One of the most important contributors to productivity is outstanding collaboration between business partners. In this brief (3:24) video, Amendola Communications Senior Account Director Philip Anast shares some tips he learned from the book Smarter, Faster, Better that explain how PR agencies and the client teams they work with can create a more collaborative relationship.
It takes years to build brand equity, and just an instant to tarnish it. The best brands know the brand must drive every interaction with stakeholders, including investors, the media and the public. Failing to “lead with the brand” may result in lost opportunities to create loyal ambassadors.
One crucial make-or-break moment for many brands is how they respond to customer complaints.
For retail companies, this should be Brand 101. Healthcare companies, meanwhile, are only now starting to consider patients as consumers, due in part to the greater share of the cost of care being borne by patients through higher deductibles, co-pays and coinsurance.
As patient/consumers have more “skin in the game”, demand is rising for a consumer experience that is more like what the best retail companies offer. Healthcare companies would do well to pay attention to best practices and pitfalls–across the retail industry. So here is a “Tale of Two Brands”.
Recently, my friend Eric and I had wildly different experiences with two popular consumer brands.
First, my experience: I bought a set of pajamas from disneystore.com featuring the character Maui from the Moana film. When my toddler saw the pajamas, he squealed “You’re Welcome!” (Maui’s signature phrase) with delight. But the shorts and the top were two different sizes, and the bottom was too small. Here’s what happened next:
Within an hour, Brandon had turned a customer with a complaint into a brand ambassador, offering to send another pair of pajamas, no questions asked. I did share my positive experience with friends and “Mom” networks. Also, Brandon suggested that I donate the mismatched pair of pajamas to “spread the Disney magic”, and since I have such a great feeling abut the company, I’m happy to do so. In fact, my opinion of the company is considerably higher than before I ever had this complaint.
Contrast this with my friend Eric’s experience with a popular shoe brand that was initially less than “keen” about replacing a pair of sandals that had ripped apart after a couple of months. This pair was a replacement for a first pair of sandals that broke after just a few weeks. The company has a one-year warranty in place, but they initially refused to honor it, saying it doesn’t cover replacement items. Here’s Keen’s initial response to Eric’s warranty claim:
Hello Eric,
Your warranty claim #WKUS0181563ES has been denied.
KEEN’s warranty program covers manufacturing and materials flaws for one year on original items purchased from KEEN authorized retailers. This warranty does not extend to items that were purchased from www.keenfootwear.com with promo codes awarded to satisfy previous warranty claims.
We have included a discount code for www.keenfootwear.com below as an accommodation. Promo Code: WR-HP53-MZDP-L4Discount: 20%
Brad KEEN Warranty Specialist
Brad, Thank you for your response. I’m disappointed, frankly. What I’m seeing in your policy is that your company wants the benefit of SAYING you offer a warranty, without actually standing behind your products. Would it really cost you THAT much to make this right for someone (me) that really wants to be your customer?? I believe that your company can do better. Who can I talk to that has the power to make this right for me? Regards, Eric
Eric, You are certainly welcome to contact the KEEN Fan Services supervisor or manager at 866.676.5336 to plead your case. We stand by our inspector’s verdict on this claim and cannot offer any additional accommodation for this pair. Our warranty terms and conditions state quite clearly that items obtained with warranty promo codes from previous claims are not eligible for replacement consideration. The warranty department at KEEN considers this matter closed and we apologize for any inconvenience that this causes you. Best regards, Brad KEEN Warranty Specialist
Eric then started posting on his own Facebook page about his experience, with photos of the broken shoes. Then he reached out to the Keen Facebook page. Finally, four days later, the head of customer service reached out to Eric, asking him to order a new pair of his choosing to replace the ripped sandals.
Assuming this next pair is good quality, Eric says he’ll remain a Keen customer. But his opinion of the company is damaged by the experience. It’s a tremendous missed opportunity because though Keen doesn’t know it Eric is an outdoor educator who interfaces with hundreds of kids (and their parents) each year.
He runs a Pioneer camp in Florida which couldn’t be more “on brand” for Keen, as both emphasize the joys of “unplugging” and enjoying nature. Moreover, Keen has a enlisted a number of brand ambassadors who each “represents a convergence of KEEN’s values and interests”. Eric would be a great addition to that group. But, initially, Keen’s customer service operation failed to lead with the brand, and didn’t take the time to understand its customer and his concerns. Instead, it stuck to a blanket rule, and referenced Eric as a warranty claim number, not as the brand fan he was before the incident.
So, what can healthcare companies learn from this Tale of Two Brands?
