There’s some exciting news on the fight against heart disease coming out of Ahmedabad, India. As Associated Press medical writer Marilynn Marchione reports, Cadila Pharmaceuticals has combined low doses of blood pressure medication, aspirin, and cholesterol medicine into a generic, once-a-day pill. While met with opposition from skeptics who feel that such a pill will risk multiple side effects and the threat of patients receiving medicines they do not need, initial studies have shown the pill is effective and safe. Dr. Robert Harrington, an American College of Cardiology spokesman and chief of Duke University’s heart research institute, is quoted in the article as stating “Widely applied, this could have profound implications.” While the pill has more testing to undergo and has yet to stand up to the approval process of the Food and Drug Administration, many think that such an advancement will aid in preventing “pill burden” many patients feel as the result of having to take a large regimen of related drugs.

The article got me to daydreaming about a polypill for marketing. Is there a one-size-fits-all strategy that will accomplish the goals a healthcare organization may have? My professional opinion says no because each client, each situation, and each market is different. There are no cookie cutters for marketing, although I see a lot of people mimicking what everyone else is doing. For instance, if a corporate provider of healthcare services sees one of their clients, say a hospital, engaging in social marketing with the hospital’s patients then they may feel they should likewise engage in such marketing activities. However, what works for a hospital-to-consumer marketing strategy may not fit a healthcare business-to-business effort. For one, the targets are different. They don’t think the same way. A consumer may be more concerned with quality of care or convenience whereas the healthcare entity might be more concerned with cost reductions or revenue enhancements. Applying the same strategy to both efforts would be a costly mistake and prove to be completely useless in achieving objectives.

In order for marketing efforts to as effective as possible you must:

1. Know your goals – Clearly define the objectives you’re wanting to achieve.

2. Understand your target – If you don’t know who you’re trying to reach, all you’ll grab is nothing.

3. Develop a strategy – Know why you’re doing what you’re doing in each part of the strategy (Note: “Everyone else is doing it” isn’t a reason).

4. Monitor progress – Your plan must be flexible. Market conditions, news or newfound information may mean a change in plans.

5. Measure results – While not always the easiest of tasks, any measure of what you’re doing will aid in knowing what to change or what to do next time to improve results.

As much as I wish there was a polypill for marketing, it simply isn’t going to happen. Marketing requires too many variables to allow for an all-in-one approach to be effective. Even if such a pill existed its effects would soon wear off on you targets. So, if you want your marketing efforts to be effective, take the time to know what you’re doing and why you’re doing it.  Otherwise, you’re marketing medicine is nothing more than a placebo.

As I read the AdAge article written by Mike Hughes of The Martin Group, I honestly couldn’t believe what I was reading. Could someone be so misguided as to suggest that the ad industry prop up the faltering newspaper industry? “It’s time the advertising industry did something important,” Mr. Hughes writes in the article. “For our own self-interest — and for the common good — we need to start paying attention to newspapers again.” Really? This is the message that you want to send to your clients? Oh, wait, did I mention that one of Mr. Hughes clients’ is the Newspaper Association of America? It might also be interesting to note that he began his career as a newspaper reporter and then editor. Regardless, I don’t think it’s my responsibility, even in part, to become the hero of the newspaper industry.

A recent CBS Sunday Morning report by Jeff Greenfield titled “Stop The Presses!” pointed out that “Just since 2000, daily newspaper circulation has dropped from 55 million to 50 million in the last two years … print ad revenue for papers dropped 28%, more than $11 billion – and that was before the recession really kicked in.” Mr. Hughes would have the ad industry become the hero to a dying medium because of some altruistic sense of responsibility he may feel towards it. He might believe his firm should be the hero to the newspaper industry, but my responsibility is to be the hero for my clients.

Each strategy, large or small, that marketers execute for their clients should have the client’s interests and goals at heart. That’s why clients come to us in the first place. To take my client’s marketing budget and throw it at an advertising vehicle that may prove ineffective for them is simply unethical. It’s one thing to make a mistake in the creative used within a chosen medium, but to throw money at something to save it is simply asinine. Not to mention the economy being rough. My clients would simply throw me to the curb if I attempted such a tactic either openly or covertly.

