In the latest installment of our 10^th anniversary blog series, a Dodge Communications client is interviewed to discuss his experience with Dodge over the years. To view earlier installments please click here.

David Murphy, is vice president of product management and marketing at Health Access Solutions. Health Access Solutions has been a Dodge client for a year and a half. To listen to the interview, click on his picture or view the transcript below.

Dodge: How has Dodge Communications helped with your integrated communications needs over the past year and a half?

Murphy: It’s obviously important to have a comprehensive communications footprint to get your market message heard above the noisy, congested marketplace. I’d say the Dodge team has really helped us to establish a consistent, concise messaging strategy, and just as important, a discipline to be consistent with our messaging across both our internal and all of our market-facing opportunities.

You know, one of the things I think Dodge has helped us do—I talked about crafting a message strategy, but it’s also about looping that effectively together across the full range of media outlets. Dodge has really helped us effectively do that through the website, traditional media—both print and online outlets, social media, the blogosphere, trade conferences, the speaker’s bureau presentation, marketing collateral material, all of that, so we end up with an appropriately tailored message for each forum. I think that’s one area where Dodge has really helped us.

Dodge: What are some of the major accomplishments you’ve been able to achieve through your partnership with Dodge, and how have these accomplishments impacted your overall business?

Murphy: I think the biggest has been the effectiveness Dodge has had in helping establish broad market visibility for us. As an early stage company in an emerging market, this is really important. They’ve developed extensive market exposure for us, and this is really no small task for a small, up-and-coming company like ours with a relatively limited marketing budget.  They seem to have far-reaching tentacles throughout the industry that they can pull at the right time, and that’s resulted in that well-timed interview that leads to the well-timed article that they ghost-wrote and pitched, which ends in a much appreciated inquiry from a prospective buyer. It’s all kind of one integrated stream.

Dodge: Where is integrated communications headed, and why do you think Dodge is positioned to succeed?

Murphy: My impression is, with what we’ve experienced so far with Dodge, is that they’re already well-positioned to succeed because what we’ve seen is really what I’d call their whole-market view coupled with a really effective team approach for developing and executing marketing communications plans. Plus, it’s really clear to us here that they are very client and market focused. I think from that perspective, they’re really well-positioned as a full service agency; that’s how we think of Dodge.

As for integrated communications, where it’s heading, I just expect things to get faster and evermore precise in terms of reaching a targeted market of prospective buyers with a differentiated message. You create a market event or something just happens, and you have to be ready to push the button for a cascading stream of relevant and highly-targeted communications quickly across many media streams. I think that’s the direction we’re going here with Dodge’s help.

Dodge: That’s all the questions we have for you. Is there anything else you might like to add, or a memory of working with Dodge that you’d like to share?

Murphy: They’ve been a consistent presence for us here. As a company and a team, we’ve really grown to rely on them to have our best interests at hand, and they’ve really helped us out in the market. We, both me and my team, find them to be highly professional and well-organized and on task.

In the latest installment of our 10^th anniversary blog series, a Dodge Communications senior interactive developer and producer is interviewed to discuss his experience with Dodge in the recent months. To view earlier installments please click here.

Steve Rigby is the senior interactive developer and producer. He has been with Dodge Communications for four months. He says that the friendly environment at Dodge makes it a great place to work. To listen to the interview, click on his picture or view the transcript below.

Dodge: Since you started working here, how has Dodge helped you develop as a professional web developer?

Rigby: Dodge has really helped me improve my skill sets in probably two major areas. For one, it’s really helped me expand my understanding of the web development process. While I understand the web development process really well, it’s really about understanding how to adapt to the process on-the- fly in order to provide improved customer service or the final quality of a product when delivering. It has really been a great learning experience for me.

In addition, I think the variety of work Dodge brings in helps keep me on my toes. I’m given new challenges and opportunities on a weekly basis that allow me to explore new techniques and keep up with the ever-changing environment that the industry presents.

Dodge: What role do you think design can have in the ever-changing healthcare technology space?

Rigby: I think design’s role has always been to problem-solve. Communicating complex messages is never an easy task, especially when we absorb information visually much differently than we absorb words that are spoken or that we read. The power of design is much stronger at communicating visually. When you put a design in front of someone with a strong message, you have a greater chance of capturing their attention than you would just having the message being spoken directly to them.

