Ovarian cancer awareness campaign – top 10 tips

Posted on March 19, 2015 by alexandrapatrick

Ovarian cancer awareness is dedicated to the full month of March 2015. To ensure a successful execution, planning and raising awareness needs to begin months in advance for this burst campaign. Like all successful healthcare marketing campaigns it needs to have a significant digital input to drive engagement. We have summarised our top 10 tips to help you run a successful ovarian cancer awareness campaign.

ovarian cancer

10 tips to achieve a successful ovarian cancer awareness campaign

1. Set objectives – produce a campaign brief that summarises the importance of ovarian cancer awareness;  for example do you want to promote awareness about early diagnosis or communicate messages about symptoms such as feeling bloated most days?

2. Plan campaign – write a detailed activity schedule; if you have run a monthly campaign in the past, build in what you learned from before, what you would do differently pre-awareness, awareness and follow up of the themed campaign.

3. Messaging – agree core messages, for example, gaining signatures for an epetition; promoting the benefit of clinical trials; highlighting statistics such as the five-year ovarian cancer survival rate is just 43 per cent.

4. Gain commitment – identify the key people/stakeholders who can support the campaign, women’s charities, GP surgeries, pharmacies, businesses with a large number of female employees and research bodies for clinical trials.

5. Secure resources – if you are a charity you will need to rely on volunteer resources to get involved, seek financial support from funders and encourage a well-known figurehead to be a trustee on the board to help attract large donations.

6. Engagement channels – carefully select appropriate online (social media, blogs, website, videos, webinars) and offline channels (cancer screening leaflets, posters, events, support groups) that can be cleverly integrated to achieve your objectives to engage those most at risk and those where the cancer has come back.

7. Campaign toolkit – collate a cohesive kit to execute the campaign, guides and downloads, Q&As, promote dates for drop in services for practical and medical advice, informal events emailing audiences at risk and educating healthcare providers.

8. Implementation/delivery – split these into three phases; pre-awareness to drip feed messages before 1 March; push messages and engage two-way conversations throughout March; and post campaign follow-up success stories and goals achieved, remember to have continual annual activity too.

9. Campaign evaluation – report on the targets you set out to achieve such as, money raised, uplift in referrals, sign ups to enewsletter, number of downloads from a website, how many attended support groups, how many people donated, news coverage achieved.

10. Review – it’s critical to audit the success of the burst campaign – aim to capture feedback and build a contact database of supporters for future campaigns with the aim of refining the tactical actions for the year ahead not just in the month of March.

These practical tips should help you plan a successful ovarian cancer awareness campaign not just for one month but throughout the year. Share your marketing campaign thoughts below or on Twitter.

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Top 10 Twitter tips for business – dos and don’ts

Posted on March 6, 2015 by alexandrapatrick

It’s important to have social media etiquette for your organisation. When it comes to Twitter there are some dos and don’ts that we would recommend to ensure you stay business-like. These may well change over time but these Twitter tips for business are worth considering now.

Top 10 Twitter Tips for Business

Here are our top 10 Twitter tips for business

1. Twitter profile – add personality to your profile by including photos, videos and a people element, this will help to create a positive brand image.

2. Content – think carefully about the messages that you want to communicate, be topical and current, use hashtags relevant to your business and stick to 140 characters.

3. Engagement – use Twitter as an opportunity to engage Followers/Influencers by mentioning them in tweets and always think about the benefit to your target audience.

4. Brand positioning – remember to reflect your USPs in posts, videos, and imagery and have consistent branding across all social media channels.

5. Plan ahead – use social scheduling tools such as Hootsuite to keep posts regular, think about quality over quantity when it comes to posts in a day.

6. Don’t be overly personal – know what not to tweet, keep content strictly business and familiarise yourself with the security settings so you know what you’re posting publicly and privately.

7. Don’t be disrespectful – ensure you share issues that you want to be known for, things that matter to you and your business, be a respected voice.

8. Don’t get distracted – be realistic about your time constraints; don’t get consumed in sharing and commenting, be self-disciplined about building your Twitter profile.

9. Don’t be needy – don’t ask your Twitter followers to “retweet this tweet please”, be creative to accomplish your tasks to gain respect in your community.

10. Don’t overshare – post up to half dozen times per day, you don’t want to make your followers feel overwhelmed with your content, they may stop following you.

Twitter is about keeping in touch with your followers and building an engaged community. Try new things, post on different issues but always keep things conversational.

Twitter is just one part of a digital toolkit to help you attract more customers. So why not share your valuable Twitter dos and don’ts in the comments section below or indeed on our Twitter page.

