AMA Healthcare SIG: Stepping outside the box to market creatively
February 26th, 2010This morning’s AMA-Houston Healthcare Special Interest Group event, “Outside the Box: Creative Healthcare Marketing,” provided a great opportunity to hear how other marketers think imaginatively. Three marketing experts, two of whom we’ve had the pleasure of working with, shared specific case studies from the three very different perspectives.
Partha Krishnamurthy, Associate Professor of Marketing at the University of Houston and a Gelb affiliate, gave us insight into several organizations’ inventive efforts, particularly GE, Kelsey-Seybold, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and World Health Partners. In sharing examples of each’s marketing activities, he urged the audience to personalize their efforts by starting local, featuring interactions between individuals, penetrating and empowering social systems, sharing a specific call to action, and illustrating benefits.
Cara Zorzi, Associate Director of Marketing at M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, revealed the development steps of M. D. Anderson’s latest campaign, “Making Cancer History.” She explained that an intensive research process, one we were pleased to be a part of, precedes any campaign as it offers invaluable insight as to what will resonate most with their audiences. And what resonated most with M. D. Anderson’s target audiences were patients telling their own stories including their caregivers and care teams.
Steve McKee, President of McKee Wallwork Cleveland, detailed work he and his team completed for Presbyterian Healthcare Services. He spoke to the challenges of working with an integrated healthcare system and its various needs but was ultimately able to overcome these to create an innovative campaign. “Feel better” become Presbyterian’s new mantra and spoke to its audience’s emotional side. Advertisements included commercials, billboards, and print ads with messages designed to do just that, make people feel better. As result, the system saw a sharp increase in the preference and usage among community members.
We enjoyed all the information shared by the speakers. Events such as this make us proud to say we are a sponsor of AMA Houston Chapter!
Healthcare Marketers – Pay Attention to the Competition
February 26th, 2010For healthcare organizations, it is often the hardest question to answer that is also the most frequently overlooked. Strategic marketing planning often begins with a rigorous review of capabilities, market trends, and market share data. But while the best segmentation scheme can enable incremental and/or accidental growth, it’s most important to determine from whom you will take market share. Through the use of competitive intelligence and customer value analysis, organizations can identify the competitors’ weaknesses against their buying behavior.
A deliberate focus on the marriage between customer needs and the supplier strengths in meeting them creates much-needed focus in strategy development. At the most simplistic levels, being “better, faster, cheaper” requires a target - better than x, faster than x, cheaper than x – to be effective. This isn’t to suggest there can be more than one competitor from which you take share, but it does emphasize the need for competitive positioning. This positioning is then utilized in forging pricing strategy, shaping product development and commercialization stage-gate criteria, brand management and communications, and sales process/delivery.
From whom will we take market share? An important question to answer in developing strategic marketing plans.
For more information about Gelb’s process for strategic marketing success, please see this article on our Growth PlayBook.
Experience Management Pays Big Dividends
February 23rd, 2010BusinessWeek highlights Providence Regional Medical Center as an exemplar of cost cutting while implementing quality assurance measures. Most interesting about the case study is that Providence adheres to some principles of patient experience management by addressing patients functional AND emotional needs. All this while improving perceived quality, internal alignment, and reducing costs.
Some examples highlighted in the piece include the patient room that reconfigures itself around the patient. Rather than moving the patient and creating stressors in their experience, care team members and equipment are brought into the room, depending on the patients treatment stage (e.g., pre-op versus post-op). This would solve the functional need for convenience, but the emotional need of comfort and familiarity.
The article also cites an important internal change best practice – giving employees the permission to change the experience they deliver when they see a problem. At Providence, inpatient nurses decided that safety concerns could be overcome by visiting patients every two hours, rather than waiting for calls. According to the article, this change reduced falls by 25%. From a patient experience management perspective, these frequent visits represent service cues – those little things that signal surprise or, at least meet expectations.
Authentic Patient Stories Selling False Hope
January 14th, 2010This according Natasha Singer from the New York Times (see article).
We’ve interviewed thousands of cancer patients about their functional and emotional needs using a technique we call experience mapping. Based on those findings, most patients seek the support only available at our leading cancer centers because they do not have access to the scope and depth of capabilities available at academic medical centers. The author chooses to focus only on the academic medical center advertising, while overlooking many for-profit cancer centers which promote the same promise.
