G2 Communications Inc.-Medical Practice Marketing

We help physicians recruit, retrain & refer

  • WHO we are
  • WHAT we do
    • Healthcare Case Studies
    • Healthcare Clients
  • WHY choose us
  • WHERE we are
  • HOW to learn more
  • Blog

Jul 19 2017

Medical Oncologist Offers These Marketing Tips

“If you want to grow your practice and you’re new to marketing, try to keep an open mind,” says , Medical Oncologist and board chair of Epic Care.  As managing partner of one of the largest cancer care centers in the San Francisco East Bay, Dr. Patel has followed his own advice.  The larger the practice, he says, the more important marketing becomes.

G2 Communications spoke to Dr. Patel to get his perspective on practice marketing.

“When it comes to practice marketing, most physicians hold on to the age-old philosophy, ‘if I’m a good doctor good things will happen,’ says Dr. Patel.  “Because doctors don’t study business they think marketing their practice is like selling their soul.

“For a large practice like ours, it’s very important that we convey to the community who we are, what our mission is and how we distinguish ourselves,” says Dr. Patel.

“And over 90% of our patients come from referring physicians.  Our doctors are the face of our practice and they have to make those connections.”

“Mostly we do old fashioned, in the trenches marketing,” says Dr. Patel.  “We take our practice to the community with events of survivorship.  These Celebration of Life events are a great way to get our name out there and build relationships.  They have become our signature marketing program.”

For referring physicians Epic Care physicians gives talks at hospital grand rounds. The practice hosts small forums for referring physicians where the partners bring in leaders in the field and put up attendees at nice resorts.  In 2018, Epic Care will begin hosting annual CME events.

For medical practices that want to grow and are ready to take the marketing plunge Dr. Patel has a list:  having a web presence is key.  So websites are a must and so is social media.  He also encourages practices to host and publicize community events, give talks, and hire a marketing liaison to call on referring physicians.

For more information about physician marketing visit www.g2comm.com or call us at 650 856-1607.

Written by Shelly · Categorized: Healthcare marketing, Marketing, Medical marketing, Medical Practice Marketing, Practice marketing · Tagged: doctors, event marketing, events marketing, marketing, physicians, practice marketing, social media

Feb 19 2014

Unshakable Marketing Principles for the Digital Age: Q&A With Marketing Consultant Kathryn Gorges

Kathryn Gorges (pronounced gorgeous!) knows how to spell out the core principles of marketing for companies overwhelmed by the present demands of content strategy: “The most important thing is who you’re targeting and how you’re solving the customer’s problem. You can’t create content for the masses; you need to speak directly to your target segments.”

Gorges is a marketing consultant and Social Marketing Diva with over 17 years experience. She works with brands to increase visibility and nurture customer relationships through web content, social media, email, and event marketing.

I spoke with Gorges to glean insights into how marketers and PR professionals can generate quality customer conversations and relationships in the digital age.

In the midst of constant changes in digital marketing, what are the core, unshakable marketing principles?

KG:  We’re still in the middle of a transition where we have these bright shiny objects and we’re not sure how to use them. People are throwing thousands of dollars away on marketing automation and blogging and images, and not knowing what they’re doing.

The truth is, at the heart of everything is still the story. People doing marketing strategy the right way are the ones that lead with the story of how the product or service is really making a difference for people. Out of that, all content is created. The story is the core, the touchstone.

Companies need to figure out, what is the central narrative? People are developing all kinds of content and wasting money because the content doesn’t match up to that central story.  It’s the story and behind that is the customer.

There’s a problem of focus these days. The focus is on lead generation and brand awareness and putting all that into these tools. But where you make money is with repeat business. Otherwise it’s a transaction. If you don’t have real customers and repeat customers then you’re not building relationships with those customers.

It’s not about one-way messaging. What is the reality like when someone calls your company for service?  If you know your job is to give them an excellent experience but the customer gets put on hold for 20 minutes then it doesn’t matter what your message is. Companies can’t rely on the artifice of messaging and phone scripts.”

What value does social media provide in all this?  Lead gen? something else?

KG: Customers talk to other customers. They can do a search and find out what others are saying about you. It’s all out there. Millennials have come through the recession and are really skeptical about vendors’ promises and one-way marketing. They want real relationships. They are going to build that relationship on top of the trust that gets passed on by knowing how other customers feel about your product or service, especially from people they know. That’s first, then the relationship with the company follows.