Dodge: If you could give advice to clients about picking designs for their integrated campaigns, what would it be?

Rigby: I think when it comes to picking designs, we need to ask ourselves: is this what I want or is this what my customers want? I think it’s in our nature to pick our personal taste. It’s even true for designers when we first enter the field of design, but through years of training and experience we come to learn it’s not really about us and what we do for design. It’s really about who we’re targeting with our design and the message. It’s not to say that we can’t put our own touches on design—that goes for the client or the designer—but it’s really what the target audience is interested in that we should be focused on. When it comes to picking colors or when it comes to picking the right font or the right layout, generally, designers will choose the best means to reach out to that audience based on the information we gathered from the communication brief and the client in the industry. That’s why it’s important to clearly define up-front who our audience is. Then, when we integrate the campaign, we have a better sense of reaching that market than we would picking things based on our own personal preference.

Dodge: What’s your favorite part about working at Dodge?

Rigby: I would have to say, my favorite part about working at Dodge is getting to work with the people who I work with everyday. Dodge has some of the most friendly and genuine people that I think I’ve really ever had the opportunity to work with, and that type of environment just makes it a fun environment to work in. It brings out the best in everybody, which I think brings up the quality of the work that we do.

Dodge: What’s one of the most memorable moments you’ve had at Dodge?

Rigby: I think the most memorable moment to me was when I first signed on and joined the company. We had just been awarded one of Atlanta’s best places to work in 2011, and it was a great feeling to know that the people who I work with, as I mentioned  earlier, are great to work with. When I heard this, it reaffirmed that I made the right choice to work with Dodge.  We all gathered in the conference room to celebrate the news—we popped some champagne and had strawberries dipped in chocolate, and everyone just had a good laugh. We got to toast to our continued success and keeping Dodge a great place to work.

In the latest installment of our 10^th anniversary blog series, a Dodge Communications client is interviewed to discuss his experience with Dodge over the years. To view earlier installments please click here.

Tim Kelly is vice president of Dialog Medical, a division of Standard Register Healthcare. Dialog Medical has been a Dodge Communications client for more than seven years. Click on the picture below to listen to the interview or view the transcript below.

Dodge: In those seven years, how has Dodge Communications helped with your integrated communications needs?

Kelly: Dodge has been amazing over the course of seven years. Dialog Medical started with a truly missionary product—something that was unknown to the market. We were automating a non-standard process and introducing a new approach to a traditional workflow. Dodge has been invaluable to our efforts to educate the market on our solution, and even more to the point, to help the market understand there is a need for the solution we offer.

Dodge: What are some of the major accomplishments you’ve been able to achieve with Dodge, and how have these accomplishments impacted your overall business?

Kelly: The great thing about Dodge is their ability to secure media placements. The last media report you folks generated listing the number of placements you’ve achieved over the past seven years was over 25 pages long. That’s not 25 individual placements, that’s 25 pages full of great journal placements. Probably one of the best was a Wall Street Journal piece, and as a matter of fact, Dodge won a Communicator Award for that particular placement. It has probably been our most-used piece in the last several years. That Wall Street Journal article has been employed by our sales force; it’s prominent on our website; and it’s really validated what we do. One of the amazing things about that piece is that it contained two pictures of our product in-use and three full screen shots —a placement that is just absolutely outstanding.

We are now in a stage where we are beginning to see the impact Dodge has had on our clients now that we’re doing interviews with those same clients who were at one point influenced by our media placements. Just by way of example, one client is a large healthcare system in the Chicago-area—an eight hospital system. When interviewed for and article, we asked them why they selected a Dialog Medical product, and we found out they did their research on the market, and they looked at the evidence—evidence that was mostly developed by Dodge Communications that ultimately influenced their decision to purchase our application. We also uncovered the same thing in an interview we just completed with a client in the Boston area. It’s exciting that Dodge has now come full circle, and we’re interviewing people who based their purchasing decision on evidence that Dodge had prepared in years past for us.

Dodge: Where do you think integrated communications is headed, and why do you think Dodge is positioned to succeed?

