health care
HEALTHCARE: Why You Spell Health With an “E”.
Friday, June 29th, 2012 | Uncategorized | No Comments
Just a couple of years ago, the concept that personal health information could reside on something as accessible and potentially hackable as the internet scared providers and patients alike.
My how times, security and acceptance have changed. According to a newly-released study by Accenture Connected Health Pulse, 90% of United States patients embrace eHealth self-serve options including access to personal health information; scheduling appointments; communicating with their physician; and scheduling and refilling prescriptions. Additionally, the vast majority of patients also want health communications — including preventative and follow-up care — delivered via digital media including online and mobile devices.
But here’s the big opportunity for healthcare marketers: nearly half of all these digital-eager patients aren’t even aware that their provider offers these services — meaning if you start talking about it when the guys down the street aren’t, you’re at a competitive advantage.
So healthcare providers, remember the new adage: not an apple a day, but an email a day.
SOURCE: NOISE, Center for Media Research
SOCIAL MEDIA: Measuring ROI Requires More Than One Yardstick.
Friday, September 30th, 2011 | Uncategorized | No Comments
Maybe it’s just us, but it seems the relationship between social media and return on investment is a particularly hot topic. Here at NOISE, we can’t seem to make it through the day (or through a conference) without an e-mail, a blog or a seminar proclaiming that it owns the definitive bottom line on how to arrive at SM’s bottom line.
News alert: there is no one way or best way to measure social media ROI. The way we see it and practice it for NOISE Social’s many clients, which is the way you should see it and practice is, is that you measure social media’s return simply against what you’re asking it to do. And as you know, social media is no one-trick pony.
So, drum roll please, as NOISE reveals the top ten ways we apply (and measure) social media return on investment:
1. Brand Ambassadorship Development: Defined by the numbers of legitimate, involved social community followers you attract.
2. Consumer Engagement: Defined by the involvement and participation of your community’s followers in your brand via interactions.
3. Brand Passion: Defined by how often and how passionately your followers recommend your brand, and share it with or refer it to others.
4. Databuilding: Defined by hard counts of actual e-data consumers your social media efforts add to your overall marketing machine.
5. Market Research: You can use social media to learn a lot about a lot of things, both consumer-based and marketing-specific; if so, what’s the level of involvement and quality of data?
6. E-commerce: Are you transacting sales within your social media platforms? If so, measure your inquiries, conversion rates, transactions and profits.
7. Secondary Sales: Social media can generate sales by driving consumers to secondary transaction points (like a reservations page, or a shopping cart). Measure your efforts vis-a-vis referrals to your sites, as well as transactions.
8. Public Relations: Done effectively and creatively, social media can create a whole bunch of ancillary buzz via public relations. Are your social media efforts being acquired and publicized by other media outlets, creating value-added buzz for you?
9. Web Traffic: Social media should generally have an end-goal, and for most brands, that end-goal should be to drive consumers to your web brand to further engage, interact and transact with you. Look at your analytics.
10. Dollar Signs. In the end, social media can specifically and emphatically deliver sales. Don’t believe us? Try creating a social-media-only sales offer, package or campaign.
Bottom line? There is no one, best way to measure social media. But social media’s bottom line can clearly be measured by how you apply strategies and tactics — and if done correctly, its impact on your branding, marketing and sales efforts can be powerful and positive.
SOURCE: NOISE
INNOVATION: Giving Your Customers What They Want.
Tuesday, September 29th, 2009 | Uncategorized | No Comments
Okay, you’ve probably just read this headline and scratched your head. After all, giving the customer what they want is about as old as dirt and simple as it gets.
Well, old it is. But simple it may not always be. That’s where the innovation part comes in.
Innovation as we all know can take many forms. Most innovation today manifests itself in new science and technology. But innovation can also be born when bold thinkers like you and me ask daring questions of the seemingly obvious like “why?” or “why not?”
It’s the simple questioning of the status quo, and the ability to look at something differently, that can just as effectively create fresh new ways of doing business, creating demand, satisfying customers and improving sales. Case in point is a new program launched this fall by NOISE client Fort HealthCare, an integrated, progressive health network that serves Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin and surrounding communities.
Through focus groups conducted by NOISE, Fort HealthCare learned that a source of frustration for new patients was the lack of empowerment they felt (in past experience elsewhere) in choosing a physician. So the innovative minds at Fort HealthCare marketing huddled together, enlisted a bunch of daring docs and launched a new Physician Interview Program called “Meet Your Match” — a free, 10-minute one-on-one interview with any or all participating providers.
