Health B2B Marketing

Diet Coke's sponsorship of "The Heart Truth" campaign is ruffling a few feathers.

Lots of buzz in the health Twitter community about a blog post written last week by the New York Times writer Tara Parker Pope, asking whether Coke should talk about heart health. As of this writing, bit.ly records 98 tweets, 86 Facebook shares and 551 clicks to the story.

Parker-Pope’s post reports that the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) sent a letter to the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute requesting that the organization end its relationship with Coca-Cola, whose Diet Coke brand sponsors the Heart Truth campaign. CSPI’s executive director, Michael Jacobson, actually compared Coca-Cola’s sponsorship to Big Tobacco sponsoring anti-smoking campaigns.

So, should Coca-Cola be sponsoring a campaign that promotes heart health?
Personally, I think the question is absurd. The “letter” (read: pitch) that prompted the question is a standard PR grab for organizations like CSPI that rely on fundraising. Mission accomplished, CSPI. Well done.

And a hearty “well done” to Coca-Cola. Since their campaign started, awareness that heart disease is the top cause of death among women has increased two-fold, according to the company. Is it great PR for Diet Coke? Of course it is. Is it good for their bottom line? Absolutely. And thank the stars and stripes that there’s nothing wrong with that.

Diet Coke’s not the enemy to health, and neither is The Coca-Cola Company. I agree that their products contribute to obesity, but my goodness, so do milkshakes and birthday cakes and steak and potatoes and eggs and everything else that’s high in carbs and/or fat. Kudos to Coke for using some of their vast resources to do some good. Why shouldn’t they bask in the glow?

But I’d like to see them do something else. It would be great if Coke had a few community relations people who took the time to respond to some of the 170 comments on the NYT post, to add a link to the NYT blog on their Heart Truth Facebook fan page, to have conversations with real people who don’t have agendas but who do have real concerns. They’re not going to convince their critics, but they will enhance their brand in the eyes of their fans. And, they may make a few more fans.

The sad irony for health care IT marketers is that the best HIT journal also has the worst ad options.

As a health care marketer, I have a vested interest in the quality of health care journalism. Better content means better audiences, and better audiences mean better advertising opportunities. So it’s a bit ironic to me that the best content is coming from a non-traditional journal with really poor ad options.

The journal I’m referring to, of course, is HIStalk. Written by an anonymous hospital IT executive and a plucky, shoe-obsessed anonymous blogger (who claims to be female and sports a sultry avatar), it has a vibrant community of readers and is often the first to break news.

Mr. HIStalk is a witty, interesting writer, and he’s a snoop in the best sense of the word. But his website is a terrible venue for advertising. He could do wonders for his advertisers if he had a better ad server and if he chunked his content into smaller pieces. As it stands, his articles are littered with ads that make the rows of billboards on the way to Las Vegas look classy. From what he writes, I don’t think he worries too much about his advertisers. I guess that’s part of his charm.

There are certainly other good HIT publications out there. I like Modern Healthcare‘s and Healthcare IT News‘s print publications, but let’s face it: print is dying a slow death. MH has a nice email property in its Health IT Strategist, and the online content in Healthcare IT News is decent, if you can wade through all the clutter. You’ve got to be a subscriber to get Modern Healthcare’s online content. But honestly, content is the reason why HIStalk is winning. These corporate backed media companies aren’t matching his knowledge of the industry and his conversational style.

What do think about the state of health care IT advertising?

Thanks to the magic of Google, I ran into a new blog that focuses on healthcare and marketing, among other things. The author, Chris Lindgren, posed a question regarding a label I use all the time: B2B. Do businesses really market to businesses, or should we think of our activities as businesses marketing to individuals: B2I?

Here’s some of Chris’s thinking:

Today marketers market to Individuals; and they market to both their work and life persona’s. For example, at work I team with purchasing to choose amongst vendors, and I complain to facilities if the printer isn’t meeting our needs. At home I email my sister to recommend a new phone or car. The power of me, the Individual, impacts the decisions and loyalty of both a business and a consumer.

Is it time for a new paradigm?

First, I think consumers and technology are moving businesses in this direction. The empowered consumer demands to be heard as an individual. Smart marketers will segment, but they will also never lose sight that the names and emails to which they’re marketing represent real people.

Second, I think that B2I may not be the ultimate destination. Truly, doing business is about relationships, and individuals don’t really relate to businesses. They may have relationships with brands, but we relate to brands the same way we relate to people. The best brands have human-like attributes and personality, and they lead individuals to want to interact with the people behind the brand.

