March. Nine months ago. That was the last time I wrote a post here. Dear oh dear oh dear. I’m not proud, not pleased and not surprised. It’s been a very busy year. A good one, but a tough one. So 2012. A new website and yes, a new blog, and even better, a blog with regular posts! Once the new site is up and running, I promise I will be writing more. Speaking of writing, I’m loving reading at the moment, and most of it on the iPad. I still use good old Reeder for all my feeds but spend a good deal of time in Flipboard too, especially Fast Company, Harvard Business Review and looking at the amazing talent on dribbble. What are you reading at the moment? Want to accelerate your marketing and get better results?, Free Online Marketing Course

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This short video is well worth watching. The Nike Livestrong Chalkbot does everything well… Web to real life marketing, emotive messaging, a wonderfully different idea, and for one of the best causes in the world.

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It’s one thing running a conference, but it’s another speaking at one. So I’m going from HDLive to the DPA Conference, and very much looking forward to it. I’m going to be running a workshop for the attendees about how they can get the most from social media – some good examples, some bad ones, immediate actions they can take and a few time-savers. However, I’m also going to be reinforcing that social media, for most companies and brands, is a big, fat, smelly red herring. Why would a marketing department be getting excited about social media when the website is shocking (looks bad, cannot be found and does not meet the needs of the visitor) and they never use email? This is something I’m seeing on a weekly, even daily basis. The workshop attendees are going to have this drilled into them. And then some.

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  The email newsletter is a powerful marketing and communication tool that has various useful functions. It reminds your users about you; it informs users about your products; it tells them what you have been up to; and it helps you build a unique relationship with them. Users like email newsletters if the newsletters bring them value.The fundamental rule for creating an email newsletter is to give it interesting, relevant and up-to-date information that is enjoyable to read. Users sign up for newsletters hoping be informed about things that they would not otherwise be able to find out about. In this article, we’ll discuss some guidelines for designing and distributing email newsletters. Each point will be accompanied by both good and bad examples.Please notice: in this post we features both good and bad examples of newsletter design, so you can get a better understanding of the problems to avoid and good design decisions to make.You may be interested in the following related posts:Design and Build Email Newsletters Without Losing Your Mind (and Soul)[Offtopic: by the way, do you know the Smashing Network has its own Smashing Network RSS Feed? Only excerpts are displayed in the feed.]Signing Up For A NewsletterThis is an important step in convincing users that your newsletters are interesting and that they would benefit from signing up.Tell Users What They Will GetBefore asking users for their details, tell them what they will receive, and identify the benefits of signing up. If you mention that the newsletters will include exclusive offers and deals, make sure to keep the promise. In addition, let users know how often they will receive the newsletter: weekly or monthly.On the Mulberry sign-up page, the company promises to send users exclusive updates and offers. The Marie Claire UK subscription page clearly states that its newsletters include news, beauty buys, competitions and offers.Marie Claire UK subscription pageReward Users for Signing UpYou may want to consider giving some reward to users for signing up; for example, a free gift, voucher or discount. To encourage users to sign up for his newsletter, Jamie Oliver offers a free £25 wine voucher that can be claimed after subscribing (on the condition that users spend £64.99 or more on the wine). Jamie Oliver sign-up page Jamie Oliver reward pageIf you will give rewards, let users know as soon as possible in the process. James Perse gives users who subscribe to its newsletter a $15 online gift card. However, the reward is not mentioned on the subscription page, and the promotion code is sent via a confirmation email only after the subscription has been received. You would not have known that until you subscribed. The company is clearly missing a great opportunity to get people to sign up for its newsletters. James Perse subscription confirmation emailPreview Your NewsletterOne way to let users know what they will get is to give them a preview of your newsletter. Hershey’s Kitchens has two different newsletters, and it offers examples of both types. The company even gives each newsletter a name and clearly indicates how often it will be sent out.Hershey’s Kitchen sign-up pageKeep Questions Short and SimpleUsers avoid filling out forms and submitting their details if possible. For a newsletter sign-ups, all you need is their email address.Hersey’s Kitchens has 10 mandatory fields. MarieClaire.com has 8 fields, but only the email field is required. We have found from our studies, though, that people often miss the asterisk or do not know what it means. Users who are reluctant to fill in many details may well refuse to sign up in this case. Hershey’s Kitchen sign-up pageContent Of NewsletterBased on our user testing, we found that people look at three things when they receive a newsletter:The sender, to see if it is from someone they know.The subject line, to see if it is of interest to them.The date, to see if the communication is up to date.Write an Attractive Subject LineOne way to encourage users to open your newsletter is to write a subject line that grabs their attention.If you are offering some sort of deal in your newsletter, try to avoid generic appeals in your subject line (for instance, Game July newsletter subject line: “Sizzling Summer Deals”). Instead, mention specific offers, such as Dorothy Perkins November Issue: “25% Off Just for You”. Also, be realistic about your offers, and avoid making them sound too good to be true. Users are skeptical about subject lines like “Get 1000 Extra Points” because they know they will often have to spend a lot to get those points.Provide Useful and Well-Written ContentA newsletter should contain information that users would not normally research on their own. Users take seconds to scan for topics of interest to them before deciding whether to spend more time reading the newsletter. If your newsletter, like Forrester’s, shows only one or two topics, users would less likely to find something of interest to them. Forrester newsletterFurthermore, including links to your website in the newsletter is crucial.Make Content Relevant to Your ReadersMake your newsletter’s content as relevant to your readers as possible, whether through offers, products or images. Superfluous content will add no value and simply be ignored. You could also provide customized content. Personalization can be done in one of two ways:Asking users for more (optional) information when they sign up.Implicitly recording what they buy and view on your website.For example, Amazon sends newsletter with recommendations based on what its users have purchased. Recommendation-based newsletters can be highly useful, provided that your analytics are accurate. Amazon’s customized newsletterOffer Exclusive DealsYou could always offer subscribers special deals or freebies. There are a few ways to go about this. H&M and Photobox ask users to present their newsletters at the point of purchase in stores to receive discounts. Clinique and Airparks include a promotion code in their newsletters that users can redeem when checking out online. H&M newsletter Photobox newsletter Airparks newsletterAvoid putting these benefits so deep in the newsletter that users miss them. For instance, Clinique (above) puts its code at the bottom of the page, whereas Airparks puts its at the very top of the page.In addition, make sure the rewards are relevant to your product and target audience. Take Inkclub, which gives out a free blusher to customers who shop via its newsletter. Not only does this item have little relevance to Inkclub’s product line, but it may not be very attractive to the company’s target users. Inkclub newsletterNewsletter DesignDesign your newsletter to suit its chief purpose. If the main objective is to announce a new product or promote a particular service, you may want to focus the newsletter entirely on this product or service. Good examples are Apple in promoting its new iPhone 3GS. Apple newsletter promoting its new iPhone 3GS.To promote its latest exclusive offers, Ted Baker takes an easy and rather lazy approach: the whole newsletter consists merely of one big banner showing offers of 50% off, in the hope that users will click to the website to find out more. By contrast, Dabs.com showcases a number of its latest deals in its newsletter, giving users a rough idea of its product line and sale prices. Ted Baker newsletter Dabs newsletterYou could also adopt a catalogue style, like IKEA, or create a summary of your e-commerce website, like Audible, which teases users to visit its website with prices and a clear call-to-action button. IKEA newsletter Audible newsletterKeep it Simple and StraightforwardAs reported by the Nielsen Norman Group in its Email Newsletter Usability Report, the average reader skims a newsletter for 51 seconds. People never read: they scan for content that is of interest to them. So, don’t overwhelm them by squeezing too much information on the page. Make sure your content gets straight to the point, and write short paragraphs and bullet points.The main purpose of Flybe’s newsletter is to present an exclusive offer on family trips to Disneyland. The value of this deal is lost among the long paragraphs. The message could be conveyed more effectively in bullet points for quick scanning. Flybe newsletterMake Good Use of Images, Numbers and ColorsUsers are drawn first to elements that are visually simulating, such as graphics. Use images to guide users to the most important content and messages.Numbers also grab attention. Users tend to associate them with prices and savings. Use percentages and dollar values to show concrete offers. For example, Pixmania newsletter has a big “49% off,” showing how much savings are available: clear and appealing. Pixmania newsletterColor adds interest, too. But be careful, because inappropriate use makes for a messy, confusing newsletter. Take Rimmel London’s newsletter. Rimmel London newsletterTailor the Layout to the ContentA newsletter can be designed in a one-column or multi-column layout or a mixture of both. A one-column grid is easier to skim but might take up more space and increase the length of the newsletter. While people do skim email newsletters, that’s no reason to make them overly lengthy. However, some exceptions are the Design Hotels newsletter, which is long but well organized. Hotels are shown based on location, with attractive photos and deals. Design Hotels newsletterA two-column layout is common for newsletters. Narrower columns is usually used for the table of contents and upcoming events, while the main content is given a wider column. Etsy uses a two-column design for its newsletter, but both columns contain photos and links, and the sections have no prominent divisions. The design makes the page look messy and it lacks focus, making it hard to figure out where to look on the page. By contrast, iStockphoto’s clear division between sections and grid design help guide the user’s attention to the left or right column. Etsy newsletter iStockphoto newsletterBe CreativeCreativity in a newsletter is always welcome. Both First Great Western and Southern present their content using fictional characters, Bob and Loco respectively, who users can easily relate to. First Great Western newsletter Southern newsletterGiving each edition of your newsletter a different layout or design is okay as long users can easily recognize your brand. Despite STA Travel using various styles for its weekly newsletter, certain elements follow their branding guidelines, allowing users to quickly identify it. STA newsletter, issue #254 STA newsletter, issue #255Unlike the rather uninspiring Tripadvisor newsletter, Top Gear gets creative with its hand-sketched design, which makes the newsletter fun to read and explore. Tripadvisor newsletter Top Gear newsletterBe Wary of Table of ContentsSome newsletters include a table of contents at the top of the page, which can help users quickly scan for items of interest. A table of contents can be especially helpful in lengthy newsletters that have a lot of content, such as the one from MoneySavingExpert. MoneySavingExpert newsletterPrevious experience tells us, though, that some users do not understand that the links in the table of contents navigate within the newsletter. Assuming that the links take them to a website, they avoid clicking them altogether. One solution is to avoid placing the links in the left or right columns, as Foodepedia does, which is where external links and ads are often found. Foodepedia newsletterBe Wary of AdsIf you have to include ads in your newsletter, make sure they blend in with the content. A good example of this is Lastminute.com, and a bad example is PCMag.com which merely copies Google AdSense code directly into its newsletter, making the page look messy and the content unconvincing. Lastminute.com newsletter PCMag.com newsletterTools And FeaturesMake it easy for users to unsubscribe, but don’t remind them how to all the time. Also, tell users how they can change their email address, view the newsletter in a Web browser and quickly share the newsletter with their friends. Other useful features include: “Follow us on Twitter,” “Be Our Fan on Facebook” and “Watch Us on YouTube.”After Sending Out The NewsletterAfter sending out your newsletter, use an email marketing tool and list manager to track, monitor and measure the performance of your campaigns. Many email service providers are out there, such as MailChimp, iContact, Mailvivo, Mailing Manager and Atomic Email Tracker. The majority of them also provide templates to help you create your newsletter if you don’t want to get your hands dirty.ShowcaseMacHeist’s Directorate newsletter grabs its readers’ attention with the price of its iPhone apps (£0.99). Then, it tells them what MacHeist does in a short paragraph and presents its features in a clear and appealing way via icons. Simple, interesting and effective.Headscape’s newsletter with large headlines and nice illustrations.Muji’s newsletter has a tidy layout that allows for quick scanning. Each section is accompanied by nice product images and prices.Howies might have a bit too much text in its newsletter. However, it organizes the content into different sections with big clear headings.Apple’s Christmas newsletter has a photo-related theme promoting its digital photo organizer software, iPhoto, and its photo books and calendar printing service.HQhair.com gives its users an exclusive offer with a code. It not only emphasizes the word “FREE” but makes good use of the model to draw attention to the offer.Bluefly cleverly divides its newsletter into two sections: “Offers” (the main section) and the right navigation section, using beautiful imagery in the process. Also, notice how it emphasizes the 80% offer and word “OFF” (in large font).Ambiance San Francisco takes a creative drawing-based approach to encourage users to shop with it.Disney Adventures‘ newsletter is another good example. Its beautiful picture gives users that holiday feeling.Good Life Garden’s newsletter effectively uses the word “Free” to grab the user’s attention. The design is simple yet visually pleasing. Unfortunately, the content is repeated in the same newsletter.Bite Card’s newsletter has festive background imagery to evoke the winter season. It is simple, with a big banner at the top showing the product price, followed by cocktail choices and ingredients.The Squawk’s newsletter attracts users with the beautiful book cover on promotion for that month.Cauldron’s newsletter also has a tidy layout and clearly defines the purpose of each section. It tells users the subject of its next issue in the “Coming Next Month” section at the bottom, a nice tease.Mango’s newsletter makes good use of bright, attractive colors.iStockphoto’s uses a gallery to present its top eight photos of the month: neat and easy to scan.Threadless‘ newsletter offers “$10 per tee” in big clear type at the top of the page.Further ResourcesYou may also be interested in these additional resources:Beautiful Email Newsletters25 Impressive Email Newsletter Designs for Your InspirationDesign and Build Email Newsletters Without Losing Your Mind (and Soul)A Guide to Creating Email NewsletterStrengthen Your Email Marketing PerformanceAbout the AuthorChui Chui Tan is a User Experience Consultant at cxpartners, UK. She loves being creative. Chui Chui has spent over seven years conducting user evaluations and designing usable and accessible user interfaces. She previously worked as a Mechanical Designer and received her doctorate in Human Computer Interaction. You can follow Chui Chui on Twitter.(al)© Chui Chui Tan for Smashing Magazine, 2010. | Permalink | 15 comments | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Stumble on StumbleUpon! | Tweet it! | Submit to Reddit | Forum Smashing Magazine Post tags: email, marketing, newsletter

