Mobile Marketing’s Place within the Healthcare Industry

September 13, 2011 Leave a Comment

The evolution of mobile technology within the healthcare industry is expanding quickly. This means that mobile marketing within the healthcare industry will be growing just as quickly (as regulations allow), which means healthcare marketers are starting to adapt their current knowledge base to merge into this growing field.

Industry trade publications are full of press releases and commentary on new “apps” that are being launched, all tailored to hit a specific niche within healthcare market. At the same time, when visiting our healthcare and pharma clients throughout the country, rarely does a meeting or presentation go by without the question of mobile coming up.

However, mobile marketing isn’t something a company should just jump into. Strategic planning is necessary. One company that has caught our eye for the right reasons is Applico, a mobile application design company with clients ranging from Men’s Health Magaine to General Motors. Their strategy when it comes to companies investing dollars into mobile, is practical and appropriate, especially based on where it sits in the marketing spectrum:

Some business models better lend themselves to certain mobile channels than others:

  • Once you establish what your company seeks to achieve from its mobile strategy, you can match the business model with the most suitable mobile channel. If you want to generate revenue via a subscription or fees, mobile applications may be the best fit. If you want to keep your customers updated with company information and products, a mobile website which utilizes push notifications may give you the brand awareness you want.

Make sure your mobile channel lets you leverage the right distribution and marketing opportunities:

  • Increase the effectiveness of your mobile campaign launch by integrating it with your other marketing campaigns on other mediums. Remember when you market any new app that iPhone applications can only be downloaded via the Apple App Store whereas Android and BlackBerry applications can be downloaded via their manufacturer application stores, third-party application stores, and the mobile browser.

While developing a mobile strategy, you should take into account different aspects of mobile:

  • One of the beautiful things about a mobile application is that it cuts through the arbitrary barriers and filters people create in their lives. You get past the email inbox, the millions of other websites the user could visit, and the hundreds of other ads fighting for the user’s attention. Be sure to make the most of the opportunity.

Keeping Your Users:

  • The key to a successful mobile application is to keep your users engaged. As with every other service or product, you need to keep it fresh in people’s minds. If you don’t provide users with a reason to keep coming back to your application, they will delete it. And, once they delete your application, users will rarely re-download it, even if it’s updated.

To learn more about Applico, including their business, best practices and their view of the future of mobile marketing, register to attend their presentation, hosted by the Philadelphia Direct Marketing Association.

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Direct Choice Inc. is a full-service direct marketing agency that has worked with national and regional brands in a wide variety of vertical markets. In addition to this blog, you can also find us on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn.

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Healthcare Marketing in the Year 2020: What will it look like?

September 6, 2011 Leave a Comment

Just for fun—and because prognosticating is part of what we do as marketers—we have given some thought to the year 2020, just nine scant years from now, and how diabetes patients, pharma brands, professionals and pharmacists will interact. During our brainstorm in preparation for this post, some of our thoughts were based on our current reality, while others were more to make us all go “Hmmm.”

  • For starters, we foresee a true closed-loop of fewer players. Specifically, manufacturers will be in the direct-to-consumer (DTC) distribution game, encouraging the bypassing of pharmacies as the middlemen. The reason being that manufacturers will be able to control brand preference and churn with enhanced direct access to patient data.
  • Medically speaking, our belief is that approximately half of diabetes patient consumers will have elected implanted monitoring/insulin delivery devices, which can provide automatic data feedback to manufacturers and physicians. Think insulin pumps on steroids.
  • In “Would you like insulin along with your Diet Coke?” mode, we believe in the rise of the machines……the VENDING machines, that is. With millions more diagnosed with diabetes, pharma brands will be omnipresent with products available in vending machines—enabled by customer-centric swipe cards. Out of product? Simply swipe your insurance − and physician−data-loaded-via-mag-strip card at the machine, and you will be back in glycemic control wherever you happen to be.
  • Manufacturers will definitely be in the emotional support business as well, having figured out the battleground for diabetes compliance is in the mind of each patient. Customized patient portals, digitized messaging for each patient based on disease state…it will all be coming from the manufacturer to keep the patient on track. Imagine holographic Patient Support Representatives available for support/service on voice command in their homes, next-generation tablets, phones, vehicles, etc. (Basically, all the most intriguing parts of the Tom Cruise film Minority Report….with a medical twist is what we are thinking).
  • Armed with predictive behavior data, manufacturers can perform churn-prevention interventions based on mood perception devices that have been authorized by patients. This patient is about to eat a gallon of Häagen-Dasz? Bingo, they receive a helpful text (or a targeted email message, or something more technologically savvy) about refrigerator resistance.

All this means is there will be an ongoing, tight communication loop between patient/customer and manufacturer, and tying up this close-knit “Circle of Care” will be the physicians, who will also have a tight loop of communication with their own manufacturer reps in the same way the patients do.

Sci-fi stuff? Maybe, maybe not. I guess we will see in nine years.

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Direct Choice Inc. is a full-service direct marketing agency that has worked with national and regional brands in a wide variety of vertical markets. In addition to this blog, you can also find us on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn.

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Healthcare for Young Adults

August 16, 2011 Leave a Comment

Like so many other things, young adults today have their own approach to healthcare. They borrow prescription drugs from friends, self-diagnose, stretch meds out and go to extremes to avoid traditional medical care – even when faced with broken bones – all (or at least partially) due to the high cost of health insurance.

These young invincibles— uninsured people in their 20s who either feel invulnerable or can’t afford healthcare coverage—are the nation’s largest group of uninsured, numbering 20.5 million in 2009, or 45 percent according to the Commonwealth Fund, a nonprofit research group in New York. Many are too old at 26 or above to be on parents’ plans, unemployed, or part-time employed without health insurance coverage.

“For a lot of people, it’s a choice between being able to survive…and getting health insurance,” said one young woman. “There was no way that I could pay my rent, buy insurance and eat.”

Others, unable to justify the expense of insurance, play doctor using online resources such as WebMD. Internet diagnoses can lead to mistakes, of course, followed by complications if self-treatment with expired or wrong “borrowed” medications are taken as a result. Trading prescriptions has become an underground black market among the uninsured. For example, one 28-year-old, describes getting the Ritalin she needed for her ADHD from a sympathetic doctor who has seen her diagnosis.

Then there are those who feel invincible or unbreakable. “I’m young, I’m careful, even when I snowboard,” says one 29-year-old athlete with no insurance. “I’ve hit a couple trees, but so far so good.”

The ramifications for the health insurance industry are rife. Opportunities to serve this underserved population—who essentially would largely choose to be insured if they could afford it—should be seized by healthcare insurance organizations nimble and flexible enough to recognize the lifetime customer value of coming to the rescue of this population.

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Direct Choice Inc. is a full-service direct marketing agency that has worked with national and regional brands in a wide variety of vertical markets. In addition to this blog, you can also find us on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn.

Filed under Pharma Marketing Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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