Four Steps to an Easier Advertising Agency-of-Record Search

Conducting an RFP for an advertising agency-of-record can be a bit like reality TV matchmaking: an exhaustive exercise placed on a speed dating timeline and subjected to constant group scrutiny. Then, a big show around the final decision on the new agency. Yet, the process rarely produces a lasting match, leaving one or both parties to repeat the process.

Sound familiar? There are a few opportunities to make a search for a marketing firm partner less complex, more tolerable and productive for everyone involved.

1. Take a closer look

What are you looking for in an ad agency? Consider that agencies and their client share deep relationships that are completely unlike other business relationships. For example, while your supply vendor probably doesn’t care about your company’s mission statement, it’s the agency’s job to internalize and communicate that message to the public at large. Consequently, it’s important to clearly figure out what you want, and how a given agency can help you achieve those goals. The questions you ask beforehand can separate the wheat from the chaff, letting you know right off the bat whether the agencies on your shortlist will be a good match for you.

2. Consider smaller steps

If there seems to be a fit between your needs and a firm’s expertise, get together and find out – just 45 minutes in person or via video chat can determine if things are suitable enough to take a next step. Can you see your team and system benefiting from the outcomes and methodology implied by the ad agency? If so, consider a pilot project or phased engagement. You can tackle pressing challenges more quickly and kick the relationship’s tires without committing your entire budget (not to mention save staff time to write the RFP, determine who gets it, review lengthy proposals, take questions, schedule presentations and make decisions).

3. Streamline the process

Sometimes, conducting a formal RFP is a necessary evil. One way to help streamline the process is in the RFP itself. We once received an outstanding RFP that required agency response to be no more than 10 pages. It was short and to the point, for the client and the agencies. This RFP also asked each firm to submit anonymously, with an accompanying identifying document. Now that’s fair.

4. Remember the long haul

Not too long ago, clients and advertising agencies maintained relationships that could last for decades. However, modern client-agency relationships last between three and four years. In fact, half of those relationships won’t even last two. Part of the churn rate can be attributed to the clunky selection process practiced by many current businesses.

Picking an agency-of-record is a lot like dating – you’re going to meet a lot of duds before you find someone worth spending time with. So streamlining the agency-of-record selection process can save you a lot of time, work and heartbreak. By taking incremental steps like the ones detailed above, you can quickly and efficiently narrow the field to the agencies that work well with you. With a little luck, you’ll find your efforts rewarded with the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Further reading:

• 7 questions every CMO should ask a prospective agency
• Download a streamlined RFP template
• How to Choose an Advertising Agency

How have you streamlined a selection process? Would your hospital’s leadership support a pilot project or the traditional proposal process? Got an RFP horror story? Please share!

Concierge Medicine By the Numbers

On average, the typical physician sees 3,000 patients per year. Physicians who practice concierge or “retainer” medicine, in contrast, see between only 500 to 1,000 patients each year. We know what this model entails–doctors charge patients anywhere from several hundred to tens of thousands of dollars for their always-on-call medical services.

According to MD2.com, the concierge medicine concept has been around since 1996, when Seattle physician, Howard Maron, broke away from his well-established practice to provide on-call care for a select number of wealthy patients. Over the years, healthcare has seen only a small number of physicians make this transition. According to amednews.com, there were just about 1,000 concierge physicians nationwide in 2010, of the over 950,000 traditionally-employed physicians employed in the U.S. that same year.

But what if more doctors chose to move towards this model? According to PhysicicanTrends.com, “If the patient load of each CM doctor is one third that of a traditional practice, then simple math would require three times as many doctors to care for America’s citizens.” The alternative would be for non-concierge doctors to take on an even heavier patient load, leading to a truly two-tiered healthcare system.

It seems like concierge medicine has found its niche in catering to a select number of wealthier patients, and that niche is where concierge medicine will most likely remain.

Where do you see concierge medicine heading in the next 5 years? 

Retail in Hospitals: Is Lake Health a Game-Changer?

Specialty ERs for Seniors

In 2008, Holy Cross Hospital opened the nation’s first geriatric emergency department. The new design, featuring handrails along every corridor, larger clocks, and pressure sensitive beds that can be set for those patients who tend to wander, caters to an ever-increasing population of elderly E.R. frequenters.