I believe there is no room in a marketing strategy for blind heroism. What the ad industry needs to learn is to be the hero for the clients who seek us out for our expertise in reaching their targets and ultimately their organizations’ goals. While the rapid decline of newspapers is despairing for sure, marketers need to spend less time focusing on methods of communicating that are no longer effective and focus on those strategies that get results. Certainly, the ad industry should never engage in self-serving notions as Mr. Hughes suggests. Clients deserve a better hero than that.

This week our 10 Questions With… series interviews healthcare attorney Amy Fehn. Amy has been counseling healthcare providers and other covered entities on the HIPAA Privacy and Security Regulations since their inception. Prior to graduating from law school, Ms. Fehn was a Registered Nurse at Summa Health System in Akron, Ohio, and later worked as a clinical systems analyst for the hospital’s clinical information system.

Ms. Fehn has authored and co-authored numerous articles on healthcare issues and has spoken on HIPAA to various local and national organizations. She is the co-author of workbooks on HIPAA Privacy for the Michigan Osteopathic Association (MOA), the Federated Ambulatory Surgery Association (FASA) and United Communications Group and is the co-author of a workbook on HIPAA Security, published by United Communications Group. She was also a member of the State Bar of Michigan’s HIPAA Task Force.

DJ: Why are so many healthcare organizations fearful of HIPAA?

Amy: I think they are afraid, and rightfully so, of complaints to the Office of Civil Rights and also negative public perception if patients perceive that they are violating HIPAA, even if they technically aren’t. The problem with HIPAA is that many areas aren’t black and white but instead allow some discretion or judgment calls on behalf of healthcare organizations. Organizations don’t want to take chances by authorizing too many people to make judgment calls, so they implement policies and procedures that might be stricter than they would technically need to be.

DJ: Many healthcare professionals feel that HIPAA blocks effective communication and education. Is that a fair assessment?

Amy: HIPAA should never block communication that is related to patient care, because any uses or disclosures for “treatment” can be made without an authorization or any “permission” on the part of the patient. It also shouldn’t be a barrier to most education because training programs are considered “healthcare operations,” for which uses and disclosures of protected health information can also be made without patient authorization.

DJ: Do you think there is enough emphasis placed on educating healthcare professionals and consumers on HIPAA?

Amy: I think that larger entities definitely get the fact that they need to educate employees and have processes set up to handle it. I usually find that smaller entities do a good job with initial training but aren’t as likely to have processes set up for training updates and reminders.

DJ: Henry Ford Hospital recently used Twitter to “tweet” a surgery as it occurred. Many people thought that such communication was a HIPAA violation. Did a violation actually occur?

Amy: I don’t know that I have all of the facts; but, to my knowledge, they did not post any identifiable information about the patient. If information is adequately de-identified then it is no longer considered “protected health information” and is no longer subject to HIPAA protection. I recently wrote a post on my blog about the identifiers that need to be removed for information to be considered “de-identified.” They also stated that the patient consented to have the surgery posted on Twitter, so they may have had a HIPAA authorization signed as well.

DJ: Can a healthcare organization or professional effectively use social networking tools, such as Twitter, without fear of violating HIPAA?

Amy: There are ways to use Twitter that would not violate HIPAA, as long as the healthcare organization is not posting protected health information about patients. If the patients choose to post their own health information or identify themselves as a patient, that is their prerogative. My only concern would be to make sure that patients understand that it is a public forum and to not in any way solicit or encourage the posting of personal health information in a public forum, unless the patient signed a valid HIPAA authorization specifically for that purpose.

DJ: Regarding HIPAA, what should a healthcare organization be aware of when marketing themselves?

Amy: Again, they can’t do anything that would include the disclosure of protected health information (otherwise known as individually identifiable health information) unless they have an authorization signed by the patient for that specific purpose. Healthcare organizations are also limited on the types of mailings or e-mail campaigns they can send to lists they derived from their patient admissions. For example, a healthcare organization would be able to send a notice about other services offered by their organization, but they couldn’t use their list to market another entity’s products (although there are exceptions for certain care management communications tailored toward a specific patient).

