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.

As technology evolves daily, it seems that the jargon used to reference the industry changes just as frequently too. You probably don’t hear people around the office referencing dial-up Internet, beepers or floppy discs, since they have all been replaced by terms such as DSL, iPhone and flash drives.

Business Week has put together a humorous article – ‘12 Words You Can Never Say in the Office,’ – a refreshing read for anyone who wants to make sure they are up to date on the latest expressions for blogging (microblogging or Twitter) or how to refer to ‘surfing the Web’ (Google). This article is also useful for the 20-somethings in the office who may not always understand what their more experienced co-workers are talking about when they start mentioning ‘long-distance calls.’

Sidewiki – Google’s latest plug-in which allows Web site visitors to add commentary and notes to any Web page with this feature enabled.

Although these comments are largely uncontrolled and unmonitored, Google has built in a few features help users and Webmasters, including:

• More relevant comments are brought to the top of the page, based on an algorithm which factors in previous posts by the commenter, account feedback from the manager of the page and other indicators that Google has developed over the years.
• Users can rank the usefulness of the comments, and report any abuse or misuse of the comments feature.

As Sidewiki becomes more prevalent on the Internet, marketers will be able to use it to improve search engine ranking and to alter Web site content to fit their users’ needs and demands more appropriately.

With an ever increasing quantity of healthcare blogs, Web sites and other digital venues, do you ever wonder if this media growth translates to more news or just better distribution of stories already generated by the mainstream press? Or if commenting on an article actually triggers more coverage on a topic?

If so, you’re not alone. A recent New York Times article explains how the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard pondered the same questions before launching Media Cloud, a quantitative approach to tracking news coverage so users can determine what topics are or aren’t being covered, who’s driving the agenda, what keeps a story in the news and much more.

While the site is still under development, Media Cloud offers a preview of where media coverage tracking and analysis is headed in the future. Unlike a clipping service which can only tell you where a company or product name gets mentioned, Media Cloud’s data-driven approach is a significant step toward understanding how company-related news is being generated within the context of other news and overarching industry trends.

Having access to this type of information enables PR professionals to more effectively secure the desired level of media coverage for their clients because they know not only what makes news, but also how stories are evolving in today’s constantly changing media landscape, from who’s shaping the dialogue to what the competition has to say about it. As Media Cloud continues to expand its offering, it will be interesting to see how this tool might revolutionize the way that companies track, measure and analyze the impact of their media coverage so they can better shape their message to the market.

When it comes to advertising, healthcare marketers have numerous options for spending their ad dollars, from print venues and banner ads to moving billboards and pay-per-click promotions. Ever wonder where the future is headed? Despite numerous predictions that print media is dying and will be replaced by the Web, the future is hardly that clear cut.

A recent New York Times article describes the rise and fall of one of print media’s latest experiments, The Printed Blog, which took free content and images from blogs, published them and handed out the newspapers at train stations and other venues complete with ads from local businesses. The venture ultimately failed, namely because it faced the same challenges that the rest of the industry is grappling with: as more readers migrate online and get their news for free, advertisers fail to follow suit.

Why? Regardless of a Web site’s quality or the traffic it generates, advertisers just don’t hand over as much cash for an online ad as a print one. One obstacle to the growth of online advertising may be the way the ads are measured. While click through rates were once praised for finally delivering quantifiable metrics to advertisers, many are left wondering if these measures are really the best gauge of an ad’s success. Just consider how many online ads you notice in a day and then think about how many you actually clicked on (or meant to click on).

In fact, the latest DoubleClick research report, 2008 Year-in-Review Benchmarks, indicates that the average click through rate for image, Flash and rich media campaigns across all verticals is 0.10% − hardly a strong return on investment. Ads specific to technology and wellness fared only slightly better at 0.11% and 0.13% respectively.

The bottom line is that a click is not necessarily an indication of a buyer’s interest in a product − it may just reflect an interest in the ad itself. It’s kind of like that funny television ad that gets everyone talking about the punch line but does little to actually promote the product. And, what if anything, do click through rates tell you about the value that an online ad might contribute to your overall brand?

Of course, there is always the possibility that our continuous access to news and all things Internet does not signal an end to print media, but rather a rebirth that allows these outlets to reinvent themselves as something much more relevant. Look at the recent revamp of Newsweek. By acknowledging that it will never win at being the timeliest source of news, the magazine is now focusing more on news analysis and insight rather than just delivering the facts you already read days ago. Only time will tell whether this strategy will pay off, but in the meantime, it is making strides at keeping print media − and print advertising − pertinent to the way we live our everyday lives.