Even so, in the business world, when it comes to a buying decision, people won’t spend $10,000 on a consulting engagement or $100,000 on a software upgrade because they have a brand relationship. They’ll spend the money because they trust their sales rep, because they know the vendor’s CEO, because the vendor worked hard to build a strong relationship with them. As in any good relationship, there’s a level of trust, loyalty, partnership. Successful businesses already sell “I2I.” I believe that the more health care marketing can move toward individual-to-individual marketing, the more successful it will be. The social web will facilitate.

Third, we label concepts so that we can easily communicate them. “B2B” describes an entire business segment in a way that’s clear and pithy, and I don’t think that will change. But I do think that there will come a time in the future that when someone says “B2B marketing,” we’ll all understand it to mean individuals from one business marketing to individuals from another.

For a health care marketer, trade show prep starts long before the booths go up.

I’ll be in Atlanta during the first week of March attending HIMSS10. This isn’t my first HIMSS, but it is the first one for which I have a full attendee pass. At previous shows, I’ve attended as an exhibitor and managed a fairly large booth (actually, it was average by HIMSS size standards). Notwithstanding the enormous amount of work that goes into pulling off a show, I’m feeling a bit nostalgic today. So I’d like to share a few of the things I’ve learned about managing a health care vendor presence at a large trade show.

Start outreach long before the show begins. Identify your key prospects and start talking about a show meet-up months before the show. I know of one organization that reached out to their key clients and prospects six months prior to a show, and they ended up doing a lot of business there. If you’re just starting to set appointments at HIMSS, you may be running behind.

Get the right people there. HIMSS is the best show for networking in healthcare IT. Your executives will want to be there. Make sure they’re busy. One vendor executive told me that the worst thing he could do at a trade show is step in front of a speeding bullet, that is, try to cold contact a C-level attendee. One of your highest priorities should be setting appointments for your executives to meet with your client and prospect executives. And do not—I repeat, DO NOT—schedule them to work the booth. Save that space for your hardest-working, most outgoing sales and marketing people.

Treat your booth like a stage. Think of your booth as “theater in the round,” and your booth staff as actors. Once the actor steps on your booth carpeting, she’s “on.” Your booth staff need to be in character as brand ambassadors, and they need to know—and act—their part.

Do more than just show up. The best booths are the ones that draw crowds. How? Not because of a vendor’s fabulous booth design or because they’re giving away an iPod (will this year’s big giveaway be an iPad?). The crowds come because of in-booth engagements: educational sessions, themed presentations, cocktail parties, book signings, celebrity endorsers, and the like. For example, Ingenix provides fantastic educational sessions. NextGen does a great job at professional presentations. And who doesn’t love the OnBase sports bar?

Remember, it’s not just about the hot lead. The hottest leads are often the ones you did nothing to get. They’ve identified you as their target and want to use the trade show as an opportunity to meet with you. All the work you’ve done—the pre-show outreach, the appoinment setting, the attractive activities, the messaging—will bring in a lot of people looking for freebies and a smaller subset who qualify as “warm leads.” Value those warm leads. Follow-up with them. Nurture them. Stoke their flame so that they’ll become “hot” some time in the future. And don’t forget about those who are just interested in a giveaway. Have a strategy for them as well. There will likely come a time when they’re looking for something you’re offering.

How have you made your trade show booths successful?

If you want to play in the social ocean, are your ready to swim with the dolphins?

I first started paying attention to the buzz about blogs back in 2004. Like many of you, I thought that they could revolutionize how people communicate and how organizations market. I started studying new media lights like Robert Scoble, Jeff Jarvis, and Steve Rubel. I read the Cluetrain Manifesto and was immediately converted to its dogma of openness, transparency and authenticity. I even blogged about it.

I worked for a few very conservative health care organizations in the intervening years (I know: using “conservative” and “health care” in the same phrase is probably redundant ). But I took it upon myself to preach the gospel of openness to my colleagues. Problem was, they were holding fast to the doctrines of command and control. “We must control the message,” etc…

Boy, how things have changed. Social media has gone from being a curiosity to the next big thing. Blogs are commonplace. And it seems as if everyone is on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Even the conservative organizations I worked for have a presence (in some form or fashion) on these sites.

Things have changed for me, too. I took some time off from blogging (although I did manage two corporate blogs) and I was not the first person in my social network that subscribed to Facebook or Twitter (although I have been on LinkedIn since early 2005). I still consider myself on the Cluetrain. Openness, transparency and authenticity, I believe, can be competitive advantages.

As I look at the evolution of health care in social media, I’m heartened by the progress we’ve made over the last six years. We’re taking advantage of the social web to varying degrees. If I may use a series of swimming metaphors, I’ll categorize the progress we’ve made, as I see it.

