Writing effective website copy can be challenging, especially when the subject matter is as complex as explaining medical conditions and the latest procedures. And with the field requiring such a specialized knowledge, even the best medical writers can quickly forget that what they’re writing about is not common knowledge to the average person.

Blinded by knowledge
Let’s face it: You’re an expert on health and medicine. You may be a medical writer who has been writing medical copy exclusively for years, or even a doctor who went to school for years—a decade even—to know everything you do now. Unfortunately, if you’ve been in the field for awhile, you’ve probably forgotten something along the way: what it’s like to not know all of the things you now know. But don’t feel bad; this doesn’t apply just to the medical field—every specialized profession has its own technical terms and jargon and it becomes increasingly easy over to time to forget that outsiders don’t always know what you’re talking about.

Harvard business blogger Scott D. Anthony refers to this as the “knowledge curse,” and it can have a very real impact on how useful healthcare consumers find your web copy to be. But, this isn’t to say hospital web copy can’t be helpful and easy to understand. To help you communicate more effectively with the average healthcare consumer, I’ve compiled a few useful tips to consider.

Tip one: Know your audience’s behavior
One of the most important rules of copywriting is to know your audience. Even the best writers have to remind themselves who their audience is and what they want to know. When writing copy for hospital websites, it’s important to remember:

• Who makes the majority of healthcare decisions (usually the woman in the family)
• Who might want to know about a certain condition (depending on the condition or procedure, it might be the person with the condition or it might be a concerned family member)
• The state of mind they are in (e.g., if it’s a serious condition or emergency, the person seeking the information will most likely be under a great deal of stress and prone to misunderstand)

Taking this approach further, service line and website traffic data can be analyzed to paint a better picture of each of your service lines’ specific audiences. By knowing who the audience is and what sort of information they are seeking, you’ll be able to better speak to them and their unique needs. At Finelight, we regularly look at hospital service-line utilization, consumer preference, and local and regional health data, as well as a hospital’s website analytics, to determine who our target audience is. Armed with this knowledge, we can write copy that not only resonates with its intended audience, but is also beneficial to that group.

Tip two: Avoid acronyms, jargon and other industry-specific language
Every field has a language all its own, and the health and medical industry is certainly no exception. In fact, the healthcare industry probably has more specialized terms than most industries, as evidenced by the number of studies that repeatedly show that Americans’ health literacy rates are alarmingly low.

By simply browsing a few pages of hospital web copy, it’s easy to see why this is. Far too often, common, everyday names for conditions are skipped over in favor of scientific names, and unexplained acronyms litter the page.

As a copy editor at Finelight, I’ve seen enough medical copy to know that a myocardial infarction is a heart attack, but I didn’t when I started this job. I can’t stress how much of my time I spend Googling acronyms to learn what they stand for or scientific names to find out what they are to us non-medical people.

For a little fun with acronyms—and to get a better idea of just how many acronyms are out there—type “EMT” into AcronymFinder.com search engine. You’ll be surprised at how many meanings this seemingly common acronym yields. (My favorite is “expert missile tracker.” What’s yours?)

In my case, it’s my job and I’m happy to do it, but for the average consumer, it’s an invitation to find a more clear, useful website. Additionally, using common names for conditions and procedures will better position your web page to show up in search results, because chances are that a person wanting to know about high blood pressure isn’t going to search “hyperlipidemia.”

This isn’t to say you should “dumb down” all of your copy. And there’s no reason to slash all medical terms and acronyms. But you should always be sure to prominently feature the common names and precede acronyms with their full names.

You know them as infomercials.
Infomercials, or long-form advertising, are not new, but healthcare advertisers have yet to embrace the power of DRTV. We’re all familiar with the broad array of products sold in this format, but how many of us become mesmerized by the cleaning power of OxiClean or Cindy Crawford’s flawless skin and forget about the solid structure it provides? With an information-rich product like health insurance, why not invest 30 minutes of TV rather than just a minute or two?

So what are the facts?
A longer commercial (28 minutes and 30 seconds, to be exact) does mean more production costs up front, but if done right, the same creative spot can be used for years. And depending on the DMA, actual long-form placement costs are quite affordable. There’s one insurance company that has found the perfect combination of short form and long form: Humana.