I don’t get into Hull very often, but when I do it’s nice to grab a coffee or a hot choccy. So, I went into Cafe Nero expecting to hand over some cash and get a hot drink in return. I didn’t even get to the counter. The place was a mess. Cups, mugs and food wrappings covering most tables. The floor was unclean. It immediately came across as “we really don’t care about your experience”. I walked straight out. A friend was telling Kate about a beauty treatment she recently had at a local hotel. To be blunt. It sucked. No one acknowledged her when she went to reception. 2 people walked straight past. The treatment was amateur, the beauticians colleagues were loudly chatting and clearing up nearby. Will she recommend them? I don’t think so. I don’t see many businesses or services really taking any pride in their work, their service. Certainly not around here at the moment. Great experience is not rocket science. In fact, I would go as far to say, I’m having better experiences online with brands and businesses right now. How amazing is that? What bad experiences have you had recently? What great experiences have you had? Want to accelerate your marketing and get better results?, Free Online Marketing Course

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Strategic objectives are the Holy Grail of a company's being. They typically involve big plans, so the natural inclination is to compose a lengthy description of each objective.

That means strategies and tactics are often piled into the wording of the objective. That unnecessarily complicates the objective, making it less likely to be understood quickly and efficiently. Anything not understood easily is unlikely to spread.

Here's a fictitious, slightly over-the-top example of what a top-heavy objective might look like: Understand how to create better innovation opportunities for our products by listening closely to our customers' needs through a world-class  community solution that deepens our customer relationships and helps customers share and collaborate together.

That's an unspreadable objective. It lacks clarity because it tries to say everything. It's loaded with strategies and solutions. It has a poor chance of blossoming because there's nothing simple to rally behind.

A strong objective is clear and concise like a headline. An objective is an intention, as my friend Stephen Harvill says when he helps companies clarify their thinking. A comparable example is when champion tennis player says simply, "I intend to win" before heading out to a court. How she'll win is through a series of strategies and tactics.

Therefore, to create a simple objective, strip away anything that looks like an action, a program or a piece of technology. Remove anything resembling buzzwords. Get to the soul of an intention, and make it simple.

Using that approach, the complicated objective above could be rewritten to say:Innovate using customer feedback.