Imagine that. Telling the doctor, basically, to open wide and say ahh.
Science? No. Technology? No. Common sense? Yes. Innovative? Yes yes.
Is there something about your operation or organization that would better satisfy your customers? Think about it. Then think about it differently.
SOURCE: NOISE
CUSTOMER SATISFACTION: How to Share (If You Dare) With Facebook.
Monday, September 28th, 2009 | Uncategorized | No Comments
By now, only the most sheltered from the world of you have not been exposed to the marketing power of Facebook, to socially and positively extend a brand’s reputation, reach and results (caveat: when used correctly). But I’ll bet very few of you are aware of a free, traffic building and customer satisfaction enhancing application called Facebook Connect.
Facebook Connect is an API (application programming interface) that can serve as a click-to-use “forum” for your consumers to express and share their love of your product or service — in other words, a no-charge, user friendly, extremely social customer satisfaction section of your website.
Bonus for you: your consumers don’t have to be Facebook members to post their praise of you on your website, using Facebook Connect.
Bonus bonus for you: if your consumers are Facebook members, they can click-share their kudos about your product or service with all of their friends in the FB world.
Bonus bonus bonus for you: if said friends read Facebook Connect praise, a direct link back to your website automatically accompanies the posting — which, if you’ve done everything right and your consumer loves you, will drive new customers to your website to learn more.
NOISE client ‘Tween Waters Inn Island Resort has implemented Facebook Connect on its exciting new website (view here under “Raves and Reviews”). Since launch, an average of three comments per week have been posted and shared, expanding the resort’s reach, reputation and (hopefully) results.
But be forewarned: like any social media outlet, if you screw up, people will shout it from the mountaintop. Only with Facebook Connect, the mountaintop will be found right on your website. So rock your consumer’s world, and earn their praise. It’ll come back to you in spades.
To learn more, ask your agency. Your web developer. Or better yet, contact us at NOISE.
SOURCE: NOISE
MARKETING: Reslicing Your Budget Pie.
Monday, August 3rd, 2009 | Uncategorized | 2 Comments
How are marketers investing their very valuable budgets today? According to a newly-released report from Forrester Research that studies First Quarter 2009 marketing budget allocations to First Quarter 2008, the pie is being sliced up quite differently than just a year ago. How does your budget compare?
Overall, the report noted that marketers have quickly and emphatically re-prioritized dollars toward strategies and tactics deemed most valuable to maintaining a competitive advantage. In simple speak, that basically means: adios traditional media, hola new media. Here’s a look at how the budget pie is being resliced:
- Social Media: 47% have increased budget
- Web Development: 44% have increased budget
- Online Advertising: 40% have increased budget
- E-Marketing: 38% have increased budget
- Marketing Technology: 27% have increased budget
- Loyalty Programs: 14% have increased budget
- Branding and Advertising: 11% have increased budget
- Direct Mail: 7% have increased budget
- Staff and Training: 5% have increased spending
- Traditional Media (TV, Radio, Print, Magazine): 4% have increased spending
Clearly, the trend would suggest that smart marketers will build their brand best by investing in areas that best enhance their customer’s brand experience — you know, marketing tactics that are interactive, directly communicative, social and measurable. To us at NOISE, that sounds like a smart strategy in any economic climate.
SOURCE: American Marketing Association, Forrester Research, NOISE
E-MARKETING: Nine Costly Mistakes (Are You Making Any of ‘Em?).
Saturday, August 1st, 2009 | Uncategorized | 1 Comment
As we all know, e-marketing can be an extremely effective and cost efficient sales strategy. As we all also know, consumers and technology are also becoming more e-savvy, meaning smart e-marketers should consistently review their campaigns — tracking opens, clickthroughs, opt-outs and spam reports — for any negative trends.
Should you come across any downward spirals, MarketingProfs presents nine ways you can screw up, and how you can fix ‘em:
1. USER AUTHENTICATION. Does the domain server you use for e-marketing support Sender ID and Sender Policy Framework (SPF)? If not, recipient ISPs may be blacklisting your emails as spam and not even delivering them. Ask.
2. CAN-SPAM. Are you CAN-SPAM compliant with a legit from line, accurate subject line, valid postal address and easy opt out? If not, get on it — every violation you would get nailed for will cost you $11,000.