It was only a decade ago that technology insiders prophesized a change in the way that the Internet would be used. Darcy Dinucci’s 1999 article, “Fragmented Future,” predicted the emergence of an interactive Internet, where users would not just read published material, but would contribute to the content of the site. Deemed Web 2.0, these interactive sites have helped shape the Internet over the last few years. Millions of people now share content worldwide through Facebook; students conduct research for term papers through Wikis written by other people; and millions joined in Ashton Kutcher’s race to one million followers on Twitter – and then thousands watched as Kutcher proceeded to “ding dong ditch” Ted Turner live on Ustream, CNN and other Internet streaming sites.

Despite the popularity of Web 2.0, the predictions of monetary gains that would dwarf Amazon and Yahoo never materialized. However, the rapid expansion of Web 2.0 through social media sites such as Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn has led those same insiders to predict the Internet’s evolution to Web 3.0 – which will take the Internet to another level for users and supposedly help those operating the Web sites to make a significant amount of money in the process. So what is Web 3.0 and how will it impact healthcare marketing, communications and advertising?

Defining Web 3.0. (aka “The Semantic Web”)

While Web 2.0 is characterized by its efforts to make the Internet easier to navigate and its focus on social interactions, Web 3.0 will move us from present-day “clunkier” searching to richer URL structure with a greater depth of information and improved search results. Already, Bing – Microsoft’s latest search engine – is billing itself as “the cure for search overload” and is claiming that it will help reduce the irrelevant and random search results. Web 3.0 search engines promise pinpoint precision in their results, just as Bing guarantees.

Web 3.0 will impact the way that healthcare companies market themselves online and the amount of time companies put into their Web site. As Web 3.0 gains ground with users, healthcare companies will have to increase their efforts to keep their Web sites relevant. Since the Semantic Web will incorporate logic and syntax, page designers and copy writers will have to make sure that any and all information users need is incorporated into the Web site so that it will show up in search results.

What benefits will Web 3.0 bring?

Web 3.0 will:

• Allow us to search using complex sentences. In the new Web 3.0 protocol, users will be able to type the sentence “I want to find a PR firm that specializes in healthcare” into a search engine, and if we have done our job well, Dodge Communications’ Web site will be the first result.
• Help us reap more relevant search results. As you use a Web 3.0 browser, it will get to know you the way a personal assistant might. Over time, your browser should be able to respond with fair logic and accuracy to questions like, “What should I have for breakfast?”
• Bring the individualization of TiVo and Pandora to the entire Internet. Imagine a world where the Web understands you. This is 3.0 – the ultimate individualized intelligent Internet, where your personal preferences and tastes dictate what information is shown.

How should we prepare?

Web 3.0 will mean that healthcare marketers and advertisers will be required to think of new ways to build levels of information into Web sites and will force sites to create connectivity in the information so that search engines stream relevant sites to users.

For healthcare marketers and public relations professionals, this new wave of the Internet will mean staying responsive to the environment, even as Web 3.0 continues to be defined. It will demand that Web site owners experiment with ways to offer portals of accessibility to viewers who are ultimately seeking specific information, which is individually tailored for their view of the world and of the Web.

Unsatisfied with Google’s seemingly widespread domination of all things online, Microsoft reloads with Bing, adding to an already saturated market of search engines. Bing is the replacement search engine for Live Search (also formerly known as Windows Live Search or MSN Search) and the latest effort from Microsoft to compete with tech rival, Google. Microsoft’s many search engine versions never really gained ground on Google, occupying only a relatively small percentage of its market share, as shown in recent comScore stats – likely due to its comparatively lackluster and detached SERPs or search engine results pages. But Bing is a horse of a different color and is on the cusp of becoming a definite game-changer in the ways we conduct Internet searches. The draw for Google has always been the ease of use and instantaneous access to relevant Web pages, blogs, images, videos, among anything else that we may be seeking. Bing brings all of this and quite possibly more with the attractive interface and features, “decision-making” predictive results, and (most-importantly) relevant and organized interactive search engine results. Kudos to Microsoft for seeming to finally getting it right.

Much debate and discussion has ensued in recent weeks on Bing and what it means for Web searching, and will likely continue as everyone grasps the new tool and makes their own judgments on the question “Is Bing the new Google?” From what I’ve seen, it’s not likely that Bing will surpass Google in dominance anytime soon. After all, Google is so imprinted into our systems and our brains, “google” even became a verb in 2006! A majority of Web users turn to Google first when searching, and it will take some incredible features and far-better search results for the world to all make the switch to Bing. But what Bing does bring is a healthy dose of competition and a dependable alternative to Google. This will obviously force both companies to continue to improve in order to thrive in the market, which is definitely a good thing for users of either engine. But if Bing continues to generate interest and gains more market share as indicated by additional comScore stats, in time we might see a more-pronounced switch of key players. 

