May
16

The first healthcare marketer to grow an avid and active fan base

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Our community-building is a virtuous circle of inspiration between our healthcare system and our communities.

These are not the typical words of a healthcare marketer. We don’t expect them to be talking about avid fan bases and active participants in co-creating new value. We don’t expect them to be comparing their brands to Kiehl’s, Lego, Sharpie, Benefit Cosmetics, Red Bull…

And you know what, you’re right. I fabricated this quote. But why can’t this be the case? Why can’t healthcare systems and hospitals have active fan bases? Who laid down the law that healthcare marketing must follow a set pattern of self-describe, proclaim and repeat (albeit now across multiple platforms).

True community-building (with the result being “a virtuous cycle of inspiration between provider and customer”) SHOULD be a vibrant component of the healthcare marketing mix. With the competitive provider landscape changing – and the impact of this being more choice (particularly for more “routine” medical conditions) – loyal fans means more people wrapped more tightly around their brands, which means competitive insulation and more profitable business.

We’re thrilled at the extent to which one of our Trajectory healthcare system clients has embraced their (our) new tagline of Advancing Health. Transforming Lives. We’ve witnessed how in a very short time it’s become the guidepost for much of their decision-making, both internally and externally. And this “platform” idea gives them license (in fact the responsibility) to create the energy that moves their communities forward – in ways that feed their interests and passions.

True community-building helps both client brand and communities grow stronger – based on a “virtuous circle of inspiration.” I know, there are places like Mayo Clinic that have really stepped out to provide their communities with new and greater forms of value. But as I’m sure you agree, these examples are way too few and far between.

What’s your POV?

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May
09

Beauty Marketing: Creating A Win-Win Brand Portfolio

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Are all those lines and sku’s really necessary?

We wake up in the morning viewing the world through the lens of a consumer. But then we get to work and our focus changes to that of business manager. The blinders come on and our sights are set on our defined sectors and the scope of our business. One moment, we’re barraged with an overwhelming number of choices. A moment later, it’s your job to present your other “you” with more choices. Not quite a recipe for mutual gain.

Beauty is an incredibly crowded category. There are hundreds of competitors, hundreds of thousands of items. Add to this the new segments that continue to emerge – from natural and organic to fashion brands edging their way into cosmetics, nutri-cosmetics, at-home devices, ethnic-targeted brands, beauty for men, tweens, etc. Some choice is good. But piling on more and more is a recipe for complexity, confusion and frustration (both for consumers and inevitably for your business).

So, how can beauty marketers create win-win brand portfolios? Start by considering these indicators that provide an objective view of your brand evolution and future potential. In the absence of this, you really do lack the ability to enable optimal decision-making and take the right course of specific actions.

Consider your portfolio from the inter-related viewpoints of Business, Brand and Consumer.

Business
• Does the portfolio fit with your business strategy and support strategic priorities?
• Does the marketplace value your participation (relative strength): is your name
relevant, are you providing customer benefit?
• Are you creating access to new beauty markets and customers?
• Implementation: do you have the resources to appropriately support; can you execute
with a high degree of success?
• Financial: does historical performance warrant?

Brand
• Do offerings build your brand value: do they fit with your story and positioning,
protect existing equities
• Are you creating desired new associations?
• Is there a clear relationship between new and existing brands?
• Does a new brand contribute to growing overall portfolio value?
• If offering fails, is it a major or minor setback for your brand?

Customer
• Does the brand address customer needs (today and tomorrow)?
• Is it a differentiated and superior value offering?
• Is it market-driven and customer-focused

While these are only some strategic indicators (financial indicators being the other benchmark), they’ll at least begin to help you take a holistic view of your portfolio and glean insights into relative performance of, and relative potential across, your brands.

Remember, more might not necessarily be better.

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May
06

The Social Influence on Brand Engagement

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SocialBrandI was hooked! While recently working on a beauty branding research assignment, I found myself so deeply connected to these brands that I instantly “fanned” them on Facebook, began “following” them on Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram, became an enewsletter “subscriber”, and “viewed” more YouTube videos than I can remember.  Christian Dior, Tom Ford, Chanel and several others were no longer just iconic beauty brands to me, I was now “engaging” with them in ways I could have never imagined. But how did this happen so quickly?

Having worked at brand marketing agencies my entire career, I now found myself on the other side of the fence as a consumer (not a marketing professional) influenced by the phenomenon known as social media – a brand engagement platform offering me new and more meaningful ways to instantly connect with these brands and their online communities.  