Kelly: I think Dodge is just doing an amazing job in the area of integrated communications. You folks, to your credit, are dragging me kicking and screaming to the area of Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and all of that. You can tell from the gray hair that I’m a little older, even though I have teenagers who try to educate me in the area of social media. Dodge is helping keep me stay current with my own kids.  Traditionalists like myself would love to stay in the print area, but Dodge has done a great job of expanding the scope of our marketing communication efforts. I use Dodge extensively for PR, for some marketing (we’ve done a few brochures), and a lot for web development. They’re helping with placements now, not only with web communications, but we’re also finding ourselves commenting on the postings of others in an effort to better communicate our message. Dodge has done a wonderful job on the social media side of things through picking up on trends, pointing us where we should go to comment on themes to better position ourselves as experts on a particular area. Their assistance with our website has been focused on search engine optimization and search engine marketing, and that’s been a huge help for us as well.

Dodge: That’s all the questions we have for you, is there anything else you might like to add, or do you have any fun memories of Dodge you’d like to share?

Kelly: I’ve worked with a number of PR firms over the years, and Dodge is just absolutely outstanding. We’ve been a Dodge client for seven years, and I don’t think in any previous existence did I ever spend seven straight years with any one PR firm or any one ad agency. Dodge just continues to add value; they continue to make us exceptional in the marketplace. One of the fun things personally, is you folks drive me; you folks make me a more effective marketing person by staying behind me and pushing me to constantly promote our solution. Your attentiveness to deadlines, your knowledge of the market, and your continual presenting to me of new promotional and communications opportunities that has helped make our company successful. Dialog Medical is now a division of Standard Register Healthcare and that has a lot to do with Dodge Communications.

In the latest installment of our 10^th anniversary blog series, a Dodge Communications client is interviewed to discuss her experience with Dodge over the years. To view earlier installments please click here.

Jennifer Kuesel is the director of marketing at NextGen Healthcare. She says that partnering with Dodge Communications has been fruitful and that Dodge has always been a great team player with the NextGen team. Click on the NextGen Healthcare logo below to listen to the interview or view the transcript below.

Dodge: How long has NextGen Healthcare been a Dodge client?

Kuesel: We’ve been working with Dodge for nine years.

Dodge: How has Dodge Communications helped with your integrated communications needs over the last nine years?

Kuesel: Dodge has been our dedicated PR partner and our go-to partner for integrated communications support over that time frame. We are a full service marketing organization here at NextGen, but oftentimes the volume of work that we have exceeds the internal capacity. We’re always looking for partners who can seamlessly fit in with our team and feel like they’re a part of our team. Dodge has always done a really good job with that for us. Additionally, what we find is that their expertise in integrated communications augments some of the skill sets that we don’t maybe have here on the team. They are able to take our goals and our objectives and help us formulate an action plan that goes beyond what I would view as standard marketing communications and help us develop a plan that really reaches both web, live events, printed collateral, and full service campaigns that help drive lead demand for us, which is typically one of the key functions we look for in integrated communications action plans.

Dodge: What are some of the major accomplishments you have been able to realize through your partnership with Dodge? How have these accomplishments impacted your overall business?

Kuesel: Well, as I mentioned, a lot of times what we’re looking for is lead gen and support with developing our funnel, so integrated communications is an integral part of that. A lot of times what we’ll do, is have a kick-off call with Dodge and work through what our specific objectives are—whether it’s in a specific market, or whether it’s a specific trade show we’re working on. I’ll give you an example:

Last year we worked on a brand awareness campaign in the areas of Maryland and St. Louis. They were important to us because we acquired a business unit in Maryland and the same was true of St. Louis. They were all for one business line but were two companies coming together to form that business line for us, so it was important to begin to be recognized in those markets as a key player. The business units we acquired were considered small market vendors. It really helped us make sure the market saw the companies we acquired as now part of the NextGen family, and it helped us expand our footprint to the national level we were looking for.

The campaign we put forth, we ran first in St. Louis, and then we copied the best practices from St. Louis to Maryland. It was a brand awareness campaign, but there was a full suite of objectives that were based in web and printed collateral as well as online and face-to-face. There was a live event to culminate the end of the campaign. We were working on brand as we went along, but a secondary objective was to create lead demands in those markets. Dodge was our partner for that and worked seamlessly with our internal department in both creative services, web services and marketing communications to put forth a campaign that supported those markets. They really took the lead on it and managed the project for us and helped us measure our objectives.