Now what does this all mean for those of us in healthcare? Over the next few weeks, we’ll be analyzing this technology and sharing important information that is relevant to our industry. Look for our upcoming blog posts exploring the differences between the search engines, how Bing impacts your company’s Web presence and what changes you’ll need to make in your search engine marketing efforts. In the meantime, check out the new tool as a consumer to determine whether you think it’s worth the switch. If you still can’t decide, there’s already a new application that allows you to search and see results from both engines side-by-side so you can compare results between the two. You may be discovering a whole new way to google!

Susan Carr, editor and associate publisher of Patient Safety & Quality Healthcare, takes some time to describe the new, active, public role she now plays with readers.

It’s no longer possible to sit quietly on the sidelines.

My role as editor of a magazine comprised of articles written by experts is consistent with my natural inclination to work quietly behind the scenes. I write a brief editorial for each of our bimonthly issues and speak occasionally at conferences, but I spend most of my time shining a light on the work of others. That is changing. Any self-respecting newspaper or magazine—including mine—now offers interactive digital formats, social media and blogs with commenting. I have a new, active, public role to play with our readers, and I hope they will reciprocate by using the interactive tools we provide and become more invested in the publication. If we’re successful, we’ll develop a sense of community among readers who share their ideas online.

These are big changes for me and my colleagues at Lionheart Publishing, but I sense they represent only a modest example of a much larger trend. There are many examples of active participation replacing passive roles, enabled by the use of new tools and access to information through the Internet. Some institutions and professions are experiencing significant disruption of traditional roles. I attended two events recently that provide some examples.

In April, I attended the “Health 2.0 Meets Ix” conference in Boston, which focused on the use of online search and tools (Health 2.0) and supplying patients with timely and appropriate healthcare information (IX or Information Therapy). In the central conference hall, large screens displayed Twitter messages from the audience in real time during presentations. It sounds rude, but I’m not aware anyone was offended. The audience was arguably more engaged than in conferences where power naps are common following lunch. I didn’t see any inappropriate remarks. Had there been any, they would have been fairly easy to attribute and, I doubt would have been tolerated for long in this feisty but respectful group. In Twitter and blog reporting that occurred after the conference, there was consensus that the unofficial, overriding theme of the event was Participatory Medicine. The definition of that term is still evolving, but it generally refers to patients taking a more active role regarding their medical records, research and decision-making. The Internet equips patients with information and support as they attempt to forge new kinds of relationships with their physicians. Although the connections between readers and magazines is trivial compared to the patient-physician relationship, I see similarities in the shift of power and control, as well as related use of online tools: social networking, information exchange and search.

Another example of this new wave of participation is a type kind of conference called a BarCamp or, in the case of one I attended the day before “Health 2.0 Meets Ix,” a HealthCamp. It seems appropriate to turn to Wikipedia for a definition:

BarCamp is an international network of user-generated conferences — open, participatory workshop-events, whose content is provided by participants. The first BarCamps focused on early-stage web applications, and related open source technologies, social protocols, and open data formats. The format has also been used for a variety of other topics, including public transit, healthcare, and political organizing.

Since August 2005, BarCamps have been held in more than 350 cities throughout the world.

More than 100 people registered for HealthCamp Boston in April. Most but not all of us also attended Health 2.0/Ix the following day. For most, this was our first HealthCamp experience. A handful of volunteer organizers and a few significant corporate partners provided a comfortable facility, ample food, and just enough structure to ensure that the day would run smoothly. The workshop had no scheduled agenda or speakers. We spent the first hour talking, drinking coffee, and milling around in front of a grid representing hours in the day, which was mounted on on the wall. Gradually individuals came forward to fill in the grid with pieces of paper on which they had written topics they were willing to explore as leaders of groups. Some had come with prepared presentations, but most sessions were spontaneous and unscripted. All featured lively debate and conversation. I was in a room where two sessions had claimed the same time slot. One leader introduced his topic and started a conversation in workshop style. When discussion headed in a direction related to the second leader’s topic, the first leader checked with everyone and gracefully handed off responsibility for leading the discussion. There’s an appealing efficiency to the user-generated format.

I attend numerous healthcare conferences each year and enjoy them, although I often wish there were more opportunity to hear from people in the audience. HealthCamp Boston may have really spoiled me. I intend to participate more actively and will watch for evidence that the participatory model is influencing traditional approaches to conferences and other things. In the spirit of HealthCamp, Participatory Medicine, and PSQH’s new Web site, despite my natural reticence, I won’t just be watching from the sidelines.