Authentic patient stories connect those in a trying time to those like them. When faced with a rare and life-threatening diagnosis, cancer patients seek solace in knowing there may be options available to them. These patients are information seekers and qualify options based on treatment available, faculty credentials, and recommendations from their community physicians. These information-seeking patients define themselves by their condition. As Ellen Miller-Sonet from Memorial Sloan-Kettering accurately points out, the target audience for these ads understand their case is unique. Furthermore, the M. D. Anderson ads referenced on the site emphasize the uniqueness of each person’s condition (see Only ONE campaign).
So while I can appreciate the concern over offering false hope, there is a role for these types of ads for cancer patients. These pieces and the rich stories often presented on academic medical center web sites provide a source of connection, an option, and, for most, the highest possibility of a successful outcome.
Insights from University of Michigan Health System Experience Mapping Study
December 18th, 2009During a presentation at the Fourteenth National Forum on Customer Based Marketing Strategies held earlier in 2009 in Las Vegas, John McKeever, president of Gelb Consulting Group and Jim Macksood, associate director of brand strategy and communication at the University of Michigan Health System (UMHS), shared their insights about an experience mapping study conducted at UMHS.
Their insights were captured in an article featured in Strategic Health Care Marketing . To download a PDF copy, click on Insights from University of Michigan Health System Experience Mapping Study .
Health Reform Provides Opportunities for Marketers
November 16th, 2009I presented our insights and prescriptions regarding marketing in the era of health reform at the AAMC annual conference Saturday. Much to my excitement, Gelb’s benchmarking study, with responses from over 60 of the nation’s academic medical centers, was of great interest to participants.
My co-presenter, John Cragin, provided meaningful insights regarding the changes in universal health care access in Massachusetts. He generated meaningful discussion around the need to develop strategic marketing plans for the variety of likely outcomes of national health reform legislation.
Our benchmarking study identified several “best practice” organizations that were already engaged in scenario planning, a means to probabilistically forecast outcomes and develop strategies accordingly. Our presentation highlighted the need for marketers to seize the opportunity presented: marketers must provide leadership to increase demand and effectively manage their brands. Among the study highlights:
-1/3 of academic medical centers are actively engaged in scenario planning
-Most report leadership sees marketing as an investment and expect the value of perceived marketing to increase
-With marketers relegating health reform monitoring to government affairs groups, there is an opportunity to improve the stature of the marketing function
For additional insights on marketing in the era of health reform, please contact me at jmckeever@gelbconsulting.com.
All About Expectations
September 21st, 2009Health care is often compared to hospitality, so I paid particular attention to my recent hotel stay at the Ritz Carlton in Philadelphia. When I think of first-class service, Ritz Carlton comes to mind as they are known by their credo and careful management of touchpoints. This is in mind, my expectations of the Ritz were quite high.
So imagine my disappointment when:
1) It took several queries of the lobby staff to find someone who knew the location of the local FedEx Office/Kinko’s.
2) The room service staff did not address me by name.
3) There was no one to get a cab for me upon my return.
4) Our conference room did not have Internet access as planned (and the price was outrageous).
Even though everything in my guest room was appointed to perfection, the level of service I received was not what I expected. As a result, I remain less than satisfied.
The implications to health care marketers is this: if you set expectations on delivering high-touch, patient-centered care, you will disappoint those patients and caregivers if you cannot devote the time and genuine interest necessary to do so. Those academic medical centers who are attempting to cross the chasm between high-tech and high-touch should understand what that merger means to patients and caregivers. If you cannot bridge the gap, then don’t make the promise. Otherwise, you will likely disappoint at higher levels.
For more information, visit www.gelbconsulting.com or contact John McKeever at jmckeever@gelbconsulting.com, 281.759.3600 x1022.
Is it just another new initiative?
September 18th, 2009Maybe you’ve heard this before: “I’ve heard our mission and vision, but they don’t really have anything to do with my job.” Or maybe you’ve even said this before: “Marketing is in charge of managing our brand; I’m just focused on getting my work done.” In whatever way you can relate to these statements, you’re not alone.
As organizations 
work to define their brand and improve customer service, a critical component often missed is how the brand is connected to employees. Without employee ownership of the brand, customers are likely to have a very different experience with the organization, depending on the individual they are interacting with, or the location where they are receiving services. For this reason, effective branding begins on the inside – by shaping employee attitudes and behaviors.