The Undeniable Influence of Social Media

Social media has had a significant impact on brand engagement, as it’s role continues to grow in terms of how consumers discover, research, and share information about brands and products.  With American consumers spending an average of 3.2 hours per day socially networking, the consumer decision journey has forever changed.  Just take a look at the Social Media Report recently published by Nielsen and NM Incite (a Nielsen/McKinsey company) to see how these decisions are increasingly driven by the opinions, tastes, and preferences of this extraordinary pool of social influencers.

  • 60% of consumers researching products through multiple online sources learned about a specific brand or retailer through social networking sites
  • Active social media users are more likely to read product reviews online, and 3 out of 5 create their own reviews of products and services
  • Overall, consumer-generated reviews and product ratings are the most preferred sources of product information among social media users
  • Consumers view social media networks as a more trustworthy source of information for products and services than brand-sponsored communications
  • Consumers feel more engaged with products when they are able to submit feedback

    • Socially Adept Brand Ambassadors

    Consumers are increasingly acting as ambassadors and advocates for brands through social media – as brands recruit fans and followers to facilitate consumer conversations and allow them to express their loyalty while also reinforcing the brands mission. The Dove® Movement for Self-Esteem, is a great example of utilizing the power of like-minded people to advocate for your brand – in this case a movement to build positive self-esteem and inspire all women and girls to reach their full potential.  To understand the importance of these advocates, consider these statistics:

    • A majority, 53% of active social networkers follow brands
    • Social media users are interested in collaborating with their favorite brands, with 60% (of 18- to 34-year-olds) stating they want to give product improvement recommendations, and another 64% wanting to customize their products
    • 58% of social media users say they write product reviews to protect others from bad experiences
    • Women are more likely than men to tell others about products they like – 81% of females vs. 72% of males
    • On average, a consumer will mention brands 90 times/week and your brand is more likely to be mentioned if you have an ongoing dialog and relationship with your brand advocates

    Fueling the Social Engine

    Social media growth has been fueled by increased demand for connectivity and access to/usage of mobile devices. While PC’s remain the predominant device for consumer access (61%), social networking time on mobile apps and the mobile web have increased 63% – with over 55% of social networking occurring on mobile devices. Consumer demand for on-the-go brand engagement is growing and global brands are conforming – 90% now have mobile sites. What’s next?

    Smarter Social Media

    We know first-hand that brand marketers tend to feel pressure to create a dynamic presence on every social media platform, only to learn that the “network” is ever-changing. So what does the future hold for our hyper-connected, hyper-digitized world?

    Consumer engagement is better served through a smarter and simpler approach – one that melds business objectives, brand positioning and personality, and consumers’ social media behavior to develop programs that can represent a brand’s individual “brand engagement sweetspot.” It’s an ongoing process of actively observing, shaping resultant communications strategy, monitoring conversations and refining activities. Sort of the old “rinse and repeat.”

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Apr
18

Brand experience mastery and “The Masters”

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I can now cross Augusta National and The Masters off of the proverbial list, as I was lucky enough to attend the final weekend.

While we went for the thrill of it, and not for anything work-related, it’s hard (at least for me) not to equate it back to the branding and marketing work we do for a living. Because for me, I was blown away by the brilliant execution and subsequent “Masters” brand experience.

Here are some examples (in no particular order):

1. The course is flawless. Every detail paid attention to –– from the pine straw, to the stunning beauty of the azaleas, to the grass that is cut so fine that it could double as a carpet.

2. Before you can get to the course, however, you need to pass through multiple sets of gates and then through security. Unlike other similar events, however, everyone (literally) has a smile on their face, is as kind as can be, and is apt to be joking with fans. Case in point, you’re not allowed to bring in cameras or cell phones on the weekend. But more than once, we heard security asking if “someone would please take their picture so they could send it to their mom.”

3. It’s shocking how affordable everything is (though you do pay a handsome price to attend in the first place). But unlike other events – sandwiches, fresh fruit and drinks are upwards of only $2-$3 dollars. Brilliant, however, is the fact that all of the drink cups are really collectors items stamped with “2013 The Masters.” At the end of each day, everyone’s leaving with their drink cups. Avoids a lot of trash collection, doesn’t it?

