Share Moving Media

Podcasting 101

By

Podcasts are a popular form of media, especially as a way for listeners to gain audio information while multitasking — such as driving in the car, exercising, cooking, etc.

Podcasts are also an advantageous marketing tool. Businesses in the medical supply chain industry can leverage podcasting as a marketing tool in a variety of ways to increase market share.

Podcasts are a media form consisting of digitally recorded audio, often with a series of episodes that relate back to a specific theme. Businesses in the supply chain industry, for example, may produce a podcast with episode titles such as “How to Improve Healthcare Sales” and “Healthcare Industry Trends in 2023,” which would be brought to life through detailed audio information shared with the audience on each of the topics.

Podcasts are a powerful marketing tool, allowing advertisers to share content with wide audiences. Podcasts are relatively simple to create, and the creator can record and edit any digitally recorded content to share with audiences themselves. Once created, podcasts can be published on a company’s website, audiences can subscribe to the podcasts (and be informed right when new episodes are released), promoted on social media, and more. Podcasts allow a company to broaden its reach through new forms of media.

Read on for steps on how to start a business podcast:

  1. Identify a podcast theme

What does your brand want to communicate to its customers? Select a podcast title based on the goals of your brand’s marketing efforts, and tailor each episode to that theme. Determine the “why” behind the podcast, the audience, and how you will make each episode stand out, then create a podcast name based off those details.

  1. Record, edit, and publish podcast

The next step in podcasting is to record the information to be consumed by already existing customers and new audiences. Structuring podcasts in an educational, interview, or conversational format is a good way to start when conveying business information over a podcast. Once recorded, edit the podcast, and publish it to an easily accessible site so customers can continue to access it.

  1. Market your podcast

The final step is proper marketing. Podcasts create an opportunity for a business to have valuable, shareable content. Post the podcast on company social media accounts, send out the podcast in an informational email, post it to the company website, all with the goal of increase its circulation as a marketing strategy.

Below are a few examples of healthcare industry-related podcasts produced by Share Moving Media, Repertoire Magazine, and The Journal of Healthcare Contracting on topics including:

Increase Your Lab Sales in 2023

Sustainability in Medical Manufacturing

Marketing Minute Podcast: Omni Channel Marketing in Healthcare

Creating marketing content during the busy day-to-day business world within the supply chain industry can be a challenge. If your business could benefit from help creating marketing content such as podcasts, written content, blogs, webinars, etc., contact Scott Adams at sadams@sharemovingmedia.com to set up a time to meet to discuss improving your company’s marketing tactics.

Leadership and Marketing Strategy

By

Reliable leadership within the marketing of med/surg products is a must have in today’s dynamic industry. Brands must have a marketing strategy they can count on to promote their brand, and implementing that takes strong, trustworthy teams.

In order to get noticed by supply chain executives and to set your brand apart, team members must practice and display leadership skills when conducting marketing efforts. Marketing leadership plays an important role in the strategy of attracting new and existing customers.

Leadership as defined by Harvard Business Review, is “the accomplishment of a goal through the direction of human assistants, a great leader is one who can do so day after day, and year after year, in a wide variety of circumstances.”

Leadership is a universal business skill and should be practiced not just by the C-Suite and managers, but by all employees within a company. Marketing teams especially can benefit from the critical leadership skills of taking initiative, compelling team action, strong communication, and task delegation.

  1. Taking Initiative

Taking initiative, including exhibiting autonomy, drive, and capitalizing on opportunities are essential leadership qualities for all employees within a business. Encouraging teams to take the initiative will keep each employee on top of current trends, and better ensure that they are best promoting your brand.

  1. Compel Team Action

Marketing teams must encourage and challenge each other to form new ideas, create new content, and continue improving campaigns. This allows marketing teams to stay up to date on industry trends, changes, and ways the business could improve to stand out from competition.

  1. Strong Communication

All team members should actively communicate with each other within the workplace. Clear and concise communication is a crucial skill for all team members whether they are cold calling, writing content marketing articles, brainstorming new ad tactics, etc.

  1. Task Delegation

Delegation, or transferring authority or responsibility to another team member, can result in better decision-making, autonomy, and increased teamwork and understanding. In the workplace, delegation allows smaller tasks to be completed more efficiently while allowing for increased focus on the overall marketing campaign.