According to the New York Times:

“When you talk about marketing hospitals, there’s a saying that kind of everybody knows, which is, ‘The emergency room is your hospital’s front door,’” said Dr. Bill Thomas, a geriatrician who helped open the first senior emergency room in the country. “Among the most vocal users of that front door, and the people who sometimes have the strongest opinions of that front door, are elders.”

MSNBC notes that the trend continues to snowball as hospitals across the US see the flourishing results of these specialty ERs. Emergency Medicine chairman Dr. Mark Rosenberg of St. Joseph’s Regional Medical Center in Paterson, NJ says his center saw a 15% rise in patients last year. Rosenburg started a 14-bed Senior Emergency Center just over two years ago and plans to open a larger one this autumn.

Of course, not all health systems are quite prepared to adopt this new program; however, many are changing protocols and increasing awareness to cope with a flux in elder care. How is your hospital preparing to serve the growing population of seniors?

Should your hospital consider creating a specialty ER for seniors? Consider these questions as you make your plans:

• Is your hospital located near retirement communities or 55+ independent living communities?
• Is your hospital service area a destination for retirees?
• Wal-Mart is addressing the difficulty of navigating its super centers by cutting store sizes and wider checkout lanes to make it easier for wheelchairs. How easy is it to navigate your ER? (Both driving to and once inside?)
• Are you considering the addition of freestanding ERs? This new trend is perfect for senior citizens as convenient location is critical for senior-friendly design.

Big Fish in a Big Pond

Huntington Hospital, established in 1916, is a well-respected 408-bed nonprofit community Hospital located in Huntington on Long Island. Huntington Hospital has been a member of the North Shore – Long Island Jewish Health System (NS-LIJ) since 1994.  NS-LIJ is one of the nations integrated healthcare networks, and the largest in New York state.

This past autumn, Huntington expanded its advanced cardiac program. The hospital’s cardiology services include diagnostic cardiac catheterization, electrophysiology and radio ablation.  They are in the process of building a second cath lab and will soon offer elective angioplasty, a huge development for any hospital.

Huntington Hospital will be able to provide most invasive cardiac procedures short of open heart surgery. Additionally, 2011 hailed a new designation as a teaching hospital for Hofstra.

In short, the cardiac program is comprehensive.

So what could be the problem? Consumers in this area have an abundance of choice. There are about ten hospitals within thirty miles of Huntington, and New York City is just about an hour train ride away.

Our job? Show residents in this area that they are lucky to have Huntington as their local hospital offering both state of the art services and a caring staff.

After extensive market research, we discovered that residents there wanted to be educated on how to stay healthy, so we focused our campaign on preventative care urging residents  to develop a relationship with a local cardiologist. By creating a strong tie to both the Huntington Hospital and  a specific doctor,  we knew locals would stay in town for major and minor heart care alike.

To answer this call, our creative team developed work that promoted the urgency of heart care and the benefits of preventative care through direct mail, newspaper advertising and flash banners. With a strong call to action and a dramatic viewpoint from an emergency care patient, the ads offered a strong incentive to choose Huntington and choose early.

So what is the lesson? Creating ties through preventative care may result in long term relationships. And a big fish may still need to strike the right chords if the pond is big enough.

UPDATE:

Franklin Street recently won three awards from the Annual Cardiovascular Advertising Awards including  the Judges Award – the competition’s highest award –  for the Total Advertising Campaign developed for North Shore-LIJ‘s Huntington Hospital.

UPDATE:

Franklin Street’s print campaign for Huntington Hospital’s cardiac services is January’s cover story for Healthcare Marketing Today. 

Successful Healthcare Brands are Built on Consistency

Take a moment to think about the following brands: Nike, Apple, Coca-Cola, Exxon, McDonald’s. What do they all have in common besides giant war chests, near-global ubiquity and a preference for questionable business practices?

Consistency.  There’s a very good reason why every Apple retail store looks exactly the same, or why every McDonald’s bag faithfully adheres to the red and yelow color scheme. True, consistency can be boring and predictable, but it also works. It preys on our collective need for familiarity, creating a simple set of symbols for complex associations.