1. Speed matters
Resolving a problem quickly is a key to maintaining brand loyalty. Disney is known for their lightning quick responses to customer problems, and my experience was no exception. Brandon responded to my query within an hour, while Eric had to wait four days before getting a satisfactory response from Keen. Now, to be fair, Disney is a much, much larger company, with many more employees, so it’s understandable that Keen’s response would take longer. Unfortunately, Eric did receive an initial response quickly, but the response did not seek to understand or resolve his problem.
2. Personalize the response
Disney was able to mail me a new set of pajamas with nothing more than my Facebook name and town. They knew exactly who they were talking to, when I had bought the pajamas, what size, and my address. This kind of sophisticated contact center is rare. But smaller organizations can ask questions to get the personal information and understand the particular needs of the customer, rather than refer to a warranty claim number, which was off-putting in Eric’s case.
3. Empower employees
Disney’s approach to gaining and maintaining brand equity is to give employees the power to solve problems, not to just enforce the rules and say no. Once someone higher up the chain at Keen understood that Eric was not trying to game the warranty system, but in fact had TWO pairs of shoes fail in the space of weeks or months, the company agreed to replace the shoes. But if Brad Eric’s first contact at the company–was empowered to ask the details of the story, and then respond based on the specific situation, it could have been resolved more quickly and positively
4. Ask your critics to be your fans
Since my Disney issue was resolved so quickly, I immediately offered to share my experience. But Brandon asked me to go one step further and share the replaced pajamas which were good quality, but simply mismatched sizes. This may give the company the opportunity to earn another fan who becomes a customer in the future. It’s clear, at Disney, that the public relations and brand teams drive all interactions with the public. This creates a unified, top-to-bottom messaging experience, applied to anyone who interfaces with the company. Keen still has the opportunity to turn Eric into a brand ambassador. A great PR operation might seize this chance to engage Eric and his campers, since the camp and company missions are aligned. They could, for instance, give sandals to a small group of kids, then take photos of the campers for the Keen website or other marketing collateral.
The takeaway for healthcare
Healthcare organizations can become more like the best consumer brands by taking a proactive approach to patient complaints and concerns. By responding quickly to patient concerns, seeing patients as individuals, empowering staff to solve problems and asking newly-satisfied patients to refer their family and friends, healthcare organizations can help to create and retain brand equity. This, in turn, can help drive up patient satisfaction scores, which can have a positive impact on the bottom line, in new value-based care arrangements.
Summer conjures many images that are symbolic of a slower pace relaxing by the beach, sipping lemonade by the pool or reading a book under the shade of a tree. These relaxing pictures of a simpler time rarely include your marketing efforts, although they can fall into this summer haze if you don’t take steps to keep them amped up and the drum beat cadence strong.
New customer wins, moving into an expanded headquarters and launching innovative products are obvious reasons to keep your name in the public eye; however, summer seems to have a way with slowing down major events such as these. How do you stay in front of your main audiences without appearing overly promotional?
Conduct Surveys Can you survey your customers to discover a new point of view? Do you have access to de-identified data within your product that could point to an industry trend? One example would be discovering which state’s residents are more likely to take their medication as prescribed than in any other state. Facts and figures are generally well-received and can support your company’s position. These results can be used for a press release, infographic, social media and media relations outreach.
Create a Campaign Develop videos, blog posts or other content addressing problems that your product solves and position yourself as a thought leader. Champion a cause or highlight a struggle like Healthsparq’s #WhatTheHealthcare and athenahealth’s #LetDoctorsBeDoctors campaigns. Branch out as a mover and a shaker to help fix a problem even if your product alone won’t do the trick. Doing this shows you as a trusted ally and advocate.
Offer a Fresh Perspective Your company has knowledge and a viewpoint that is unique. Does your CEO have a fresh position on leadership? What insights can you bring on the industry? Refine that information and share it through media relations, webinars and bylines. Reporters are looking for new ideas that shed light on a relevant topic in a vendor-neutral manner.
Whether done on your own, with a customer or through partnering with a publication, webinars are a great avenue to harness your knowledge about a topic and share it in a way that gives a personal connection. Attendees can get a taste of your personality, in addition to knowledge on the topic, and the chance to ask questions depending on how the session is structured. Contributing articles to publications is also a great way to extend thought leadership by sharing your perspective in your voice.
Support a Charity There are many great causes. Perhaps your company already supports a charity, which would benefit from an event or donation. Another option is to find an organization that allows personal involvement, such as sponsoring a build day with a Habitat for Humanity site near your office. Not only will it be a great team-building exercise, you could get some local press for your efforts. Employees and customers enjoy working with socially responsible companies, so it is a win from all sides.