More on this topic:

Definitions of Objectives, Strategies, Tactics and Goals How to Create a 1-Page Strategic Plan

I was recently invited by my friend Ellen Hoenig Carlson (read her blog, Notes from the Back of the Book, for some great healthcare marketing insights) to contribute to a project she was hoping to put together in time for Christmas. Her vision was for it to be something of a holiday gift to all the healthcare marketers of the world. It was a pretty ambitious effort, as she was attempting to corral twelve different authors in a very short period of time. It was going to be an ebook featuring the insights from a diverse group of individuals on the topic of healthcare marketing. I didn’t think she’d be able to put it off (don’t tell her). But, she did pull it off. She managed to get twelve industry bloggers to give their view on a deceptively simple question: “what would you recommend as the top learning strategies for Pharma and Healthcare marketers in 2010?” Where to begin? Of course, I think all marketers have a lot to learn especially when it comes to digital (myself included), but also in many other areas. We all do. In fact, the opening quote Ellen used for the ebook was this: “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read or write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” — Alvin Toffler So, I guess we all have something to learn. Personally, I got quite a bit out of this ebook. When people ask me which blogs they should be reading when it comes to healthcare marketing, the list of people that Ellen pulled together is pretty much the list that I recommend. Here are the contributors to the ebook: Phil Baumann, Phil Baumann online blog, CareVocate Interactive Media Solutions Wendy Blackburn, ePharma Rx blog, Intouch Solutions Adam Cohen, A Thousand Cuts blog, Rosetta Interactive Dave deBronkart, The New Life of e-Patient Dave blog, Society for Participatory Medicine Angela Dunn, Odom Lewis blog, Executive Search Specialists in Healthcare Marketing/Medical Education Susannah Fox, Health Research for Pew Internet & American Life Project Fard Johnmar, Path of the Blue Eye Project, Envision Consultancy John Mack, Pharma Marketing blog, Editor-in-chief of Pharma Marketing News Marsha Shenk, Thriving Enterprise blog, The Bestwork People Andrew Spong, STweM blog and Consultancy, UK Steve Woodruff, Impactiviti blog and Consultancy Humbly…me There’s a diverse group of topics included in the ebook, but there are certainly some common themes and also different perspectives on similar issues. I’d invite you to read the entire ebook and share it with others. It’s a great way to start 2010 and a fine holiday gift from Ellen. Thanks to her for pulling this together and to all the contributors for sharing their unique perspectives and insights. Best wishes for a great 2010. I’ll have lots more to get your year started off in a big way next week and in early January. Stay tuned. Download the ebook here: Best Learning Actions for Healthcare Marketers in 2010 (51 downloads) As always, if you’d like to be alerted when I have new white papers are available, feel free to sign up just fill out the form below. Your information will only be used for this purpose and will never be shared under any circumstance.

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Here is my most recent keynote from the 2,000-person+ Le Web in Paris, which focused on how to catalyze a global phenomenon on a very limited budget. Topics include: - How to sell “around the product” for more coverage. - The three necessary types of media exposure. - Real-world tipping points from the launch of The 4-Hour Workweek - How to increase website conversion 80%. It pulls from real case studies, including my own experience and tech start-ups I advise… To advance slides on the presentation, just hover the mouse over the right-hand side of the displayed slide and click when a hand appears. To embed the presentation in your own blog, find the embed code here.

Ferriss – Le Web 2
Embed code Elsewhere on the web: Tim Ferriss on Twitter – real-time antics, and see the new launch techniques as they unfold beginning Monday, 12/14

It's that time: time to create strategic plans for next year.

Most people use some form of objectives, goals, strategies and tactics for their plans, but get a group of 10 people into a room and you might have 10 different definitions of what those terms mean? That's why agreeing on their meaning is vital to your plan. Term agreement is a lubricant to productivity.

With that in mind, here's how we define the intention, purpose and usage of "objectives, goals, strategies and tactics" when assembling a strategic plan.

Objectives

An objective is a high-level achievement. The simpler the better, like "Improve customer loyalty" or "Grow our market share." They can also be mountain-tops of company success: "Make our brand a word of mouth success story." They could be trying to solve a nagging, systemic problem or doing something big, like entering a new market. Objectives are a rally point for leaders who manage day-to-day efforts: "Will the idea being pitched to me help us reduce our churn?" or "Will this project help us develop a new market?" For us, objectives sit at the top of the strategic plan, and an ideal plan has no more than a handful of them. Anything more can be overload -- for leaders and the people who work for them.

Goals

In our framework, a goal is anything that's measured. Goals can be revenue, profit margin, members in a community, certifications delivered, a Net Promoter Score number, etc. Goals determine how you fulfill an objective. Multiple goals can, and should, support a single objective. A goal of "Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 59" can support multiple objectives like "become a word of mouth success story" and "deliver best-in-class service." Just like in sports, a goal is based on numbers.

Strategies

A strategy is a way to describe a series of tactics, or very specific actions. In sports or war, strategy is often described as an action: Increase troop levels in a region. Do man-to-man coverage. The commonality is action performed by a team or group of people. Each strategy description begins with a verb to signify that something is being done. Example verbs include: create, hire, develop, launch, etc. Each strategy is supported, typically, by a series of specific tactics that may or may not be linear in execution or time. Every item in our strategic planning framework begins with a verb.

Tactics

A tactic is a very specific action, like creating a new program or improving an existing one. In our framework, a tactic might be "Launch a online listening program" or "Form a customer advisory board for the manufacturing group." Each tactic has an owner who may rely on the work of multiple people in direct or dotted-line reporting relationships to make the tactic work. Each tactic typically has its own plan, too, whether laid out in a spreadsheet or a Gantt chart. Tactics are best, too, when they are preceded with a verb. Specificity is the driver to improvement.

Later: Afterward, Beth Harte raised this point: Who should own the definition of terms like objectives, goals, strategies and tactics? If you believe language is a reflection of culture, and that culture is largely driven from the top, then I would suggest definitions come from office of the CEO and/or COO. It's from there that planning terminology, and even the planning process, should be taught clearly, succinctly and repeatedly. Beth thinks definitions could be owned by an outside association. If you have an opinion, hop into the comments.

This is part two of a series on relationship marketing. Please check out the first post,  7 Biggest Mistakes in Digital Relationship Marketing, and make sure you’re not committing any of these before figuring out how to fix them. That post will also give you a bit more background on relationship marketing, but I’ll include a brief overview here as well. [PS: If you're looking for more on my take of how relationship marketing and pharma fit together, then check out my white paper on "The Future of Digital Relationship Marketing in Pharma." It's the most downloaded white paper on Dose of Digital.] Here’s our definition of relationship marketing (courtesy of our Chief Marketing Strategist, Bob Gilbreath): “Relationship marketing is ongoing, direct, added-value communication.” Ongoing: It’s a rhythm of regular, expected communication. Direct: It doesn’t mean buying media, but owning it: You have permission to communicate, and it can be done in many forms. Added Value: The marketing itself fills a need; usually, the greater the value to the customer, the greater the ROI. That last one is important: “fills a need.” If you’re not doing that, then you’re probably just annoying your customers. So, to ensure you’re not doing this, I’m going to share with you what I call the 7 Golden Rules of Digital Relationship Marketing. This is your list of “what to do.” Follow these seven rules and you’ll be well on your way to a very successful program. One note, some people refer to relationship marketing as CRM, or customer relationship marketing (or management). For the purposes of this post, I’m saying they are the same thing. So, here’s the list of what TO do:

7 Golden Rules in Digital Relationship Marketing

Sharing, partnering, endorsing Perfect pitch Personalized and individualized Keep it simple, stupid Members only Personal investment It’s not about you

- 1. Sharing, partnering, endorsing

If you are completely reliant on your own promotional efforts to increase enrollments in your program, then you’re missing a giant opportunity. At a bare minimum, you should include social sharing tools that make it easy for people to share your offers with others and encourage them to join your program. Incentive strategies, where you pay current members something for each new member they enroll, fit in here as well. Beyond social sharing, if your program is good enough, you can look towards industry groups and, in the case of healthcare, patient advocacy groups to grow your enrollment. If your program is valuable enough to their members, these groups will help you and will be your most effective enrollment tool. In the case of healthcare, physicians can become recruiters too if you show them how your program both benefits their patients and helps them to more easily manage these patients. 2. Perfect pitch

(Image from The Brand Builder Blog) In order to keep people engaged over time, you have to communicate with them regularly (but not too regularly) and about things they care about at that moment. This is simple to achieve if you’re willing to do a little planning. Before building anything, plan out what you want to say and what channel you think is best to communicate it. From there figure out when it makes the most sense to communicate. For example, you probably should hold your stories about cold and flu until cold and flu season hits. Once you have these three pieces, then it’s simply a matter of laying it all out on a timeline. Doing this accomplishes three things. First, it ensures that you’re covering your main points of communication and what your customers care about over a set time period. Second, it also serves as a commitment and motivation tool for you. Once you have it down in your timeline, you’re far more likely to actually do the work to launch the piece on time. It makes it far more tangible. Finally, having a quality timeline will help you make budget decisions should you receive more funding or (more likely) have some cut. You’ll be able to tell where you have additional capacity or where you can use some more. 3. Personalized and individualized I’ve written about this before and spelled out what I think the difference is between these two terms (yes, there is a difference). Personalization means adding some personally identifying information to your communications. This usually means putting someone’s name on the top of an email or direct mail piece. It’s remarkably simple to do with digital media and has become very simple (and cost effective) in print as well. Adding someone’s name to an email, for example, is much better than sending an email with “Dear Person” or “Dear Cancer Person.” I only joke because I have seen these before. I assume they were mistakes, but I saw them. Individualization is something different. For our purposes, individualization means creating communications that are tailored for each and every individual person. The test to see if you’re sending out individualized messages is simple: does someone read what you sent and think, “Wow. They wrote this just for me.” If not, then it’s not individualized. This too can be really simple and more and more companies are embracing it. Here’s a great example that my colleague, Bob Gilbreath, wrote about on his Marketing with Meaning blog:

First, Delta included his name. Good. That’s personalization. However, then they go on and apologize for sticking him in a middle seat on his last flight and offer him some miles to say sorry. Interesting point to note, Bob didn’t ask for this or complain to Delta. They just did it. Delta knew the situation and sent an individualized response. Question: if Bob got this email and the 500 miles or another email that simply gave him 500 miles without the individualized touch, which would have more impact? Each results in the same value for him, 500 miles. But clearly the one that talks about his specific situation makes a lasting impression. So, you can’t just give away stuff and expect that to be enough. You have to make the extra effort to make it meaningful. If you invest the time and effort to know what your customers are doing and what will be meaningful to them, then your communications will become more and more relevant to them. As they pass over hundreds of other emails they receive, but can’t remember why, yours will be the one that stands out. 4. Keep it simple, stupid We marketers like to complicate stuff. One of these things I mentioned in the 7 Biggest Mistakes in Digital Relationship Marketing. It was number 4: Make it hard. Basically, if you make your enrollment process really difficult or make it a hugely daunting task to get any sort of individualized information, people just aren’t going to do it. So, you have to make it easy…simple, that is. Of course, our programs can be highly complex and necessitate a knowing a bunch of information in order to give good information back. That’s all right. If your program requires a complex or lengthy process to yield the best information in return, you can’t just start with this. You need to start with a “light” version of your process to get people interested and engaged. Later on, you can add in something more complex once people are committed to your program and want to do even more with it. For ConAgra Foods’ program Start Making Choices, our company (Bridge Worldwide), created two different ways to get individualized information. The first consists of just five questions on a simple slider bar design:

If people wanted the most individualized information (likely after seeing the quality information they received from the “light” survey) and their personal Balanced Life Index (BLI), then they are presented with a 23 question, multiple choice, survey. However, instead of making this question after question of text (or worse, 23 pages with one question each), we created an engaging design in which people swiftly entered all the relevant information. They did this because the questions were simple, but also the design kept them clicking and onto the next question, which kept dropout rates at a very low level.

1. Members only Everyone likes being part of an exclusive club. They like the special perks that come along with membership and they like the prestige that comes with being a member. They like knowing that they’re getting something that everyone else can’t get. That’s just human nature. Do you belong to any clubs like this? Better question: do you wish you did?

Take Neiman Marcus’ InCircle program. On the surface, it’s basically a rewards program. Spend this much, we give you this much. However, because it’s Neiman Marcus, they are also dealing with people who are members of a lot exclusive programs and for whom a $100 gift card isn’t that meaningful. Neiman Marcus needs to provide them much more. So, when you get to the President’s Circle (just spend $75,000 or more in a year), you get special offers that others don’t such as exclusive off-hour shopping events. Not every program is like InCircle, but the concept is the same. You need to reward your customers who are part of your programs lavishly and regularly. They are your best customers, the ones that spend the most, and who talk about your products to others. They’re the most engaged, as evidenced by them joining your program in the first place. Keeping them your customer is an important priority. One note of caution, simply giving people incentives without changing their underlying attitude is one of the 7 Biggest Mistakes in Digital Relationship Marketing (number 5, Dollars don’t change everything). Giving gifts to people in the healthcare space is pretty much prohibited either by company or government policy in most countries, so this makes it a bit more challenging. You have to think beyond gifts and consider things like access. This could be access to industry experts like, say, the leading physician in lung cancer treatment. If your patients are fighting lung cancer, they want to hear what this person has to say. Limiting it to members provides a special reward to those who have given you something (their business and trust) and also makes it possible to do more. You can do more because instead of spending $5 on a hundred thousand people to give them some tiny gift, you can spend the same amount and conduct a series of powerful programs (and even travel to where patients are). That’s just one example, but the point is clear. You can provide member benefits in any industry regardless of the specific regulations. 6. Personal investment If people aren’t personally invested in your program, it’ll be a failure. Their investment is almost always their time (but can also be financial in the case of membership fees). Time is very valuable to people especially people who are fighting a disease. They don’t have time to invest on every website about their disease. They have to focus on one or two for the long-term and everything else is likely to be ignored. People must invest their own time in order to be engaged with your program over time . There is only one way to get people to invest their time: give them something of value in exchange for their time. This doesn’t mean offering them rewards for coming back to your site or buying things. It means that your program should become more valuable to them for each minute they invest. A great example of this is Patients Like Me.

The more information you provide about your disease (including tracking your progress and compliance with treatments everyday), the more you’ll learn about your disease. You’ll be able to track your progress against “the norm” and receive information on how to improve your situation. If you’re not willing to input this information up-front and over time, you won’t get much out of the site. However, if you are willing to do this, you receive a hugely valuable item in return: information on how to improve your health. 7. It’s not about you This is a common sin committed by us marketers. I’ve talked about this before in the context of how to appropriately participate in social media. The same idea applies here. People inherently don’t care about your brand. Actually, they don’t care about your brand as much as you do. Because of this, creating a program that only features your brand is sure to be a failure. Instead, you need to balance your program with a mix of information about your brand and related information from which your customers are likely to get additional value.

P&G maintains one of the largest consumer databases in the world and is among the biggest users of relationship marketing. Our company works on Everyday Solutions, which is the central program for all of P&G’s products. It’s a single stop for brand offers and new product announcements, but there’s much more. There is also relevant content that matches with what each consumer has either said is an area or interest or whose behavior (pages visited, coupon offers redeemed, etc.) indicates that they are likely interested. In other words, people come to the site (or open emails or direct mail) not just for product offers and discounts, but also for other information. Those who initially come for offers see that there’s more to it than just a couple dollars off a certain purchase. This encourages them to return or to sign up for the program. To be sure, the brands are prominently featured and are the focus of the program, but it’s not just one brand message after another. Every marketer wants to get in every core message at each customer “touch,” but that’s not necessarily a winning long-term strategy. There will be time for your messages if you can show people that your program is more than just a commercial. Those are the 7 Golden Rules of Digital Relationship Marketing. Follow these and your program will be head and shoulders above nearly everything else out there. In case you missed them, be sure to check out the 7 Biggest Mistakes in Digital Relationship Marketing so you know what to avoid. If you’d like a POWERPoint version of this, you’re in luck. You can download a copy of The 7 Golden Rules in Digital Relationship Marketing (64 downloads) right here. One request: if you do download it, how about sending out a tweet?

Possibly related posts (auto-generated):The 7 Biggest Mistakes in Digital Relationship MarketingThe Future of Digital Relationship Marketing in PharmaDose of Digital: The Year So Far

For those of you who have heard me talk about my company, Bridge Worldwide, you know that I always say that we’re a digital AND relationship marketing agency. We’ve always been the latter, going back to 1979 (and the former for almost that long). It’s an important distinction to me. Digital agencies make a lot of cool stuff, but many lack the fundamental skills that are required to build lasting relationships with customers.  Of course, we can make cool stuff too (and win the biggest awards in the process), but we pride ourselves on being able to deliver the relationship marketing piece. So, with that, I thought I’d share what I know and have learned about relationship marketing from working with some super talented people over the past few years and from the experience we’ve gathered from managing programs that now have more than 30 million total members. I should pause for a minute and, of course, mention that we think relationship marketing is evolving to something better called Marketing with Meaning. However, the basics of what makes relationship marketing REALLY work is embedded into Marketing with Meaning. PS: If you’re looking for more on my take of how relationship marketing and pharma fit together, then check out my white paper on “The Future of Digital Relationship Marketing in Pharma.” It’s the most downloaded white paper on Dose of Digital. To get started, relationship marketing isn’t this:

Just because you ask someone’s permission before bombarding them with ads, doesn’t mean you’re not still bombarding them (of course, no one is asked to”opt in” in Minority Report, where the clip above comes from). That’s not real relationship marketing. Here’s our definition of relationship marketing (courtesy of our Chief Marketing Strategist, Bob Gilbreath): “Relationship marketing is ongoing, direct, added-value communication.” Ongoing: It’s a rhythm of regular, expected communication. Direct: It doesn’t mean buying media, but owning it: You have permission to communicate, and it can be done in many forms. Added Value: The marketing itself fills a need; usually, the greater the value to the customer, the greater the ROI. That last one is important: “fills a need.” If you’re not doing that, then you’re probably just annoying your customers. So, to ensure you’re not doing this, I’m going to share with you what I consider the 7 Biggest Mistakes in Digital Relationship Marketing. If you’re doing any of these, stop now. Seriously…now. In a later post, I’ll share my 7 Golden Rules in Digital Relationship Marketing. That’ll be the list of “what TO do.” One note, some people refer to relationship marketing as CRM, or customer relationship marketing (or management). For the purposes of this post, I’m saying they are the same thing. So, here’s the list of what NOT to do:

7 Biggest Mistakes in Digital Relationship Marketing

No enrollment Program lapses Loss of interest Make it hard Dollars don’t solve everything No customer ownership All about the brand

- 1.  No enrollment

If your metrics for your program look like this, well, you can imagine that your program isn’t likely to be a success. While having more enrollments in your program doesn’t mean that your program is better than one with less, low enrollment numbers (i.e., well below your target) does indicate a larger problem. This problem can be a number of things, but it usually points to a lack of commitment in the program by some function within the organization. Presumably, you set your targets based on solid estimates and extrapolations. Perhaps it was a certain percentage of people who visited your website. Well, if “corporate” pulls funding for all the traffic drivers to your website, then you aren’t going to hit your target for enrollments either in this example. If you have a bunch of enrollments followed by a bunch of opt-outs, then your program just might be bad (or commit a number of the sins below). Figure out why and fix it. 2. Program lapses Nothing annoys me more than this one. I enroll in your program and one of two things happen. Either you send me a welcome email or direct mail right away and then I don’t hear from you for months or you don’t send me anything initially and three months later send me the first correspondence. If you’re doing this, then don’t even bother continuing. Put yourself in your customers’ position. They probably get a lot of email that appears to be junk everyday. If an email for a program they signed up for three months ago and have long forgotten shows up, how do they react? <DELETE>. And that’s your best case. Worst case, they’ve literally completely forgotten about signing up for this program and think that your message is unsolicited spam. They report that spam to, say, Google (via their Gmail account) and before you know it, Google thinks you’re a spammer. Not good. 3. Loss of interest This is somewhat related to number two above, but has an entire other component as well. If you never send me anything, I’m going to forget why I spent the time signing up in the first place. I’ve moved on. I probably signed up for your competitors’ programs too and if one of them is taking care of me and I’m using their products too. And to illustrate why it’s so simple to lose interest in your program, I’d like to show you a random day from my Gmail inbox. I chose July 16 because right now I miss the summer. Here’s what it looked like:

Almost all of the emails I got that day were for programs I have signed up for at some point. You’ll also notice that I didn’t open a single one of the emails. That’s what I mean by “loss of interest.” Why did I lose interest? Simple: if your offers and correspondence are always the same, people forget why they signed up in the first place. Something interested them. Something sparked a touch of excitement. That’s long gone and they aren’t even opening your emails anymore. 4. Make it hard There’s no better way to kill your program than to make the enrollment process a pain. Someone sent a screenshot to me of this form a while back (they can’t recall where they found it, so if it’s yours, speak up and I’ll give you the credit).

It’s a perfect example of what I like to call an “are you kidding me?” form (usually I put an expletive in there as well). An “are you kidding me?” form is one that a person takes one look at, says, “are you kidding me?” and clicks onto a different site. If your enrollment process makes someone say “are you kidding me?” then change it immediately. Keep in mind that you don’t need to know everything about the person at the beginning. Think about it as though it’s a first date. If you asked all the questions you ask on your “are you kidding me?” form, then you wouldn’t have many second dates. Instead, get the basics now and later on collect more information. Remind people that the more they tell you, the more tailored your offers will be (they will be tailored, right?). Then deliver this. The more the customer sees this, the more information they’ll share. And, by the way, you don’t get a pass by making your two thousand, initial profile questions “optional.” Just the sight of them or the thought that one day they’ll HAVE to answer them to get anything useful from this program, is enough to turn people off. 5. Dollars don’t change everything Hold onto your hats, this one’s a bit technical. For those psychology experts out there, you’ll love this one. The main idea here is that simply “bribing” your customers via more and more offers or discounts over time isn’t likely to be a winning long-term strategy. The reason for this is simple. First, you have to keep increasing the offers to keep these people interested, which will eventually bankrupt you. If it doesn’t bankrupt you, it’s because you’ve withdrawn the best offers and likely lost a ton of very unhappy customers. So, why, you might ask yourself, do people who previously have been given so much instantly desert me when I stop the offers? This is simple and, ironically, it turns out that those who are offered less, will likely be the ones who stay with you forever even when you take away their small offers. It’s a classic case of cognitive dissonance at work. In this case, your loss of customers is explained because you never changed their attitude towards your products. You only changed their behavior because of the money (or other offers) you gave them. When you take away the incentive, you’re left with the same attitude they’ve always had, which means they go back to the original behavior (i.e., not buying your products). This phenomenon is called the Point of Minimum Justification (which is explained really well in one of my favorite business books: Universal Principles of Design). It’s illustrated like this:

As you increase incentives, you change behavior (red line). This is the idea behind “everyone has their price.” That is, for the right amount of money, people will do almost anything. The blue line shows how attitude changes with increasing incentives. It too increases at first with increasing incentives, but eventually disappears. Attitude here is your attitude to the product or service (or situation). An increase in attitude on this chart symbolizes a positive change and you want people with a higher, positive attitude towards your product. Why does this graph look like it does? Simple. When you give people a lot of money to do something, they justify doing it because of the money and NOT because they think what they are doing is a good or enjoyable thing. On the other hand, if you give people very little incentive to do something and they start doing it, they justify the reason for doing it because they believe that what they are doing is a good or enjoyable thing. It’s all because of cognitive dissonance. In the case of a product being marketed through relationship marketing, increasing your incentives will get people to use your product because they are simply taking advantage of your incentives. When the incentives are gone, so are they. On the other hand, having just the right incentives causes people to truly consider why they are using your product. They become more invested and perhaps learn more about what makes it so great and even become advocates. Since they aren’t justifying using your product because of incentives, they justify it in other ways. The point at which you can provide the smallest incentive with the greatest change in behavior AND attitude is the point of minimum justification. It’s what you want to shoot for in your program. In the case of pharma, I see too many new adherence programs relying soley incentives to keep people on the drug. This isn’t a winning strategy. For people to truly want to continue their treatment, they need to understand why they are taking it and the risks and benefits. If they’re just taking it to collect your incentives, then they aren’t doing this. You’re not changing attitude, which won’t be effective over time. For more on where this concept was born, check out the Wikipedia article explaining Festinger and Carlsmith’s classic experiment back in 1959. 6. No customer ownership If I have nothing invested in your program, then I’m not going to continue with it. My investment is usually my time and if I haven’t given you this, then I’m not going to be a part of your program for long. However, be careful that you don’t create this investment while you commit sin #4, Make it hard. Don’t create work for people just so they waste their time. That’ll get them to quit your program really quickly. Instead, find ways to ensure people’s time investment yields them something of value. Consider the time people invest in tracking their runs via Nike+. It would be hard for another competitor to come along and steal away any regular user of this program simply because they have so much invested. They’d have to start from scratch and they’d lose all the “credit” for all the runs they’ve done, lose all connections to people they’ve challenged, plus having to learn a new system. Nike+, of course, gives great information back in exchange, so people feel that their time investment is worthwhile and at the same time, they make it harder and harder for themselves to leave the program each day.

Remember these things? They were everywhere for a long time. What made this so effective is that AOL realized the more free time they give, the more likely you are to stay with them when you run out of free time. Why? Simple. You’ve invested so much time into it by the time 1,000 hours (or 45 days) rolls around. You’ve got an email address you’ve shared with others, a profile that took a long time to get just right, friends who you IM…you’re not leaving all of that. AOL used this concept perfectly and became the largest ISP almost overnight. Of course, if your service stinks, then no amount of investment will keep people forever. 7. All about the brand People don’t inherently care about your brand. The sooner you recognize that, the better. Certainly, this is true for most pharma brands. And, while some brands might have an almost cult following (Apple, Harley, etc.), most brands don’t have this luxury. Because of this, your program has to offer more than just a connection with your brand. There are already so many other programs out there connected to specific brands and stores that people lose track. Instead of getting overwhelmed, they just drop everyone. Does your stack of loyalty cards look like this?

Do you think any of these stand out from any other? Is it any wonder why people never have their card when the cashier asks? To stand out, you program has to offer more. It has to be more than just the product. Nike+ isn’t all about Nike’s products. It comes with a valuable service that makes me (all right, makes other people) better runners and, in turn, healthier. So, those are the 7 Biggest Mistakes in Digital Relationship Marketing. Steer clear from these and your program is already far ahead of most that are out there. Coming soon, I’ll share the 7 Golden Rules in Digital Relationship Marketing, which will highlight what you SHOULD be doing to make your program a success. If you’d like a POWERPoint version of today’s post, you’re in luck. You can download a copy of The 7 Biggest Mistakes in Digital Relationship Marketing (114 downloads) right here. One request: if you do download it, how about sending out a tweet?

