instantly health

The eye rolls commence from across the industry at the sight of the headline with everyone thinking; I have a marketing plan. We are on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other social media channels. We even have the annual wellness calendar telling us when it’s time to be doing things.  And on and on. I don’t know about you, but I consider myself an insured healthcare consumer. So, what has this got to do with anything in the headline? A lot. Because of the insured healthcare consumer, it’s all random noise that is not connected. And it is random in part because there is no sustainable or continuous market presence. For example, the other day I received a direct mail newsletter from a hospital. Well, saying “I received” is probably misleading. Whomever the person that lives here named Resident is the one who received the mail. It was the first time I had heard from that provider in years. Random.  Out of the blue comes a direct mail piece. Which by the way, though nicely produ...

Don’t you forget about me Don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t Don’t you forget about me Will you recognize me? Call my name or walk on by….. Simple Minds, Don’t You (Forget About Me) written by Keith Forsey, Steve W. Schiff, Copyright ©Universal Music Publishing Group And the hospital risks fading to black for many reasons, but a major contributor is due to the lack of a consumer-oriented value proposition, successful engagement strategy, and an unwillingness to be transparent in delivering meaningful value to healthcare insured consumers on the buyer's terms. Don’t you forget about me? Is this the future of hospitals? An individual only needs a hospital for three things- emergency care, care for acute complex medical conditions, and intensive care. Not for diagnostic x-rays. Not for rehabilitation. Not for most surgeries. Not for lab testing. Not for outpatient testing. All of this and more can be done in a far more consumer-friendly, convenient, accessible, affordable, and higher quality...

Agile Marketing is a corporate buzzword being thrown around a lot lately.  But unless you’re familiar with the Agile Software Development process which Agile Marketing is adapted from, is much more than what some may think means doing something fast and shifting tactical marketing on a dime. At its heart, Agile Marketing is a tactical marketing approach in which teams identify and focus their collective efforts on high-value projects, complete those projects cooperatively, measure the impact, and then continuously and incrementally improve the results over time. Hardly a short tactical strike as some may think. So what are the hallmarks of an Agile Marketing organization?  1.        Responding to change instead of following a plan.  2.        Rapid tactical iterations over big loud campaigns.  3.        Testing and data over opinions and conventions.  4.    ...

A funny thing happens when you get older.  Brands, especially those in healthcare, suddenly decide that based solely on age, that one is now in need of senior services, specialized care, and other age-based items. Hospitals are particularly brazen at this because really, most are unaware of the deep segmentation characteristics of who uses them and how. Age-based segmentation is wrong on many levels. And is not in any way shape or form, reflective of the new market realities of how someone of any age uses technology,  their experiences or expectations as individuals, as well as how they relate to the world, their beliefs, self-perceptions, attitudes, and lifestyles’. I am an individual. I am not a demographic segmentation based on age. And just because I reached that magic age, I did not become an invalid, incapacitated, or suddenly in need of “senior services.” I did not suddenly need a geriatrician. In this age of personalization with the wealth of segmentation data availabl...

Or as I like to call it, it is the silly season of meaningless hospital marketing. Like the back-to-school physical ads, hospitals and health systems are touting their newly minted quality jewel or consecutive awarding in clinical categories for two or more years. The quality award in and of itself is an accomplishment at some level. But, when these awards are the result of a black box that no one knows how the data is analyzed, besides the awarding organization, do these quality awards make any difference to the insured consumer. And when there is no context outside of the award seal in the advertising or on the website on what the awards mean for the insured consumer, what’s the point?  Is this just wow look at us? Or maybe a checkbox for senior management, the Board of Directors and physicians in what they consider to be good marketing? It also flies in the face of the publicly available data, that for the most part, shows the award winners with overall only average medical care...

It’s the consumer demand for the Amazon experience that is beginning to drive expectations and experience in health care.  Secondary to the headline question is, are healthcare providers prepared for that new marketing reality? Like anything in life and business, some are, but the majority is not.   But be that as it may, it would seem that healthcare consumer or patient engagement is not a part-time or some of the time activity comprised of hit or miss events.  My goodness, there are over 147 engagement and experience touchpoints with the insured consumer and patient with the hospital or health system. So when all of the interruptive outbound marketing that goes on with silly messaging of we have the best doctors, our nurses care more, etc., no wonder the insured consumer and patient roll their eyes during the engagement and experience process when reality meets fantasy.  What engagement should be viewed as is the opportunity to create, foster, and nourish a on...

In my quest to fundamentally change hospital marketing and make it more responsive to the needs of the insured consumer and physicians, hospital marketers are missing a valuable opportunity.  A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post about major health systems marketing failure. So this post in a roundabout way continues that theme.  Which as an insured consumer using one of that systems hospitals for 22 years experienced a major marketing failure on their part due to lack of a CRM and understanding the data of who the customer is and how they use the system. There are over 147 touch-points in an individual’s interaction with a hospital. That means that there are 147 instances of where the patient experience is influenced. Those 147 touch-points in the patient experience can also be marketing opportunities to get people to opt-in to various marketing activities and receiving emails. Oh, but that assumes that the hospital or health system understands the patient journey in deciding...