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Healthcare Infographics – top 10 latest insights

Posted on February 27, 2015 by alexandrapatrick

We closely monitor the latest healthcare infographics. Healthcare infographics combine visuals and content to help patient’s and healthcare profesionals understand complex medical issues more easily.

Here are the latest healthcare infographics that we find visually appealing with lots of healthcare data.

Healthcare Infographics

1. Patients want to ‘feel the love’ of hospitals and providers – here are some insights about how to improve patient relationships.

2. Promoting good dental health in children – February is National Children’s Dental Health Month in the US, an observance full of fun facts on fluoride, fillings and flossing.

3. Keeping health care workers safe from injection mishaps – injections are hazards of working with patients, these injection safety steps are good reminders for healthcare professionals.

4. Medical screenings that extend lives – these provide information about age-appropriate health tests and checkups that can impede deadly diseases and lead better patient outcomes.

5. 8 creative ways to use Vine in health care marketing – known for its dependence on lengthy content, health care communicators are shifting gears to the six-second video format.

6. Recognising signs of depression – mental illness affects 65 million Americans age 65 and older, but only 10 percent receive treatment.

7. Tech tools that promote patient empowerment – in 2015, the number of e-visits to primary care physicians is expected to reach 100 million people worldwide.

8. Women and heart disease – heart disease is the No. 1 killer of women.

9. The escalation of prescription drug abuse – In 2013, roughly 24.6 million Americans admitted having used illicit drugs within the previous month.

10. EMRs help improve the patient experience – 82 percent of patients believe they receive better care when their physicians use electronic medical records.

We’re interested to find out your favourite healthcare infographics. We welcome you to share your thoughts below or on Twitter.

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Top 10 Google Analytics KPIs – 10 ways to make it a success

Posted on February 13, 2015 by alexandrapatrick

Google Analytics can monitor numerous KPIs (key performance indicators) for your business. They must however align to your business goals. If you are particularly interested in your website performance, there are specific KPIs that will track website traffic and visitor behaviour and analyse all website data to help you understand and improve the user experience.

Google Analytics KPIs

These are the top Google Analytics KPIs that businesses should be monitoring

1. Visits (Sessions) – Visits are now known as Sessions (which can be split into a New and Returning Visitor); it can be valuable to see how often your audience returns to your site particularly if they are keen to purchase online.

2. Unique Visitors (Users) – Unique Visitors are referred to as Users; it’s possible to monitor how many (unique) people are visiting your website and their demographics including age and gender, as well as geographic location.

3. Returning Visitors – if returning visitors purchase or ‘convert’ on your website it’s possible to identify where these users who have ‘completed a transactions came from which can be an important insight to help you consider putting more resources into marketing channels that are helping to convert traffic.

4. Search sources – visitors can find your website through Organic Search or Non-Paid Search via search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Yandex; Paid Search (Cost Per Click or CPC) is targeted and can use Google Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing and Yandex Direct.

5. Link referrals – visitors may find your site through referral via direct links on other websites, they do not always land on your home page so it critical to have clear Call To Action (CTA) alerts on important landing pages.

6. Page tracking – Bounce Rate and Average Session Duration by Channel indicate whether your visitors find what they are looking for on your website or if they leave immediately.

7. Bounce Rates – bounce rate refers to the percentage of single page visits from the entrance page, a high bounce rate may be an indication that your content isn’t engaging or that your advertisements are misleading.

8. Average Session Duration – this refers to the average time visitors (including all types) spends on your site, it can help you focus on improving the content and perhaps revise your ads to save you money and get higher ROI.

9. Goal Conversion Tracking – signing up for an email newsletter, completing a contact form or making a purchase can all be counted as a conversion, a business needs to set up their own “goals conversions” for Google Analytics to track.

10. Cost Analysis – Cost per Conversion can calculate the profit and “true” return on investment, it makes sure you aren’t paying more for a customer than they are worth. Tracking what channels the conversions are coming from helps which ones are yielding the best results.

These Google Analytics KPIs will help you to start to identify areas that need attention, what’s more it is free of charge. Be open to the KPI feedback and revise content to achieve your engagement goals. Share your thoughts about Google Analytics KPIs below or on Twitter.

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How to promote an event online – 10 ways to make it a success

Posted on January 26, 2015 by alexandrapatrick

When planning an event online, there needs to be a digital strategy that engages attendees, sponsors and exhibitors. To effectively promote an event online, aim to develop a digital community and keep them informed interactively throughout the campaign.

promote an event online

Top 10 insights to promote an event online

1. Website home page – evidence shows that having all the event key information in one page speeds up the decision making process; ensure visitors can register instantly on the home page.

