By Stephanie Rasor, Marketing and Analytics Consultant
We’re a curious group at Rasor and are always trying to learn more about clients’ needs. In July, we partnered with NuVoodoo to see how marketing efforts had changed in the initial months of COVID entering the United States. If you missed the whitepaper you can find it here.
This month, we reached out to our healthcare contacts to understand their current ways of working, organizational priorities, and topics that most interest them for the SHSMD virtual conference. If you don’t operate in healthcare, don’t leave us just yet. These themes are likely to resonate in your industry as well and we’ll tell you how.
Here’s what we learned.
Roughly 40% are working exclusively in the office, a third splitting time and another third exclusively at home.
Q: What location do you currently hold your working hours?
More and more of us are getting back into the office. With schools starting back soon, we may see this trend continue where people are splitting their time or working exclusively in the office. The office space provides some of us a much-needed mental space to focus on work and not, um, watching the hummingbird feeder while on a call. Universally, we’ve all made huge strides in adapting to a virtual work environment and that’s something to feel good about.
Most marketing departments are reporting monthly to leadership
Q: How do you currently measure marketing results?
For most, it appears that reporting frequency has remained unchanged with 62% reporting either monthly or quarterly. We do see the impact of Coronavirus on 9% of teams where they don’t have the time or staff, or measurement has stopped completely since they’re not doing their usual marketing. A tip of the cap to all of those who continue to report monthly. This must be difficult given additional workloads. Not only is continuing measurement important to review the monthly impact of your efforts, but also to capture this valuable historical data. Trending your marketing efforts over time is one of the most powerful tools you have to optimize your marketing spend. How have you changed your marketing spend and how has this impacted your reach and response? With the changes COVID has brought you may need to reconsider redistribution of budget and will need to data to back up your recommendations.
COVID communications and priority services support are top focus
Q: What are your current department/organizational priorities?
Nearly 40% of those surveyed said COVID communications are their top priority. This is not surprising as overcommunication is often expected and the trends are uncertain this fall. This is followed by 25% who are supporting priority services, such as primary care and elective procedures. If you don’t work in the healthcare sector, maybe you’ve seen a decline in one of your business units. Now is a great time to promote any services that are likely to rebound in the future. You can get more detail on this subject in the aforementioned COVID whitepaper. Get your customer’s ear, especially if the competition is quiet.
Topics of perceptions and comms strategies and virtual care capture the most interest
The American Hospital Association and SHSMD (Society for Health Care Strategy & Market Development) are holding their annual conference virtually September 14-16. The educational programming is built around the theme “Respond – Recover – Rebuild” with the above six topics.Q: Which virtual conference topics appeal to you most?
Almost half of respondents are most interested in consumer perceptions and communication strategies. Industry-wide, these challenges have always been there: how to craft the right message, connect through the right media outlets, and determine your brand perception. But now these questions are more important than ever. The marketing landscape has changed as much as the way we work with the onset of COVID. It’s time to get creative and keep moving through the cycle of test, measure, and learn. Effective measurement is key to optimizing your marketing budget. I know I mentioned measurement earlier, but as a data nerd, I can’t help myself from bringing it up again.
Others are seeking guidance for virtual care and digital communications. While virtual care existed prior to COVID, efforts needed to double down to get fully online. Digital communication is equally important internally and externally.
The pandemic has forced us all to find new ways to connect with patients, customers, and each other. Our team is continually amazed by the new, creative ways companies are marketing. This pushes us all to think differently and do better.