DJ: You wrote a great blog post titled “Analysis of Changes to HIPAA in Stimulus Bill.” What do you see is the most significant change to HIPAA that the stimulus bill makes?

Amy: I think that the biggest change is that healthcare organizations can expect greater enforcement because the new revisions empower state attorney generals to bring lawsuits for HIPAA breaches. Also, the new law states that future regulations will allow patients to share in a portion of penalties which will incentivize patients to voice complaints.

DJ: If a patient signs a HIPAA authorization form and decides to share their personal health information, is the healthcare provider still at risk?

Amy: The patient can share their own information even without signing an authorization form. It’s their information and if they want to post a copy of their information on the internet, that is up to them. As far as authorizations, once the information has been released pursuant to an authorization, it is no longer protected by HIPAA and there should be a line on every HIPAA authorization that reminds patients of that fact. So, for example, if I authorize a hospital to disclose my information to a disability insurance company and the disability insurance company wrongfully discloses it to someone else, it would not be a HIPAA violation on the part of the hospital so long as the hospital had a valid HIPAA authorization.

DJ: Has HIPAA gotten away from its original intent or has the lack of understanding caused it to become something larger than life?

Amy: It definitely depends on who you talk to, although nobody seems to be happy with HIPAA. Most providers see it as adding administrative burdens that don’t really change the protections they were already providing for patient information (health care providers already had a duty of confidentiality before HIPAA was enacted). Privacy advocates are critical of the law because they don’t think that it goes far enough and they also don’t think that it is properly enforced.

DJ: What impact does the recent CVS Pharmacy settlement with HIPAA have on healthcare as a whole?

Amy: I think it raises awareness and sets an example. It should cause all covered entities to take a good look at their disposal policies, especially with regard to items that can’t go through a paper shredder, such as empty pill vials or empty IV bags with patient names on them.

Bonus Question:
DJ: If you could change one thing about healthcare what would it be?

Amy: If I could change anything, it would definitely be access to quality healthcare for everyone.

I’d like to say thank you to Amy for taking the time to answer 10 questions with me. It was a pleasure interviewing her. If you would like to expand the discussion about HIPAA with Amy she can be contacted through her website at www.healthlawoffices.com. You can follow her blog as well as her postings on Twitter.

If you or someone you know would like to be interviewed for 10 Questions With…please drop me a line at dj@talstone.com. Thanks for reading.

Mo•ti•va•tion (n.) – The reason or reasons one has for acting or behaving in a particular way; the general desire or willingness of someone to do something

As a copywriter, my mind is constantly full of ideas about how the words I write can move an audience to act. It’s the whole point of marketing communication, right? I want to persuade a person to take action – usually a very specific one.

The problem is, quite a few organizations fall prey to the belief that their audience thinks just like them, is motivated just like they are, and finds out about them just the way they would. Unfortunately, such assumptions lead to wasted time, unqualified leads, and miniscule ROI, if any.

I continually see marketing efforts that repeatedly shout, “We’re the best!” “Did I mention we’re the best?” “By the way, we’re the best!” “Don’t forget, you should buy/use/visit/pay attention to/partner with us because we’re the best!” These organizations constantly deliver messages that may motivate themselves internally, but they need to find a message that motivates their prospects.

In reality, the “we’re the best and biggest” approach means an organization is mostly speaking AT its audience rather than speaking WITH them. To truly engage a person you have to take some time to discover what motivates them – what are their needs? What motivates a woman to get up off the couch after 20 years of a sedentary lifestyle and join Weight Watchers? What motivates a physician to choose a particular service vendor over another? Or a patient to pick a certain hospital? Is a person excited, relieved, or happy that they found you? If so, you’ve hit on the right message.

What motivates someone is when the message you send to your audience fills a need. And for them to fulfill that need, they are going to have to use your service. But you have to pay attention and know what they need in the first place. Otherwise, you may as well be talking to yourself. And many organizations do.

I remember being in elementary school and having my teacher call on two students to go beat out the chalk dust from her chalkboard erasers. It was so exciting to be one of the chosen two. We had this very large rock near the far back of the school grounds that seemed like a mountain. We would take erasers to this rock and beat the daylights out of them. Clouds of chalk dust went everywhere. That poor rock looked like it had a horrible disease by the time we got through with it. It’s also a wonder we didn’t come back to the classroom looking like chalky ghosts. But we did our job happily and returned the erasers back to the teacher.