Everyone hits a slow news cycle at some point. Use this time to refine your position, create a conversation and support a great cause. Each of these methods will extend your brand and deliver more content, including for your social channels.
Thought leadership is arguably one of the most powerful assets in an organization’s or individual’s public relations strategy. Yet relatively few companies go after the thought leader mantle, even if they have articulate, charismatic, true believers leading their organizations.
Often these potential thought leaders are kept preoccupied managing the present or near-future, while others who have an eye on the longer-term are hesitant to put their true thoughts out there, especially in the buttoned up world of business. And so, intriguing perspectives never see the light of day, including those that could establish a company or person as an industry player to watch.
By contrast, if you do a fair amount of thinking about the future, are amenable to investing time and effort into building your thought leadership profile and you’re willing to shake things up in your industry–then yes, you have the makings of a thought leader.
So where do you go from here? First, decide on what you want to be known for. Then decide on a correlating cause to champion. Let’s look at a well-known role model who has this approach down cold.
Thought leadership, Elon Musk-style
He’s extraordinarily rich, has a tempestuous romantic life and an unusual name. But above all, Elon Musk is an entrepreneurial futurist. That’s what people think first about Elon Musk, and that’s no accident.
I’ve long studied Musk’s thought leadership mode of operation and have distilled it to a simple pattern. First, he warns of a dire likelihood if humanity doesn’t get its act together. This generates significant buzz and fear. After a suitable amount of time has passed, Musk then follows up with a proposed solution.
Example: society will collapse when we run out of fossil fuels. Solution: Hyperloops that transport us at 700+ miles per hour.
Another example: society will collapse if artificial intelligence takes over the earth. Solution: merge human brains with artificial intelligence.
It’s all very calculated and strategic, and potential thought leaders should take note. Because it’s also undeniably effective. (By the way, Musk’s ideas have actual potential, fantastical as they seem. Take note of that, as well.)
How to find your thought leadership mojo
Here at Amendola I’ve developed a list of questions to provoke thought leadership thinking. I’ll share some of them here; for the full list, and more info about how Amendola builds and promotes thought leadership profiles; email me.
Question #1: If you could sound one alarm in your industry, what would it be?
Question #2: Do you have a minority and under-reported view of an industry topic that is significantly at odds with the widely held and established view?
Question #3: If you could rally your industry with one inspiring message or goal, what would it be?
These questions will likely prompt some interesting thinking, which leads to the next step what to do with these profound thoughts. In brief, you should put them into blog posts, articles, interviews, presentations and more, with a solid PR strategy to help promote your thought leadership message.
Thought leader-in-training
Another piece of advice: if you have the makings of a thought leader, start building your profile now. It’s not an overnight process, at all. In fact, it takes time to nail down your message in quote-friendly language, and to cultivate a media-favorite persona. My colleague Marcia Rhodes gives some good tips on the latter in her post “Be a Media Darling.”
Consider investing in media training, as well. In addition to our writing and PR services for thought leaders, Amendola offers in-depth media training, facilitated by experts with years of media experience in television, radio, newspapers and the internet.
It covers a lot, including:
And much more. The media training can be as short as one hour to longer, depending on your needs. We typically offer this training as a core component of our PR programs.
Don’t forget another time-tested public speaking strategy: joining Toastmasters.
In her post “Public Speaking Tips for the Timid and the Talented,” my colleague Michelle Noteboom details how participation in Toastmasters has upped her speaking game and given her newfound confidence.
Here is how Michelle recounts it: “Almost a year ago, one of my Amendola mentors encouraged me to join Toastmasters to further hone my speaking skills. While I was initially skeptical would everyone be a nerd? Or shy introverts with no personality? Perhaps retirees with nothing better to do? I have been pleasantly surprised by the mix of people in my club. It includes a variety of professionals in diverse careers, all of whom are fun and dedicated to self-improvement.”
She adds, “Toastmasters has given me the opportunity to deliver prepared speeches once or twice a month, as well as speak extemporaneously on random subjects. It’s provided an excellent forum for practicing speech organization and delivery, and for receiving feedback that pushes me to strive for continuous improvement.”
So there you have it a formula for success as a thought leader: an interest in the longer term, a willingness to shake things up in your industry, a solid PR plan, and a plan to practice until you’re close to perfect in your message delivery.
That’s really what it takes to be a thought leader. All that’s left is for you to take the leap and start becoming one.
