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As mentioned yesterday, we’re losing our two beloved Interns.   If you know of anyone in the Boston or Houston area who would like to intern with us, have them send a quick resume with contact information to jobs[at]medtouch.com

Company Profile

Since 2004, MedTouch has been delivering cutting-edge online marketing programs, web sites, and integrated technology solutions and shamelessly promoting its clients’ successes.  Those clients include very large to very small hospitals in 20 states throughout the United States.  They engage us because we’re honest, smart, hard-working, and fun!  If you’re interested in online marketing, social network marketing, or healthcare, then come talk to us.

Unapologetically Genius Marketing Internship Description

Our next successful intern will be a preternaturally gifted marketing and communications genius.

Ok, still reading?

Now, we’ll ask you to bring your genius and come and learn about how healthcare in this country works and apply that genius to an industry whose economics are confusing, odd, and overly cumbersome – even to people working in that industry.

You’ll need to be self-motivated and jump right in.   You’ll work on marketing for our company, perform research, and work on projects for our clients.   During your time, we’ll give you tremendous leeway to develop your own “final” project.  For one intern, it was creating assessment tool to segment potential clients; for another, it was a YouTube video done with cut and paste drawings explaining why hospitals websites are so ugly.

We’ll give you the barest introduction and then throw you right in.  We’ll treat you like a team member and demand the best from you the way we demand the best from all of us.  Then we’ll kick your butt at Guitar Hero at one of our parties.

To apply, send a brief cover letter explaining why you’re a genius and a bio or resume to jobs[at]medtouch.com. We’ll invite a few geniuses in for interviews in early September.

About 50% of the time we get asked to do a project for a new client, they are doing so in response to updating their brand. Research has shown — to no one’s surprise — that the tri-colored yellow, pink, and blue marks do not signify academic excellence. Or there’s been an adjustment to the moniker, usually to broaden the scope of the hospital and allow it to brand other, non-critical care facilities.

Here in Boston, Tufts New England Medical Center is aggressively advertising itself as… wait for it… Tufts Medical Center. Not much of a change, but Tufts and New England Medical Center joined forces back in 1968, back before you could love a national coffee store chain. So, they’ve taken on a good deal of expense and put out new, innovative ads merely to remove the words New England. Might they have higher, more national aspirations?

The funny thing about brands is that what one defined you can now entrap you. And keeping your brand up-to-date, but not losing its fundamental value is tricky.

See the hubbub about revitalizing the Strawberry Shortcake brand – you know, the scented 1980’s kiddie doll? — and see how seriously they take “de-fruiting” the image.

How fruity-licious is your hospital brand?

I’ll take comments nominating the most 70’s stylish hospital brands below.

Some of you might know my obsession with Starbucks — not the coffee as much as the corporate juggernaut that is the Starbucks Coffee Company.  What other corporate do you know that has a half dozen books written on its history, management style, stock price, lore and so on?   To wit: it is the only retail store known that can open two stores across the street from each other and improve sales at both locations.  Fascinating.

The big news out of Seattle this week: the new Starbucks roast.  I admit it, I walked a few blocks to try it today and you know what?  I liked it.

But the very exciting thing to me is watching a brand re-invent itself overnight.  Since Howard Schultz took over again as CEO, he’s ousted the foul-smelling breakfast “sandwiches” and refocused the company on providing a mellower Pike Place Roast as well as specialty cups at premium prices.

Which just shows you how good marketing works: when all else fails, go back to your core.

So what’s your core?  Can your organization even articulate it?  Could you reintroduce yourself to the world?

I’m convinced that all media will soon be social — that is, nearly all content we consume will be recommended to us rather than programmed at us. Stay tuned for more on that.

But I was fascinated by Facebook’s new ad system and the data I was able to find. For example, you can now target ads based on gender, location, and employment info — pretty slick for an online yearbook site.

Here’s some data I collected first hand about the demographics of who is on FB:

50 years +: 478,640
40-49 : 613,600
30-39 : 1,979,320
23-29 : 6,594,820
18-22 : 11,062,560
under 18 : 4,129,040

For those playing at home, that’s 24 million people total, with 87.5% under 30 but less than half “college-aged” — the population the site was due to serve.

Project the data 4-5 years from now, and you’ll have a population more like 50 million, with a larger chunk of 20/30’s graduates:

50 years +: 1,092,240
40-49 : 1,979,320
30-39 : 6,594,820
23-29 : 11,062,560
18-22 : 22,125,120
under 18 : 8,258,080

Estimates (obviously) 

But that’s assuming they do no aggressive advertising amongst AARP members.
So while I’m sure the general ads for skateboards, Mountain Dew, and Noxema will continue, my guess is each population will soon be getting their own targeted ads. And this is the genius of social network: the growth rate is exponential, but predictable. In 10 years, who knows — 100million? 200million?

NBC would kill for that kind of market share.

I’ll begin by stating that while tradeshows may be necessary, they’re not at the top of my list of things to do with my time.  Nonetheless, since it’s snowing at our Boston office and my next trip to our Houston location is a few weeks away, I am grateful for the sunshine.

What I am surprised by is A) that the show has grown so (relatively speaking) lavish — see GE’s small city for more on that and B) the marketing, despite the truly exceptional tradeshow booths, is downright corny.

Ok Paul, you might be saying.  Isn’t that true of all tradeshows?

Fair enough, but it’s weird to see the trappings of a consumer-focused show about IT.  Where else do you see puns made about EMRs?  It’s more glitz, same fundamental problems of communication.  I’m in the industry and I couldn’t dechiper what half of the vendors did without reading some literature.  It’s like a teen movie where the geek is remade in the image of the cool jock, but he still keeps his slide rule in his locker.  (Snort, snort.)