4. Gift shops, while really crowded, are also designed to maximize the customer experience. Many of the shirts available for sale are behind a well-manned counter, identified by number. So all you do is ask for the number, by size, and your well-wrapped shirt (knowing that most people will be packing them) is ready to go. Cash registers are also outside the shops, mitigating the lines that typically interfere with shoppers.

5. The fans themselves are “different” at The Masters. They’re kinder, gentler and friendlier inside these ropes. Coming together to share in their love of, and respect for, the sport. Though it might also have to do with the fact that there’s no running, disparaging language or obnoxious shouting tolerated on the course :)

6. Sports was a huge part of my life growing up, and still is. So I really appreciated two of the more memorable acts of brilliant sportsmanship. The first being Angel Cabrera, recognizing with a thumb’s up his competitor’s shot on the second playoff hole. The second being the grace of winner Adam Scott in his post victory interview, paying homage to fellow countryman and mentor Greg Norman.

7. Finally (though not really), those same security people who welcomed you at 7am thank you for sharing your day with us , remind you to please drive safely so we can see you tomorrow, and ask you to think about the picture they want for their mom.

“The Masters” is an incredible brand with an incredible back story. Beyond the legends who have helped shape and add to the story –– from Sarazen to Nelson, Snead to Hogan, Palmer to Nicklaus, and most recently Bubba and Adam — brilliant execution and subsequent experience have definitely added to making this event one of the most highly coveted experiences a golf fan could ever ask for.

I’m glad that I can now say “thanks.”

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Apr
12

Gluten-Free – A Healthy Choice for Marketers and Consumers

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gluten-free-symbol

The benefits of a healthy diet are a no brainer for most, but a gluten-free diet –what’s the appeal? Why has gluten-free suddenly become so popular to consumers, health care providers, and product marketers? Is it a fad or is it here to stay?

As consumer interest in overall health and wellness has increased, the health benefits of a gluten-free diet have broadened in appeal. A gluten-free diet can have a variety of health benefits, such as improving cholesterol levels, promoting digestive health, and increasing energy levels – if you have gluten intolerance.

Research shows that 6-7% of the population has a wheat or gluten intolerance and about 1% of the US population have celiac disease. In fact, the number of cases of celiac disease has doubled every 15 years since 1974. This, coupled with the growing trend of eating gluten-free, have driven up sales of gluten-free products 19% in the year to September 2012 in natural and conventional channels, combined. In other terms, the projected sales of gluten-free foods and beverages are expected to exceed $6.6 billion by 2017!

With the demand for gluten-free products on the rise, grocery shelves are now lined with gluten-free products from common household food brands. Classic brands like General Mills, Bisquick, and Betty Croker have all launched gluten-free products and new brands are popping up everyday – Glutino, Van’s Natural Foods, EnjoyLife, and Udi’s Gluten Free Foods.

Gluten-Free Brands Working Hard to Engage Customers

Brand engagement is important to all brands, and manufacturers of gluten-free products are capitalizing on social media to interact with their customers. EnjoyLife posts coupons and a digital cookbook available to their Facebook followers, Udi’s has a gluten-free Welcome Kit for those new to a gluten-free lifestyle, and Betty Crocker’s gluten-free fans have created a Facebook page devoted to their gluten-free dessert mixes.

People adhering to a gluten-free lifestyle must be on the lookout for gluten hiding in foods. For help in the palm of your hand, there are a wide variety of gluten-free apps available for your iPhone. Find Me Gluten Free finds and reviews local restaurants with gluten-free menus, Healthy Diet & Grocery Food Scanner allows you to enter foods you want to avoid and when you scan a package’s bar code, displays the ingredients, and flags those that are your do not eat list. Apps really come in handy when traveling, too – Gluten-Free Disney and Allergy Free Orlando help kids and parents (and grown-up kids) eat at the Happiest Place on Earth, and Is That Gluten Free? Eating Out lists gluten-free menu items at chain restaurants like Bonefish Grill and fast food restaurants like Wendy’s.

