field notes

If there were one problem I could snap my fingers and fix in healthcare, it would be invisibility.

I recently facilitated a discussion with a boardroom full of hospital executives about how to improve patient experience by making hospital quality data (mortality rates, average length of stay, and the like) more transparent. 

I recently moved to a new town and began the search for a pediatrician for my 19-month old son. I quickly became frustrated with the lack of information. And I’m not alone, 38% of patients wished that they had more information before choosing a doctor.

If I asked you how a hospital develops trustful relationships with patients, you might tell me it’s through patients’ interactions with doctors. Or their experience with the nursing staff. You might be surprised to hear me also say: your website.

We’ve established that fear is the wrong emotion in healthcare marketing. But with 31 other emotions to choose from, how do we know which is the right one to target?

"The Pepsi Challenge is back, with a twist" reports the New York Times. But I think it's more of a much-needed update than a "twist."

The 1975 Pepsi Challenge is perhaps the most iconic representation of what marketing used to be.

At shopping malls across america, the company ran blind taste tests against Coke. Pepsi won, of course, and used it as marketing leverage for the next decade. Despite results, Coke continued to dominate the market. But how could that be? Pepsi had scientifically proven it was a better product.

If you’re a hospital digital marketer, you need to be creating online treatment programs. Here are 5 reasons why.

Car websites have cars. Zappos has shoes and product videos. Apple has shiny gadgets beautifully photographed. Amazon has photos of products, the ability to look inside the pages of books and user feedback. Lots and lots of user feedback.

In todays overcrowded and commoditized B2B marketplace, brands are finding it increasingly harder to break through the clutter and get their messages heard.  B2B brands are trying to edge each other out by pushing and pulling messaging out to rational business decision makers and speaking loudly about their business value.