It comes back to understanding what you’re trying to accomplish with your efforts.  If your mission is to educate your audience about the capabilities of your service line or product offering, are impressions the right measure?  A TV spot for your new heart center might make people aware that it exists, but will they learn the information you need them to know, when they need it, and enough to influence the dialog with their primary care physician.  More importantly will the ad provide any influence on the primary care physician’s perspective?

TV, radio, environmental, print – they offer the allure of large numbers, hundreds of thousands of impressions.  Impressions – people have seen your message, your brand, but does it matter?  Maybe 30 years ago, but today consumers are being influenced differently, they communicate differently, and you need to too.

Crossing communication channels can be challenging, but when you incorporate a unique URL into these channels, and you see consumers use the URL – you have a win.  We’ve seen it happen – we even have a case study about it – It’s easy to point to success.  You’ve offered the target audience an action that they can pursue on their own, and you those that take the action are the ones you are looking to influence most.

When you add a unique URL to a television spot, or to a billboard, or to a radio spot, and you see absolutely no cross over, the debate begins – as it did for one of our clients.  Four weeks’ worth of radio spots, more than 300K impressions, and not a single hit to the URL.   Awareness matters – there is no doubt about it – but do you believe that just knowing your service is available is enough?  If not a single person accesses the unique URL, is it an indication of a flawed message, that the channel isn’t effective, or evidence that you can’t get a consumer to cross channels easily?  The reality is a little of all three, but the data is telling you something – what you did didn’t work – at least now you know so you can now focus on what to change.  Or do you just shrug your shoulders and keep doing what you’ve been doing?

We’d love to hear your thoughts.

Know your audience, you need to give them the relevant content they expect without challenging them to unlock a puzzle – you need to make it worth their while to start the conversation with you.  I’m not talking about comments to a post (though we love them), or getting your audience to share your content with others (and we love that too!), what I’m talking about is enabling the first steps in a relationship.  That’s an important distinction, because relationships are about trust and sharing.  Does your audience trust the information you’re providing to be accurate, relevant, and frankly worth their time?  If they don’t, don’t worry about engagement, it can’t happen without the trust.

Assuming you have the trust – are you sharing?  Asking for comments isn’t sharing – it can be if you write back, or offer a solution, but you have to go beyond asking them to help you and provide them with something of value.  Sometimes it’s a simple invitation to connect based on the content you’re sharing, or it could be an opportunity to download some supporting content.  Some examples would include:

• Offering up supporting materials for the information you’re sharing – here’s a great video, download the presentation here…
• Provide a chance to learn more – click here to be notified of updates to this information…
• Request their input – click here to help choose the next topic…
• Keep it coming – comeback next week…

It seems simple enough – but it is often overlooked – just letting your audience know that you want to connect with them will often lead to the first step in a relationship.  Take a look at the link embedded in the image above.  It will take you to a knee replacement program, where anyone who finds the information useful can easily find out how to learn more or be a part of future programs on the topic.  So the next time you’re asking yourself what  you can do to get more engagement from your website, put yourself in your audience’s perspective and see how easy it is to connect with you – the answer may surprise.

Being that we are a provider of online video education channels, the idea that we would use audio to extend our educational reach was met with some odd looks.  We already syndicate our content across multiple channels like YouTub and Facebook, but it’s all video, audio doesn’t seem an immediate fit.

However if you think about it, our audience isn’t always online, may not always have the time to focus on a video, and may be looking for podcast to listen to about the topics and content we provide.

It’s not a question of why would we, it’s one of why shouldn’t we.  It’s a little work, like any other channel we need to commit to frequent, relevant updates, but it exposes our content to another channel and another group of users that may choose to become part of our community.  It helped that we had feedback from our current members and clients that they would find this information valuable, so we chose to be where they are – we hope you do too.

Check out our new podcast, VOX ORLive on iTunes, or follow the link on the logo, and let us know what you think!