To wit, I’ll post a few photos of what I thought were the funniest booths, but let me sign off with a description of the one which I vote as most bizarre.

What you see when you approach the booth is a series of stuffed animals in cages.  The tag line is about user “adoption” and the dogs need a home.  Get it?  A pun on the word adoption.

The thing is… the booth looked like a puppy mill at the mall.  And since the puppies were stuffed, they appeared dead.

A friendly reminder that nothing kills faster than a marketing message that doesn’t live up to the promise.

A quick plug for our upcoming educational series. Winter is a good time for us to hone down our talks — I give about half a dozen a year — so if you’re interested and can’t wait until the summer, sign up now.

THE 5 MISTAKES YOU’RE TEMPTED TO MAKE IN 2008 (And How to Avoid Them)

Healthcare – one of the most well-funded industries in the world – still maintains websites cobbled together last decade. Why is it so hard to generate a site that looks different, fresh, or interesting? How do the best ideas get killed in committees before they see the light of day? And why do hospitals not want to discover the value of their web channel? We’ll give you the top five mistakes healthcare organizations make with their website and what you can do – this year – to fight back. If you’ve ever wondered why your website isn’t… well… better, this webinar is for you.
Register For Wednesday, January 16th
Register For Thursday, January 17th
2pm EST | 1pm CST | Noon MST | 11am PST

THE WEB AS A VISUAL MEDIUM: Content is Dead, Long Live Content!
Sure, your website is no longer the electronic version of your newsletter. But what does it mean to generate content for the web these days? Since sites are now a bundle of text, audio, video, images, meta-tags, orbiting content, and micro-sites – how can you understand how to cost-effectively and consistently develop content for this channel? In this webinar, we’ll explain how cable modems, cheap software, and YouTube are changing the language of the Internet and how healthcare will keep up… or miss out.

Register For Wednesday, January 30th
Register For Thursday, January 31st
2pm EST | 1pm CST | Noon MST | 11am PST

PICK A VENDOR YOU’LL LOVE: The Art and Science of a Good RFP
Register For Wednesday, February 13th
Register For Thursday, February 14th
2pm EST | 1pm CST | Noon MST | 11am PST

CONTENT MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly
Register For Wednesday, February 27th
Register ForThursday, February 28th
2pm EST | 1pm CST | Noon MST | 11am PST

IMPRESS YOUR BOSS WITHOUT GETTING FIRED: Expectation Setting and Reporting Results to a C-level

Register For Wednesday, March 12th
Register For Thursday, March 13th
2pm EST | 1pm CST | Noon MST | 11am PST

I HAVE A WEBSITE, SO WHAT? Take Your Strategy to the Next Level
Register For Wednesday, March 26th
Register For Thursday, March 27th
2pm EST | 1pm CST | Noon MST | 11am PST

Recently, I gave a talk with our fabulous client, Cheryl Munn, about Microcasting. What’s Microcasting you may ask? Here was our working definition:

Electronic communication with your audience in the most customized way possible for the smallest, measurable segment possible.

Why does this matter for healthcare?

Because if you’re like any of our clients, you have some programs you have to grow, some you don’t want to grow, and some you could only grow by a handful of patients… or doctors for that matter. The scaling problems of healthcare, as a business, are related to cost of delivery. Adding another patient could cost you nothing… or make you unprofitable.

Most healthcare websites are only spoken of in terms of the past -- pageviews, visitors, the bizarrely misnamed “hits” — but measuring the past is only a start.

Most healthcare marketers have a far better handle of offline demographics than online, but only because the people who sold you the media told you so!

The good news is that it’s entirely possible to get a grip on your online audience. What you should be after is a working theory that can be tested and validated over time.

The key is to be curious and challenge assumptions whenever possible. More about that, next post.

During the past year, at every healthcare conference I have attended, the talk has turned towards Michael Moore’s new film, “Sicko,” and the tenor of that talk has largely been… well, near hysterical. Moore is not known for his even-handed, thoughtful reportage. He’s a muck-racker and a brilliant one at that — “Sicko” started from a sketch on TV Nation where Moore staged a mock funeral for a man denied a life-saving surgery from his HMO. (The HMO later capitulated, granting the procedure.)

Here’s the trailer, for those who haven’t seen it:

So why has this caused such concern? Hospitals are persistently concerned about their image and public relations — the American Hospital Association has surveyed public opinion about hospitals routinely over the last ten years. The results are always the same: 60% of the American public thinks of a hospital as a place one goes to get worse, not better.

Which is just not true.

But these perceptions persist and if Moore’s “Sicko” taps into that fear in the public, its the local hospital that will have to answer the charges. (Health plans and the government are too easy and too de-personalized of targets.)

Since healthcare marketing and PR tends towards the conservative rather than the innovative, it becomes hard to argue with a satirist. One runs the risk of driving further into the trap already set. (As, perhaps, the federal government did by probing Moore’s trip to Cuba)

Here’s an answer: strike first.

Jack-in-the-Box is known for their irreverent advertising, but when I heard that their rival CKE (Carl Jr., Hardees) was suing over their ads, well that was cause for a virtual high-five. (Go Secret Weapon Marketing, go.)

In addition to being A) very funny, B) very memorable, and C) very, very funny, these ads take the air out of the competition’s tires. Here’s an example:

They came up against a potential liability — angus beef — and fired back, deflating the competition and reducing them to… lawsuits? You might remember CKE spent scads of dough hiring Paris Hilton for their faux-erotic “$6 Spicy burger” ads. (I quote their marketing chief, “Our $6 thickburger is hot… Paris Hilton is hot.” The connection is so clear.)But after all, here’s what healthcare marketing could use that Jack and Moore have in spades: a sense of humor.