In fact, we submitted that along with Dodge as a candidate for the 17^th annual Communicator Awards, and it was named as an award of excellence for the campaign. It was a great partnership; it helped us drive the brand; it helped us meet our lead objectives; and it helped us get to a place where we were able to measure both the hard dollars and the soft dollar because brand tends to be more soft dollar.

Dodge: Thanks for sharing. That’s a really great example.

Dodge: Where do you think integrated communications is headed, and why do you think Dodge is positioned to succeed?

Kuesel: I think there has been a major shift in what integrated communications means in the last 12 to 18 months. Some of it has to do with social media; some of it has to do with one-to-one marketing advances that people are making out there in the market; and some of it has to do with the way the world does its research these days. I feel like one of the things that  in the last four or five years has really switched is that it used to be very much a direct mail world and integrated communications was a piece of that, and that’s really shifted . A lot of the communications in an integrated communication plan are now focused on web and social media and areas where previously it had been maybe not so—popular—to communicate via the web and email. Campaigns were driven in a much different way than they are today.

I think Dodge for us, specializes in the healthcare market, so they have that knowledge going in and they have a fairly robust bench. Each member of the team has a different skill set. You have experts in marketing communication; you have experts in PR; you have experts in web; you have experts in social media.  Many times an organization who is looking for a partner doesn’t have all those skill sets in-house, so it’s beneficial to have a partner who is dealing in those types of media everyday and has expertise right at the pulse of the industry.

Dodge: That’s all the questions we have for you. Is there anything you’d like to add to the conversation or say?

Kuesel: I think overall our partnership with Dodge has been a very fruitful one for both Dodge and NextGen, and I believe that true partnerships are born from that. I couldn’t have better things to say about our experiences with Dodge along the way the past nine years.

In the latest installment of our 10^th anniversary blog series, a Dodge Communications senior account manager is interviewed to discuss her experience with Dodge over the years. To view earlier installments please click here.

Kat McDavitt is senior account manager at Dodge Communications. She has been at Dodge for a year and a half and says that having a great group of supportive colleagues is one of her favorite parts of her job. Click on the picture below to listen to the interview or view the transcript below.

Dodge: How has Dodge helped you develop as a professional communicator?

McDavitt: I think it’s helped me most by being able to work on a team. In my previous position I was the sole PR practitioner at a corporate firm, and there was no one to bounce ideas off of. There was no one to get a second opinion from, so it’s been really great to have a group of really supportive colleagues who go out of their way to give you good advice.

Dodge: What role do you think Dodge has in the ever-changing healthcare technology industry?

McDavitt: I think Dodge has a great opportunity to cut through a lot of the noise that is out there right now, especially with healthcare reform and a lot of changing rules and deadlines. There’s a lot of uncertainty and chaos, so I think we have a great opportunity to tell the story of the companies who might not have the biggest, baddest budgets, but the companies that might have really great benefits to offer and really great solutions.

Dodge: What do you think is the most important part of working with clients to create integrated communications campaigns?

McDavitt: I think the most important things to consider when putting together an integrated marketing campaign is to set really clear expectations upfront and to define clear objectives. I think if you skip ahead to the fun stuff and skip the foundation, I think you may be disappointed in the end. It’s very important to take time at the beginning of a campaign and set everything up right.

Dodge: What’s your favorite part about working for Dodge?

McDavitt: My favorite part about working at Dodge is probably my first answer—that you get to work with a fun team and a fun group of people. I’ve made a lot of good friends here and a lot of good professional relationships as well.

Dodge: What are some of the memorable moments you’ve had here at Dodge?

McDavitt: On a professional level, I think one of the best experiences I’ve had so far is getting to go the HIMSS conference this past year. It was great to go to one of the biggest industry events we have here. To have the chance to see our clients in a different environment and face-to-face makes it a very interesting place to be. On a personal level, I really loved the Dodge WhirleyBall competition last year. That was a lot of fun!

Two years ago, many of us in healthcare IT were wowed by the creativity found in Ross Martin’s three part “interoperetta.” The video summed up the complexities of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act in just under four minutes through the lyrical mastermix. Check out our blog post “Singing the praises of the HITECH Act” to see the video if you happened to miss it.