Strong leadership is essential to a marketing team’s success, and individual leadership encourages more efficient work, increased focus on marketing campaigns, and the delegation of important tasks such as content marketing. If your brand could use assistance with the creation of marketing content that stands out in the medical distribution industry, contact John Pritchard with Share Moving Media at jpritchard@sharemovingmedia.com. SMM has over 30 years of experience working with brands to market their products to health care supply chain leaders.

Go-to-market strategies are critical in today’s digital health world

By

Mobile health, health IT, wearable devices, telehealth and telemedicine, and personalized medicine are transforming patient care. One in three smartphone users monitor health and fitness through their phone and over half of Americans are comfortable with virtual consultations. Digital technology is changing the fragmented healthcare system to center around consumers.

The American Medical Association identifies three key trends rising to the top of the digital health landscape include:

  • Consumerization of healthcare: the retail healthcare model is being highlighted as the future of patient care.
  • Access for underserved communities: access to healthcare remains a significant challenge for many individuals in the U.S.
  • Application of big data: healthcare data is a highly sought after commodity, with organizations increasingly seeking to harness and interpret what they, and others, collect.

These trends are providing opportunities to bring digital solutions to the healthcare marketplace. To do that, organizations must create go-to-market (GTM) strategies to gain a comprehensive understanding of the marketplace, the target market and a potential product’s place in it.

The most common challenges when launching GTM strategies for digital solutions, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), are the lack of experience selling or positioning and measuring value. Successful GTM strategies include defining the benefits, creating value frameworks, identifying relevant stakeholders, developing value messages, determining the right channel mix and content type for each stakeholder, and then building a strategy.

Traditional stakeholders usually include patients and clinicians, and non-traditional stakeholders might include specialty healthcare providers and others. They demand a transformation of marketing and customer engagement led by customer needs. Identifying their digital acumen helps identify those needs.

For example, PwC highlights four physician personas that differ in the level of digital savviness:

  • Traditionalists: physicians who only use digital tools available when necessary.
  • Digital Explorers: physicians who start to realize the benefit of digital tools.
  • Digital Adopters: physicians who try to use digital tools as often as possible and are quick to get started.
  • Next Normal Champions: physicians who are among the first to use digital tools and encourage others to use them.

PwC says it’s important to define must-win moments and value messages for each. This can be a physician willing to support patients with treatment-related information despite having limited time with patients. Organizations can position digital solutions as valuable to physicians because they help patients access treatment-related content without the physician.

Measuring the value of digital solutions is challenging. Sales numbers can struggle to depict it. Organizations need to put value frameworks in place in order to highlight stakeholder value over sales numbers. Qualitative KPIs like outcomes, engagement and activity can measure the effectiveness of communication strategies and the perception of brand reputation. 

How can your organization get creative with your marketing campaigns for 2024? At Share Moving Media we help best in class manufacturers build relationships with the industry’s decision-makers. Please contact us at sadams@sharemovingmedia.com to learn how we can help you gain market share through distribution.

One CHP understands digital tactics driving consumerism, strengths of diverse patient communities

By

UnitedHealth Group created the Optum brand in 2011 by merging its existing pharmacy and care delivery services into a single brand, comprising of OptumHealth, OptumInsight and OptumRx. The commercial healthcare provider (CHP) has business interests in technology and related services, pharmacy care services and various direct healthcare services. In 2019, Optum’s revenues surpassed $100 billion.

Focusing on data and analytics, pharmacy care services, population health, healthcare delivery and healthcare operations, Optum serves employers, government agencies, health plans, life science companies, care providers and individuals and families.

How did it grow its brand awareness among its target audience of health system buyers and bellwethers? Its content marketing through different distribution channels including digital, print and other media helped promote its partnerships with healthcare stakeholders.

Benjamin Meents, senior vice president of corporate marketing, brand and events at Optum, has said that the CHP’s content strategy, messaging and story was grounded around celebrating the accomplishments achieved through working with those working in the healthcare space and tackling the biggest challenges in healthcare with their partners.