By keeping your brand identity consistent, you are removing one of the most important barriers between you and your market. Repetitive exposure to the same symbols allows your consumers to quickly and easily recognize your core message. This is why all your communications—whether it’s an ad campaign, a website, or the waiting room—must be visually consistent with each other. Your brand changes from being an unknown entity to a familiar presence. Familiarity builds trust. When people trust you, they are more inclined to listen.

There are other consequences to ignoring brand consistency. Your customers should be able to follow a clear path between your collateral, your advertising and your physical spaces. Without those clear links, your organization risks credibility and appears disorganized. At worst, consumers might think you’re new to the market, causing them to avoid you altogether.

Take a look at a few non-healthcare examples of consistent brand identities:

You can clearly see the narrative thread that connects every aspect of Apple. Consistency has turned their brand identity into a brand experience, which is one of the reasons why they’re one of the most valuable companies in the world. Note how their advertising, website, products and retail spaces align harmoniously to present a unified image—an image that is unmistakably Apple.

Similarly, there’s a very good reason why Pepsi has been unable to top Coca-Cola ever since their ridiculous 2008 logo change—and it’s coincidentally the same reason why New Coke was such an utter disaster. For the most part, straying from your core brand identity will inevitably end in nothing but tears, lost revenue and confused consumers.

Healthcare marketing is no different. Brand consistency leads to trust and acceptance. So when Centra—a leading three-hospital system in Virginia—added a new hospital and expanded to serve 13 counties, we created a visual identity that unified the system but allowed flexibility for growing service lines.

After Centra’s new identity launch, research showed staff morale, name recognition and patient volume for key services increased. In fact, consistent brand extensions actually proved to strengthen the overall brand and helped increase recognition. Finally, consistent branding strategies helped Centra save money on brand development and overall marketing expenses. After all, tweaking a brand identity with every new service line or center of excellence may mean you have to work harder to help consumers make the connection with your hospitals. And why do that, especially in lean times?

Know a brand that’s growing effectively? Or an extension that’s stretched a little too far from the brand? Please share.

Introducing iPhone, M.D.

Your smart phone can do amazing things: video chat with friends, check the latest scores for your favorite Indian cricket team, or play Scrabble with your co-worker. But your smart phone more than fun and games. The latest additions to the smartphone app market may just end up saving your life.

Your smartphone can become  a head-to-toe health care tool. From monitoring your ears with CellScope, your sleep habits with Zeo Sleep Manger or Sleep Cycle, your eating habits with My Fitness Pal or The Eatery or your fertility with DuoFertility Monitor, the mHealth (the use of mobile technology in healthcare) is growing.

According Fast Co., mobile health technology is currently a $2 billion of the $273 billion medical-device industry. And that number is skyrocketing. Experts believe the number will continue to grow as smart phones get smarter and patients take their health into their own hands.

Up next? The FDA plans to release a rigorous set of guidelines for mobile health applications later this year. A more formalized process will make entering the market easier and energize the mHealth market.

What does this mean for your healthcare organization? It’s time to pay attention to mHealth.

• Keep an eye out for great new apps and products that may help cut costs–a new app and accessory for eye exams is literally .3% the cost of its predecessor.
• Think ahead – mobile health portals may soon allow patients who track their health via apps to plug into your EMR. Imagine that data shared seamlessly with your medical staff.
• Try them out yourself. After all, you deserve to be happy and healthy, too. Check out our favorite apps for staying fit and healthy.
• Get your own app–from ER wait times to tips and calendars for pregnant moms. The possibilities are endless.
• If it isn’t already, make your site mobile friendly. While this isn’t an app, it is mHealth. If your website isn’t compatible with prevalent mobile technology, you are missing a golden opportunity. 1 in 7 searches are now mobile and that number is even higher for local searches.

Have more ideas for mHealth? Know an mHealth guru? Need more inspiration? We love sharing our thoughts and  talking with other experts in health and wellness. Give us a shout. 

One Big Screen to Many Little Screens

It’s 1953. You’re a big shot advertising exec.

Your client is a talcum powder guaranteed to stop itching.

There’s a lot of itchy people. You want to reach as many them as possible.

The solution is simple. So simple, in fact, you have to extend your normal 3-martini lunch to 4 martinis just to make it look like you did something. 

The approach? Advertise on “I Love Lucy.” At the height of its popularity, advertising on the home of Lucy, Ricky and the Club Babaloo reached 75% of all TV viewers.

That’s a lot of eyeballs who could use your client’s itching powder.

