Are you using Emotional Intelligence in your marketing?

By: Mike Milligan, President Legato Marketing and Communications

Eighty-eight percent of healthcare executives say, “It’s critically important to incorporate emotions into hospital marketing and advertising messaging.” That’s according to a 2010 survey commissioned by KemperConnect on The Use of Emotions in Advertising.

Yet the same survey indicates many healthcare leaders take a “do as I say, not as I do” approach to emotional marketing:

• Only 37% of executives have a formal process for unearthing insights about emotions their patients/other constituents have towards their hospital.
• Over 50% of hospitals use non-emotional formalized statistical quantitative studies or surveys.
• Only about 30% use focus groups or are engaging one-on-one with patients and other constituents in their natural environment to learn about how they feel about hospital services, personnel, and the overall environment and offering.
• 76% of administrators state that creating a long-term emotional connection is more important to them than convincing a patient to “buy now.”
• 83% of all respondents say they are using testimonial advertising in their marketing and advertising campaigns.

Based on these facts, it appears that one critical component of the Emotional Intelligence process is missing – that being “intelligence.”

Emotional Intelligence in marketing describes an organization’s ability to tune into what’s really meaningful by listening, coaching, validating and managing emotions. Advertising can then be developed to empathetically reach out and emotionally connect consumers with the organization.

For example, patients want to know that you’ll be empathetic to their needs and do whatever you can to make them feel comfortable. Part of that comfort level comes from an emotional bond.

Yet the KemperConnect survey indicates that only 31% of respondents are aware of the practice of Emotional Intelligence, and only 26% are using it. This indicates an opportunity for a majority of hospital administrators and marketing professionals to push themselves and/or their agencies to develop more holistic approaches to identifying and translating consumer emotions.

That’s not to say there isn’t a time and a place for advertising your all-new Computed Tomography Imaging System. These types of ads play an important role in your marketing strategy. But first things first. Once you’ve gained consumers’ trust and instilled other positive emotions about your hospital then – and only then – can you effectively promote the technical aspects and offerings of your hospital.

Why Lawyers Should Stay Away From PR – Lessons learned from the Spirit Airlines failure

By: Mike Milligan, President Legato Marketing and Communications

Spirit, of course, is the airline criticized in the media for refusing a dying Vietnam veteran a $197 ticket refund because his doctor told him not to fly. The 76-year-old esophageal cancer sufferer, Jerry Meekins, bought a ticket on Spirit to visit his daughter– perhaps the last flight of his life.

But then his doctor cancelled the trip. And, with its lawyer’s savvy PR advice, Spirit refused to refund the price of the ticket.

That’s when Mr. Meekins went public. And incredulously so, Spirit CEO Ben Baldanza turned to his lawyers instead of consulting with his PR professionals.  After all, we understand how emphatic lawyers can be, and how concerned they are with protecting the image and brand of a company.

Likely, these communications gurus offered the predictable advice: “Spirit has a non-refundable ticket policy. Refunding Mr. Meekins’ ticket would set a dangerous precedent. He should have bought flight insurance.”

Equally predicable, Spirit’s “compassionate” response drew immediate public condemnation from just about everybody, resulting in the launch of the increasingly popular Boycott Spirit Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/Boycottspirit

Houston, we have a problem.

Lawyers and public relations professionals often find themselves at odds with one another.  And in all seriousness, we need attorneys – but ones who can balance the letter of the law with common sense.

While lawyers advise CEOs to take actions that protect the company in a court of law, public relations counselors recommend actions to protect the company in the court of public opinion.

There are many solutions to this Spirit issue, even at this late stage.  But the point is that PR professionals have a responsibility here too.  Whether you’re in the airline industry, in health care, or manufacturing – you need to work in advance of a crisis by building a common understanding within your c-suite of how such situations should be handled.  And this advance work must include the involvement of your legal team, not only to anticipate various situations, but to build a general consensus on next steps.

Believe me, from someone who has managed various crises in his career, it’s quite a luxury to think in advance of the obvious emotion of being embroiled in the heat of a crisis.

Want to learn more about effective crisis management? Email me at mikem@golegato.com and I will send you a copy of “Preparing for a crisis before it happens.”

I encourage you to combine these tips with the learnings of the Spirit Airlines PR failure, and apply them to your situation within your hospital, clinic or other business.

Hopefully, you’ll never need to implement your plan.  But trust me, chances are, you will.

Spirit Airline PR Failure

The Written Patient Testimonial: taking it from skim-worthy to a MUST READ

By: Nicole Hangartner, Account Executive Legato Marketing and Communications

What makes a great story? A thrilling adventure? Fascinating characters?