That means the real experience people are having is more important than the messaging. Customers won’t form a relationship with a brand because of the brand’s messaging. They want to know, ‘does this make a difference for me?’

Today there are so many places to find out about a product or service before customers even talk to a company. They want other people’s experiences first. Once they’ve seen that then they are ready to see what the company says about itself.”

Why does content strategy matter?

A content strategist figures out how to create a bigger view (and greater visibility) on the web.  This person develops a cohesive strategy that in every way carries forward the narrative, with different pieces of content for different platforms.  Companies need a content strategy where derivatives of the content are published on the companies’ social platforms as well as 3rd party media platforms.

Derivative content includes: press releases, infographics, blog entries, bylined articles/op eds, social channel entries, etc.  You can get your content in front of people directly but it delivers real value when you have a direct relationship with the customer.  Now you have this whole other mechanism of getting content out there.

Knowing how to develop and produce the most compelling content; knowing what resonates is now vital to marketing success.  Marketing people haven’t had to produce this content before.  There wasn’t this big content machine.

So there is an ever demanding content generation machine and your potential customers are consuming that content.  But there’s also Google – companies need to get decent search results to have social authority.  There’s this crushing need for generating content and putting it out on company websites.  But the company needs to be a subject matter expert, not a media company.

Don’t lose sight of the 2-way relationship with the customer.  That isn’t going away any time soon.

Images:

Kathryn Gorges: Kathryn Gorges

 

 

Written by Laura R. · Categorized: Marketing, Other, Public Relations, Social Media, Uncategorized · Tagged: content, content strategy, customer, customers, marketing, PR, Public Relations, social marketing, social media

Feb 06 2014

How to Bond with Today’s Freelance Journalist: a Q&A with Healthcare and Business Writer James Ritchie

With hybrid expertise on the business and healthcare beats, James Ritchie has earned himself job security at a time when journalism keeps changing. “Business journalism is never going away,” he explains. “People need business information to make decisions.” What’s more, Ritchie says, “I have a broad background in covering healthcare; that’s my competitive advantage.”

Ritchie has more than eight years of experience covering healthcare, including medical practices, health IT, insurance companies and hospitals. After working as a staff reporter for the Cincinnati Business Courier, Ritchie became a full-time freelance writer for a variety of media and corporate clients. He continues to write for American City Business Journals in several capacities.

I asked Ritchie about the role of PR in his day to day work as a journalist.

How has journalism changed for you in the last 3 to 5 years? 

“The pace has changed. Throughout the media world, you see a lot more short pieces on the web to break or update news. Headlines need to scream, ‘Read me!’ Quite a few stories can be told with infographics and bullet points. It’s harder to get and hold people’s attention, and if you’re planning to write a long narrative piece at many publications the bar is very high. It had better be a remarkably interesting story.

“Of course, it depends on your audience too. In the traditional daily newspaper you have sports, business, news, comics, etc. But now a lot of people are reading about what they’re interested in and tuning out nearly everything else. If I own a restaurant, I’ll read a trade publication on restaurants. And if you’re writing on business and particularly in specialized areas – in my case, usually healthcare – you’re more likely to publish the stories of 700 words or more, because the audience is hooked by virtue of the topic.

“But there’s still no room to be boring.”

What makes a great story?

“What I’m going for is something inherently useful to the reader. They’ll take the information and do something with it; it’s not a passing interest.

“There are a lot of ways to tell good stories. News today is often recursive, where one outlet is quoting – and linking to – another. If you can show your readers something interesting or useful in that way then you’ve done them a service. For investigative stories, you often see data journalism, where you’re trying to pick out trends from a big data set. If you can analyze the databases, you can tell stories that you couldn’t have gotten to in the past.

“But there’s still a place for going out and looking people in the eye and getting stories. We have to be careful not to move too far away from that. You need humans to tell the stories.”

How often do you deal with PR professionals? 

“Quite a lot. There are many cases where PR people help me to get in touch with executives, physicians or other sources in their organizations. And I listen to their pitches as long as they’re relevant to something I might write.

