field notes

Last week, Las Vegas hosted the inaugural HLTH Conference. According to organizers, it was "a much needed dialogue focused on disruptive innovation." Here's our take on a few noteworthy topics from the event.

I hear it often in B2B, “we have the hardest time explaining what we do, but as soon as our prospects SEE it, they’re blown away.” The immediate instinct is to push prospects straight to a demo or an in-person meeting. But when 73% of B2B leads are not sales-ready, that’s like going “all-in” before the flop in Texas Hold’em. Your prospects will fold immediately.

By nature, social media sites are, well…social. That means that people use them for very personal and emotional reasons. Likewise, brands should have very different strategies for each channel. Especially at a time when Facebook is emphasizing more meaningful interactions, you should pause before posting the same exact content across all social channels. 

While the the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a new law coming out of the European Union (EU), it will impact marketers worldwide. Starting May 25, 2018, if you send an email to a person residing in the EU without their consent, there is serious money on the line. To the tune of €20 million or 4% of your company’s total global annual turnover (whichever is higher).

First it was books and toys, then they bought Whole Foods now Amazon might be making its move into the healthcare space. But what does this mean for healthcare, and specifically hospital marketers?

After helping judge the “Best Mobile Communications” category for the 2017 eHealthcare Leadership awards, White Rhino’s chief digital strategist Shawn Gross shared with me, “The industry is definitely on a curve of innovation.” But he was quick to follow that up, “there’s also a wide divide between what I would call true digital engagement and traditional marketing efforts.”

I recently sat down with Patrick Bender for the Hospital Marketing National podcast series to discuss how healthcare marketing is changing in response to a more digitally-savvy consumer. You can listen to the full conversation here (click on Episode 5) but below are some highlights from our conversation.

In a recent Webcast, we teamed up with Vicki J. Brown, former CMO for Joslin Diabetes Center, to discuss why patient leakage is a growing problem in healthcare and 4 marketing and service strategies for driving greater patient loyalty.

Below we've assembled answers to some of the best questions that came out of the event (watch the replay here).