The intersection of technology, data and analytics with the humanness of the healthcare sector provides a unique opportunity for those in healthcare marketing to share the impact of their organizations. Making an emotional connection with prospective patients and their families can inspire them to stay healthy for themselves and those around them.

A brand awareness campaign in healthcare must be flexible and adaptable to the diverse communities that the healthcare community serves. Optum strives to portray the real, lived experiences of patients and understand that strength comes in many forms. Highlighting patients’ exceptional stories is one of Optum’s own strengths through its omnichannel marketing approach. 

Optum also understands the need for digital marketing in healthcare and what’s driving it. Consumers want instant gratification with access to information anytime, anywhere, online and on-the-go. They want innovation that integrates the disparate data from all their devices into a single view. They also want personalization and expect their needs to be known and their communication preferences to be targeted. And they want simplification in all their interactions, which must be quick and easy.

According to an Optum whitepaper, digital tactics today that support healthcare consumerism include:

  • Online health insurance shopping.
  • Doctor email patients within secure applications.
  • Pharmacy calls with prescription refill reminders.
  • Consumer receives push message on smartphone, e.g., fitness challenge ranking.
  • Health insurers provide free wearable for completing preventive screening.

And digital tactics in the future include:

  • Request medication from smartwatch.
  • Get a real-time text alert when blood pressure is too high.
  • Receive one simple bill for care.
  • Build their own health plan, based on their personalized needs, on their insurer’s website.
  • Have a single dashboard with all their health information.
  • Receive personalized messages based on their data to drive better decision-making and better health.

Healthcare organizations must meet consumers where they are online. Optum says the most commonly researched topics are specific diseases or conditions, treatment options, doctors or other health professionals, and healthcare coverage in general, and that digital marketing is a critical enabler.

How can your business leverage marketing to generate revenue and attention for your brand? At Share Moving Media we help best in class manufacturers build relationships with industry stakeholders. Please contact us at sadams@sharemovingmedia.com to learn how we can help you gain market share.

Growth in Ads

By

The pandemic impacted many aspects of daily business, including the marketing and advertising industry. During the pandemic, the advertising industry experienced rapid growth, and now that the world is moving forward, and continues to be higher than average.

According to a forecast by Brian Wieser and published on AdWeek.com, the advertising industry in the United States is projected to grow 5% in 2023. Total ad revenue will grow 2.0% to $363 billion in 2023. In 2024, there is an expected surge of 8.1% projected ad revenue growth.

The growth of the ad industry has steadily increased in the past decade due to access to cheap capital that provided “vast sums” of money for companies to use toward advertising pursuits, according to analyst Brian Wieser, media and advertising analyst/consultant.

So, how has the industry changed? And what do those changes mean for the medical supply chain industry? Read on to learn more:

Why did the ad industry expand during the pandemic?

Advertising during the pandemic was unpredictable. During COVID-19 lockdowns, many advertisers took the time to pause and reevaluate their marketing strategies to develop more engaging and creative ads. Now that the world is beginning to normalize post-pandemic, there have been many changes and differences in the primary ways that companies advertise, such as an increase in digital advertisements such as with content on social media, website, podcast, etc.

How popular is digital advertising?

Digital platforms such as social media, YouTube, commerce/retail media, and companies like Apple account for 64% of all advertising. This influence is expected to grow 11% this year in 2023, according to Wieser. Retail media is also on track to grow by 20% in 2023, led by companies such as Amazon.

What does the increase mean for the supply chain industry?

The supply chain industry can greatly benefit from taking advantage of digital advertising in their marketing efforts. Advertising content published on platforms such as online and social media can promote a brand to a wide audience and gain invaluable exposure. For companies in the medical supply chain industry, digital advertising is also beneficial because it can provide a platform to promote a company to hospitals or industry execs.

The advertising industry is expanding and increasing, and that dominance is only expected to grow in the coming years. If your brand could benefit from assistance with creating content for a strong and successful marketing campaign, contact John Pritchard with Share Moving Media at jpritchard@sharemovingmedia.com. SMM has over 30 years of experience advertising within the medical supply chain industry and can help your brand take advantage of the rise of digital advertising through content creation. Contact us today to set up a preliminary meeting session to learn more.