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Blurred Lines: When My Work in Healthcare Became Personal, Again and Again

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When I was a little girl, I always wanted to be a pediatrician. And a writer. I had no idea as an idealistic young lady that there wasn’t really a career that combined the two disciplines.

And when I learned how long I had to go to school to be a pediatrician, I leaned in a little more on the writing.

It wasn’t until I had leaned way into writing and four years of Journalism school that I got my first job at a multi-hospital research health system. I learned quickly that I could combine my three passions—helping people, healthcare and writing. I was not the one performing the lifesaving transplants, but through my writing I got to share the stories of two sisters who shared a lifesaving kidney transplant and encourage others to be organ donors. It was a great fit. I thought of it as writing. I had learned in Journalism school how to write a lead, a body and a close. I never thought of what I did as storytelling.

Then, as if it couldn’t get any better, I got a job as a writer at a pediatric hospital. I met awe-inspiring families struggling through unimaginable heartache but taking me along and allowing me into their lives to tell their story and show how they battled adversity with strength, bravery and grace.

I got to see the loving way nurses and doctors approached children and their families. I got to see the way parents looked bravely at their children and told them it was going to be OK even when they weren’t sure. I was humbled and grateful for each and every family. I remember thinking that I was so glad to be able to tell their stories but could never imagine being in their shoes. I had found my place: healthcare and writing. But then something happened that changed my perspective completely.

The Tide Turned

About two years into my job, I had children. My son and daughter are 18 months apart in age. When my daughter was six months old, she began to have seizures. We spent weeks in the hospital trying to find the root cause—from a brain tumor to epilepsy—what we found was that she had a stroke at birth and had cerebral palsy. When my son was two, he was diagnosed with autism. What had been unimaginable to me about the lives of those parents had become my life. We spent many days and nights with doctors, nurses, therapists—my colleagues—and now my child’s caregiver. I was the one of the parents that I had been writing about.

Why It Matters

My children have been a consistent source of joy and inspiration to me. I know that doesn’t make me unique as a parent, but when they were young, we journeyed through a lot together in ways I never thought I would experience. All the times I wrote those patient stories, I never knew one day it would be me.

I’m happy to report they are both thriving, active teenagers now. What I learned is that in some way for all of us, healthcare is personal. Whether it’s an aging parent, your own health challenges, or a child, when we walk through our healthcare system as a patient or a caregiver of a patient, it changes us.

For me, it changed the way I write. It changed the way I tell the story of the latest innovation in EHRs. It changed the way I appreciate the passion and selfless care that every single position in the healthcare ecosystem puts into what they do.

I think it’s easy as PR and Marketing professionals to get robotic and apathetic in the way that we amplify a brand or write a blog. What we should remember is that at the end of that journey is a real person with a real story. And you never know when that might be you. Write with your heart. Bring your own story in the passion you have for what you do. It will never steer you wrong.

Personalized Marketing: Are You Talking to Me?

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The competition for consumers’ time is more critical than ever as they continue to be bombarded with the “noise” of messaging and advertisements in nearly every facet of life. According to Forbes, the average person is exposed to 4,000 10,000 advertisements each day.  Without a strong, compelling message your brand is likely to get overlooked regardless of how life-changing it may be.

Think of your typical day and the amount of noise you encounter whether that be from emails, online ads, social media, commercials, and so on. Likely you along with many of your buyers have started to block much of the unnecessary noise. Many now use DVRs to avoid commercials or have tightened privacy on their social media pages to avoid unwanted ads.

Due to the overwhelming number of messages each day, it is critical that brands start becoming more personalized in their approach. Personalized marketing is not going away any time soon in fact, it is one of the top marketing trends for 2020. Research shows that more than 63% of consumers are highly annoyed with the way brands interact with them and blast irrelevant information.

What’s a personalized message?

The idea of what makes something personalized has changed. A recent survey by Pure360 suggests brands still rely only on basic personalization. Many companies continue to take the lazy approach by simply substituting the consumer’s name into the salutation of an email, while others get overzealous and appear creepy.

We’ve all received those emails that address us by name but have no idea who we are or what we care about. Take, for instance, a male who receives an email, addressing them by name, that then continues to discuss problems during menstruation and how a new sanitary product could change their life. This not only makes the company appear lazy and uneducated but could also damage the brand while wasting both resources and money.

Research shows that 81% of consumers want brands to get to know them and know when to approach them and how. This goes beyond dropping in names, cities or titles to truly engaging with consumers. While this may seem daunting, many marketers have large databases that contain numerous data points across all consumer segments. Unfortunately, many do not take advantage of this data.

Making it personal

The best personalization efforts are when consumers see a brand’s content or messaging in a natural and timely manner. Using the buyer’s or consumer’s past history engagements paired with current activities is one of the best ways to engage an audience. Fortunately, marketers have tools and technology that make delivering dynamic content a reality.

Take for example the future purchasing recommendations that Amazon makes based on what the consumer has previously purchased or viewed. These personalizations are typically more helpful and appreciated. In addition, grocery stores will often send coupons based upon your recent purchases. Lastly, we’ve all been victim of perusing one site and then looking at our Facebook page and seeing ads invade our feed. Brands must be careful with retargeting ads and these type of personalizations, which is why having a clear understanding of the consumer’s history and current activities is critical.

On a good note, it doesn’t even have to be this hard. In 2014, as soda consumption was steadily declining, Coca-Cola came out with its “Share a Coke” campaign. This simple, but extremely effective campaign personalized bottles by printing first names on them Share a Coke with Bethany, Share a Coke with Jeremy, etc. The campaign appealed to consumers because they saw their own name on a big brand. The campaign helped the company grow sales for the first time in 10 years.

Time to get personal

So if you haven’t yet, you better start getting more personal with your buyers or your competitors will. Below are some key considerations for diving into personalized messaging.

  • Segment your audience. Hopefully you have already done this but as you know not all of your consumers have the same needs nor do they have them at the same time. This is really step 1 before you can begin personalization.
  • Create content that matters. Not all content is created equal. Consider implementing dynamic content where your buyer can see the right content at the right time.
  • Give your business a face. Your company should have a human identity is it fun, professional, goofy? Your company must have an identity that buyers can connect with whether you’re selling B2C or B2B.
  • Make better recommendations. Don’t recommend a vacuum cleaner to someone who just purchased hardwood floors. Know your audience and tell them about products or solutions that they actually could use and need.
  • Test and measure. You won’t always guess right. Some campaigns will have double-digit conversions while others will fall flat. The good news is most technologies allow you to do A/B testing and will even determine the winner for you before you blast an entire segment with a poorly designed campaign.

There’s no better way to get started than to get started, monitor your results, repeat what works and ditch the rest. Trust me if you don’t do it, your consumers will start identifying and connecting with your competitors, who may already be delivering personalized marketing.