Possibly related posts (auto-generated):The 7 Golden Rules in Digital Relationship MarketingThe Future of Digital Relationship Marketing in PharmaDose of Digital: The Year So Far

As we head into a long Thanksgiving weekend (in the US at least), I thought I’d write a quick thank you to everyone who has supported this blog in 2009. It has far exceeded my expectations and I continue to be amazed and flattered by the comments I receive via email, Twitter, and, more recently, in person. I launched this blog very late in 2008 with a few test posts, but really started dedicating time to at the beginning of this year. As a special thanks, read through to the end to get a special offer for all my dedicated readers (and if you’re reading this during Thanksgiving break, you’re dedicated). In 2009, almost 50,000 unique visitors have stopped by and almost 1,200 of you are subscribers. I was doing a little analysis and found it interesting to see what the most read posts were for 2009 to date and thought I’d share this with you.

By far, the number one post isn’t a post at all, but the Pharma and Healthcare Social Media Wiki. Not surprising for those of you who are regular visitors. I’ve seen the wiki referenced hundreds of places since it launched in February with about 20 examples of pharma social media. Now it has more than 450 (including industry observers, like me). I owe many of the submissions to all of you, so thanks for your contributions. The wiki has been viewed well over 30,000 times since it’s launch. One of the most tweeted posts of the year was Ten Digital Marketing Ideas Pharma Companies Will Never Try (But Should). It is also the most read post of the year and remains one of my personal favorites. The most commented on post of the year so far is Pharma Should Forget About Social Media Monitoring. It’s also the second most read post. This one generated quite a bit of debate on both sides, which, frankly, is what I was hoping would happen. It’s an important topic that needs to be discussed even further. One of my favorite titled posts, FDA Uses Social Media, But You Can’t, is the third most read post so far in 2009. This was published long before any of us thought the FDA would actually have a hearing on social media and this post surprised quite a few people who were amazed to see how much the FDA and CDC were doing with social media themselves while we all sat on the sidelines. One of the posts that got the most interest from non-pharma people was my post on How to Avoid FDA Regulations Using Mobile Marketing. Quite a few blogs in the mobile marketing arena picked up on this and sent a lot of visitors making it the number four post of the year so far. The number five post of the year so far is one of my personal favorites as well: The Myth of Adverse Event Reporting. I wrote this way back in January before there was much debate on AEs and how to handle them. This was one of the first posts to refer to the Nielsen data on the incidence of adverse events in healthcare social media discussions that everyone is now so familiar with. The most downloaded white paper of the year so far is The Future of Healthcare Relationship Marketing with 1029 downloads (and counting) so far this year.

And speaking of white papers, I’ll be releasing one next week that will include two posts that will also come out next week (UPDATE: this is now available): “The Biggest Mistakes in Relationship Marketing” and “The 7 Golden Rules in Relationship Marketing.” Both will come with a POWERPoint version (including notes). The former is coming out on Tuesday (Dec. 1) and the latter on Thursday (Dec. 3) of next week. However, as a special thanks to those of you who are reading this and have supported me all along, I’d like to send you a copy of a white paper that combines both posts before anyone else gets it. I’ll send this out to you on Wednesday (Dec. 2), which means you’ll be the first to see “The 7 Golden Rules of Relationship Marketing” before it goes public. The combined white paper won’t be available for the public until at least December 9. It’s not a new car or anything, but it’s something… If you’re interested, just fill out the form below (note: your email address will only be used to send this one white paper and not for any other purpose). This form generally does not work if you’re reading this on an email platform or some RSS readers. If you’re having trouble, click through to the post to use the form.

Your Name(required) Email(required)

cforms contact form by delicious:days Thanks again for your support so far and I hope I can continue to provide more valuable content to keep you coming back in the future.

Possibly related posts (auto-generated):Emerging Media in Healthcare and Pharma White PaperTen Digital Marketing Ideas Pharma Companies Will Never Try (But Should)Become the Best of the Best in Digital Healthcare Marketing

When Jackie Huba and I decided eight years ago to start a company, we envisioned it as a consulting firm that would help clients create customer evangelists.

It was March 2001. We'd both just left the web development company we had worked at for three years. Online advertising was king then, but we wanted to explore why some brands experienced strong word of mouth while others didn't. We wanted to understand what fueled the evangelism, how it happened, and how could we help others do the same.

We started with a website and an email newsletter in an era that could only be described as Before Blogs. A few months later, Fast Company did a short write-up on us, which led to a call from a publisher, which led to a book contract, which led to a year's worth of work, which led to the book "Creating Customer Evangelists" and a regular schedule of speaking engagements and workshops. Instead of focusing on building a company, we focused on spreading a philosophy.

Eight years later, there's a wide range of belief systems to choose from: evangelists, influencers, agents, advocates, mavens or sneezers. Social media fuels all of them at remarkable speed; some companies have adapted well while many others do nothing -- not because they're resistant to change, but because they're unsure of what to do. We think it's a good time to help with that.

So today we're announcing that Ant's Eye View, a management consulting company led by our friends Sean O'Driscoll and Jake McKee, is acquiring us and our company that's home to all of our work. We're very excited to be part of a group that helps business get smart about being social. We'll keep blogging here, and we'll continue to speak at conferences like we have for years, but we'll do that while helping grow a management consulting firm.

Ant's Eye View isn't even a year old yet, but it's already growing like some freaky kid prodigy. Sean was the guy behind Microsoft's MVP program, a community that brings knowledgeable Microsoft product users together with others who have questions or problems to solve. Jake was the guy at LEGO who changed the way that company thought about and engaged with loyal fans and customers through community relations (the subject of a Wired cover story in 2006).

Sean and Jake joined forces early in 2009 to launch Ant's Eye View. After that, they brought in Sean McDonald; he'd led the social media efforts at Dell to rebuild the company's image after "Dell Hell" scorched it. That included the company’s first corporate blog and pioneering efforts like Ideastorm.com.

We like Ant's Eye View because its people have led complex, customer-driven projects at big brands. They understand and believe in customer participation -- the fifth P of marketing -- our core marketing philosophy. They're focused, too; in less time than it takes some companies to decide on a name and a logo, Ant's Eye View has built an impressive roster of clients like Cisco, Apple, Intuit and a bunch of others. Word is just beginning to spread.

It's fitting that our announcement happens on the first day of the 2009 WOMMA Summit in Las Vegas. Five years ago, myself, Jackie and a handful of others met with Pete Blackshaw, Dave Balter and Jonathan Carson to hear their idea for an association focused on word of mouth. We're glad they eventually founded the Word of Mouth Marketing Association, which promotes the importance of word of mouth among all industries; Jackie was even named a founding board member. A bit rocky at times in its early years, WOMMA has filled its shoes well lately, especially by partnering with smarties like John Moore.

In fact, tonight at 7:30 pm (Wednesday), Ant's Eye View is throwing a celebration party at WOMMA. We'll be at the Risque club inside the Paris hotel, and the drinks are on us.

It’s almost been almost a week since the FDA hearings on social media wrapped up. If you missed it, then you missed a bit of history. Well, you sort of missed a bit of history. It’s not the fall of the Berlin Wall or anything, but it’s pretty rare that the FDA has a hearing like this. I’m not going to begin to try to give you all the links you need to review what happened and instead I’m going to point you to the source for the latest and greatest on all things FDA social media, the #FDASM site created by Fabio Gratton. That’s where you can get links to all the presentations, the Twitter feed of the #FDASM hashtag, downloadable copies of many of the presentations, and a lot more. Okay, so my take… As you know, I did have the privilege of speaking twice at this meeting (you can get copies of my presentations here), but I also got to listen to the 60+ other speakers. I had some preconceptions of what I’d hear at the meeting and many of these were right on, but I also was surprised by a few things and learned a few more. At the same time, I didn’t hear the answers to a few things that have been nagging me. Today I’m speaking at a Business Development Institute conference about my experience. My talk title is: “Three Things I Learned at the FDA Social Media Hearings and Three I Wish I Had.” Not the shortest title I’ve ever used, but it’s descriptive. I won’t recap the entire presentation here, but see below for a link to download my presentation, which includes my speaking notes and see for yourself. For those of you who were/are at the conference today, thanks for stopping by. In summary, here are the three things I learned:

The FDA gets it MedWatch is dead (a serious AE, BTW) Consumers might actually want us there

And, the things I didn’t learn (but wish I had):

FDA’s plan for keeping up The end of red herrings What pharma REALLY wants to do

As usual, my topic headlines don’t make much sense on there own, so I’d invite you to download a copy of my presentation and read along with the speaker’s notes for more detail. I’ll be writing about a few of these topics in future posts, so more detail will be forthcoming. In the meantime, for my initial thoughts on the FDA hearings, feel free to download a copy of my POWERPoint here: Three Things I Learned at the FDA Social Media Hearings and Three I Wish I Had (12 downloads)

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“In today’s increasingly digital world, the experience is the message.” Razorfish’s Group Vice President of Experience Planning Garrick Schmitt (@gschmitt) introduces the 2009 FEED Report, a concise and invaluable output of leading edge digital consumer research.