Every month, Methodist conducts a tumor review board that they would tape and eventually share on their website.  Working with ORLive, they even broadcast some of the review boards live.  Over several months a pattern developed – 90 minute live (7AM CST) broadcasts weren’t drawing crowds, but on-demand versions were getting great traffic – and repeat traffic.  Despite disappointing live numbers, we knew the content was valuable to the audience.

So they took a different approach.  Instead of driving interest for periodic live broadcasts covering several topics, they capture all review boards and edit them into shorter single case segments.  Every week a new case is made available, discussion forums for the cases can be accessed by registered physicians, and cases can be submitted on-line for review.

The results?  In the first year of this new approach Methodist has seen more than 65,000 visitors to the VBTB and over 2,000 weekly subscribers.  They’ve received cases for review from their regional physicians, as far away as Japan, and even from the US Army to assist on a case involving a young woman from Iraq.  The Neuroscience Institute was even invited to speak at the 2009 international Livestrong conference in Ireland.

Methodist set out to establish a regional resource and established an international brand.

So how about you?  Do you record grand rounds, CME seminars, or your own review boards?  Maybe you already have video tours of your hospital and staff.

You don’t need heavy productions to get started with an online video strategy, you just need content that is viewed as quality and relevant by your target audience – and the chances are you already have it.

Don’t forget to press the record button.

Since our first live surgery broadcast in January 2000, we have been in a constant state of change – adapting to changes in technology and audience needs.  When we launched EngagedMed last year, we did it in response to an emerging need that we saw in the market – the rise of the engaged consumer/patient.  We saw changes in how consumers were using the internet to gather information, and how they were pursuing, and consuming, medical data, information, and knowledge – and we saw that many of our clients were aware of the change, but not sure how to react.

So we created EngagedMed to share what we saw – and we thought it would be a great side project, something to give us a release while we generated interest for a content focused engagement strategy among our clients.  What we didn’t expect was the emphatic response from our clients – rising to the challenge to engage their patients and consumers through social media and content marketing, and we turned our attention to help them.

That left us with a decision – do we turn out the lights on EngagedMed, or do we take it in a new direction.  The choice was easy – we keep the focus of EngagedMed on how our clients are engaging their target audiences, but the stories we tell will be largely about (and if we can convince them to contribute, from) our clients and their results.

We’re looking forward to having some fun seeing where this goes and we hope that you will find what we share relevant enough to come with us.

No matter the reason, the end result is the same.  Ineffective content that comes nowhere near representing the message you’re trying to convey.

Hey everyone does it.  It’s not a new topic – and if you browse through the upcoming events line up on ORLive, you’ll see that we aren’t always winning in our attempts to convince our clients about this.  We hear a lot reasons why:

• We’re marketing to the clinical audience; they need to know we’re serious.
• We only want “serious” viewers.
• We don’t want to appear like we’re trying to market
• Surgeons don’t respond to marketing messages (my favorite – and oh by the way, they do, just ask a surgeon about their buying decisions)

It’s not easy to write good summaries or releases, but it’s not as hard as it seems.  It also doesn’t require taking on the late, great Billy Mays approach – but it does take shifting your perspective from trying to share information to trying to start a conversation.  Think about it.  You wouldn’t start a conversation about your favorite recipe with someone by describing the measurements and prep work – you start by telling them why they should care.  How great it tastes, the experience – you establish the need to continue the dialog.

Same is true for health care – even if you’re attempting to share information about a new surgical option available – avoid falling into a “dragnet” approach – “just the facts”.  The problem with just facts is that no one cares – not from you.  They just don’t.  They can get the facts anywhere – there are a million sources – maybe even a googol.  If you want to have a relationship don’t barrage them with statistics, clinical references, and expected information – instead tell them why they should care, why they should explore more deeply, and what you have to offer.

In the coming posts we’ll try and scour the web for some great (or not) examples of “dragnet” releases and how a different perspective may have helped make them better.

Remember, you’re starting a conversation – chances are your brand has already established how solid your reputation is – don’t waste the opportunity to engage by telling them about you.

Make it about them.