Wait, I just dated myself, didn’t I? That’s right, my teacher used chalkboards for her presentations. We didn’t have SMART Boards or even dry-erase boards. Certainly, PowerPoint didn’t exist. My son, who is in elementary school, hasn’t told me that he’s been asked to beat marker dust off the dry erase board eraser. The fact is technology changes things around us on a daily basis.

French journalist Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr once said, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” While some technology serves to open new horizons that humankind has yet to explore, a great deal serves to either solve problems with existing methods of doing something or enhance what we’ve previously been doing. Take the way we make presentations. Early on, if you wanted to make a dynamic presentation, the chalkboard was your best option. The problem was that it took time to erase one thought and write out your next. So, technology advanced to provide slides loaded into a carousel in a slide projector. The problem there was a risk of slides being loaded incorrectly or you were tethered to the projector. Innovators answered the call again and created a way for us to control the slides via a computer through programs such as PowerPoint. We can even add motion and sound to the presentations, making them more lively and persuasive. It’s quite a distance from the chalkboards of long ago, and no doubt we’ll soon be looking at PowerPoint as an archaic means of making presentations. Was there anything wrong with the chalkboard approach to making presentations? Not really, but aren’t you glad that we no longer have to rely on that technology to communicate?

As the call comes to embrace new technologies, there is often a thought of “if it isn’t broke why fix it?” Often this sentiment is the result of a fear of having to learn something new. The headaches that come as the result of breaking out of our comfort zone hardly seems worth the effort. Just look at EMR implementation – the thought causes many providers to shudder. But comfort zones don’t make you more efficient nor do they improve the service you provide. Old comfort zones stagnate and breed complacency.

Will technology require an investment in learning a new system? Yes. Will it mean you have to find a new normal? Yes. Will it mean you need to invest in an aspirin manufacturer? Possibly. But it will also mean that you will be more efficient in your daily tasks. It will mean that you can see a greater number of patients or improve the quality of service you provide your clients. Technologies don’t advance us only to fatten the pockets of the innovator. Technologies advance because from the dawn humankind there has been drive within us to push the race forward. Before you dismiss new advancements in medicine, marketing, practice management or any other sector of the healthcare industry, consider how far we’ve come. Embrace the technologies that improve you and push you forward. After all, stagnant water isn’t fit to drink.

Dear Future Twitter Follower,

I’m so thankful that you have found me and feel that I am someone you would like to follow and keep up-to-date with. I promise that I will try to provide you with what knowledge I have to offer and will try to make my tweets meaningful. I do request a few things in return.

1. Please don’t auto-direct message me back when I follow you. You see, that really reeks of being fake and disingenuous. I don’t like getting form letters in the mail and your auto-dm will remind me those. If you want to direct message me through Twitter with something that really feels like it’s coming from you then that would be great.

2. Please don’t use the words “guru, diva, maven, or expert” in your bio. I’ve already got hundreds of these “experts” following me. They’re so excited about their plans to make me rich with no work on my part. I’m fairly certain I can’t get to your plans for quite a while so you might want to find someone else who isn’t so expertly connected.

3. Speaking of bio descriptions, please don’t cleverly spell the aforementioned words. Your status of “guru” is diminished a great deal when you choose to spell it “goo-roo.” I know the dictionary uses that spelling to help us pronounce the word correctly but using it as a real word does nothing for your expert status.

4. Please read and understand my bio before thinking we’re a good match. I’m “principal of healthcare marketing firm-Talstone Group” and my “interests include healthcare, marketing, social media, and design strategy.” I wanted to use my name for my Twitter account but unfortunately it was already taken so I had to go with “TalstoneDJ.” Contrary to popular belief, having DJ in my name doesn’t mean I rap, produce songs, get jiggy with it, or host a radio show that could sing your songs. I do sing in a band that you can check out at www.tennesseefour.com.