You may look at these two factors and think, “There is no way a story about hearing aids can have these.”

This presents one of the unique challenges of writing for healthcare organizations – turning ho-hum topics into attention-holding stories. But there are ways to make joint replacements, CT scans and surgery interesting.

All you have to do is… Show the patient’s health journey (the thrilling adventure) and bring out the patient’s personality (the fascinating characters).

As I’ve made my way through two client publications since starting in healthcare marketing, I’ve formulated a handful of tricks (with the help of Legato’s experienced team) to make my patient testimonials informational AND exciting.

5 Tips to Tell Rousing Patient Stories

1. Uncover the patient’s personality and demonstrate it through the story. This will make the article fun to read and relatable. It takes a health story from clinical to personal.

2. Ask about things that may seem unrelated to a patient’s health story. Things like kids, family, work and hobbies are great icebreaker topics because they are familiar and important to the patient. Plus they make excellent leads!

Example – One of my patient testimonials worked at a casino, so my lead was “she may work at a casino, but she doesn’t gamble with her health.”

3. Be casual and conversational in your writing. Start sentences with “and” or “but.” And don’t be afraid of “you.” Doing so prevents your story from getting stiff and formal.

4. Use subheads as transitions. Subheads are a perfect way to break up blocks of copy and move the story forward. Find the theme of each section and use it as the subhead.

5. Write short paragraphs and use lists, bullet points and numbers. These elements make a story easy to read. Numbered or bulleted lists also allow you to express a lot of information in a smaller space.

To Pin or Not to Pin?

By: Nicole Hangartner, Account Executive Legato Marketing and Communications

You’ve probably heard of Pinterest. It’s the virtual pin board where users can post pictures and videos they find on the web into categories that fit any and all interests: crafts, animals, nature, technology and more.

So in terms of business, it makes sense for a retailer, a home and garden company or even a restaurant to use it. But is Pinterest right for your healthcare organization?

Three reasons why it is

1. Pinterest easily reaches your healthcare organization’s primary target audience – women.

It’s a known fact that women are the healthcare decision makers in a household, and it’s also become very clear that the majority of Pinterest users are women. After doing a little research, I found that the percentage of users that are women ranges from 70% – 87%. And with over 10 million unique visitors, that’s a lot of women on one site.

The average age of Pinterest users is 25 – 34 – the age where women are starting and growing their families. This is a prime age group to reach out to as they are probably starting to make a lot more healthcare decisions.

2. Pinterest boosts SEO and referral traffic.

Every photo or video you pin links back to the site it originally came from. So when someone clicks on a pin that links to your website, that’s where they will be directed. And this does wonders for your search rank. Your rank will get better as you increase the number of links that tie back to your site.

Adding a “Pin It” button to your blog or website can help engage users and increase the potential reach of your website or blog. With this feature, people can pin things they find to their Pinterest boards – creating more links back to your website.

And if you’re worried that your patients don’t use Pinterest, link your boards to Twitter and Facebook. That way people who don’t use Pinterest can still see what you’re pinning.

3. Pinterest engages your current patients and reaches out to new ones.

On April 20, Ragan’s Healthcare Communication News said that Pinterest hit 10 million unique monthly views faster than any other site in the United States. It’s growing faster than any social networking site, so it’s a great place to appeal to current and potential patients.

In that same article, I was shocked to learn that people spend, on average, a staggering 58.8 minutes each time they visit Pinterest! Compare this to the 30 seconds you have to grab and hold a patient’s attention in a traditional radio or TV commercial.

Three ways you can use it

Now that you know you should, here are three easy ways your healthcare organization can actually use Pinterest.

1. Post Recipes

Pinterest is a great platform to post healthy recipes. This is relevant to your healthcare organization because you can post recipes that promote overall healthy living or you can post recipes that follow certain dietary restrictions. Like recipes that are diabetic friendly, heart disease friendly and allergy friendly.

2. Post Exercises

Just like recipes, posting simple to complex exercises and exercise plans can reach out to people who are looking to stay healthy or become healthier. You can also post exercises that speak specifically to sports injury or orthopedic patients.

3. Post Informational Brochures and Videos

Pictures and videos are much more engaging than a bunch of text on a page. If you give patients charts and videos to explain something, they are more likely to stay on your site. So upload brochures and pamphlets on common illnesses like the flu or strep throat. Also create videos like “How to treat minor cuts and burns” or “What to do if your child swallows something they shouldn’t?”

These items provide helpful information on a platform where patients can easily share it with all of their own followers.