begin to start creating relevant content, you have to understand who you’re talking to.

You may have some generic target market information on your customers, but it needs to be taken further. User Testing Blog refers to a customer persona as “a semi-fictional archetype that represents the key traits of a large segment of your audience, based on the data you’ve collected from user research and web analytics.”

Get your sales team to begin asking your customers questions, doing surveys, and extract that data to create in-depth customer personas. They communicate with prospects, leads, and customers every day, and are familiar with your customer’s motivations, aspirations, habits, challenges, and desires.

If you make content for the sake of creating something, you’ll lose your customer’s attention. By developing customer personas, you’ll be able to create content that resonates with them, keeping them coming back over and over again.

2. Use Frequently Asked Questions To Create Content

There are a variety of questions your sales team gets asked every day. You can use this sales insight to create content around the topics that come up frequently.

Most of these questions tend to be how-to questions. You can use these questions to create FAQ-style content on your site.

One bonus to creating FAQ-centric content is that has a higher chance than other content to get highlighted as a featured snippet in a Google Search.

3. Be Direct with Your Customers About Content Creation

Your customers are more than willing to help answer your questions, especially if they know it will help them, so have questions ready that directly involve the customer in content creation.

Use these 5 examples to start. Then create more specific questions based on your specific business and customer knowledge:

  • Ask them what they’re struggling with
  • Ask them what they want to learn
  • Ask them how they like to receive content (email, push notification, etc.)
  • Ask them how often they like to consume content
  • Ask them what types of content they like to receive (blogs, videos, audio, etc.)

You’ll be amazed at how willing your customers are to help you out in content creation.Instead of guessing on your content strategy, get your customers to give your sales team the answers.