5. I would really appreciate it if you would be concise in your tweets. I know that 140-character limit in Twitter is tough to work with but with so many other tweets coming through to me I simply lose track of your thoughts when you try to type out paragraphs in Twitter. If you feel the need to expound so much to me ask for my e-mail address and, if we can have a meaningful dialogue there, I’ll try and keep the pit bull named the delete button away from your e-mails.

6. I know that technically you’re supposed to use the 140 characters to tell me what you’re doing, but could you avoid sending me twitterrhea? I don’t have to know that your cat just coughed up a hairball that is the spitting image of Jay Leno. Tell me know something worthwhile. Educate, enlighten, inspire, and share with me what you know as a person. Give me a reason to care.

7. Please act like a human in your tweets. Nothing is more boring or thoughtless than to have someone whose tweets are all alike. I’ll stop reading and listening to you if you can’t be someone who is creative and real. While I don’t have to know every part of your mind, it’s nice to know that you can think past your last tweet.

8. Engage in a two-way dialogue with me. Twitter is a micro-blogging platform that affords us the great opportunity to learn from each other. If the conversation is one-sided then I won’t care to listen to you. For a meaningful exchange to happen you need to open the communication channels. I know you’re the “expert” in whatever you’re talking about, but I doubt you know it all – at least you won’t convince me you do if you never shut up long enough for me to ask you a question.

9. Please don’t be a used car salesman. I’m sure you’ve really spent a lot of time thinking through that get-rich-quick scheme, but I’m not interested in making you wealthy. I’m interested in making marketing more effective, healthcare better, and being smarter than I was the day before. I don’t care if your idea really could make me rich. Spamming me with your tweets about how brilliant your plan is just makes you look sad … oh, so very sad.

10. Make an effort to expand the conversation beyond Twitter. If our conversations means anything to you then press on to expand the conversation to other communication outlets such as e-mail, phone or an actual face-to-face meeting. The beauty of social media is that it is meant to foster a more social community. It makes this big world smaller.

Again, I’m thankful you want to follow me. I hope these requests won’t be too difficult for you. If they are, then I might not be the person for you to follow. I know that together we can make ourselves better and our worlds a little brighter. I look forward to tweeting with you.

Take care,

D.J. Smith
Partner/Creative Director

Talstone Group
783 Old Hickory Blvd.
Suite 335
Brentwood, TN 37027

Phone: (615) 507-1490
Twitter: http://twitter.com/TalstoneDJ
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/talstonedj
Blog: http://blog.talstone.com/

Please visit our website located at:
http://www.talstone.com

This week we’re talking with Dr. Kevin Pho, a practicing primary care physician in Nashua, New Hampshire. He is board-certified in Internal Medicine, and his opinion pieces have appeared in both national and local newspapers. In October, 2007, Dr. Pho appeared on the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric. He is also a member of the USA Today’s Board of Contributors.

Dr. Pho blogs at KevinMD.com, named Best Medical Blog in the 2008 Medical Weblog Awards, with over 21,000+ RSS subscribers and 3,100+ Twitter followers.

D.J.: What first drew you to establishing your own blog?

KevinMD: I started a blog in 2004, and it was really to give a physician’s take and interpretation of current medical news. A lot of times, you’ll see news stories and health stories come out in the newspaper or on TV news and it was done without contacting a physician. A lot of times these studies can be misconstrued by patients, and I wanted to give a physician’s take on what’s going on, and a blog was the easiest way to do that.

D.J.: As a practicing physician, your daily schedule is obviously packed. How do you make time to blog so frequently?

KevinMD: Well, it’s definitely a time commitment, and I would say that blogging is not for everybody. I think that it does take an additional 2-3 hours per day, reading the various sources that I do. I do it because I really do enjoy keeping up with the news and, by writing about it, it really helps me stay up to date. But, as you can imagine, seeing a full patient panel, it does take a lot of time. So I do most of my blogging early in the morning before I see patients and late at night after everyone in the house is sleeping.

D.J.: What do you see is the biggest misconception about maintaining a healthcare blog?

KevinMD: I think the biggest misconception is that it’s difficult to do one. I think starting a blog itself is very, very easy. There are a lot of tools that are free and people who aren’t as versed with the Internet and blogs can easily start one up within 15 minutes with little or no computer knowledge.