Dipping their toes in. Organizations have heard the hype and are starting to believe some of it. They’re not sure what it means to them, so they assign someone from their communications or marketing team to start Tweeting or to set up a Facebook page or a LinkedIn group. If you’re part of those organizations, bravo! You’ve got to start somewhere. Now, go on. Get your feet wet. Good? Now, roll up your pant legs and walk in a bit deeper.

Wading in the water. This is where I see most health care organizations. In this category are hospitals that are posting all their news releases to Twitter, medical practices that post promotions on their Facebook fan pages, and B2B vendors who blog about their areas of expertise. In other words, they are using social media to do traditional media things. It makes sense; marketers and communicators are doing what they know how to do. Even if your organization is on multiple social networking sites, with multiple sponsored blogs, and is backed by a comprehensive social media policy, you have a long way to go if you’re not engaging your fans/followers/readers in real, authentic, human conversation.

Diving in. When your organization is on the social web, you’re going to attract all sorts of people: those who have a high opinion of you, those who have a low opinion, those who have had good experiences with you, and those whose experiences have been not so good. Organizations that have dived in to the social ocean are seeing that real conversations can happen there, and not all of them are “on message.” One case in point: Sherman Health, based in Elgin, IL, started seeing some negative comments on its Facebook fan pages. As marcom manager Josh McColough put it, he and some of his hospital administrators “freaked out.” After they cooled off, they made a calm, rational, logical decision: they decided to respond. They put a process in place where the negative comments would be addressed. The situations diffused. Kudos to Josh and Sherman Health for not scrambling out of the water.

Swimming with the dolphins. Too often, our conversations in corporate communications have been just that: corporate (i.e., one-way, insincere, self-centered). But corporate conversations don’t happen in the real-world—at least not for long. The social web is bringing the real-world into monolithic organizations, opening them up to how the people who are critical to their success (customers, stakeholders, community) really feel. Organizations that take advantage of this will be the successful organizations of the future. Organizations that “swim with the dolphins” will take on some of that aquatic mammal’s attributes: they will have thick skin, they will be nimble, they will be compassionate (yes, dolphins are compassionate) and they will be social. I don’t know of any health care organization that behaves this way online, just yet. Do you?

Lead generation is all about finding a cure for your prospect's pain.

I had a conversation with a client yesterday about lead generation. They’re a new client who has mostly built their business through word of mouth and referrals. They’ve developed a great reputation over the years. They advertise regularly and have built some nice name recognition. They would like to leverage their great reputation toward increasing their growth trajectory.

To grow, this client needs a fatter sales pipeline, which calls for integrated lead generating campaigns. That got me thinking about the ingredients of a strong health care B2B lead gen campaign:

Ingredient #1: Compelling pain. Think of this as different from “customer needs.” Compelling pain is a worry that a decision maker or an influencer has; something that makes them so uncomfortable that they need to do something about it immediately.

Ingredient #2: A matching solution. If your organization has the next great widget but doesn’t ease the prospect’s current discomfort, the campaign’s a non-starter. Another thing that will kill your campaign is trying to fit your square solution into your prospect’s round hole. The medicine has to cure the disease.

Ingredient #3: Clear objectives and success metrics. What’s the old cliché? If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. Be clear about what you want to accomplish and how you’ll gauge whether you’ve accomplished it.

Ingredient #4: Buy-in across the organization. The best lead gen campaigns start with cross-functional teams that include marketing, sales, finance, product management and executive leadership. Marketing and sales need to consult with each other on the message, the audience and the timing; finance needs to provide input on the offer; product management and finance need to work together to remove barriers to purchasing; company leaders need to own the effort and ensure that the campaign is a high priority.

Ingredient #5: Tight segmentation. Lead generation is by definition interruption marketing. You will be intruding into your prospect’s email inbox, mailbox or into their convention time. The more focused your marketing list, the less chance you’ll have of ticking someone off and damaging your brand.

Ingredient #6: Targeted message and engaging creative. Understanding your prospect’s pain and how your product alleviates your prospect’s pain is the foundation of messaging. Build on the foundation with your differentiators, then bring your message to life with creative that speaks to your audience in many modes: online, in print, in person, etc.

Ingredient #7: Prompt evaluation. Once the campaign has been executed, compare your success metrics with your outcomes. In my experience, this ingredient is often overlooked, which is a shame. Successful or not, your campaign holds valuable learning that you can apply to your next campaign.

What do you think? Is this list missing any ingredients? Am I overemphasizing one ingredient over another?