April 18th, 2011
By Barbara Bix
Last week, two colleagues called my attention to Google Profiles–which now links to all your online activity. The first showed me his new and improved profile. The second stumbled upon it as he was researching a company we were discussing–and his search also displayed comments from one of his colleagues about the company.
The hub for all your professional and personal information
Google Profiles now encourages you to enter information about yourself: your employment, your education, your interests, your relationship, places you’ve lived, your gender, and your contact information. It also allows you to link to other websites of interest including your social media profiles and publications.
Tags: google profile, google profiles, social media profiles
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
April 12th, 2011
By Barbara Bix
Until recently, the health care industry ran largely on paper. With the federal mandate to automate the collection and distribution of patient medical records and information behind us, industry participants are starting to worry about the usability of the new health care information technology systems.
Designing for patient and clinician adoption
Yesterday, I attended the self-proclaimed first-of-its-kind Health Care Experience Design Conference in Boston. There, speakers from leading health care organizations such as The Cleveland Clinic, Kaiser Permanente, Aetna, Philips, and Johnson and Johnson–as well as representatives from human interface design agencies–shared best practices for designing technology that is easy for clinicians and patients to use and adopt.
Tags: design, health care information systems, health care IT, healthcare IT, user interface
Posted in health care | No Comments »
April 3rd, 2011
Cheri Keith posted a recap from Harnessing the Power of Social Media in Healthcare Communications on the Health Care 3.0 blog and solicited “takeaways” from others. Mine follow below.
About the panel:
The Racepoint Group hosted the session. Larry Weber (who just published Everywhere: Comprehensive Digital Business Strategy for the Social Media Era ) served as moderator. The panelists included Dr. Kevin Pho, MD, Barry P. Chaiken, MD, MPH and Ashley Serotta of Sermo.
Most physicians are not active on social media during the work day
This is a preview of
Health care social media is in its infancy says panel
.
Read the full post (558 words, 4 images, estimated 2:14 mins reading time)
Tags: Facebook, health care, health care marketing consulting services, health care social media, healthcare marketing consulting services, healthcare social media, Larry Weber, online communications, patient communications, physicians, reimbursement, social media marketing consulting services, Twitter
Posted in health care, social media, social media marketing | No Comments »
March 23rd, 2011
By Barbara Bix
This morning, I attended a program at the Massachusetts Technology Leadership forum featuring John Lewis, Regional VP of Sales, of athenahealth. John’s presentation centered on his company’s experiences of selling what he referred to as health care’s first cloud-based service.
Following on the heels of recent conversations, I’ve had with CIOs, about placing confidential patient data in the cloud; I expected John to tell us how he overcomes this objection. Instead, he spent the morning convincing us that operating in the cloud is his company’s competitive advantage. John supported this thesis with figures, facts, and logic.
Tags: athenahealth, cloud, collections, confidentiality, cost, data, data standards, efficiency, EMR, EMRs, health care, healthcare, knowledge management, meaningful use, privacy, reimbursement, revenue cycle, SaaS, standardization
Posted in health care, market intelligence, Marketing strategy, SaaS, Speaker notes, value propositions | No Comments »
March 21st, 2011
By Barbara Bix
I bookmarked today’s MarketingProf’s article entitled “Three tips for maintaining a solid voice-of-the-customer program”. And, I recommend that you do the same.
For one, it’s chock full of useful tools that companies can use to find out what matters most to customers–and why. For another, it provides a link to some great statistics captured by Right Now in their Customer Experience Impact Report 2010 that are a good reminder of the importance of great service.
It’s easy to assume that all customers care about is price
Tags: customer behavior, customer conversations, customer experience, secret shopping, voice of the customer
Posted in market intelligence, Marketing strategy, value propositions | 2 Comments »
March 14th, 2011
By Barbara Bix
I have a friend with a son who is a sophomore in high school. This morning, she told me that she can’t believe how many money colleges waste precious funds on expensive direct mail communications. She described the quality of the paper, the outsized packaging, and the heft of the packages they’ve been receiving–all of which she tosses in the waste bin.