Tasty Gluten-Free Products

On a personal note, I am a gluten-free diet connoisseur, having started my gluten-free diet before the craze. Having suffered for years with constant stomachaches, I was finally diagnosed as gluten-intolerant (and had to eliminate dairy and eggs from my diet, too). I resigned as president of Team Food. I didn’t renew my subscriptions to Bon Appetite, Cooking Light, and Rachael Ray magazines and my cookbooks started to collect dust on my bookshelf. Since adjusting my diet, the number of products catering to gluten-free consumers has steadily increased and I find myself with many options to choose from. While gluten-free products won’t ever taste as good as the original, here is a list of some of my favorite products to try:

When it comes to baking, I need to be gluten-free and vegan, so finding yummy desserts can be challenging. BabyCakes is a vegan bakery in New York City that also has published several cookbooks, including BabyCakes Covers The Classics. For my birthday, my coworkers made the German Chocolate Cake – check it out on our Pinterest page. Not only does it look delicious, it was delicious (much to my coworkers surprise!)

What are your thoughts on the gluten-free craze?  Do you think it’s a fad or is it here to stay?

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Apr
02

Social Media: Mining for Eyeballs

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Eyeballs

At it’s core, social media is all about eyeballs – and knowing what resonates with your audience.

Yes, it’s great to get comments and have witty banter among followers, fans and the like. But that can’t happen if you’re not getting those followers and fans to stop and actually LOOK at your content. Thankfully there is no shortage of analytics and analytics tools, so you can set out on a never-ending quest to out pace your previous weekly highs in reach or whatever category you deem important.

Content Diversification

The past few months have been crazy here at Trajectory. TV shoots, photo shoots, big meetings and presentations abound. As we’ve been out and about, we started capturing our surroundings on Instagram (if you haven’t heard about it, here’s an excellent write up by our very own, Diana Liaw) and have been sharing these pics across all of our social channels. Low and behold, we found that our analytics started showing some real positive results. Reach across the page was at its highest point ever, people were talking about the pics, sharing and all around there was some “buzz” about the entire page.

The Instagram Ripple Effect

A further glance at the numbers revealed some pretty rock solid info that we could base our future content schedule around. As we diversified our content types to include the Instagram photos in addition to our everyday blog posts, articles and links, we saw that people were consuming the photo posts at more than a 2 to 1 clip. These posts gained attention to the entire page, which in turn put more eyeballs on the other posts and content, creating what we’ve billed the Instagram ripple effect. To test our hypothesis we gathered a bunch of behind the scenes photos and clips from a TV shoot and created a behind the scenes video. It was a cute little production, stringing all the images together and set to a snappy soundtrack. Sharing this video set our page on fire – it became the post with the most. The reach of this post was eclipsed our previous high by more than 200%. Had we found the holy grail of social media?

Social Media Revelation?

This is by no means a social media revelation. We’re obviously not the first to come to the conclusion that people like to look at pictures and watch video rather than read. And obviously every audience for every page is different and will, in turn, prefer different types of content. To us the biggest take away was that by diversifying our content, it led to shedding light on what the perfect mix of content is for our audience. A firm knowledge of what resonates with your audience will ultimately keep your followers engaged and possibly lead to more of them. And at the end of the day, each follower has eyeballs, and isn’t that what it’s all about?

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Mar
26

Tips For Healthcare Marketers: Great Video Content & Having It All

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Forget the traditional trade-off between quality and budget.

As healthcare marketers search for ways to provide valuable, yet cost efficient content for their audiences, accessible technology and channels such as YouTube and Vimeo provide important opportunities beyond static web content and traditional advertising.

Creating brand engagement through content that audiences actually want can be a bit of a challenge.  But if you take a deep breath, channel your inner Spielberg and approach it with an open mind, you can find yourself producing valuable, quality video in no time at all (at a fraction of the budget associated with traditional marketing vehicles).

Here are some points to keep in mind:

  • Armed with a powerful idea and important and timely topics, your smartphone’s camera can certainly be a lens to provide informative web-based content as readily as a professional TV production can. But be sure audio quality is clear if you have voiceovers or music.
  • PowerPoint (forget what the name usually implies), iMovie, Keynote and other forms of slide presentations can provide valuable content and work well for more constricted budgets. Well-written (easy-to-take in) and creatively designed presentations can go a long way.
  • Regardless of production value, remember there is no substitute for an important, timely and distinguishing (great) idea. Be creative, but be sure to communicate clearly and directly.
  • Upload your videos to YouTube using matching search keywords, title tag and video title for maximizing SEO effectiveness.
  • Videos over two minutes must really be engaging. It’s not easy to keep someone’s attention for much longer, so keep this in mind. It might make more sense to have multiple shorter videos than one long one.
  • Make sure your content is relevant to your target audience. This may seem obvious, but it’s easy to become enthralled with all the cool video FX and music and forget about your primary communication objective.

