Archive

In today’s highly competitive markets, where marketing budgets are so closely monitored and return on investment (ROI) is the bible by which to gauge the success of your efforts, its important to focus not only on the services that you provide to clients, but the manner in which they are provided.

The front face of any company is crucial. While some may think it’s only the end result and ROI that makes or breaks an effort, the service delivery can often leave the most lasting impression on your client.  In a recent Forbes article, Tom Post shares his best and worst customer service experiences.  Bottom line?  Customer service is fairly easy – be timely, be responsive, be customer-focused, and do all that you can — within reason and “business sense” — to keep your customers coming back.

It’s said that it takes 5 times as much effort to recruit a new client as it does to keep an existing one – are you doing all you can to retain your clients – and keep them happy?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/tompost/2013/06/04/the-best-and-worst-customer-service/

Hospital websites today are often dynamic and slick looking with sliding images of good-looking healthcare providers, photos and videos of the latest diagnostic and surgical equipment, and plenty of platitudinal language about being a state-of-the-art and leading edge healthcare provider.

While this promotional language is deemed to be important in ‘selling’ hospital benefits to the community; what consumers really need is a relevant information portal that can be a true resource when making healthcare decisions for their family.  Hospitals can benefit from having a clear path to important information regarding safety and quality as well as hospital departments and service offerings.  Consumers also need to be able to navigate the site quickly and easily and connect immediately with hospital departments and physicians.

In her August, 2013 article, It’s Judgment Day for Hospital Websites, HealthLeaders Media writer, Cheryl Clark speaks directly to this issue in detail and highlights an initiative that is giving hospitals a reason to build and maintain more transparent and user friendly web sites.  In 2012, seven hospital transparency website awards were presented through a partnership of The Leapfrog Group and URAC.  The criteria for winning focused around five key areas including transparency, design, credibility, literacy and connectivity.  Applications are now being accepted for the 2013 awards.

A hospital’s website should be a clear gateway to the content a consumer needs to make informed healthcare decisions.  In what has become a crowded and competitive healthcare market, this level of transparency a step in the right direction for marketers and a chance for hospitals to truly demonstrate the important role they play in the lives of the patients they serve.

I came across an article on words to avoid in a Content Marketing Strategy and I’m going to be honest, I can’t for the life of me figure out why any of these words WOULD be used.  Moist??? Slacks??? I mean, even if you’re selling khaki pants to a 78 year old man, would you really call them slacks?  However, I do take issue with including Awesome and Foodie on the list. I agree with the author that both have been overused, however I think that they can be relevant.

Content to me is all about the audience. If your audience is a bunch of “Foodies”, then if you call something “Awesome,” it better BE AWESOME! Best-meal-you-ever-had, awesome. “Irregardless”, it needs to be relevant. What is the best way to do this? Custom Content. Know your audience and provide them with the type of material they are drawn to. Write it in a way that is approachable to them, with words they use, SEO will inherently be build in that way.

Then no one will have to check The Atlantic’s Dictionary of Despicable Words list, although it is rather humorous to peruse.  All this makes me also think of an article I saw on CNN a few years back, about the worst phrases to use in the office. Content isn’t rocket science, but the ball’s in your court to drill down the message and reach your target.