D.J.: How would you describe the majority of your audience?

KevinMD: I don’t know specifically, but I know that I target my writing to physicians and medical professionals, as well as patients. I have a variety of topics that physicians certainly can relate to and I always talk about issues that are of relevance to practicing doctors, but I also make it a point to write to patients because I think one of the strengths of the blog is to offer a view behind the scenes of what doctors are facing. If patients realize some of the issues that concern doctors, it’s going to really help us in terms of health reform and in terms of addressing some of the problems that doctors face today.

D.J.: Why do you think that you have been so successful in attracting followers?

KevinMD: It’s persistence. When you start a blog you have to stick to a schedule and I post normally three times a day. When you have a readership that looks forward to that schedule, then it can certainly grow.  I have posted almost everyday. There are very few days that I don’t post unless I’m on vacation and what not.  So I think that posting regularly is very important.  I also have different mediums that people can access my blog through. I have the blog itself.  I have a link to my post served up on twitter, so that it exposes the blog to a different audience. People who don’t want to go to blog itself can read my posts through a RSS reader or they can subscribe by e-mail newsletter. Having a variety of means that people can access your writing is important, and the fact that they all go back to the blog – it kind of helps identify your brand within the Internet and that helps increase readership.

D.J.: Are any patients or colleagues following you worried that you’ll blog about them?

KevinMD: I make it a point up front that I do not blog about patients. People know my name; people know that I do blog. I’ve been profiled in local newspapers, and I don’t want patients to worry that whatever I say to them in an exam room will get out on a blog. I stick more to medical issues. I know that other physician blogs do blog about patients, and I think that is one of the concerns about blogging – the maintenance of patient privacy. A lot of doctors who do blog about patients are certainly aware of that and they change all relevant information so that no one is identifiable, however, speaking personally, I just take that off the table by saying I simply don’t blog about patients.

D.J.: You have advertisements on your blog site. Has that been a beneficial move for you?

KevinMD: It’s a personal decision. As the blog becomes more successful, there’s more traffic, and it makes it more expensive to run in terms of bandwidth costs. The advertisements I have on the blog help me pay for the bandwidth, which can be significant with the traffic that I receive. Also, not all the advertisements on the blog are financial arrangements. Sometimes if I want to expose my blog to a different audience, we will do a banner exchange where I would advertise their site on my blog and then that site would advertise my blog and expose my brand to their audience. I can say that not all the advertisements are financially based and some of them are because I want to expose my blog to a different audience and expand its reach.

D.J.: What blogs do you follow?

KevinMD: I follow all of my blogs through Google Reader, which is an RSS-based reader. I literally have between 750-1000 sources that I read through so naming just a few is really hard. Certainly I follow the blog of the major newspapers. I think the two best major media blogs are the health blogs of the Wall Street Journal and New York Times. Those are two of the best mainstream media blogs. In terms of blogs of primary care doctors, I follow the blog of Rob Lamberts, called Musings of a Distractible Mind. It really gives a unique take into the world of primary care. I follow blogs dealing with health policy because I think physicians need to be versed on health policy to anticipate how that’s going to change their practice. One of the best I follow is Maggie Mahar’s Health Beat blog.

D.J: Do you think that more healthcare professionals should make an online presence for themselves?

KevinMD: Absolutely.  With more patients searching for both health information and doctors on search engines like Google, it’s imperative for physicians to control what comes up when their name is searched.  The best way of doing so is with an online presence, such as a blog, or a profile on social network sites like LinkedIn or Facebook.

It is better to be proactive in controlling the information attached to your name, rather than having a third party like a newspaper or an online review define you on the Internet.

D.J.: What advice would you give to a professional looking to follow in your footsteps and start their own blog?

KevinMD: Don’t be discouraged; actually starting a blog is very easy. If they want it to be a successful blog and gain a lot of readership and traffic, it does take a time commitment. People who believe that they can just do this in their spare time fail to realize what kind of time commitment it takes to persistently write and read the amount of material they need to in order to run a successful blog. Any start up is easy, but doctors or people who, in the medical profession, want to maintain a blog have to realize that this is indeed a time commitment and only to do it if that’s something they want to do.