2. What attendees are looking for – attendees want to know when and where the event is and an obvious element of content, yet often it’s missing upfront on websites and accompanying digital communications.

3. Clear Call To Action – have a clear Call To Action (CTA) to register for the event with an easy to complete click through registration form. If your booking system permits, you could allocate scheduled seats to ensure attendees receive a personalised ticket.

4. Responsive design – ensure your event website has a responsive user experience; no matter what screen is being used, the website must adapt to the device used by your visitor eg, mobile, tablet, desktop.

5. Social media – if using social media ensure that you make it clear how to follow, like and interact with your event. Anchor messages to a countdown to hype the need to attend, add relevant hash tags to generate traction.

6. Performers – if you have keynote speakers or confirmed award entrants they can strongly influence visitors take up, so give them prominence pre-event and encourage your audience to interact with them.

7. Event schedule – ensure that you highlight the key speakers and promote new content to be announced at the event, personalise it to target audiences to drive engagement and couple this messaging with the event location.

8. Sponsors – websites offer a great showcase opportunity to promote how sponsors have supported the event; aim for the sponsors to have their own dedicated section with joint branded, downloadable collateral.

9. Media – share images from a previous similar event or ceremony to generate interest and prepare to share images and video clips of speakers/winners at the time and after the event; ensure there are social media links on the website to encourage visitors to share content too.

10. Blog and news – keep your audience informed about the latest developments with your event and remind them of critical dates and announce special announcements, plus source external bloggers in your niche market to encourage independent discussion.

Above all always be open to feedback, encourage questions and concerns and invite attendees to contact you, it is critical that you encourage two-way communication to engender an engaged community. Share your thoughts about event marketing below or on Twitter.

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Twitter statistics 2014 – top 10 useful insights

Posted on January 12, 2015 by alexandrapatrick

It’s always interesting to keep up to date with Twitter statistics. Twitter has been around for over eight years now and when it first started, it was mainly used as a channel for letting people know what you are doing. Now in 2015, Twitter has moved on a pace.

Twitter statistics 2014

Here’s our Twitter statistics 2014

1. Twitter growth – has shown a growth from 241m in 2013 to 284m in 2014 but has approximately 16m less monthly active users than Instagram.

2. Tweets – 500m tweets are sent per day, 80% of Twitter users are on mobile and 77% are outside of the USA.

3. Tweeting – ten minutes of Tweeting can raise our blood levels which reduces anxiety levels.

4. Most popular event – the World Cup has become the most tweeted about event ever and Ellen DeGeneres’ Oscar selfie revealed as the most retweeted tweet in the site’s history.

5. What people say – four out of 100 tweets essentially just say ‘grrr!’.

6. Brand champion – Nando’s is first place in the Top Five Twitter Brands by Followers, racking up 1.4m fans; followers who connect with your brand will spread the word virally.

7. Multichannel interaction – 18% of people online follow the show they’re watching on TV via Twitter.

8. Twitter prediction – by 2015, one fifth (20.5%) of internet users in the US are expected to have Twitter accounts. This figure has grown from 15.2% in 2012, and is set to rise to 24.2% by 2018.

9. Mobile users – people with Twitter on their smartphone are 79% more likely to access Twitter several times a day; they’re also twice as likely to use Twitter the moment they wake up.

10. Royal approval – Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II landed on Twitter in October 2014 posting her first ever tweet from the official @BritishMonarchy account.

These Twitter statistics should make you rethink how you could use social media more strategically to help promote your business. Twitter is just one part of a digital toolkit to help you attract more customers. So why not share your valuable Twitter insights in the comments section below or on our Twitter page.

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Mobile health (mhealth) apps – 10 trends for 2015

Posted on December 22, 2014 by alexandrapatrick

Mobile health continues to build momentum. A recent report by Transparency Market Research projects that the global mobile health market could be worth $8bn by 2019.

Although apps are fast becoming part of our everyday lives mhealth has yet to achieve widespread adoption. However, there are key trends emerging in the mobile health app market.

mobile health

10 trends for 2015

1. App categories – 97,000+ mobile apps are related to health and fitness; the leading mHealth categories in the sector are fitness (30%), medical references (16%) and wellness (15%).

2. Mobile app use – by 2017, according to Research and Markets, half of the 3.4 billion smartphone or tablet users worldwide will use mobile health apps.

3. Size of mobile app market – Research2guidance found that the mobile health app market will reach US$26 billion by 2017, six times greater than the 2014 value (US$4 billion).