Here’s a valuable lesson for anyone involved in content marketing.Recently, I was chatting with a small group of guests at a party. Then, the other partygoers gracefully exited the conversation and suddenly, I was trapped. I looked right. I looked left. But my efforts were futile. I was officially stuck in a never-ending conversation. Yes, I had entered the dreaded Party Vortex, which is similar to the Polar Vortex but much less cold and much more dangerous.
But the real problem, and what made the circumstances so precarious, is that the never-ending conversation wasn’t a conversation at all. It was a monologue without audience participation. It was a soliloquy but far less articulate. It was all about my new acquaintance, who would most certainly not make the cut to be called a friend. As he continued to talk at me for 20 minutes, which felt like 20 hours, I smiled and nodded but secretly plotted my escape. Yet, despite my best Party Ninja skills, there was no way.
Spoiler alert: I survived this party trauma and lived to tell the tale. But sadly, this blog is not about party etiquette. It’s about content marketing because my Party Vortex nightmare is undeniably similar to the experience that potential customers might be having with your content right now.
While content marketing missteps are many and frequent, the biggest, most overarching mistake is that your content is all about you. It’s all about your company and your solutions. It’s all about your technology saving the world. This is the sort of content that not so subtly shouts “buy this.” After all, isn’t that your end goal?
However, touting the features and functionality of your newest product under the guise of a white paper often fails to make an impact especially as healthcare professionals becomes savvier to the idea that they’re being sold to everyday. It falls short because it doesn’t take readers, your potential customers, into account. It doesn’t address what readers really want to know and what will compel them to take action. It leaves readers hanging, and then what happens?
Rather than completing a “contact us form” on your website to learn more, they’re lost to you. They may have simply decided that it’s not the right time to buy or that your company isn’t the right partner. They may have even gasp moved on to one of your competitors.
From company-focused to customer-focused
When developing a content marketing strategy and crafting each piece of content to support that plan, it’s critical to keep your future customers top-of-mind. Remember that every decision-maker or influencer that engages with your content could be your newest client, smartest super user, or most reliable reference.
How can you better connect with your audience? It’s simple but shockingly hard to do. Write what they want to hear about, rather than writing what you want to say. Write what they are hungry to learn about, rather than what you’re desperate to teach them. It’s a small change in perspective that makes a big difference. And while that may seem obvious, it’s not abundantly clear to many marketing and PR professionals unless they’re just doing it wrong.
Effective, customer-focused content prompts an “aha moment,” by sharing new ideas or even the same old ideas in a new way. This matters because encouraging readers to think differently is the first step to being seen as a thought leader in their minds and then as the ideal strategic partner.
These new perspectives aren’t necessarily earth-shattering but they draw readers in. Customer-focused content addresses the problem you’re solving, not just the solution.
It also doesn’t oversimplify the solution by presenting painless and perfect success stories of IT solutions that were seamlessly implemented and quickly gained adoption by all end users. Further, it provides insights on process improvements, change management, and other tactics that readers can put into action, aside from just buying your technology.
Real-world tips and lessons learned are valuable takeaways that readers appreciate much more than a bulleted list of your product’s bells and whistles.
Your new customer-focused content will not only satisfy readers but also help turn more potential customers into actual ones. Even more importantly, we know that your new, improved content will ensure that you’re invited back to the party. And isn’t being invited back to the party the ultimate goal of any marketing?
So there you are, listening to the PR agencies you’ve brought in to pitch your business. Everything is going swimmingly, and you think you’ve found your top candidate. Then you do it ask the one question that strikes fear into the heart of nearly every PR professional: what sort of PR measurement tools will you use to measure success?
At that point the air gets thick, and suddenly the only sound in what was once a room filled with lively discussion is the steady whirring of the HVAC system in the background.
It’s not that PR people are afraid to be measured on their accomplishments. It’s just that they’ve been down this road enough times to know that’s not really the question that’s being asked. The actual question is more along the lines of “How will you prove your campaign was solely responsible for improving our sales?” That goes double if it’s the VP of Sales who asked the question.
While it would be awesome if you could do it, tying PR to sales isn’t really a fair measure of the effectiveness of the campaign. That’s not just me saying that.
A few weeks ago I attended a webinar led by PR measurement guru Katie Delahaye Paine where she discussed this topic. The analogy she used was a PR campaign to sell cars. If the campaign succeeds in driving 100 people to the showroom but no cars are sold, would you say the campaign failed? Doubtful.