Bonus question:
D.J.: If you could change one thing about healthcare what would it be?

KevinMD: I want patients, as well as the powers to be, to value what primary care can do to improve healthcare and improve a patient’s well-being. Right now in primary care, and I’m a primary care doc so obviously I’m a little bit biased, I do think primary care is undervalued, and that’s really to the detriment to our health system as a whole. Systems that rely more on primary care have patients who fare better and do so at lower cost. I think that if the United States valued primary care, more so than they do now, it’s going to go a long way to help some of the problems that the healthcare system is currently facing.

I would like to thank Dr. Pho for taking time out of his busy schedule for this interview. You may follow Dr. Pho on Twitter or e-mail him at kevinmd@gmail.com.

If you or someone you know would like to participate in The Pulses’ “10 Question With…” please contact me at dj@talstone.com or you can connect with me on Twitter.

I recently had a retired business executive give me a bit of sage advice. He told me not to waste my time on the one-thirders. The one-who? The one-thirders. He told me that in business there will always be one-third of the people who like what you do, one-third will dislike what you do, and one-third who couldn’t care less. The successful leader will find which group is most important.

In marketing one of the hardest groups to help develop strategies for is a committee. I don’t care what aspect of the planning process you’re in; when a committee is involved the smallest molehill quickly becomes a rather large mountain. Don’t believe me? At a creative directors conference I attended recently one creative director said that their firm would add an additional $10,000 for every person who is in the decision making process because design by committee is so difficult. But why does this happen? In part, it’s because of the one-thirders and if you’re not careful you’ll go insane trying to please them all. Who are these one-thirders?

The 1/3 Who Will Like What You Do

The one-thirders who like what you do will be the easiest to lead. They listen to the plan and any advice that’s given. They’re willing to ask questions from the position of learning. More often they are the early adopters of your plan and will eagerly offer thought and suggestions to enhance the project or team. These one-thirders have usually found a connection with you in some form or fashion and, as a result, establish a good working relationship with you. You need them to be champions for you but not yes men blindly following your lead.

The 1/3 Who Won’t Like What You Do

The one-thirders who don’t like you or your work are incredulous at best. Often you won’t ever find out what the source of their problem with you really is. It may be as legitimate as their experience leads them to believe you’re strategy is flawed or as asinine as jealousy. Don’t expect them to easily go along with you. In fact, you might find them to be a thorn in your side when it comes to feedback – either you’ll get more than you asked for (and mostly negative) or you won’t get any regardless of how hard you try. They’ll ask questions in hopes of tripping you up and making you appear to others as the negative image they have in their minds. You’ll have to spend more time and effort getting this group of one-thirders to actually adopt the plan and even your leadership – but you are just as likely to never get them to agree to follow your lead.

The 1/3 Who Doesn’t Care What You Do

The last group is a bit perplexing. With the previous two groups of one-thirders you knew where they stood. You knew their likes and dislikes and you could develop your strategy accordingly. With the group that doesn’t care you have a complacent group that is rather ambiguous. Former NBA coach, Pat Riley, once said, “When a great team loses through complacency, it will constantly search for new and more intricate explanations to explain away defeat.”

In many ways it may be more challenging to lead and work with a group that doesn’t care what you do than those who dislike what you’re doing. The reason being that any effort you are likely to get out of a complacent team player is likely to show in the final product. They don’t care what you do one way or the other and that lack of passion or purpose to their portion of the work will be affected. You’ll have to spend more time motivating and instilling the importance of the plan or project for them to be worthwhile.

All strategies and projects will have one-thirders in attendance. Some will follow you, some may vilify you, and still others won’t give a flip what you do. The key is in knowing who is in each group. Your approach with each of the one-thirder groups will vary. For one you’ll charge forward with great ease. For another you’ll be the villain and under constant attack. For yet another you will have to serve as a motivational speaker, cheerleader, and shoehorn. The question is which group will you listen and belong to?