While HITECH was the word on the street in 2009, Ross Martin is back again with yet another entertaining and creative video… this time with an edge! For 2011, Martin has taken on Meaningful Use, through his “Meaningful Yoose Rap” and we certainly couldn’t pass up the opportunity to share his unique lessons on how physicians can get yo’ 44 g’s for doing meaning yoose!

Atlanta is home to two of our favorite things: HIMSS10 and great hamburgers! Yes, you can learn about the future of healthcare and enjoy delicious beef patties, all in the same day. Some of the tastiest options available are described in our latest post on the Healthcare IT News Destination HIMSS10 blog. From unique locations like Ann’s Snack Bar to living history at The Varsity to creative versions available at Flip Burger Boutique and The Vortex Bar and Grill, there are many ways for you to get your meat on (or its vegetarian equivalent). Liberal use of your napkin is advised.

While we sing the praises of social media, such as Twitter, blogs and LinkedIn, healthcare IT companies need much more to succeed. For example, social media doesn’t replace a marketing strategy, nor does it substitute for public relations efforts. And taking on a social media campaign is not a short-term strategy that should be entered into lightly. You need buy-in, a realistic budget and a dedicated team, whether it’s internal or your PR agency, to man the effort and ensure it’s given the resources required to actually accomplish your short- and long-term goals.

Check out this article from AdAge that further expounds upon these points and appropriately sets social media expectations.

Huh? It may sound ridiculous, but it illustrates one of the most significant marketing and PR challenges facing healthcare IT companies today. Many innovative healthcare companies are pioneering products and services that are ahead of the market—helping improve patient safety, enabling better care delivery or delivering greater efficiencies to business operations. Yet your prospect often doesn’t even realize they HAVE the pain your product sets out to ease. And if they do recognize the pain, they probably have no clue that a product exists that can ease that pain. And if, miraculously, they DO know that such a product exists, it’s highly unlikely that they know that it’s YOUR company that has the best product available.

Until your market acknowledges the need for your offering, it’s futile to plaster the healthcare equivalent of “safe” or “best available” all over your ads, collateral and trade show exhibit.

If you fall into the “ahead of the market” category, here are three communication tips to deliver compelling messages and maximize the chance your market will understand that you exist, you can ease their pain, and you’re the best at what you do.

1. Get out of the inner circle:
   The fastest way to see if your messages resonate is to test them on someone who is a total stranger to the industry. A spouse, for example. Or a friend. Take a minute to deliver your 60 second elevator pitch (what’s an elevator pitch?) and see if they understand what it is you do and why it should make any difference. You’ll probably find that there is significant jargon in your pitch that others don’t understand. (ask about “interoperability,” “SaaS,” or even “portal.”) And it’s not just jargon. We assume that most people are familiar with the same things we are. (Case in point: This Ingenix study shows that fewer than HALF of physicians are familiar with ARRA and the impact it will have on their practices. Wouldn’t you have thought that number would be more like 100% given the attention we’ve all paid it over the last year?) Break down your pitch so it’s understandable by anyone.
2. Adjust on the fly:
   You don’t want to talk over their heads, but you don’t want to talk down to them. How can you get the right level, often when you don’t even know the audience’s level of understanding? An effective communications technique is assume-they-know-but-explain-anyway. “You probably know a lot about interoperability—where disparate computers communicate and share information with other computers—right, Mr. Prospect?” It’s a win-win technique. If they already know, you’re covered. If they don’t, they can save the embarrassment by saying they know now that you’ve helped them with a definition.
   Another gauging technique is to ask. What a concept. “Before I get into some of the technical details of our service, I want to get an undertstanding of how familiar you are with these technologies.” They’ll help you level-set the subsequent portion of the presentation so that you’re presenting at just the right level.
3. Category first. Benefits second.
   Walk around a tradeshow floor or peruse home pages of vendor sites and you’ll be surprised how often you will have no idea what companies do. There’s often a focus on “save money, reduce costs, improve efficiency” without any mention of how. Yet without an understanding of what category you’re in, (are you a consulting organization or a software developer? A product company or a services company?) benefits like these will not resonate with the buyer. They’ll walk on by without your brand having made an impression in their mind. Let the market know who you are first. Then, tell them why that’s important to them.We hear it all the time. “Our product is unique.” “No-one does what we do.” “We don’t really fit into a category.” “Our category is new.” “We’re so different than the category the market wants to put us in.”
   Let’s assume all that is true. You still need to make the potential buyer aware of what you do. Take the car example. A crossover is still a car, even though it’s something more/different/special. So, the communications technique used is this: “You’re familiar with a car, right? Well, the crossover I’d like to sell you starts with that concept, and from there it’s more/different/special.” Same idea selling technology to the healthcare industry. The audience needs to understand where you’re starting from in order to understand what you have. It’s like, “You’re familiar with a consultant, right? Well, we’re like that except we’re more/different/special. Or, “You’re familiar with how hospitals are using the Internet to help communicate with others? Take that idea and add this new, new thing.” Letting the audience have a baseline of understanding from which to start will take you a long way towards having them understand your offering.