Topics include:

Digital Brand Experiences Create Customers Actions Speak Louder Than Advertising Digital Fluency The Language of Love for Brands? Deals. Measuring Brand Engagement

…and more. “This report is probably the best analysis of online consumer behavior” according to Guy Kawasaki. Check out the blog: http://feed.razorfish.com/ Download the report: http://feed.razorfish.com/downloads/Razorfish_FEED09.pdf If you want to tweet about the report, use the hashtag #FEED09.

@iclazie

At the start of 2009, 7% of business meetings scheduled for the year had already been canceled. As the year wore on, it seems as if things only got worse for the conference industry. Thanks, Great Recession!So how in the world did the Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association nearly double the attendance of its annual summit from 600 in 2008 to 1,100 this year?

Since I was invited to keynote at the conference, I found out first-hand:

Provide killer content. This one-day event had 5 tracks with enough variety for everyone: Fundamentals, Strategy, Tactical, Trends and Technical tracks. Sessions tackled key issues such as legal problems in online marketing, diversity in the interactive industry, and job strategies for a sucky economy. Its members are fiercely loyal. Five years ago, MIMA had 200 members. Two years ago, it had 700. Now it has 1,200. By focusing on a long-term loyalty strategy of membership growth, plus great content, attending the annual conference was a no-brainer for many members. Technology was everywhere. MIMA set up home bases on Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, and YouTube.  They live-streamed the conference over the web. They created an iPhone app for attendees to browse the schedule and manage their conference experience. They encouraged attendees to download Bump, an iPhone app that allows people to exchange contact info by "bumping" their phones together. Best customer service ever. Whacked out customer service isn't usually part of most conferences, but it was here. Masseuses gave neck massages in the speaker green room and in the press room. A hospitality station offered laptop and phone charging. There was hand sanitizer galore to combat H1N1 flu fears. There were private breast pump rooms for moms. My favorite: Snuggies for those who were too cold (why are conferences forever freezing cold?) An event coordinator brimming with imagination. MIMA smartly put Jennifer Kane from Kane Consulting in charge of event management. Brimming with energy. Always smiling, even under stress. Always focused on the attendee's experience. It was her idea to do the hospitality station. The conference was managed like a fun, bustling restaurant with great service. There was even an official MIMA cupcake in conference bags. They were bold. In tough times, it's tempting to be conservative. Bare-bones everything. MIMA wasn't. It secured Seth Godin as the luncheon keynote speaker to drive attendance. They were right. The conference sold out 2 weeks before it happened. Humor.  Maybe it's Minnesota, but humor was rich in its abundance at the conference. Weeks earlier, MIMA showed how by using the Seth Godin action figure to create a YouTube video called "Little Seth Godin at the Minnesota State Fair."  In it, Little Seth gets rolled into a lefse. (It's a Scandinavian Minnesota thing.) Absolutely nutty creative. I asked Jen Kane if a TV would be at the reception party on Sunday, the night before the event, because my Steelers were playing the Chargers. (Yeah, I'm a fanatic.) Sure enough, they had a TV and, to my utter shock, they assembled a "Steelers lounge" just for me. They called it Jackie's Joint, and it came with VIP Reserved Chair, popcorn machine, gold pom poms and large screen TV. It was sick, and I loved it. (More pics here.)

You know that I love hyperbole-sounding titles for my posts and today’s certainly appears to be no exception. But it is an exception. This isn’t an exaggeration. There’s no question that pharma is in trouble. There seems to be a scandal a minute (whether real or created). Billion dollar fines seem to be the norm instead of billion dollar products. Sales growth has stalled for many and workforce cuts seem to come everyday. That’s all pretty bad, but it doesn’t even capture the number one problem and it won’t come as a surprise to anyone: public opinion of pharma is terrible. Not just bad, terrible. As a regular user of Twitter, I use Tweetdeck and one of my columns shows every tweet with the word “pharma” in it. Today, I noticed this tweet:

I thought it was maybe just one anti-pharma zealot. Then I saw it again. And again. And again. In fact, after searching, I realized there were hundreds of this exact same tweet (see for yourself). Hundreds of tweets all with the same message: a pharma conspiracy. Pharma conspiracy theories aren’t new, but this one stood out for me. For those not familiar with the story, Natalie Morton was a 14 year-old in the UK who received a government-mandated injection of the cervical cancer vaccine and died hours after receiving it. In the UK, it’s mandatory for all teenage girls to receive the vaccination. For good reason too, it prevents a leading form of cancer, cervical cancer. A vaccine to prevent cancer. Imagine that. Back when Nixon declared a “War on Cancer” in 1971, how thrilled would be to know we had a vaccine to prevent one form of cancer? Instead today, it’s not seen that way at all. It’s just another pharma conspiracy to get more profits. Back to Natalie’s sad story. Immediately after Natalie’s death, several news organizations jumped on the story. Here’s what Huffington Post ran. It appeared to every anti-pharma person that they’d finally been vindicated. Here was big pharma’s vaccine killing a perfectly healthy girl. Of course, none of them mentioned that 1.8 million girls had already received the vaccine without a single death similar to Natalie’s reported. Of course, the anti-pharma outrage should have stopped today, when an autopsy was performed and found that Natalie died from complications of an undiagnosed tumor. The medical examiner reported the following: “The heart was heavily infiltrated by a tumor which extended to the left lung. It was so severe death could have arisen at any time. The role of the immunization appeared to be minimal.” End of story, right? Wrong. That’s when the tweets started. Rather than concede that the vaccination didn’t cause this girl’s death, she was used to infuse a little emotion into the anti-pharma zealots’ rhetoric. Yes, it’s really easy to fake a massive chest tumor during an autopsy. Why is it like this? Instead of praising pharma companies for potentially eliminating the approximately 11,000 incidences of cervical cancer each year and preventing about 4,000 deaths in the United States alone, “big pharma” gets beaten up. Why? No doubt there are countless reasons, some of which the industry has brought upon itself with some questionable marketing tactics and scandals followed by massive government fines. But this isn’t the only reason. People are very passionate about the cost of the medications (but not very passionate about the costs of the other aspects of their helathcare). Since most people don’t know what an MRI costs and many don’t pay for a dime of the cost of one, they don’t get upset when their insurance company gets the bill. But when you pick up your prescription at CVS and have to shell out your cash, it’s a different story. That makes people mad. Clearly, I’m not going to be the one to solve that problem. I’m not going to tell you I know how to completely fix all the PR issues pharma has. But I think we can make a dent. So, let’s look at three major pharma problems:

Horrible PR and public perception from  marketing tactics perceived as questionable No public belief in the cost to value equation for pharma products (i.e., people don’t think they should cost so much, which means they think the products aren’t worth it) Falling sales and profits

Question: Can Marketing with Meaning improve all three of these? Answer: Not overnight, but yes, it can. Question: Does pharma really need this now with all of its other challenges to worry about like patent issues, healthcare reform, and increased government scrutiny? Answer: Because of these challenges, there’s no better time. Interested? In part 2 of this post, I’ll tell you all about how Marketing with Meaning can do all this. In the meantime, you should read up on what Marketing with Meaning is all about. You can also register yourself for the upcoming E-Patient Connections conference where I’ll be presenting this concept (in 6 minutes and 40 seconds). If you do register, use promo code jr500 to get $500 off. Finally, a perk from this blog.