“Of course, you can’t respond to everything. A healthcare reporter shows up on all kinds of lists. When I was in a staff reporter job, I would probably get 200 emails a day. But most of them wouldn’t be relevant to me. They may have personalized the email with my name, but it was going to a whole lot of people. One time I got a pitch about a health screening van in a parking lot in Montana. I would delete that.

“Things that are pitched to me specifically, I read.

“I like Help A Reporter Out (HARO); I put queries out. If it’s a hot topic you get a lot of response both from PR contacts and directly from sources.”

What can PR people do to improve their relationship with you?

“Probably the main thing is to focus on the person-to-person relationship. Build a social bond. You might not be best friends, but you can position yourself so your email gets read. Send a sentence or two. Say, ‘I have a story I think you might like.’

“If you can provide an exclusive story that’s in line with what the publication does, that helps. Journalists work hard for exclusives. If a PR person says, ‘I’m going to give this to you first,’ that’s of interest. Barring that, at least bring a new angle.”

Do you value the PR-Journalism relationship?

I value the relationship. If you call an executive at a hospital or large company, in many cases they’ll refer you back to a PR person. The PR person can often get you the access you need. The second thing: They’re there, and people internally are feeding them stories that you might not hear about otherwise.”

James Ritchie image: provided by James Ritchie

 

Written by Laura R. · Categorized: Healthcare PR, Journalism, Pitching Stories, Public Relations, Social Media, Uncategorized · Tagged: article, articles, health, healthcare, journalist, journalists, media, pitch, PR, press, press release, Public Relations, social media

Jan 22 2014

Healthcare PR Advice from Editor Donald Tepper

Donald Tepper is editor of PT in Motion, a publication for members of the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA). PT in Motion covers relevant legislation and association news, and “discussion of professional issues and ideas in physical therapy practice.” G2Comm works with a wide range of healthcare providers so I talked to Tepper to get his take on working with PR professionals.

Tepper provides some sage advice for PR folks who want to impress editors by delivering useful and valuable stories.

Know Your Story Inside and Out

Tepper has encountered PR pros who know virtually nothing about their own products or company beyond the press release. “If I’m interested in pursuing a story, I find it frustrating to ask basic questions and the PR person knows absolutely nothing,” says Tepper. “They can’t clarify anything in the press release or speak to anything beyond what’s in it.”

“A lot of PR people think their main function is to pitch.  Trouble is they don’t know what to do next. They don’t know how to tailor a pitch to a particular news outlet.” It helps if PR reps have some honest curiosity and interest about what they’re pitching. Don’t just do a robo call.”

Know My Story Too

Tepper once worked in PR. “When I was on the PR end, reporters would call to ask questions; they knew the subject and the publication and I knew theirs. He doesn’t expect PR people to be experts on his publication but knowing Tepper’s story means knowing what’s relevant to his readers.  “I may get a pitch about a chiropractor who offers a product or service but—because the focus is on the chiropractor—it’s not relevant to my physical therapy readers.  But if the product helps PTs do their job, I’m interested. Tell me why it’s relevant.”

Know What Makes a Story Valuable

“Why should our readers care?” questions Tepper. “If [PR pros] can answer that, I love it. The size and exposure of your company is not important; the topic and angle you’re pitching is.  Pitch me an interesting topic that readers haven’t read before; nuggets of useful advice.

Value for PTs means information that helps them operate their businesses better.  For example, “we would write about what questions you should ask when evaluating EMR [electronic medical records] systems.  Or concept pieces such as ‘What is Crowdsourcing?’ Both have relevance for PTs.”

If you’re pitching a product, the same value criteria apply. “One inventor developed a new cane – Swiss army knife of canes — that found its way into a larger article on inventors. We wrote about how the inventor came up with the idea, then how the product was developed and commercialized. That type of article goes over well.”

Know What Journalist’s Look For

Journalists are always looking for credible and knowledgeable sources. Make your pitch attractive by providing a source “who is willing to be quoted and talks beyond yes and no answers.”

“We prefer to talk to clinical people at smaller companies. More productive interviews have been with clinicians who’ve founded and grown their own practices. They have both a business and clinical perspective.”

Highlighting contrarian points of view is also important to journalistic integrity. Tepper uses multiple methods to identify diverse sources, including social media platforms.  “We’ve had articles where we’ll do basic online research and turn up great sources that way. We also have an editorial advisory group…[and] rely on APTA staff specialists.” If your sources understand the POV you bring to a larger story, you can make it easier for journalists to integrate their voices into their articles.