Though Humana has a different platform than many companies (with the option to advertise and sell nationally), their focus still remains on local spot broadcast television. This not only allows them to spotlight key markets that are repeatedly successful, but also to be more budget-conscious. And by combining short form and long form in their media buy, they’re able to achieve aggressive cost-per-leads goals.

Now you’re asking, “Where’s the proof?”
Response Magazine reported Humana’s Medicare Advantage long-form spot in their “Top 10 Infomercials” list this past fall. Humana ranked #5 in November and #3 in December. If Humana wasn’t getting a fantastic ROI on long form, they wouldn’t still be doing it year after year, or making Response Magazine’s Top 10 list during AEP.

So how does Finelight fit into this?
Finelight’s direct response team has refined the DR approach and found successful recipes for both short form and long form. It’s such a successful recipe that Humana has used the same Finelight-produced long-form commercial for seven years. Seven years!

Aside from Humana’s successes, Finelight’s short-form DRTV has been reporting record costs per leads in new markets with individual health insurance. DRTV for senior audiences has become a specialty and we continue to produce better-than-expected results for Medicare clients during AEP. Added to the mix, long form gives plans the opportunity to tell prospects a different story.

If you’re interested in learning more about DRTV and how it can improve your sales, I’d love to help. Just leave a comment here, or email me at bmurphy (at) Finelight (dot) com.

It’s called Search Plus Your World (SPYW for short), and its goal is to deliver the most intensely personal results ever.

How? By putting Google+ content first. In other words, anyone logged into their Google account will see the content that they’ve either shared, or that’s been shared with them, before any other results.

Images will include pics from their Google+ photo stream. News articles will be pulled from those recently shared. People and place searches will highlight those active on Google+.

And while the Google+ network currently only has about 90 million members, it’s growing faster than any other social platform we’ve ever seen.

In other words, if you want your customers to be able to find you, you need to get on board with Google+.

Getting started with Google Plus
Fortunately, it’s fairly simple to set up a basic Google Plus page. First, of course, you’ll need to create a Google account if you don’t already have one.

Next, head to the Google Plus for Business homepage and click “Create your Google Plus page.”

From there it will ask you to categorize the type of page you want and fill in some basic profile information. Most important are the tagline and profile photo—we suggest you use a logo.

That’s all it takes to get set up!

You can find people to follow by importing your personal circles, or simply by doing a search for competitors and industry resources.

What to share on Google Plus
Like Facebook, Google Plus has no character limits—meaning you’re free to share as much or as little information as you like. In fact, you can use it much like Facebook. However, there are a few things that set it apart:

• Google Plus is highly visual. This makes it a great place to cross-post YouTube videos and photos—think patient testimonials, videos of procedures and event footage.
• Google Plus features “hangouts,” which allow you to have Skype-like conversations from within the platform. Up to five people can participate, and anyone can listen in. You could use it for “meet the doctor” talks, virtual childbirth classes—the possibilities are endless!
• Google Plus gives you the ability to “circle” your audiences. That’s a great feature, because it allows you to pick and choose who you want to share information with. For instance, you can post information about CMEs to your physician circle and details about a new health fair to your public circles.

Get on Google Plus today
Remember, the more content you post, the greater your chances are of rising to the top of the search results for a broader range of people. So jump in today!

If you’d like help formulating a Google Plus strategy, drop us a line or leave a comment below.

When putting together a marketing plan, I follow these tips to ensure my marketing dollars are spent wisely.

Tip One: Set clear and measurable objectives
With advancements in technology, it has become easier for healthcare marketers to define and set measurable goals. Take advantage of all the data and research available to you and use it to create clear, quantifiable objectives tied to your financial business objectives—the more specific the better. Think cost per sale or contribution margin per patient, not page views or brand awareness.

In turn, you will be able to evaluate the success of your marketing spend and measure your ROI by referring back to these goals and objectives.

Tip Two: Know your target market’s engagement behavior
When allocating marketing dollars, it’s essential to know your target market and the most cost-efficient way of reaching that audience.

