Digital Marketing in Healthcare #1: Increasing Utilization of Capital Purchases

This post is part of a series on digital marketing tactics within healthcare.

Digital Marketing in Healthcare #1: Increasing Utilization of Capital Purchases

It's not enough to make a capital purchase. Ensuring that a big purchase is actually used to generate income or reduce costs is just as important.

In addition, communicating to your community that you have a new technology helps improve your overall positioning as a technology leader.

Some of the digital tactics that can have a measurable impact on utilization are:

1. Showcasing technology with 360 degree videos, patient and doctor testimonials and other compelling content.

2. Using geo-coded search engine marketing for promotion. Patients and doctors are searching online for your technology. Help them find you. And use geo-coding to target relevant ZIP codes.

3. Using digital tactics to target patients, caregivers and doctors. Each of these are a key part of the care giving process and each has unique needs. Create specific content and tactics targeting these audiences.

4. Participating in online discussions and communities relevant to your new capital purchase. Many online communities encourage their members to use the latest technology available. Engage them and them know you have also embraced the newest treatment options.

Marketing Tactics, SMS and Technology Adoption

On January 27, Nielsen released the results of a study which showed that American teenagers send and receive an average of 3,146 text messages every month. That amounts to more than 10 messages for every hour of the month that they are not sleeping or in school.

Five years ago, when everyone was buzzing about text messaging, Method Engine was regularly asked to develop text message-based marketing tactics. Now that mobile apps and social networking are all the rage, we are asked about those. The irony is that for a lot of brands, using text message-based campaigns might be a more useful idea now that the technology is more mature and widely used.

The key takeaway is to know your customer and understand how they use technology. This knowledge is the foundation for an effective allocation of your marketing dollars.

Ambiente Germany

Method Engine is heading to Germany for the 2010 Ambiente trade show.

We are in the process of developing several web sites for Thermos that will target distinct global regions. Each of these rich, immersive sites are filled with localized video-based media.

We used the videos created for the web sites to create new sales presentations to help the Thermos sales team build international distribution. In addition, we created new video programming highlighting the importance of re-usable Thermos hydration bottles over disposable water bottles. This exciting new content will be used to draw people into the booth.

We'll post photos from the show when they become available. In the meantime, we wish our friends at Thermos good luck!

Augmented Reality at Method Engine

On January 25, Richard Alvarez, Method Engine's Director of Technology, hosted one of the first Augmented Reality (AR) seminars in Chicago.

Now that Flash has a toolkit for building Augmented Reality applications, the technology is much more accessible to marketers. Some early adopters like Lego and McDonald's have executed very exciting campaigns that utilize this technology.

During the seminar there was a passionate discussion about the future of AR and how we as marketers could leverage the technology to create applications and campaigns to help our clients build better relationships with their customers. You can view PDFs of the presentation here:

The State of Augmented Reality

Stay tuned for more. We intend to follow this new trend closely in order to bring relevant aspects of it to our clients.