Developing and sustaining a collective brand culture in healthcare organizations can be especially difficult because of varying departments and clinics within the organization. Nevertheless, engaging employees to protect and live out the brand is necessary to provide high standards of care and create superior patient experiences.
Gallup studies from 1.2 million employees at 800 hospitals have found that engaged health care employees are more productive, more focused on their patients’ care and treatment, safer, likely to stay with their employers longer, likely to set a positive example of engagement for others throughout the organization, and more profitable for a provider, than disengaged employees.
So how do we create engaged employees who take ownership for the organizational brand? Two critical success factors are intellect and emotion. Internal stakeholders need to have an intellectual understanding of the brand and an emotional motivation to feel responsible and empowered to protect it. Sustainable brand management is about a long-term commitment with measurable objectives. A one-time pep-rally will not invoke internal identification with the brand; this requires on-going communication and setting expectations for what it means to protect the brand.
At an organization with a strong brand, it’s not about what “they” do in another department, but about what “we” do as a team to make “our” organization successful and provide an exceptional experience to all customers.
For more information about customer experience management, visit www.gelbconsulting.com or contact Nicole Trochta at ntrochta@gelbconsulting.com
Source: Forum for Healthcare Strategists webinar, July 2009,“Building A Powerful Healthcare Brand: Engaging Employees”
Hot Topic: Managing the Customer Experience
September 14th, 2009For all service providers, listening to the voice of the customer should be of the utmost importance to stay afloat in today’s customer-driven business environment. Customer experience management is one of those hot topics that was at one point an odd, new buzz phrase and, perhaps, it still is to some. But nowadays more businesses and health care providers, especially, are perking up and paying close attention as patients are seen for what they really are – paying customers. Therefore, managing the customer experience has taken on a whole new level of priority.
Following are highlights of customer experience management concepts discussed during “Countdown to a Customer Experience Management Program” part of the August American Marketing Association (AMA) Webinar Series:
- Communicate the need for a formal customer experience management strategy i.e., not just a one time project, but a full blown program to manage the customer experience across departments. Healthcare providers should manage their patients’ experiences similar to M. D. Anderson, a long time Gelb Consulting client.
M. D. Anderson manages their patients’ experiences in all care centers, not just one; and then implements customer experience processes and standards one care center at a time. - Manage the internal customer experience to create internal ambassadors/stewards who are proud, loyal to not only meet, but exceed customer service/experience standards and expectations.
- Remember that customer loyalty is more than willingness to recommend; it’s a reluctance to leave/switch.
- Designate a c-level customer experience manager – someone who is charged with making sure all others are held accountable for customer experience efforts e.g., a Chief Customer Experience Officer. There is news indicating an increase in this type of role in companies.
- Emphasize the need to design the customer experience program according to your brand promise.
- The voice of the customer is important, but it’s equally important that all customer-facing employees hear this voice. Share and make customer feedback available to all customer facing employees.
For more information about customer experience management, visit www.gelbconsulting.com or contact Ana Rodarte at arodarte@gelbconsulting.com .
Sources: American Marketing Association (AMA) Webinar Series for August 2009,“Countdown to a Customer Experience Management Program”
Consistency inside and out
September 11th, 2009Key issue: Expected job growth reveals health care is a growing. To sustain this growth we think a consistent internal and external experience is vital.
A recent glance at USA Today‘s forecasted 2010 job growth highlights health care as an emerging segment of our economy. With new employees entering the work force with established health care providers, maintaining a consistent employee and patient experience will become increasingly critical. We think health care organizations with a successful orientation process and a careful articulation of their patient experience will be most successful. Tenured and new employees alike will need to become aware of the organization’s expected behaviors through processes like experience mapping. In addition, organizational alignment can be achieved through a common orientation toward delivering an exceptional experience and service recovery.
What actions do you think will be critical to health care as the industry grows?
For more information, visit www.gelbconsulting.com or contact John McKeever at jmckeever@gelbconsulting.com, 281.759.3600 x1022.
Source: Jobs May Rebound in 2010 (July 29, 2009). USA Today. Retrieved from http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2009-02-06-new-jobs-growth-graphic_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip