Interval

Healthcare Marketing Insights: Long Duck Dong

Adam Meyer — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 15:34:16 +0000

Listen in as the team at Interval discusses this week’s hot topics in heathcare marketing: a local doc who bucks the insurance system, “If you could tell your CEO one thing…”, Toyota’s troubles, ads we love and more. Show notes are after the break.

Show Notes

Minneapolis Star Tribune: Doc’s cash-only billing bucks the insurance morass
http://www.startribune.com/business/83165347.html?elr=KArksUUUoDEy3LGDiO7aiU
HealthLeaders Media: If You Could Tell the CEO One Thing About Marketing, What Would it Be?
http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content/MAR-245980/If-You-Could-Tell-the-CEO-One-Thing-About-Marketing-What-Would-it-Be.html

Go east old man

Interval — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 19:27:21 +0000

The 2010 slate of speaking engagements for Interval owner and president Chris Bevolo is taking form, and the start of the year has a decidedly east-coast vibe. Chris will appear at conferences in Virginia and Georgia, as well as Ohio, and topics range from “Joe Public Doesn’t Care About Your Hospital” to measuring marketing success. Visit our speaking engagement page for more information on these appearances, or download a copy of our speaker guide for more on potential speaking topics.

Interval Podcast, February 1, 2010

admin — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 21:19:11 +0000

Listen in as the team at Interval discusses this week’s hot topics in heathcare marketing: Medica Fit Choices changes, healthcare marketing ROI, The Brand Bubble, the new iPad and more. Show notes are after the break.

Show Notes

Adam’s new son!:

HealthLeaders Media: The state of healthcare marketing ROI:
http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content/MAR-245583/The-State-of-Healthcare-Marketing-ROI.html
John Gerzema: The Brand Bubble:
http://www.amazon.com/Brand-Bubble-Looming-Crisis-Value/dp/047018387X/
The new iPad:
http://www.apple.com/ipad

Interval Podcast, January 25, 2010

Adam Meyer — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 23:49:16 +0000

Listen in as the team at Interval discusses this week’s hot topics in heathcare marketing: a new Pew Internet study, Walgreens launches a wellness program and more. Show notes are after the break.

Show Notes

Pew Internet Study: Four in ten seniors go online
http://pewinternet.org/Commentary/2010/January/38-of-adults-age-65-go-online.aspx
Chicago Tribune: Walgreens Optimal Wellness: Walgreens to launch diabetes support program
http://www.chicagotribune.com/health/chi-wed-diabetes-wag-0113-jan13,0,5495872.story
Interval blog: Two words that often kill great ideas: “prove it”
http://www.thinkinterval.com/2010/01/two-words-that-often-kill-great-ideas-prove-it/

We’re with CoCo

Chris Bevolo — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 19:31:45 +0000

This has nothing to do with healthcare marketing or branding what-so-ever, but it’s Friday, so what the hey. Check out this great video from Conan O’Brien describing a few of the lesser known clauses of his buy-out contract. Go CoCo!!

No related posts.

Two words that often kill great ideas: “prove it”

Chris Bevolo — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 16:52:30 +0000

When it comes to healthcare marketing, one of the most feared comments from executives, physicians and operational leaders is this: “If you can’t prove this will work, then we’re not doing it.”

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.”

Interval Podcast, January 18, 2010

Adam Meyer — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 16:09:49 +0000

Listen in as the team at Interval discusses this week’s hot topics in heathcare marketing: movie theater encounters, ad formats on a local news site, where we are a year later in healthcare and more. Show notes are after the break.

Show Notes

Avatar
Interval blog: The economic crisis: Tipping point for healthcare consumer behavior?
http://www.thinkinterval.com/2009/03/the-economic-crisis-tipping-point-for-healthcare-consumer-behavior/
Star Tribune: Twin Cities hospitals staunching flow of red ink
http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/health/81193012.html?elr=KArksUUUoDEy3LGDiO7aiU
Time: What Health Care Reform Means for the States http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1952147,00.html

Interval Podcast, January 11, 2010

Adam Meyer — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 19:36:40 +0000

Listen in as the team at Interval discusses this week’s hot topics in heathcare marketing: the new Bloom Health, New Year’s resolutions for healthcare marketing, the Deloitte consumer survey and more. Show notes are after the break.

Show Notes

Minneapolis – St. Paul Business Journal: Startup Bloom Health raised $5M: http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/stories/2010/01/04/daily32.html
New York Times: Cancer Center Ads Use Emotion More Than Fact: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/19/health/19cancerads.html
HealthLeaders Media: Amidst Upheaval, Marketers Must Retain Focus on the Patient in 2010:
http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content/MAR-244514/
Amidst-Upheaval-Marketers-Must-Retain-Focus-on-the-Patient-in-2010.html
Deloitte 2009 Survey of Health Care Consumers:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/14023079/2009-Survey-of-Health-Care-
Consumers-Key-Findings-Strategic-Implications
fitbit:
http://www.fitbit.com/

Looking back one more time at 09

Chris Bevolo — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 14:28:10 +0000

Am I the only one who had a hard time coming out of the holiday break? For all the forms of stinkiness 2009 brought the healthcare industry (financial stress, healthcare reform froth, etc.), I certainly am looking forward to this, the year 2010. Yet here it is, January 8th, and I’m just now getting around to the obligatory “year-end wrap up.” Maybe the desire to hibernate given the frigid temps and ice-chunked streets here in the Twin Cities has something to do with it. Oh well, better late than never.

Rather than provide an in-depth analysis of the trends and key moments of 2009 (break out the No-Doz, yo!), let’s look at one simple metric – the most popular blog posts of last year. Is there something we can glean from the list? First, here are the top five posts from the Interval blog, with title, publish date and total pageviews:

#1. “The economic crisis: Tipping point for healthcare consumer behavior?” (March) (609 page views)
#2. “Truth #4: If you want to know what will work in healthcare marketing, don’t ask your customers” (July) (478)
#3. “Truth #2: Healthcare marketing needs a serious shake-up” (January) (380)
#4. “Truth #3: Great healthcare marketing requires great healthcare leaders” (May) (204)
#5. “Hospital awards – the madness continues” (September) (156)

I have one overall reaction to this list: awesome!!! The first entry is understandable given the economic maelstrom healthcare faced in 2009, and in retrospect, the post has some fairly ominous overtones (if some of the predictions come true, hospitals will be facing quite the financial malaise in the coming years).

But if you can get past that Scrooger, the other four make me want to leap for joy. Because they mean we’ve hit hundreds of people with messages we believe are essential to moving marketing forward and improving its station within healthcare organizations. Certainly, not everyone agrees with our points in these posts, and it’s fair to say posts 2-5 could be considered somewhat controversial. Even then, that means the battle has been joined, the debate engaged, the conversation had. And that, from our standpoint, deserves the label of “awesome.”

We’re very much looking forward to starting more fires here in 2010. And thanks for giving us a read!

Interval Podcast, January 4, 2010

Adam Meyer — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 16:59:47 +0000

This week we’re rebroadcasting a special report from the Weekly Probe. Tune in next week for the first official episode of Healthcare Marketing Insights for 2010. This special episode of Healthcare Marketing Insights, features guests from the Weekly Probe, a web site that provides deep insights into healthcare marketing news. Don’t miss the latest report from the Probe covering “That’s what she said,” a unique hospital marketing campaign. Show notes are after the break.

Show Notes

Weekly Probe
http://www.weeklyprobe.com