Leo Burnett, the marketing genius behind advertising icons such as Tony The Tiger, Toucan Sam, and The Pillsbury Doughboy, once said about marketing, “Make it simple. Make it memorable. Make it inviting to look at. Make it fun to read.” Unfortunately, many healthcare organizations never got that message. A great deal of healthcare marketing, if you can call it that, is complicated, forgetful, clunky, and meaningless. Most healthcare providers think having a Web site is simply having some text and images taking up space on the Internet. Still others think that the templates in Microsoft Word make for persuasive brochures. So here’s my take on what Mr. Burnett was trying to tell us and how it applies to healthcare:

1. Make it simple.
Many healthcare providers believe they need to give a college dissertation on the products and services they offer. Their marketing attempts look more like a Rube Goldberg machine than effective communication. By the time they are finished explaining their offerings their targets have moved on to something less complex. Make sure that you are keeping things simple. Less is more. Don’t make your target work so hard to understand what you’re trying to offer.

2. Make it memorable.
In an overly connected world where information flies around at the speed of light (and in mass quantity), there is so much noise that your target is having to sort through. Consider how your marketing efforts are going to get attention over the competition. Sure, you think it makes sense or looks creative, but will your audience see it that way? You can’t think like you. You must think like your target. What does it take to get the grey matter between their ears to light up and react to your message? If you don’t make a cognitive impact on your target then you’re just wasting money.

3. Make it inviting to look at.
It’s widely accepted that most people are visual learners. Just the thought of having a Web site, brochure, or any other marketing collateral filled with nothing but text destines most pieces to the round file. People simply don’t have time to read a lot of copy. However, if you will take that same copy and provide visual breaks you will help your target digest your information better. Having a cohesive color palette, using a legible font, and utilizing images that support the copy are all very important considerations when creating effective marketing collateral. Additionally, if your marketing efforts look half-baked then YOU will be perceived as half-baked. A competitor need only look more professional than you to win. It pays to look good.

4. Make it fun to read.
As attention spans dwindle to seconds, you have a daunting task of getting your message across quickly. That doesn’t mean that what you say or do must be boring or stale. Give your target something hang on to. Let them into your organization in a clever way (note: by clever I don’t mean asinine or unprofessional). You have the opportunity to actually build a personality for your organization. Keep your headlines short and powerful. Ask a question to get the target to interact with your copy. Use an image that offers a unique slant to the meaning of the copy. Make your marketing engaging and you’ll pull more motion from your audience.

I wonder how Mr. Burnett would have marketed healthcare? Instead of a Jolly Green Giant selling peas would we have seen a Jolly Blue Doc heroically standing over a hospital selling service lines? I don’t know. I do know that keeping your marketing simple, memorable, pleasing to the eyes, and fun will certainly do you a better job than what most healthcare providers are doing these days. If you keep these tips in mind, your marketing efforts will be, in the immortal words of Tony the Tiger, “Grrrrrrreat!”

The fact that you’re reading this blog means you already belong to the online world. Of course you’ve got a Facebook profile, LinkedIn account, and Twitter followers. You probably have a blog as well. The fact that you have a Web site is a given. Our world fast-paced, and it’s easy to cocoon yourself into thinking everyone connects the same way you do.

Yet while the online world grows, there is still a population out there who isn’t part of it and, frankly, never will be. This was made clear to me last week when I spent an exhausting day taking my 84-year old grandmother to the hospital for a transesophageal echocardiogram. After the procedure, the physician handed her a DVD, told it to take it to her cardiologist, and reminded her to tell him to make sure he turned off his pop-up blocker so he could view it.

“What’s a pop-up blocker?” Grandma nervously asked me later, thinking it had something to do with her meds. Her throat was sore, she was still groggy from the anesthesia, and her wrists were aching from the four attempts “to get a good stick” for her IV. Now she thought there was something else wrong with her.

Point is, don’t make any assumptions about how tech savvy a patient is. It was easy to explain to her the comment had nothing to do with her health, but if I hadn’t been there she would have continued to worry about, wonder if she needed to write it down, and then fret about insurance covering it – all due to a remark that had absolutely nothing to do with her health.

Often, it’s the least “connected” who are the most intimidated about asking their physicians to explain something simply because they don’t want to expose their ignorance. My grandmother will probably never own a computer but, at her age, she will see her physicians constantly. It would help if they understood what she doesn’t.