Basic demographics are essential, but dig deeper. What does your target do prior to engaging in a class or seminar, getting a referral or requesting an appointment? What traits do your profitable members or patients have in common that transcend age and income demographics? How do they spend their time? Do they spend more time watching television or surfing the internet?

Doing your homework on your target market will ensure you are investing your marketing dollars in the right vehicles.

Tip Three: Track and adapt
Once you know your objective and target market, focus on tactics that will give you measurable results and make sure you have a solid reporting system in place to determine your ROI. Monitor results closely and adapt accordingly.

If a tactic isn’t working, don’t be afraid to change course and move marketing dollars or change messaging. But give tactics a chance to prove they’re not working before you change them. If you are doing a direct response television spot, do a short test and let it run its course, then determine whether to continue to invest in that spot.

For example, one of our clients chose to run a four-week test for one of their DRTV spots. The test provided positive results and they decided to increase their budget and the number of weeks they were going to be on air. The spot continued to be a success and the cost per lead ended up being 50% less than they had anticipated. Their choice to test and then invest produced a cost-effective outcome with significant results.

Define, know and track
These tips will help you ensure your marketing dollars are allocated correctly and will produce results. For more insight into getting the most ROI out of your marketing budget, contact Lauren at lbellamy (@) Finelight (dot) com, or leave a comment below.

Know your Millennial audience

• Made up of 45.8 million people, aged 18 to 28
• 62 percent are employed full time
• Are the first generation in human history to regard social media and texting as everyday parts of their social lives
• Are most likely to engage in sedentary activities to manage stress and are more likely to engage in unhealthy behaviors such as drinking alcohol and smoking

You’ll probably find that most Millennials are young professionals working many hours a week and possibly also raising children. It’s likely they don’t have the time to fit in working out, much less to get enough sleep. That may not sound like critical information, but it is important to keep in mind when trying to motivate Millennials to take care of their health.

Case in point, I’m right in the middle of this generation. I’m almost 25 and I’ve been employed at Finelight for a little over a year. In college I was very motivated to work out and stay in shape. After a shoulder injury, long nights completing my degree and even longer nights exercising off that stress at the bar, I am definitely in need of a tune-up. It was easy to fit in time at the gym in college, but now there just aren’t enough hours in the day.

Opportunities for wellness messages
Recent studies show that people who don’t get the required amount of sleep every night tend to consume more calories—more than 500 extra calories per day. Combine this with working more than 8 hours a day, drinking, smoking and the negative impacts of stress and it seems you’re in a deadly circle.

Wellness companies offer numerous ways of dealing with these stressors at no cost to the employee. Employers should work with wellness companies to socially promote their tools with methods such as online forums, Twitter hashtags or YouTube videos.

Get the word out
Because Millennials use social media nearly every day, websites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are an effective way to reach them. And employers should take advantage of these sites to communicate important health risks and wellness tips.

A few national health associations are using social media to communicate important healthcare information:

• Twitter: The CDC has taken to Twitter to provide information to Americans: https://twitter.com/CDCgov.
• YouTube: The CDC has also produced a number of videos that are not like most videos aimed at smokers: http://www.youtube.com/user/CDCStreamingHealth.
• Facebook: Even the National Cancer Institute has a Facebook page dedicated to cancer research: http://www.facebook.com/cancer.gov.
• Apps: There are many free apps available for use on your smartphone that are being developed by wellness companies (my favorite is Lose It!).

Employers and the wellness industry have a real opportunity to get Millennials on the right track from the beginning. Providing incentives to keep health in-check is important, as is reaching out through social media channels. Millennials may not view their health as a major priority at this stage in their lives, but continual reinforcement of health messages now can lead to significant change in the future.

To learn more about wellness industry marketing, or marketing to Millennials from a Millennial, email Matt Hornyak at mhornyak (@) Finelight (dot) com or leave a comment below.

One in particular, “Marketing Analytics: Not Just for Packaged Goods Anymore,” caught my eye. It provides a good framework for the case for marketing analytics in the healthcare industry.

The MMA white paper discussed some common objections and hurdles to marketing analysis. This blog post will follow its outline, but discuss how the concerns apply to healthcare, and how marketing analytics can be adapted for hospitals and health systems so that the healthcare industry can keep pace.