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What's the most-represented country on Facebook? Easy answer: The United States. Second? The U.K., another fairly easy answer.But which country is the third-most represented?Turkey.Yes, Turkey, with (currently) 13 million of its 76 million residents on Facebook. Turkey beats out Canada for resident representation. I wouldn't have guessed.It's real-time stats like these that make Nick's work on CheckFacebook.com valuable to anyone who needs data to make sense of the impact Facebook is having on business and culture.One other real-time stat: A staggering 274 million people have registered themselves on Facebook, a number which could reach 300 million by the end of 2009 with no signs of letting up. When a company has 300 million customers, it creates a dynamic wake.Where's the CIA World Factbook equivalent for social networks?Bonus: Top 10 countries on Facebook, as measured by users:1. United States       84,104,460

2. 
United Kingdom      
19,801,120

3. 
Turkey      
13,020,000

4. 
Canada      
12,367,320

5. 
France      
12,005,320

6. 
Italy      
11,174,000

7. 
Indonesia      
8,932,160

8. 
Australia      
6,481,900

9. 
Spain      
6,443,940

10. 
Colombia      
6,109,400

At some point along the way, I think I swore some oath that I’d use my knowledge for good and not for evil. And yet, I find myself writing posts about (among other things) How to Avoid FDA Regulations Using Mobile Marketing. Granted, I did mention in that post that “I’m not advocating intentionally avoiding FDA regulations,” but I suppose I gave a little help to those who might want to do such a thing (for the record, you rule breakers will love my post about What If There Were No Rules in Pharma Marketing?). So today I’m here telling you how pharma can cut out the doctor all together. I’m not talking about DTC advertising, I’m talking about a world where pharma makes it unnecessary to go to a doctor’s office as part of the transaction of obtaining a prescription drug. Of course, today you need a doctor to write a prescription for many products. The patient then has to take it to his or her pharmacy to get the medication. That’s quite a hassle. Why not cut out having to go to the doctor? Sure, many Canadian “pharmacies” have made quite a living on this premise using their on-staff “physicians” to do a phone consultation with patients before writing a prescription; a prescription that I’m going to guess is only valid at the pharmacy they work at for many reasons. Naturally, I’m not recommending this approach. I know that many of you are pretty upset at this idea right now, but bear with me for a moment. You’ll either be much more mad in a moment or intrigued. Where did I come up with this hair-brained idea in the first place? As a routine, I try to stay on top of new developments in healthcare, especially new uses of digital technologies. A while back, someone called my attention to a company called American Well. I love the concept and what the company is about, but I never really thought of an angle for pharma marketing. Until now…

American Well’s simple tagline is: “The doctor will see you now.” That about says it all. What American Well does is provide a system that allows patients to talk via live chat, including video, with a physician any time of the day or night. Physicians are recruited by American Well and offered payment to be “on-call” during what might ordinarily  may be an off day. When you log into American Well’s system, you have some choices regarding which physician you’re matched up with. It’s not going to be your regular physician, but it’s going to be quality doctor who is willing to see you right now. They can’t do everything and they likely don’t have your full medical history, so think of it like a walk in clinic. Obviously, you can’t have them stitch up a cut or set a broken arm via the Internet, but for routine care, this is perfect. It could potentially save a trip to the emergency room for many and would be a godsend in the middle of the night for some tired parents.

For a moment, think about the economics of this for a health insurance plan. Compare what they save on walk in clinic costs and emergency room visits opposite what they pay for American Well’s services. Since health insurance companies are pretty interested in these economic aspects of care, they’re on top of this. If you’re a member of Blue Cross/Blue Shield in either Hawaii or Minnesota, then you’re in luck. Access to American Well’s service is part of your standard coverage. How nice is that? For the rest of us, we’ll have to wait to use American Well. It’s got to be a no-brainer that many other plans will be offering this soon. But I don’t want to wait and neither should you. However, I don’t have the resources to launch this service for me and all of my readers. Hmmm, I wonder who might though? Ah yes, pharma companies. Picture this. You log onto, say, the Singulair product website looking for information about seasonal allergies and you’re trying to figure out if this drug is right for you.  After a little research, you decide that you’re going to ask your doctor about it. Now, your allergies are pretty bad, but they’re not killing you, so you try to set up an appointment with your doctor. Two weeks out is the soonest they have available for your non-emergency. Over the two weeks, do you forget about Singulair? Do you even keep your appointment (especially if your allergies got a little better or your schedule forced you to cancel a few times)? Well, if you forget about Singulair or don’t show up for your appointment, Merck is out of a new prescription. On the other hand, if Merck had licensed American Well’s platform on the Singulair site, then you simply could have clicked a button and spoke with a doctor that second. The doctor would have examined you (as best as possible via webcam), did a thorough history, and asked a few other questions before deciding which allergy medication was right for you. Yes, this doctor won’t know everything about you and they couldn’t do a full hands on physical, but you’re not experiencing chest pains either. The patient, of course, could ask if Singulair is a good option. This physician isn’t a Merck employee and isn’t paid by Merck, so she could pick whatever she thought was appropriate…just like if you went to the office. Managing this kind of condition might be a perfect case where the American Well model works really well. Merck had to pay for the service, but will more than make a return with this new patient now starting treatment. In the traditional sense, this would be going around the patient’s doctor, but it’s not cutting the doctor out of the equation like a sketchy Canadian “pharmacy.” A qualified, licensed physician made a diagnosis and prescribed a treatment just as he or she does in their “real world” practice. How much different is this than someone going to the Take Care Clinics at Walgreens or similar concepts in many other chains including Walmart? What about stand along “quick care” or walk in clinics? Not much as I see it. In the case of the clinic at Walgreens, you’ll be seeing a PA or NPA in person. In the online version you see an MD (or DO perhaps) via webcam. Since the physicians on the other end of the service are ordinary doctors looking to supplement their income a bit, they still get the same promotional attention from pharma companies as any other physician in the country. You aren’t likely to find doctors who will only write prescriptions for the company that is sponsoring the use of the service. Even if you could, I doubt that American Well would stand for that and I doubt that any pharma company’s legal team would allow it either. So, what’s wrong with a pharma company providing patients live access to a physician 24/7? Isn’t this an incredibly valuable service to the community? We’re talking an awful lot about healthcare reform right now and about how some people can’t afford to go to the doctor. Well, here’s a pharma company bringing the doctor to you…for FREE. Am I missing something? Is there any possible way to cast this in a negative light? Perhaps some doctors who aren’t interested in being a part of the American Well program will be a bit upset, as they might lose some patient visits and they’ll claim (probably correctly) that it isn’t the same level of care that they could provide. Fair enough, but is the upside worth the downside? As a pharma company, you can break it down by cold, hard math. Is the value of the increased prescriptions more than the cost of the American Well system plus the loss in prescriptions from doctors who hold a bit of a grudge against the company? Simple math really. Requires some estimation, but not many factors to consider. So, is this a potentially an amazing example of Marketing with Meaning or a horrible idea that hurts patients and physicians (and “the system”)? Here’s your chance to weigh in: Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll. Just to be clear, before you leave angry comments, I’m not suggesting that pharma companies try to cut off the relationship between patients and their doctors. Nor am I suggesting that this be a replacement for an ongoing relationship with a physician who can manage your health over time. Having said that, there are going to be more technologies available that make it easy for people to get the products and services they want using the methods they want. Healthcare is no exception. So, while this might not be the answer or a feasible marketing tactic for pharma, did you know it even existed? If not, what else is out there that you should know about?

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Yesterday, I read the “Unconventional Guide to the Social Web,” and although I found a lot of useful information in it, one quote has stuck with me since reading it: “Your blog is your mothership. Don’t neglect it for lesser tools.” This is an important thing to keep in mind when marketing your business online. There are tons of ways to build a web presence, including a variety of social media and networking sites, but nothing is as important as your blog. Maintained correctly, your blog is the one tool that will get you the most traffic, and it’s the tool over which you have the most control. If you set out with the intention of posting three to five times per week, within a year, you will begin seeing significant activity around your site. Within two to three years, you could easily be an authority in your particular niche. So, how can you make sure that you don’t neglect your blog (or your “mothership”)?

Spend time there. Visit your site or blog frequently (ideally, several times per day). This helps you stay connected with your vision for your business, and it also helps you stay in tune with the usability of your site, as well as find ways to improve it. Keep it updated.It’s very easy to allow a month to go by without posting a single blog entry. Naturally, the frequency of your posts will depend on a number of factors, most important being your own goals for your site, but you should post on a regular and consistent schedule so that your site content remains fresh. Engage your audience. Ask questions, make thought-provoking posts, and most importantly, monitor the comments on your blog. If someone replies to one of your posts, take the time to respond, and if you really want to impress the person, email him or her with a thoughtful “thank you for following” message. Give it some thought. Don’t just post “filler content” to make an arbitrary quota. Really think about what your audience wants to hear. What do they want to know more about? How can you help them? Find ways to provide greater value for your readers. You’ll know you’re providing benefit when you hear clients and customers say things like, “I’m trying that idea you mentioned on your blog.” Find ways to improve. Organize your archives a little better, add links to your social networking profiles, or spruce up your “About” page. Find ways to regularly improve your site, making it more visually appealing and more user-friendly.

Your blog is the most direct line to you and your business. It’s what new followers and visitors read to determine if you’re someone they’d like to get to know better or if you can provide value to their lives or businesses. Don’t neglect it. Consider it to be your “mothership” and take care of it as such.

In what ways do you take care of your blog? How do you make sure that it represents you in the best light possible to visitors of your site? Image from stock.xchng by zizzy0104

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