Direct marketing mail campaigns are often cost-effective
This is a preview of
Good lead generation campaigns are much more than a shot in the dark
.
Read the full post (872 words, 4 images, estimated 3:29 mins reading time)
Tags: call to action, campaign, direct mail, direct marketing, lead generation, marketing communication, marketing message, target audience, timing, value proposition
Posted in How to, Marketing strategy, Uncategorized, value propositions | 3 Comments »
March 11th, 2011
By Barbara Bix
Stimulating? Exciting? Scary? Each of these are words that came to mind this morning as I listened to Google National Industry Manager, Seth van der Swaagh’s presentation to members of the Associated Industries of Massachusetts (AIM) on Google’s Digital Vision – The Acceleration of Everything.
Accelerate with AIM
The topic and the speaker were an interesting choice when you consider that AIM represents companies in industries that have been around since the Industrial Revolution. Yet, one of the conversations I had prior to the meeting shed light on how the Digital Age affects everyone.
Tags: AIM, engaging, Google, MA, manufacturing, Massachusetts, media, mobile, mobile strategy, relevant, video
Posted in Internet marketing, Marketing communications programs, Marketing strategy, Speaker notes | No Comments »
March 7th, 2011
By Barbara Bix
B2B marketers will welcome Paul Gillin’s and Eric Schwartzman’s latest book, Social Marketing to the Business Customer
. As the authors note in the preface, most discussions about social media marketing, focus on consumer marketing–even on occasions when B2b marketers make up the majority of the audience.
Great overview of B2B marketing
While the book centers on social media marketing, it is really an excellent overview of B2B marketing in the 21st century. In addition to a description of all things social, readers will also find sections on search and content strategy–and examples of how to combine them with conventional activities such as public relations, direct mail, and sales collateral creation for maximum impact. Perhaps the only innovations the authors don’t go into in detail are those of a physical nature (e.g. SaaS and mobile).
Tags: B2B marketers, better qualified leads, content strategy, crowdsourcing, integrated marketing campaign, marketing tactics, most effective marketing strategies, search, social community, social media marketing
Posted in Marketing strategy, social media, social media marketing | No Comments »
March 7th, 2011
While perusing Tweetdeck this cloudy Monday morning, I came across a tweet from @Seltzer Design about a post on Seth Godin’s blog. The tweet reports, “Mr Godin makes a good argument for the social-normative power of testimonials in his post abt evidence-based marketing. http://is.gd/dQWJ09 “.
Evidence is not always persuasive
As I interpreted it, the gist of the blog is that marketers should be wary of using evidence to persuade buyers to purchase. Instead, Godin notes that testimonials, lots of them, from people that buyers know of and trust, are often the key.
Testimonials are often more convincing
Tags: doctors, evidence, Godin, Marketing, patients, persistence, recommendations, repetition, testimonials
Posted in Marketing strategy | No Comments »
February 15th, 2011
On February 4, I attended the Massachusetts Health Data Consortium conference entitled HIT ’11: The tools for meaningful and accountable care. It was a fabulous day packed with information from health care providers and health care payers across the nation. 
Since I couldn’t keep up with the information flow, I’m looking forward to reviewing the slides once they’re up later this month. In the meantime, the next few posts provide snippets from several sessions.
I hope you’ll find it as interesting as I did. This one focuses on the first session: Clinical Decision Support: Technology at the point of care.
This is a preview of
Health Care Information Technology: The prescription for successful implementation
.
Read the full post (633 words, 4 images, estimated 2:32 mins reading time)
Tags: accountable care, clinical decision support, CPOE, electronic medical record, health care, health care information technology, medical errors, medication administration
Posted in health care, Speaker notes | 1 Comment »
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