Know How to Write

Don’t let weak writing stand in the way of your story. “Many of the news releases and announcements I receive are not well written,” says Tepper. “If it’s poorly written or has grammatical errors, it reflects poorly on the message of the release.  I recognize that releases are written to please the client, but it would be nice if PR people attempted to inform the client that if changes were made to the release it would make it far more effective.”

Good grammar is the minimum. To really stand out, you need strong, compelling language as well. “Too many releases use ‘PR language’ with terms such as revolutionary, extraordinary, and cutting-edge.” Cliches make readers tune out. Grab editors’ attention with clear, fresh language that explains the specific value of your story.

Think Before You Pitch

Tepper’s bottom line: “PR professionals need to understand that PR is more than pitching stories.”  Before blasting editors, know the details, context, value, and interest of your story.

Image provided by Donald Tepper

Written by Laura R. · Categorized: Healthcare PR, Medical PR, Pitching Stories, Public Relations, Social Media, Uncategorized · Tagged: article, healthcare, media, physical therapy, PR, press, press release, PT, social media

Oct 31 2013

Social Media Shines Spotlight on Healthcare IT

How can your healthcare IT company be a savvy adopter of social media best practices? Here are three ideas:

1. Be an Insider

One of the greatest challenges of using social media is the clamor of voices competing for attention; nothing new there.  In order to reach providers, your social content must speak to their daily needs and interests. Most providers are looking for quick access to current and highly-credible news and insights in their industry. Kevin Pho, MD has over 80,000 Twitter followers because he offers first-hand accounts of his use of health I.T. and weighs in on broader technology/health care issues and policies. Pho has a trusted identity. Put a face like his on your brand and people will listen.

HIT can be a complicated and time-consuming aspect of physicians’ and administrators’ jobs.  Make customer support representatives and technicians available through social channels. Make it known that you’re there for them in real-time: “Got a question about a product or EHR implementation? Tweet us!” Integrating social media channels with customer support can increase your interaction with providers and help you better understand their needs.

2. Extend your reach at conferences

Utilizing social media before, during, and after HIMSS 2014 and other healthcare conferences can increase your brand awareness and recognition with fellow attendees. Conference-goers are there because they want to question, connect, converse and learn. Start a hashtag to bring the conversation online, and track and preserve it for those who weren’t able to attend. Make sure your chosen hashtag and social media accounts are visible on all conference materials and swag you distribute, and have speakers invite people to live tweet thoughts and questions during your session.

Set your social media goals and craft messages ahead of time. Then be sure to monitor your accounts in real time, responding to everyone who engages your brand. The momentum you build with health IT customers during the conference can lead to phone calls, meetings, product inquiries, articles and more.

3. Build industry connections in your most relevant communities

NextWaveHealth launched only months ago, but they’ve already debuted Smart Social Media (SSM 2.0). This customizable social media platform invites “hospitals to share insights with each other on health ITcurrent events.” SSM 2.0 will allow Next Wave to build communities around ICD-10 and EHR implementations. It can also build communities specific to doctors, CIOs — and healthcare IT PR pros.

The brilliance of this application is that now the company doesn’t have to go in search of these segmented audiences across 10 separate platforms. As they invest in these online communities and give users ownership of the content and conversations they are building trust with prospective consumers.

If you can’t build your own platform, you can still focus your social media outreach to existing online communities where your demographic is already engaged. Linkedin has many groups dedicated to different healthcare niches, as does Google+. There are also multiple social networks built exclusively for physicians. Do a little digging to uncover where your target market is actively listening, then become a valuable contributor.

Social Media is Only as Relevant as You Make It

Social media will become increasingly relevant to healthcare IT professionals as long as they use it to assist and genuinely connect with their audience. If you want doctors and administrators to take an interest, deliver valuable content, pertinent conversations, and responsive service through the platforms that serve them best.

 

Written by Laura R. · Categorized: Healthcare PR, Other, Social Media, Uncategorized · Tagged: healthcare, healthcare IT, HIT, social media

  • 1
  • 2
  • Next Page »

sgordon@g2comm.com
(480) 685-3252 (office)
(650) 248-6975 (mobile)

Copyright © 2021 — G2 Communications Inc.-Medical Practice Marketing • All rights reserved •