Our brand (the healthcare marketing industry) is different
The paper starts off with an argument that we face in the hospital marketing world all the time, “no two product or service categories are exactly alike.” Although the author mentions durables, entertainment and pharmaceuticals (and not healthcare), the point is still the same. No two hospitals, markets, service offerings, physician groups, etc., are the same.

Regardless, every industry is facing the same mandate, “that every marketing dollar spent pays off.” While this may not be a part of the traditional hospital marketing fabric, it is becoming more a part of the discussion.

Patients are still consumers
Finelight understands that, in most cases, people aren’t thrilled about being in a hospital. Even given this, consumers are still consumers, and thus patients are consumers.

Behavior may change based on the time of year, weather or any number of factors, but patients are still consumers in need of a service. These same people (patients) are going to consume a hospital marketing message and will respond to it in the same way as other marketing; but only if the messaging is compelling, targeted and relevant.

Hospitals have data
Data is what you need to really hone in on marketing success. A challenge in this arena for healthcare is making sure that the correct level of marketing data is collected. Many hospitals aren’t used to collecting marketing response data at all, but overcoming this logistical change is imperative.

The patient data that a hospital has and purchase data that retainers maintain are similar in what insights they can provide—and even with the security measures that must be taken to protect personal financial and/or health information.

Marketers aren’t looking (or shouldn’t be) to take your personal health information and market other services—but we can use that information to know how media influences people in different situations and stages of life and treatment.

Healthcare need and return expectations
With CPG marketing analytics, there’s often a steady and reliable stream of purchasers and, for the most part, sales are impacted almost immediately by marketing efforts. Hospital use and marketing influence is often unpredictable—you don’t know when your ACL is going to tear, you can’t predict when you will need to have an MRI, etc.—so marketing cannot be seasonally targeted for these events. They happen any time.

This industry requires more patience to realize full ROI. Finelight has begun to show hospitals that their marketing can have a lasting impact well past the conclusion of any given campaign or media flight. It is possible that a direct mail piece received in June of 2010 could influence the decision of a patient in December of 2011.

“Gatekeepers”
The authors of the article in review noted the lack of direct access to the consumers as a prominent concern. Through the discussion around pharmaceuticals, the paper came closest to being relevant to healthcare.

Physicians control the actual prescriptions for the medications that are advertised on television. “Some physicians are heavy prescribers, medium prescribers and light prescribers…” just like some physicians are consistently referring patients to your hospital while others may never refer, or may even be affiliated with a competing hospital. But again, this does NOT stand in the way of using marketing analytics for healthcare.

There are many situations that may dictate or influence the relationship between physicians and hospitals. Depending on the specific state or referral agreement, the plan will be different, but the basics will still apply and knowing the individual situations just adds another layer to the evaluation of the data.

Making analytics work for your healthcare marketing
In summary, there’s no one way to do marketing analytics. The basics need to be adapted first for the industry, and second for your particular market and business situation.

You can see a benefit from applying marketing analytics to your healthcare marketing. If you’re interested in learning more, leave a comment here or email Holly Laugle, Executive Vice President of Client Services, at hlaugle (at) finelight (dot) com.

Print ads?
TV?
Billboards?
Hiring a trained orangutan to hand out flyers and spin signs on street corners?

Sure, referral patterns have a great effect on where prospective patients go. But, put simply, there isn’t one specific tactic or strategy that is going to be the be-all, end-all, quick-fix answer—although the trained orangutan might be the closest solution.

Marketing tactics that help you stand out
So what can you really do? How can you convince a consumer to choose you over your competition?

The foundation for this answer starts with data and research. While this process might not be as sexy as a sign spinning orangutan, it is crucial to anything you do. This is the only way to truly reveal why consumers are choosing you, why they aren’t choosing you, what they like about you, what they don’t, etc., etc., etc.

There are numerous ways to gather this information and going into each one of those methods in the article would induce a nap, so let’s skip that for now. (Feel free to call us if you really want to discuss this subject—we can go on for hours!)

Why research and data matter
The obvious point of doing your homework with data and research is to develop one key insight, one crucial point, one clearly defined area of proof you can use to crush your competition.