There could be all kinds of reasons the cars weren’t sold. Maybe the showroom never opened. Maybe the salespeople were rude or incompetent. Maybe prospects went for a test drive and discovered the interior noise level was somewhere between “WWII-era Sherman tank” and “jet engine.” Maybe everyone wanted a yellow car and it didn’t come in yellow. You get the idea.
Whatever the reason, it’s not because the PR campaign didn’t do its job. The people came. They just didn’t like what they found once they got there.
The stakes go up with HIT
When you’re talking about health IT (HIT) products or services it gets even more difficult to attribute a sale directly to the PR campaign. First of all, the average HIT offering costs many times more than a car. Would you buy a car based on what you read in a press release, or a byline article, or even a white paper?
Highly unlikely. Once you became aware of the car you’d probably want to research it on the Internet see what professional reviewers say as well as people who already own that vehicle. You’d want to compare it to other models. You’d want to kick the tires (even though that’s completely pointless) and take it for a test drive. Cars cost too much money, and most of us keep them for too long, to just purchase one based on the PR campaign.
So why would anyone purchase an expensive HIT product or service their business depends on, and that they’ll probably have to live with for a few years, based solely on a PR campaign?
The answer, quite frankly, is they wouldn’t. Most things in HIT are considered purchases that require many exposures and steps before the decision is made. The PR campaign will be useful in creating awareness, and a good content program will help walk the prospect through the decision-making process.
But at the end of that cycle, which could take several months or even a year or two, it will be very difficult to suss out exactly how much PR contributed to the sales that do happen. Not to mention virtually impossible to determine how many sales didn’t occur due to some issue that had nothing to do with the quality or effectiveness of the PR campaign.
There is an exception, at least for online sales. Google Analytics does have a pretty sophisticated way of tracking the lifecycle of a sale. Rather than simply relying on the last click, the analytics can associate all the activities of individual users together to provide a history of all their clicks, including their entry point off a PR campaign. That, however, takes some pretty sophisticated work performed by outside specialists. Given that purchasing HIT products and services is a team sport, you have to determine whether it’s worth the time and effort to attribute those sales to PR.
Oh, and as far as ad equivalencies go, don’t bother. Calculating the cost of purchasing the same space versus getting it “free” from PR pretty much went out with parachute pants and giant boom boxes.
What you can measure
Ok, if that doesn’t work for measuring PR, what does?
One good measure is web traffic. The measurement can be overall web traffic, and/or spikes that occur around a PR campaign event such as a press release going out or content appearing in a media outlet or blog.
Measuring spikes in traffic is akin to the so-called “flush test” back in the early days of TV. Executives judged the popularity of Milton Berle’s program by the noticeable drop in water levels when the show went to commercial. Not exactly precise, but it does provide some indication your materials are causing prospects to take a positive action.
Another measure is downloads of your materials. These generally break into two categories the materials that can be freely downloaded, and gated content that requires visitors to give you their name and email address in order to complete the download.
Free downloads are good for gauging general interest among those considered “suspects,” i.e., the casual consumers of your materials. Those willing to go through the requirements to obtain the gated materials are your more serious prospects.
Many organizations like to measure “share of voice” within their markets. They want to see how much of the conversation around a given topic they own versus their competitors.
A simple form of this measurement is volume, as in how many press releases did we put out compared to our competitors? You can also break comparisons down around earned media (interviews, byline articles, product reviews, or anything that requires some effort on the part of the media outlet) and positive-negative-neutral coverage.
The latter generally isn’t a good measure in HIT because the coverage in general will almost always be positive. HIT media outlets are generally looking to inform their audiences about ideas, products, and services they can use, not tear them apart like the political media. In some rare instances, however, positive-negative-neutral can be relevant.
There are others as well. The key is to start by determining what is important to help your organization drive the activities that lead to sales, and then measure the success of those activities. For example, if you know that securing 50 sales at the end of the year requires 2,500 prospects to be deep in the sales funnel (downloading gated content, speaking with salespeople, etc.), and getting 2,500 prospects means you need 15,000 suspects downloading free content out of a total of 100,000 visitors to your website, you have a pretty good idea of how to measure success.
If you do all the other steps but miss the mark on the 50 sales, you’ll also know you either need to adjust your upstream figures, or you have a problem in closing the sale. Either way, you’ll have a pretty good idea of what your next steps should be.
Measure to inform
One of my other favorite things Katie Paine says is to only measure what you’re willing to change. There is no point in measuring the value of wearing pants if you will never not wear pants.
To make PR measurement work, you must understand the actions you’re trying to drive and be willing to change the program if it isn’t driving those actions. Once everyone understands the goals, and PR’s role in achieving them, you’ll know how to measure success.