Now…relent to your hidden desire to direct (you know you really want to), go be creative, make mistakes, learn from them and keep these words in mind:

“An essential element of any art is risk. If you don’t take a risk then how are you going to make something really beautiful, that hasn’t been seen before?” – Francis Ford Coppola

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Mar
21

Beauty marketing: 6 tips for energizing brand and business

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Our beauty marketing article – Six Tips For Igniting Beauty Brand & Business Energy – is featured in beautypackaging.com’s “The Expert’s View.” You can read it here.

To build business in today’s environment – where technology leaves nothing to the imagination and nothing out of reach, where consumers are connected, collaborating and creating, where organizations can no longer hide behind the curtain and where brands are expected to do more – a new playbook is in order.

Here’s a summary of six of those plays:

1. Belief: Competitors can copy many of the functional attributes and benefits of your beauty products. But what they can’t copy is the meaning and purpose of your brand beyond what it does.

2. Behavior: Everything you do, every experience you create – with employees, customers and the public in general – should support and enhance your story.

3. Benevolence: Are you making the world a better place? How can your “belief” link to progress in the “communities” in which your organization and brand operates?

4. Bold: Be exciting. Continue to surprise and delight. Build an expectation that something new is always around the corner.

5. Bonding: Beyond customers interacting with your brand, make your brand the platform through which they share with one another.

6. Better Questions: Obvious “inside-out” questions yield answers that are more affirming and validating. Better “outside-in” questions let you see new things about your category, company, brand and customers.

Once again, you can read the article here. As always, we welcome your comments.

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Mar
20

Complete this sentence: Whole Foods is ______________

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How you complete this sentence might just foreshadow the future success of Whole Foods as it considers entering the health and wellness resort business. You can see the story here at NY Daily News.

Any and all operational capabilities aside, their ability to deliver a desirable and relatable proposition starts with degree of brand “permission.” How much permission we, as Whole Foods customers, fans or fanatics give them to extend their brand into this arena.

Which circles back to how you filled in the blank. And not to limit your choices, but here’s a general framework for you to consider. Is Whole Foods a product-based, expertise-based or philosophy-based brand idea?

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Is it a grocery brand, an expert purveyor of organic, natural, healthy foods or a brand defined by a deeper philosophy? Likewise, is it functionally-based or is it emotionally-charged? Not up to me to say, but they’ll cover the necessary bases to find out.

If you read the article, you’ll see that there’s a comparison to Canyon Ranch. Though not sure this is the most appropriate or wisest comparison, as Canyon’s roots are in spa/health and wellness, so their’s was a natural progression to integrate “eating habits” into their program.

Relative to other grocery retailers, Whole Foods does stand apart. It’s driven by, and delivers on, a strong set of value and beliefs. It hasn’t strayed from selections which advance a healthy lifestyle. It does business with a strong sense of purpose. Is this enough “permission”, we’ll see.

What’s your point-of-view?

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Mar
17

Healthcare marketing and the value of parallel worlds

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The open mindedness and disciplined creativity required to visit parallel worlds is critical to your ability to deliver new and greater value to better customers lives beyond the reach of competitors. It allows you to consider that Nike (for example) might now be a competitor to your healthcare system or hospital, given that you’re both in the business of promoting better health outcomes.

Nike, by way of its FuelBand, lets you track your daily running, walking, dancing and dozens of other everyday activities. It tracks each step taken and calories burned. It then helps you set goals, see progress, stay motivated and share with others.

As a healthcare marketing professional, your industry focus means understanding its specific challenges, creating actionable initiatives based on knowing operational realities, living the nuances of your category on a daily basis. But exclusive industry focus also means that you’re not viewing the world through the lens of your customers life. And that means missed opportunities.

Thinking holistically about your healthcare patient (as a customer) and how you can better their lives beyond the reach of competitors, requires you to look beyond your category. Clearly, an understanding of direct competitor practices is important. But then venture out to examine the parallel world of other national healthcare players. And then most important to being able to see new value-creating opportunities is the examination of parallel organizations with similar characteristics and who face similar challenges to yours in completely different markets.

How can you truly better the lives of your customers, beyond just satisfying their most obvious needs? Only by seeing their (parallel) world(s) through their eyes. Asking the right set of brand, customer and company questions can help you determine where to look – to get you to that magical combination of intelligent focus and imaginative stretch.

What’s your opinion about the value of visiting parallel worlds?

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