Over the years many of Finelight’s hospital clients have made assumptions as to why consumers aren’t using their services. Through research and data mining we discover the real reasons behind consumer choices, and often debunk client assumptions. It is an eye-opening experience and has drastically altered how our clients think.

So, once you have developed a proven key insight, USE IT! Don’t be timid.

What works better—social media, TV, print or radio?
Besides shouting this insight from the rooftops, you’re probably wondering what are the best ways to communicate it. For Finelight to prescribe a strategic integrated campaign or a series of one-off tactics in this article would be naïve. We can tell you social media, TV, print, radio and events when done correctly are great. But your market, your situation and your competition are completely unique. That’s why whatever strategy or tactic you do employ needs to fit you and your brand. This is where careful planning and creative execution come into play.

For example, one of our clients was convinced television was a necessity. But due to their budget, location in a large, expensive market and the few impressions this tactic would have generated, data showed us this was not the best way for our client to spend their money. In this case, a campaign focused around outdoor and radio generated greater impressions and results.

Whatever strategy employed needs to be focused on creating real, emotional connections with your audience. Cliché pictures of big, scary machines and uncomfortably posed doctors do not create this connection and I guarantee it doesn’t use your key insights to their fullest potential.

Winning in a hyper-competitive market is about identifying profitable customers, understanding how they consume media and then determining which physicians and specialties drive the volumes…then investing more marketing dollars in these channels. And showing them something they haven’t seen before helps too—especially if it’s an orangutan spinning a sign.

If you’re interested in learning more about successful marketing in a hyper-competitive market, I’d love to help. Just leave a comment here or email me at abills (at) Finelight (dot) com.

All of this growth would be great for their bottom lines…if only it were in profitable service lines. Unfortunately, we’re talking about the emergency department—traditionally one of the least profitable service lines in a hospital.

University Hospital here in Louisville has seen a 75 percent increase in emergency department case volume since 2006, according to a recent article in The Courier-Journal. At this rate, they will have doubled their annual cases in only seven years. That’s higher than the national average rate of growth.

And University Hospital isn’t alone. According to the American College of Emergency Physicians, in 2009, ED traffic in the United States increased almost 10 percent to reach a record high of 136 million visits.

Because of this dramatic growth, many facilities (including University Hospital) are hard-pressed to meet even the most basic of operational needs—such as physical space for beds. They recently added 12 beds in the hallway just to handle overflow.

Why the increase in emergency department utilization?
The root of the problem lies in the tendency of many patients to use their local emergency room as their primary care physician.

Sometimes, patients are showing up with problems that wouldn’t have required a trip to the emergency room if they’d sought treatment sooner. But increasingly people are arriving at the ER with ailments that aren’t actually urgent.

In fact, these non-urgent cases are pouring into EDs by the millions. The most recent national data available from the Centers of Disease Control shows that 7.9 percent of total visits were classified as non-urgent.

Slow emergency department volume growth with expanded hours
To fix this problem, you need to get patients to bring non-urgent cases to their PCP or urgent care center sooner—before there’s a true emergency.

Remember the case of University Hospital? While they have seen a 75% increase in patient volumes, some of their local competitors are actually seeing a decline in patient volumes in their EDs. In fact, one of their competitors has a rate of uninsured ER visits of only 11 percent, compared to the 55 percent of University Hospital. 

How did they do it? By opening multiple immediate care centers with extended hours, available to care for patients throughout the region 363 days a year.

But that’s not the only answer. The solution could be as simple as implementing patient-friendly office hours (early morning and evening/weekends) at some of your organization’s affiliated PCPs.

Use marketing to change consumer perceptions about emergency department care
Many people believe that if they are uninsured, visiting the emergency department is the cheapest way to get treatment. Likewise, many patients believe waiting in an emergency room is the fastest way to receive care.

An effective marketing campaign highlighting the cost-effectiveness of visiting a PCP or immediate care center could go a long way toward changing those views. After all, the average patient sees an out-of-pocket savings of more than $250 when they visit a PCP ($361 vs $615).

But a cost-savings message alone likely won’t do the job. A large majority of the non-emergent care that goes to the ED happens when patients can’t get into their PCP or an immediate care facility. Therefore, the marketing campaign must also effectively communicate the accessibility of a physician when and where patients need them.