3. OPT IN? HELLO? If you’re still incorrectly collecting e-data or using suspect e-lists, well, don’t bother reading on.
4. NO PLACE LIKE HOME. Does your e-blast or e-newsletter simply click back to one page (generally your home page) of your website? If so, you’re wasting opportunities to drive consumers directly to specific landing pages that can improve your sales (and ability to measure results).
5. SEE THE BIG PICTURE. If you’re using images, don’t make your offer entirely or predominantly image — 50% or more of all recipients won’t see the image, due to software suppression. Make sure you combine image with text.
6. KEEP IT SIMPLE, STUPID. The argument that brief, simple copy makes more effective e-marketing isn’t necessarily true. Studies show that if the subject is relevant to the consumer, longer copy works just as effectively.
7. THROWAWAY SUBJECT LINES. If you’re not investing brain cells in crafting an on-target subject line, you’re missing your biggest op to improve open rates.
8. IS YOUR EMAIL ON AN ISLAND? Like everything else, e-marketing should be integrated into a strategic marketing plan — and branded consistently to reflect your brand story and message. If not, shame on you.
9. TESTING, SHMESTING. How often do you test different subject lines, offers, graphic treatments of other e-marketing variables? If you haven’t yet, devise a campaign and put it to a variety of tests. Odds are, you’ll learn more about what makes your consumers tick and click.
SOURCE: Marketing Profs, NOISE
SOCIAL MEDIA: QwickClick More Customers to Your Web.
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009 | Uncategorized | 1 Comment
It’s been well documented here, there and virtually everywhere how the Internet has become the number one medium in the United States for video viewership — and how “social” or “web” videos, editorial in style and soft on sell, can dramatically drive awareness, buzz, traffic and sales in almost any industry.
Well, along comes a company to help innovative marketers everywhere sieze the moment and the opportunity.
It’s called QwickClick VideoTours, a creative group of video, post production, on-camera, Internet and social media marketing professionals. Serving clients throughout the U.S., QwickClick VideoTours — launched earlier this spring — works directly with clients or in association with their advertising agencies to create two- to four-minute “social videos” that can be embedded in the marketer’s website, search engine optimized, propagated throughout the Internet video world and otherwise alchemied, like gold, to a marketer’s overall web strategy.
The beauties of QwickClick are many and, unlike your sales manager wielding a home videocam, include: experienced, award-winning professional video production and edit teams working in High-Definition format; professional on-camera talent to open, close and “narrate” the video; rights to professional music underscores; complete on-location videography that follows a client-approved storyboard and script outline; and delivery of project for embedding into your website within three weeks of shoot date (all for an extremely cost-effective rate). Additional for-charge services include web programming, search engine optimization, e-marketing and other strategies and tactics, as well as location still photography.
Virtually any business-to-consumer, and most business-to-business marketers, would benefit with QwickClick VideoTours — particularly travel, hospitality, health care, real estate, entertainment and other industries where multiple stories will combine to weave a comprehensive brand story and brand experience.
Wanna learn and see more? Just QwickClick here.
SOURCE: NOISE
BRANDING: What’s Your Unique Buying Proposition?
Monday, June 29th, 2009 | Uncategorized | 1 Comment
Once upon a time, marketers would preach and companies would promote their “unique selling proposition.” The argument, as you probably recall, was that what makes you different is what makes you better — and that’s the message you take to market.
Unfortunately, it ain’t as easy as that today.
The problems with this Little-House-on-the-Prairie-old-school line of thought, as we all know, are many. First, very few brands today can claim a genuinely unique selling proposition. Second, the USP focuses on your features — and hello, people don’t buy features, they buy benefits. Third and most important, your brand isn’t defined or remembered by some single unique element, but by the cumulative interactive experience that’s unique to every one of your customers.
To underscore this, along comes Newt Barrett — content marketing expert, publisher of ContentMarketingToday.com and NOISE Digital Marketing Officer — with the concept of the “unique buying proposition.” As Barrett so smartly points out in his outstanding weekly e-newsletter, the Unique Buying Proposition isn’t in any way about you — but rather, all about your buyer (i.e., customer-centric) and what your buyer will gain from entering a relationship with you (i.e., the benefits).
Put another way, your Unique Buying Proposition is the wind-up to your brand promise pitch. And to us at NOISE, your brand promise — which is defined and delivered by everything you do and everyone who does it for you — is truly what’s unique about you, and what makes you better.
SOURCE: Newt Barrett, ContentMarketingToday.com, NOISE
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