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Reduce, Reuse, Recycle:Making Every Dollar Count in

Healthcare Marketing

Holley P. MaliaPresident, Grey Matter Marketing

2011 DxMA Conference

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New Market Landscape

• Shifting market dynamics, economic pressures, and regulatory demands

• Marketing to a more discerning and sophisticated constituent who is already well-informed through personal data resources

• Moving from retail/detail approach to customer-centric partner strategy– Must consider personalization, timing, medium,

and cross-channel activities

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Marketing Conundrum

• “Do more with less”• Cost-cutting efforts can improve

organization’s short-term economics, but can’t derail marketing efforts

• Must find the right mix of messages, across the right channels, in order to maximize the return on marketing investment

It really is about working—and spending—smarter.

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The Good News

• Leverage cost-effective online opportunities

• Maximize mileage of existing content • Increase conversions through lead

nurturing• Steer clear of common wasted expenses

• Share your ideas and successes!

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Driving Demand

• Avoid• Assess• Acknowledge

AcceptanceAcceptance ActionActionAwarenessAwareness

• Across all healthcare industry segments • B2C and/or B2C• Must motivate and engage target

audience

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What’s Online?

• Websites and Blogs• SEO• Social Media• Online display advertising• Paid search

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Who’s Online? • Patients, Physicians, Media• 67% of patients search online for health

information– 34% use social media– 46% use health portals– 67% use search engines– 21% use Wikipedia

• 36% want to see what other consumers have to say about medication/treatments

• People comment, share, influence– They want to tell their story — let them

Source: Consumer Reports National Research Center, How America Searches: Health and Wellness.

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Who’s Online?

• Patients, Physicians, Media• 89% of US physicians rely on the Internet as

an essential part of their professional practice– Approximately 72% of physicians now use

smartphones– 41% of physicians research takes place online

• Sermo = Facebook for doctors– Over 115,000 practicing MDs participating– 68 specialties

Source: Manhattan Research, 2010

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Who’s Online?

• Patients, Physicians, Media • 70% of journalists now use social networks to

assist reporting, compared to 41% the year before• Use social media channels (blogs, forums and

microblogs) to share success stories from out-of-the-ordinary operations or treatments, medical research or other significant achievements

• Digital PR is a new avenue that should be included in your media relations strategy

Source: Middleberg Communications survey, reported by PRWeek 2010

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You Have a Website. Now What?

• Optimize what you’ve already built to get the most out of the investment

• Realize it isn’t static: make it a routine habit to refine, refresh

• Take a holistic, proactive approach to content strategy: strength comes from integration

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Digital Asset Optimization Content Strategy

Keywords

Personas SERPs

Assets Editorial Mapping

Operationalize

Off Page DAO Promote Measure

What can be searched can be optimized

Source: TopRank Online Marketing

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Keyword Research

• KW research usually handled via Google’s tool, Wordtracker, Keyword Discovery, etc.

• Social media monitoring can reveal a more important KW to include

• Understand the mix of data sources • What key language and topics are

being discussed on the social web?

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Define Customer Personas

• Who are your best customers or ideal target audience?

• What do they want to read about and in what format?

• What is the buying cycle they go through and what do they need at various stages? – Broad phrases typically represent early stages– More specific topics often indicate a buyer

closer to purchase

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Asset Optimization

• Inventory existing content and digital assets• Repurpose what you have

– Host webinars– Create downloadable white papers – Send newsletters– Video testimonials– Article reprints

• Video deconstructed– Multiple short form videos– Single images– Transcribed into text– Split out audio for a podcast

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Editorial Plan for New Content

• Understanding search and social media KWs, personas and assets allows you to ID what you need to create

• Think like a publisher not a marketer– Don’t just issue a press release– Create a resource page for media with links, images,

PowerPoint, video, executive interviews, audio snippets, etc.

– Integrate “share to social” tools = free leads

• Helps SEO b/c creating multiple entry points via search and link to destination content on corp site

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Optimizing SEO

• Dial in your title,description and keyword meta tags– Don’t lead with your business name unless it’s keyword

rich

• Identify keywords for each significant page– Use 3-5 per page; don’t generic batch

• Content is king– Great for crawlers, makes you an expert and a resource

• What are people searching for and how are they navigating? – Don’t forget the search and social KWs and potential KWs

around editorial plan

• SEO is not a one-time event

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Off Page Digital Assets

• Sharing content and assets should be easy and encouraged—and doesn’t cost you anything

• Host assets on social media sharing sites (YouTube, Flickr, Slideshare, etc.)

• Can introduce optimized content to new audiences and attract traffic and links (Stumbleupon, Delicious, Google Buzz, etc.)

• Consider creating a blog as another source of quality content – Free/low cost high-end templates available– Doesn’t have to have corporate brand

• Create a Wikipedia page – http://www.searchengineguide.com/todd-mintz/

how-to-create-y.php

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Social Media in a Regulated Environment: Can it Work?

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2010 FDA Warnings

In 2010, the Division of Drug Marketing and Communications (DDMAC) issued 52 warning and notice of violation letters to companies

Only 1 was issued re: social media

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Promote and Syndicate

• If you build it, they may not come. Must promote it!

• Develop social networks where your customers and influencers spend time

• Cultivate a distribution group and notify them when news is available (Email newsletters, RSS, TwitterFeed, etc.)

Add value not self-promotion!

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What Else?

There is more to marketing than the web

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Email Marketing

• Extremely cost effective• Highly trackable• Consistent presence with customers

and targets– Plan 3-6 months out with topics/headlines

• Needs to be actionable and high value content– Powerful subject link (question,

promotion, etc)

• Lead nurturing through automation

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Demand Generation

Web

Email

TV

Print

1. Lead Generation

2. Lead Qualificatio

n

3. Lead Nurturing

4. Lead Managemen

t

5. Sales Engagemen

t

Ready to Buy

Hand off to sales

Need Recognition Brand EvaluationSolution Intro

Marketing Automation Tools

Continuous process until ready to buy

Lead Scoring

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Mining Your Customers

• Who’s most profitable to you and why?• Where can you find “like” customers• Create case studies to showcase benefit

of your partnership/solution• Ask them, “What can we do better?”

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Rethinking Collateral

• How are you communicating with your customers?– What’s needed, when, how?

• Shift from printed to electronic – If printing, go digital vs off-set

• Manage inventory– How much do you really need?

• Advertorials– More powerful than ads and easy to

repurpose

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Spend Wisely

• Hire freelancers and consultants whose credentials — and fees — fit the job

• Creatives: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it– Don’t change b/c you’re sick of it if it’s still

generating desired results

• Advertising rates are negotiable– Reduced rates for last minute vacancies, series– Develop good relationship with sales rep

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Small Budget. Big Marketing Impact.

• Increase public reach of messages• Increase web traffic• Increase brand awareness• Increase customer action (revenue)• Increase customer loyalty and

competitive barriers

Make your message resonate!

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2 (or More) Heads are Better than 1

How have you overcome budget constraints to deliver top-notch marketing results?

Thank you and good luck!

holley@greymattermarketing.com