Marty replied: “I have no clue where to begin. Every time I start to think about it, it overwhelms me. What are our goals? What objectives should we target? Whose approval do I need for those? What are we going to measure? How are we going to measure it? What metrics should we use? Where do we get the data? How will we know if we succeed? I believe in measurement, but I don’t really know how to do it, or where to begin. Maybe next quarter.”

The following quarter, Marty was asked: “Marty, why aren’t you measuring your marketing results?”

Marty replied: “Actually, I can’t seem to find the time. There’s not enough time to take care of all the meetings, marketing requests, politics, planning, PR responses – my plate is just too full. And my staff is the same way – who would I assign to take on measurement? We can barely find time to meet and properly plan a campaign, let alone build in upfront time to consider goals and objectives. Then tracking all the various metrics, reporting, trying to meet to review and analyze the results. Shoot, usually we’re half way through an effort before someone mentions measurement. Maybe we’ll start next month.”

The next month, Marty was asked: “Marty, why aren’t you measuring your marketing results?”

Marty replied: “I could probably figure this out, and find the time and resources to measure effectively, but honestly, no one is really pressing me for it. Sure, we get the occasional question about our strategy, or the “How do you know this will work?” inquiry from a physician. My CEO wants effective marketing, but so far he hasn’t pushed me to validate my approaches, so it’s just not a priority. Plus, it’s marketing, so people understand when I say this isn’t a science. Maybe we don’t have to worry about measuring after all.”

The next day, there was a knock on Marty’s door:

“Hi Marty, I’m Mary, and I’m going to be taking over as the new CEO. Tell me how you determine your marketing budget, why your staff is so large, and how effective your marketing efforts have been over the past couple of years.”

And Marty said: “Gulp.”

Don’t be the next Marty the Marketer. Despite the obvious benefits of measuring marketing efforts, many hospital marketers don’t make measurement a priority. But there may be no higher priority for healthcare marketers today than dedicating ourselves to measuring our marketing results.

For more conversation on measuring marketing efforts, be sure to visit our communities on LinkedIn or Facebook. Or check out our book, A Marketer’s Guide to Measuring Results.

What do we do about bad bloggers and caustic comments?
There was a lot of angst about real or potential negativity coming from bloggers, and from those posting negative comments about hospitals on local websites (such as newspaper sites). This issue has been around for as long as these “web 2.0” tools have been around, but that doesn’t make these scenarios easier to deal with. The two extreme responses – ignoring all comments or engaging in tit-for-tat replies – are rarely the answer. As with many issues, the appropriate solution is somewhere in the gray middle, depending on the situation. (How’s that for helpful?)

How do you break down silos within a hospital?
To improve the patient experience, consistently set and measure marketing goals, to improve operations – you name it, and silos are there, causing pain. There’s no easy answer to this one (or to any of these, I guess). But try starting your engagements with others in the organization by asking them what they want, how you can help them, even if you have your own agenda. Breaking down walls starts by showing a genuine interest in helping the others behind that wall.

How can we convince leadership to do better/different marketing?
Another doozy that touches many hospitals and health systems. The logic seems simple – why follow when we can lead? why do the same when we want to stand out? why spend valuable budget on politically driven marketing requests? But this issue is more about right-brain emotion than left-brain logic. Two quick tips: find success stories that support your approach, so your idea doesn’t seem so novel. And use marketing measurement to help demonstrate what works – and what doesn’t – to help move the discussion back to the left-brain, objective side of the discussion.

What role should pricing play in hospital advertising?
An imaging center in the Cincinnati market was running an outdoor campaign featuring “MRIs for $700.” Seeing price-based advertising move beyond the more established retail healthcare services (e.g. Lasik eye surgery) to more traditional healthcare services is a big deal. MRIs are easier to “price,” given the straightforward nature of the offering (compared to, say, the “price” of joint replacement surgery, which can entail many components and isn’t always the same experience or cost). I use quotes around “price” because the actual price of a service to a patient typically depends on her coverage, including the negotiated reimbursement rate between her insurer and the provider, her out-of-pocket exposure, etc. The $700 MRI billboard is most likely targeted at those with high deductible plans, who are much more likely to shop around (especially for a commodity level item like an MRI). Is this an anomaly, or the beginning of a trend? Either way, it’s cutting edge, and it would be fascinating to learn the impact of this effort.

What’s your take on these issues? Which of these are you dealing with, and if they are front and center, how much pain are they causing?

In many cases, the problem is that without a track record of measurement to guide you in knowing what to expect from a marketing initiative, you’re making an undereducated guess. As I note in “A Marketer’s Guide to Measuring Results,” this can lead to trouble:

“The danger with setting objectives is that once they’re articulated, they can often represent success or failure within the organization, regardless of whether they were set with a clear understanding of what is to be expected. If you hope to increase orthopedic volumes 10% with your marketing campaign and you state that as the top objective, there will be some who will consider a 9% increase failure.”