4. Mobile health user – Points Group found the average mobile health user is aged 35, 54% are male, 87% are smartphone users (vs. tablet users), 85% use social media for health, 76% take a prescription and 30% are caregivers.

5. Growth – the greatest potential for mobile health apps over the next five years lies in remote monitoring (53%), remote consultation apps (38.2%) and diagnostic apps (31.7%). These will help healthcare organisations become more efficient and effective.

6. Healthcare professional apps – just 14% of the apps target physicians and 7% aim at hospitals, however physicians and hospitals are seen as the primary distribution channel for mHealth apps in the future. Points Group found 80% of physicians use smartphones and medical apps and 93% believe mobile apps can improve a patient’s health.

7. Barriers to growth – many are concerned that more needs to be done to reassure stakeholders that data privacy will be fully respected with the need for standardisation across all platforms and products, enabling integration into healthcare provision.

8. Business potential – diabetes and obesity are the top ranked therapeutic areas for mHealth publishers followed by hypertension, depression and cancer for 2014 – 2019; these technological advances can help address healthcare problems.

9. Virtual GP – there’s a new app from Babylon Health that allows users to book virtual GP consultations, monitor symptoms and receive prescriptions. It provides access to doctors 24/7 for a monthly fee and has ambitions to use the platform to deliver care to patients in remote locations, or simply those without access to quality healthcare within a reasonable travelling distance.

10. Life tracking – according to visual.ly there are dozens of apps for every area of your life; how fast you run, how much you eat, calorie intake, your mood, sleep patterns, even monitoring your bowel movements.

The mhealth market is primarily aimed at improving the efficiency of healthcare providers in delivering better patient care. These trends will give you an insight into how to leverage opportunities and drive your mobile strategy plans for the future. Share your thoughts below or on Twitter.

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What is GP engagement? Top 10 tactics for a GP toolkit

Posted on December 9, 2014 by alexandrapatrick

GP engagement is critical for a healthcare provider if they want to launch and promote existing or new services.

GPs require bespoke marketing and engagement programmes. Before you consider your tactical checklist, you will need to agree your GP engagement goals and confirm how will your tactical actions reflect these.

If you are a healthcare provider and considering a GP engagement programme, consider these channels of engagement.

GP engagement

Top 10 marketing engagement tactics for GPs

1. GP enewsletter – clearly establish your enewsletter objectives, for example is it to attract more GP referrals, stimulate interest in speciality services or promote consultant-led thought leadership? For each issue ensure content is relevant and current.

2. GP educational events – introduce a series of streamlined events. If you can secure a leading thought leader or specialist surgeon it will generate interest and satisfy GP educational needs to secure best practice knowledge.

3. GP protected website – set up a protected log in on your website to ensure approved access to directories, referral guides and online response forms which should have a quick turnaround for urgent enquiries.

4. GP practice surveys – it is important to gain a clear understanding of GPs’ needs by understanding the challenges they face; conduct paper or online surveys, collect and analyse feedback and aim to implement the improvements suggested.

5. GP webinars – provide content about the latest research about a specific speciality that can address existing challenges, signpost how to get support or find out more, provide electronic copies of research findings that can be easily downloaded as part of the webinar offer.

6. GP apps – GPs and healthcare professionals have the ability to send a patient an electronic copy of their information in real time; mobile health is growing significantly so consider how your services might benefit from a bespoke GP/healthcare professional app.

7. GP direct mail – can be the simplest, attention grabbing communication for busy GPs; the use of personalised postcards, for example, can get a campaign noticed and won’t break the budget and can also be a leave behind after a GP visit.

8. GP interactive chat – GPs are time poor so you could consider adding live elements to your website such as interactive chat or request an urgent call back to enable GPs to gain quick and easy access to specialist advice.

9. GP FAQs – share feedback from GPs with other GPs to ensure there is a channel for new ideas engendering open and honest engagement; you could encourage questions via social media channels too.

10. GP targets for success – manage GPs’ level of interest in your services closely. Keep them continually informed and encourage ongoing two way communication, both offline and online.

Your programme should support GPs to keep up to date with the latest research, new guidelines and best practice. Share your webinar campaign thoughts below or on Twitter.

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What are healthcare webinars? Top 10 insights

Posted on November 21, 2014 by alexandrapatrick

Healthcare webinars are online learning events that can be accessible from home, a GP practice or on the move.

Healthcare webinars can be live or on-demand which makes it convenient and flexible for medical professionals to keep up to date with the latest research, new guidelines and best practice.