Many healthcare organizations are already successfully using marketing to decrease emergency room traffic. For instance, nationwide health plan Kaiser Permanente saw a 60 percent decline in ED visits just one year after they began targeting their heaviest users of emergency departments in Colorado with messages about their urgent care options.

To learn more about how you can use marketing to help control emergency department volumes, contact Craig Roszkowski at croszkowski (at) finelight (dot) com or leave a comment below.

Find the sweet spot between digital platform and brand
According to a 2010 report produced by the Center for Exhibition Industry Research (CEIR), consumers are fervently embracing digital technology as a means to connect with a brand. In fact, according to Todd Purgason, executive creative director at JUXT Interactive, consumers’ adoption of technology is so entrenched that they even expect its elements in brand messages.

The challenge is identifying which digital platforms work best for our customers. We want them to engage with our brand in ways that fit their lifestyles, but we also need to consider using those channels that allow us to gather the greatest insights into our customers’ preferences and behaviors.

In short, we need to select those platforms that work best for our customers and our products and services.

Insights from the auto industry
At the 2011 North American International Auto Show in Detroit, digital technology was a significant driver of customer engagement (pun intended).

According to CIER’s 2010 report, online advertising and email messaging were noted as the most effective pre-product launch and pre-event interactive tools. Text messaging was cited as the best channel for engaging consumers during an event or after a product launch

At the Auto Show, a few digital channels and tactics were found to be especially effective at driving consumer engagement with brands. These included:

• Touch screens—Consumers engaged with automotive brands through the sense of touch. Touch screen popularity is driven by consumers’ increased use of smartphones and tablets to quickly get information.
• Blogs—Blogs provided the opportunity to share consumer testimonials in each brand’s unique voice and personality.
• Use of a call-to-action—Social media was useful for engaging consumers and then providing them with timely calls-to-action (CTAs) to get more product education or information, or actually go and experience the brand firsthand at an exhibit. Some examples for healthcare applications include texting CTAs to attendees at community events or county/state fairs where a hospital has an informational or interactive booth, or texting physicians attending national CME events where a hospital has a physician recruitment booth. The opportunities are there for hospitals; it just requires creative thinking about how to use this approach to drive engagement.

Regardless of which channels or tactics you select to engage your customers with your brand, most important is to create a continuum of communication so you drive your brand’s marketing messages to your audiences at the appropriate times, when they are ready to respond and engage with you.

Once you learn which digital channels your target audiences use, you will want to learn about when they use them, and how long they spend with each. And when you really understand this, you can select the digital channels that work best for your customers and your products/services. 

To learn more about the how digital trends are impacting healthcare consumers, or to learn how your organization can benefit from a strategic digital strategy, contact Kate Robinson, Finelight’s digital strategy and content specialist at krobinson (at) finelight (dot) com or leave a comment below.

One challenge in healthcare, as in any industry, is identifying the digital channels that work best for consumers. The channels that enable them to engage with our brands on their own terms.

Find your “digital watering holes”
Your audience frequents “digital watering holes”—places where they spend their time online. To reach your audience, focus your digital marketing efforts in these places. As Ian McGonniagal, senior VP of client strategy and grand performance with Jack Morton Worldwide notes, knowing your target audience’s “digital watering holes” is critical. But it’s also just the first step.

Understand the context
To make your digital marketing efforts truly worthwhile, you need to know how your audience behaves at these digital watering holes. Understanding their behavior provides context. Understanding context is key to crafting marketing messages that your audience will be receptive to within that digital channel.

Hospital marketers, take a look at your social media channels. Look at the content you’re posting. How do people interact with it? Can you glean any insights about audience mindset from these interactions? Do people interact with you differently on Facebook versus Twitter?

How about your website? Take a look at your website analytics—what content do people look at? What content are people searching for? Why would they be looking for that information? What’s prompting them? Asking these questions is the first step to establishing context.

If you want to learn more about indentifying context and using it to increase the effectiveness of your digital marketing, contact Kate Robinson, Finelight’s digital strategy and content strategy specialist at krobinson (at) finelight (dot) com or leave a comment below.