And on the other end, aim too low, and leadership may question the value of the effort – “if we only expect to increase volumes .5%, what’s the point?”

If you’re just beginning to measure your marketing efforts in a consistent way, you may want to consider not assigning a specific target to your marketing initiative. You still should always articulate a goal – “increase volumes” or “improve awareness” – and measure your results. But until you can make a smart guess about what your expected outcomes should be, you may be be better off without one at all. Success can be determined by an effort ROI calculation, and if that’s not possible, by comparing the results to a baseline period where no marketing occurred.

How do you set targets for your marketing efforts? Can you think of examples of past marketing initiatives where hitting or missing the target defined success – regardless of what impact the actual results may have had?

For more conversation on measuring marketing efforts, be sure to visit our communities on LinkedIn or Facebook.

Participants will learn to:

• apply baseline measurement to compare consumer awareness, preference, market share, and volumes to periods with no marketing activity
• use relative measurement to compare results against similar marketing activities and prove the true impact of your marketing
• persuade internal stakeholders that these and other measurement strategies have value
• gather, assess, and present data that accurately demonstrates positive consumer activity and behavior

The 90-minute webcast is scheduled for noon CST on Wednesday, March 31. To register, or for more details, visit HealthLeaders Media.

As we’ve stated many times over the past year in our blog posts, podcasts, and paper, we feel passionately that marketers should strive to measure the success of their efforts whenever possible. Measurement allows you to demonstrate marketing’s value to leadership, and, more importantly, to better understand what works and what doesn’t. That kind of measurement discipline can help marketers answer that dreaded question by allowing them to pull from past experiences and demonstrate that yes, this can work, and this is how it has in the past.

Except in one case: when the idea is brand new and hasn’t been done before, either by you and your organization, or, even worse, by anybody else. Of course, launching a new idea before anyone else can lead to great success (iPod, TiVo, Starbuck’s “third place” experience, etc.) But in a conservative culture, the lack of a proven track record is often what kills an innovative idea. An article in this week’s BusinessWeek titled “Innovation’s Accidental Enemies” does a great job of reminding us why the lack of a proven track record should be considered an opportunity, not a deficit.

It starts with a story of a bank CEO presented with a new approach to finding and landing high-end customers. The CEO asks “Have any other big banks done this?” and the consultant answers, excitedly, “No, you’ll be the first!” Of course, that leads the CEO to kill the idea on the spot. (insert rimshot here) The authors then go on to provide a different type of thinking that can help organizations keep an open mind to opportunity called abductive thinking. Instead of using inductive or deductive thinking – both of which rely on existing information to make conclusions – abductive thinking is the “logic of what could be.” Quoting the authors of the article:

“Asking what could be true – and jumping into the unknown – is critical to innovation.”

So as you work on your marketing plan for 2010, have you left room for innovative ideas? Are you considering trying something that you’ve never tried before, or better yet, what no one has ever tried before? Learning how to use abductive reasoning might help you respond to the inevitable challenge of “prove it.”

In general, this seems like a pretty fair assessment, though certainly expertise concerning social media varies greatly, falling along a scale from “luddite” to “multiple social media efforts led and measured.” And there are many odd twists to the question of expertise as well. For example, there are a class of folks who seem to believe that simply by using social media, they then have the the proper credentials to drive organizational strategy, or sell consulting services in this area. And while it would seem impossible for someone to lead a social media effort without actually using the tools themselves, being a user does not equate to strategic or even tactical expertise. Just because I watch a lot of TV doesn’t make me a great television producer or screenwriter, yes?

The latest issue of BusinessWeek has a great article on the growing backlash against social media consultants and “experts.” The title – “Beware social media snake oil” – pretty much speaks for itself. Perhaps the best insight comes from James Cooper, who serves as digital creative director at Saatchi & Saatchi, a global ad agency. Cooper states that anyone who unequivocally claims that using social media will work is either “lying or deranged.” His point is that the medium is still too young to guarantee results, and he likens the innovative nature of social media to that of venture capital, where 1 out of 10 bets might pay off, while the others fail completely. He also worries about how results are measured:

“If something’s got 20 million hits on YouTube, that’s a good thing. But what if half the comments are negative? I don’t think anyone’s got a long-term case study yet.”

Social media offers potential opportunities to hospitals and other providers in the areas of brand building, customer service, marketing, public/community relations and more. But the jury is still out on whether in the end all of the hoopla and effort will pay off in material ways from a long-term perspective.

Of course, that’s no reason to drop or minimize social media as a marketing/communications tool. It just means healthcare marketers need to go into the effort with eyes wide open. Social media should still be considered an innovative strategy, and with innovation goes the understanding that failure is sometimes an accepted part of the game.

Have you been pitched by a “social media expert”? How do you determine someone’s credentials with such a new medium? Are you OK with “failing” in order to learn what works and what doesn’t?