If you are a healthcare provider and considering embarking on starting webinars, take a look at this checklist.

healthcare webinar

Top 10 insights into webinars

1. Goal setting – clearly establish your needs and objectives, decide why you want to run a webinar, for example is it to attract more GP referrals, stimulate interest in speciality services or promote consultant-led thought leadership.

2. Project manager – assign a project leader for the webinar or series of webinars who will take responsibility for co-ordinating content, design, technical delivery within timescales and remember to ensure to plan your webinar will be available to view on multiple devises.

3. Compelling content – respond to GP needs and provide content about the latest research about a specific speciality that can address existing challenges, how to get support or find out more, copies of research findings can all be downloaded there and then.

4. Engaging speakers – if you can secure a leading thought leader or specialist surgeon it will generate interest and satisfy GP educational needs for best practice knowledge. Panel Q&As can also work well, but ensure it fits with your assigned length of webinar say 15 or 50 minutes.

5. Marketing campaign – start marketing your webinar event at least four weeks in advance, but if you can get the registration page set up early, start promoting it six to 12 weeks in advance to secure online attendance.

6. Promotional offer – consider what’s in it for healthcare professional, will they get CPD points, will they get an opportunity to ask a question to the headline speaker, will they get access to unique content that others won’t such as an eBook.

7. Marketing channels – ensure you segment your healthcare professional database to ensure your target recipient list is appropriate to the webinar subject and promote through social media, blog posts, email or online advertising.

8. Live or scheduled – if your speaker consultants have busy schedules it may make sense to prerecord, you can also ensure that all content is correct and edited before delivering to the audience, it is still possible to include live elements such as interactive chat.

9. Interactive engagement – use animations and video clips to make the content come to life, you could encourage conversation by using an ‘ask a question’ button, you could also add social media integration to your webinar with a Twitter feed and use a specific hashtag.

10. Targets for success – revisit your goals and objective, have you achieved what you set out to do? Review the number of registrations and attendees, does it match your initial objectives? Don’t forget you can still send the on-demand recording to contacts to keep marketing content.

This webinar checklist will help you consider the best structure for your healthcare content and planning, set goals and execute successful and measured marketing campaigns. Share your webinar campaign thoughts below or on Twitter.

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Hospital websites – top 10 creative insights

Posted on November 7, 2014 by alexandrapatrick

What do you think makes a good hospital website? Recent research in the US indicates that hospital websites need to embrace the digital delivery of information more strategically. Relevant information should be readily accessible in two or three clicks for both patients and healthcare professionals.

hospital websites

10 tips to achieve a successful hospital website

1. Make searches simple – a catch all search button should be predictive and pick up mis-spellings of treatments and consultants. Patients want to find information quickly and easily, so consider having separate boxes to search for a consultant or speciality on respective landing pages.

2. Mobile access – a survey of 57 US hospitals found 49% did not have a mobile responsive website and/or the most important call to action buttons were not found easily, e.g. contact us, find a consultant.

3. Treatment content – patients want to access meaningful knowledge about their condition and possible treatments. The more content with added value such as linked specialist consultants, pricing and rapid access to make an urgent appointment the better.

4. Imagery – identify the key people/stakeholders who can support the hospital by showcasing ‘real staff’ on the website; the imagery can be used in banners, in brochures and in bios, patients can review staff credentials and expertise and feel reassured that they can have an appointment with a specialist they know something about.

5. Patient friendly – reflect the patient pathway on the website from before they request an appointment to the aftercare support they will require after treatment; patients want to have supporting information to anticipate the whole journey through to rehabilitation, this can be visualised from graphics or a bespoke patient app.

6. Fillable forms – anticipate simple forms that can be swiftly completed online in advance and are encrypted to protect patient confidentiality. Consider documents such as medical forms, book or change an appointment to enhance the patient experience or GP forms that allow them to refer patients to rapid care.

7. Google search – consider local long tail search phrases that don’t have to compete with the most popular phrases. For example aim to get high local rankings ‘cardiac care in Kent’ rather than being low for search for ‘cardiac care’.

8. Hospital personality – invest in making the patient and healthcare professional experience meaningful, give staff visual personalities, humanise them through video tips and advice before and after a procedure.

9. Brand-centric or patient centric – a hospital website that is brand-centric tends to be promotional with thin information that is not meaningful, a patient centric website communicates the expertise of staff who care and compassionate about the patient with detailed information on treatements.

10. Downloadable brochures – consider interactive consultant directories and patient brochures that are in a ‘useful resources’ section for patients, GPs and the media.

These useful tips should get you thinking about the creative development of your website and across your offline marketing channels. Share your marketing campaign thoughts below or on Twitter.

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