There is a lot of noise out there. It’s hard for the market to understand it all—all the opportunities available to them. The harder you work at keeping your message simple, clear, understandable and relevant, the quicker you’ll achieve the elevated levels of brand awareness that translate to company growth.

Twitter is rapidly becoming an everyday tool for all businesses, including healthcare IT companies. As this social network becomes more entrenched in the marketing and PR world, people need to understand ways to successfully use Twitter to promote their company or brand. After finding ways to attract fellow Tweeters to follow an account, people running the page need to know how keep people from unfollowing that same micro-blog. Below are some reasons why people stop following other Tweeters and ways to avoid this from happening:

1. You share too much information: Although the main question Twitter poses is “what you are doing,” most people do not care if you are brushing your teeth or sitting on the porch. Twitter is meant to start a conversation, and the only way that you can do that is by providing valuable information to your followers.
2. You are constantly updating your status: Similar to reason number one, constantly updating your status on Twitter will annoy followers and they will not be able to see what the other Twitter accounts have to say. Unless you are in the middle of a major crisis or an interesting event, avoid repeated back-to-back tweets.
3. You refuse to post a picture or profile information: This is important because there are hundreds of John Smith’s out there – make sure that people can differentiate you from everyone else with the same name. If you provide clues about who you are and your interests, you will be able to attract appropriate Tweeters from the beginning and they will know what to expect from you in the future.
4. You tweet about things that you do not care about: Retweeting a friend or associate may seem like a great way to get on their good side, but could cause trouble for you. If your followers want to engage you in a conversation on the topic, you will lose credibility when you can’t or won’t discuss the topic. Stick to topics that you know about and are willing to discuss.
5. You inappropriately tweet about politics or controversial issues: If you happen to be Don Imus or Rush Limbaugh, who are paid to be controversial, you can tweet about anything you like regardless of who you insult. Otherwise, discussing these topics will probably offend at least one of your followers. Even on Twitter, the age old rule of not discussing politics, money or religion with people you don’t know is still a good one to live by.
6. You belittle people or places, even though they are following you: Just ask James Andrews how negatively tweeting about Memphis worked for him. Even though the PR practitioner apologized and explained his comments about the city, the comments are still available on the Internet and the event shows how enraged people can become by a tweet that is disparaging to any part of their life.
7. You are overly passionate about your favorite company, team or brand: Don’t shove your passions down everyone’s throats. Like reason number one that people stop following you, you need to know and understand that there should be a balance on the social network. Twitter is about your personality and the information that you can share. Unless you are part of the team or organization, try to only tweet about your favorite things every once in a while. However, if you have to tweet about your passions, you can set up a separate account for this type of tweeting and make sure that you only have followers that want to receive your impassioned messages.
8. You refuse to show any personality: Once again, you have to strike a balance. Twitter may be a professional outlet for you, but you can show some personality. Tweeting about an interesting article you just read or how excited you are about an upcoming event will add some dimension to your online presence and will help followers connect with you.
9. You are always negative: Do you want to be friends with someone who only spouts out negative ideas or thoughts? Constant negativity is not only bad for your health, but also for your networking relationships. This practice could earn you a reputation of never being happy or satisfied.
10. You are afraid to tweet: Everyone has that follower that updates their Twitter page once a month – that is not the point of Twitter. The point is to start and continue a conversation. If you are not tweeting on a regular basis, no one will want to continue that conversation with you.

Are there any reasons why you stop following people on Twitter? How do you avoid losing followers on the micro-blogging site?