Fast forward to now.

You’re  a big shot healthcare marketing exec.

Your brand is a nationally-ranked health system and you want everyone to know it.

But there’s no big screen for your brand, no Lucy-sized ratings vehicle to reach everybody and their brother all at once.

In its heyday, the American Idol finale reached 18% of all TV viewers.

75% of all viewers to 18%. That’s a big spread.

Broadcast TV viewership is down 10% across the board.

Tonight, 70% of people watching TV will also be doing something else. (Half of those people, by the way, will be on-line.)

We can’t count on one big screen to build our brands anymore. Our new model of media must live across multiple platforms, connecting with our audience in their busy days and lives.

Our phones are to blame (or thank) for the change from one big screen to many little screens.

Mobile usage is expected to double in 5 years as mobile overtakes the PC as the most popular way to get on the web.

Americans spend on average 2.7 hours per day “socializing” on a mobile device.

What does that mean for your branding?

1. Be a farmer, not a hunter. Marketers can’t expect to reach and persuade their audiences any more with two or three off the shelf tactics. Because of the media fragmentation, marketers can’t expect immediate brand engagement. Adopt a farmer’s patience, scattering brand seeds to discover which tools will become the strongest in time for message engagement.

2. Embrace digital. In the old days, people talked over fences about brands. Now, they IM and Facebook. Even if FourSquare isn’t the right social platform for your health system brand, every brand has an opportunity for online engagement. You just have to find the tools that work for you, whether its Twitter, a Tumblr blog, or search marketing.

3. Audit your workhorses. Resist the temptation to revert to the “tried and true” tactics for every campaign. Challenge yourself to think outside the quarter page ad box and find new ways to bring your brand to life across many little screens. (FYI: This is a great team-building exercise for your in-house staff.)

Exit question: Are you still paying the same rates for media placement that has fewer subscribers, viewers and listeners? Challenge your media reps or buying service to bring new ideas to your existing media channels. The media wants to retain you as a customer and the threat of lost revenue often inspires creative opportunities for your brand. 

Franklin Street Helps Combat Eating Disorders in Richmond with Northfield Ministries

Franklin Street has provided Northfield Ministries, a Virginia not-for-profit, with office space and furniture totaling near $30,000 annually. 

Northfield Ministries is a 501c3 not-for-profit organization providing hope and care for girls between the ages of 13 and 21 who are struggling with life challenges such as eating disorders, depression, and self-harm.

“Our mission is to meet young women and their families where they are, go with them on their journey to restoration and healing, and to give them the tools to break free,” says Gwen Seiler, Northfield Ministries Founder and Executive Director.

In addition to office space in Richmond donated by Franklin Street, Northfield Ministries plans to open a residential facility in Cumberland, VA for young women who need a transitional home to focus full-time on healing and deliverance from self-destructive thinking and behaviors.

Partners Will Flynn, Stephen Moegling, and Tim Roberts are happy to be able to help the Richmond community and greater Virginia area.

Story Building vs. Story Telling

Great branding campaigns are, ultimately, campaigns of great story telling.

Stories are the best way to impart information. People forget facts. They remember stories.

Before the written word, oral storytellers shared history, which was passed to other generations.

Peter Guber writes about the art of storytelling as a persuasion tool in Tell to Win.

Nike, Disney, Coke, Chick-fil-A. Just Do It. Magic. Refreshment. Cows telling us to eat more chicken.

Storytelling.

Now we’re in the age of Story Building.

Your audience contributes to your branding.

She tells her friends about the great experience she had at your hospital.

How your nursing staff calmed her husband’s fears.

How the physicians saved her husband’s life.

She does this on the phone and on-line.

She’s so grateful for the miracle of her husband’s recovery that she takes to Facebook, a modern day Paul Revere, letting everyone know your brand is expertise, compassion, life-saving, life-giving.

Her friends write back: Thank Goodness for that hospital, those nurses, those physicians.

One Facebook post turns into 100 comments.

Friends of friends contribute to your hospital’s story, building onto it, line by line, as if surrounded by a digital campfire.

Now: How do you support this story building? What do you put in place at the launch of your next campaign to encourage story building?

The challenge: Storytelling is in your control. Story building isn’t.

That’s also the opportunity.

What brands do you think do a great job with story building?