February 2023 Health IT Marketing Minutes

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Posted By: Carol Flagg February 12, 2023

What makes marketing in the health IT space unique? Who are the movers and shakers? What’s working, what’s trending? Where can you learn more? This monthly roundup post will focus in on all things health IT when it comes to marketing. But we begin with some HITMC23 highlights!

Highlights from HITMC23

Hard to believe HITMC just celebrated its 10-year anniversary.  Where did that time go? I’ve been to all ten conferences and each year I meet new people in the HITMC community, catch up with old friends and learn a lot about the latest trends in health IT marketing.

A lot to unpack as they say but two special highlights: I confess I didn’t know Fred Goldstein, host of Pop Health Week on our Healthcare NOW Radio station could dance!  Fred won the dance-off and $750 for his charity, The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research. Way to go Fred!

On a more serious note, Grace Vinton of Amendola Communications was part of a panel on “Parents, Patients, & Podcasts – Incorporating the Rare Disease Community in HITMC”. The panel included disease parents, patients, and podcasters sharing their diagnostic odysseys endured and shared in building community through various media relationships. The panel felt fresh and inspiring and just a little bit different, a trend I hope continues.

To Read

Amendola Communications
9 Tips For A Great Video Interview – Marcia Rhodes, Vice President at Amendola Communications (@AmendolaComm) says, Many of our clients who accept an invitation to appear as a guest on a podcast are shocked when they learn that the interview included a video recording that was uploaded to YouTube. Keep in mind that even if the interview is in podcast form, you should always be ready for a possible video interview. No problem as you frequently use Zoom for calls. Right?

Brafton
White Paper vs. eBook: What’s the Difference? – Chelsey Church, Senior Writer & Editor at Brafton (@Brafton) writes, Content marketing is much more than distributing a blog article to your audience. White papers and eBooks are two great examples that can take content to the next level, offering your audience a new and exciting way to digest relatable information, while generating leads. Though similar, there’s still something that sets these two assets apart. Think about it this way: You wouldn’t expect to get the same experience out of reading an illustrated novel as you would an essay, right? Both are valuable options for learning but with different goals and purposes.

ClarityQuest
Oh, Elon: Is Twitter still good for healthcare marketing? – Aaron Ogg at Clarity Quest (@CQmarketing) writes, Elon Musk bashing is a popular pastime these days. Twitter mavens and marketers decry massive changes made to their beloved social media platform since the Tesla founder and CEO acquired it in October 2022 for $44 billion. Musk’s most criticized moves include: Cutting 80% of Twitter’s full-time workforce; Introducing the corporately curated “For You” column as an alternative to its traditional “Following” column; Fiddling with checkmarks.

HITMC
The Journey Is As Critical As the Outcome – Colin Hung (@Colin_Hung) writes, Journey maps are powerful marketing tools. They can bring clarity to complex cross-departmental campaigns, help identify gaps, and get stakeholders aligned. Having a well-defined journey map even helps organizations maximize their precious marketing budgets. Journey maps take effort to build, but are worth the investment.

KNB Communications
5 email subject line hacks for healthcare marketers – Beth Cooper, Vice President of Marketing + Sales at KNB Communications (@KNBComm) writes, At KNB, we typically generate email open rates 2x to 3x industry averages. We do this by relentlessly staying ahead of trends and applying them for our healthcare clients. What works one quarter may not work the next. As of December 2022, these are the current hacks that are keeping our open rates high in the B2B health tech space.

Matter Communications
Finding Solutions in Healthcare Amidst the Economic Downturn – Chris Comfort at Matter Communications (@MatterComm) says, Amidst an uncertain economic future, healthcare leaders are reflecting on lessons learned in 2022, building out budgets for 2023, and planning for the year ahead. As the country contends with a health system that many believe is broken, both established and emerging organizations across the healthcare continuum are learning the value of putting the patient first, above all else.

Agency News

Raintree Systems Engages Amendola for Strategic PR and Marketing Services
Amendola (@AmendolaComm) announced that Raintree, a provider of electronic health records (EHR) including patient engagement, scheduling, billing, and practice management, in addition to revenue cycle management (RCM) software solutions for the therapy and rehab industry, has selected the firm to amplify client successes, thought leadership, and industry best practices.

Marketing Hires & Now Hiring

Brafton

Amendola Communications

StudioNorth

Trialbee Adds Marketing VP Kristopher Sarajian to Proven Leadership Team Amid Surge in Demand for the Honey™ Enrollment Platform
Trialbee (@Trialbee), a data and technology-based patient recruitment and enrollment for clinical trials company, announced the addition of Kristopher Sarajian as Vice President of Marketing to its already impressive leadership team. The appointment comes as Trialbee accelerates its momentum and growth in demand for the Honey™ enrollment platform and expert patient matching powered by real-world data.

Resources

Merritt Group
2023 Healthcare Technology Marketing Guide: Marketing and Selling to the Health System CIO – Technology buyers and decision-makers at health systems and hospitals are craving vendor partners that not only bring a trusted solution, but truly understand their unique, critical challenges. They are bombarded daily by vendors aggressively selling their products, and by administration and medical staff who have dire technology needs to better serve patients. How can marketers not just break through to this audience but create long lasting customer engagements? The answer: by deeply understanding where and how they prefer to learn about new technologies, what they want from a vendor, and what influences their buying decisions.

Urgent Care Marketing 101 – free, online marketing eBook from Experity (@ExperityHealth)
An urgent care clinic, like any business, is only profitable if patients continue to use its services over time. Unfortunately, many urgent care facilities have a restricted marketing budget, which can severely limit new business volume and community engagement. According to Andrew Ibbotson, Vice President of the National Research Corp. in Nebraska, “Urgent care traffic is driven more by online search results, geography, wait times, and availability than traditional healthcare delivery.” These added complications make identifying the most effective marketing strategies for your walk-in clinic even more essential to success.

Events

#HITMC
When: Tuesdays, Noon ET (9 AM PT)

What: Monthly chats on marketing strategies in health IT. Sponsored by: Healthcare IT Marketing and PR Conference. Find the topic for the next #HITMC Tweetchat.  View previous Tweet Chat summaries.

ICYMI

Killer public relations, marketing and social media in healthcare requires making the right moves at the right time. Tune in to hear them on their show, Overrated & Underused, weekdays at 10am, 6pm, and 2am ET right here on Healthcare NOW Radio or checkout their playlist below!