Versant Blog Center

A Changing Health Care Market

I recently attended the 26th Annual Meeting of the National Association for Home Care & Hospice which took place in Denver, Colorado. I’ve gone to this show for the past three years not only because we have clients who exhibit there and we want to see firsthand what their competition is doing, but also because it’s a snapshot of what’s happening in the home care/health care market overall.

It was interesting to note that in the telemedicine field, there was no one making the “big splash” this year – some vendors had reduced the size of their booths, some were changing their brand position. I got the feeling everyone was looking around to see what the other guy was doing, which is different than the last two NAHC shows I’ve attended. There were also a lot of new players entering the field. 

My sense is that while everyone is holding back, trying to figure out how to position their ROI to the home care market within the ever-changing regulatory and payment environment, there’s a vacuum waiting to be filled. This is a prime window of opportunity for one of the new (or firmly established) telemedicine providers to take the lead in this industry with cutting edge technology, a strategically sound brand strategy and the team onboard to make it happen. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if that happens by this time next year.

Pre-Wonder Years

Last week a local radio station morning team interviewed child actor Fred Savage, Kevin Arnold from “The Wonder Years” television show, on his current role as director of the movie “Daddy Day Camp.” Low and behold, Fred shared with the DJ’s that one of his first television commercials was for a shopping mall in Milwaukee called Brookfield Square.

That’s when I started getting calls. It’s true. Back in the early 80’s we cast and subsequently produced a series of TV commercials with Fred Savage.

He was seven years old – pre “The Wonder Years.” At any rate, we had to do some digging, but I found the original audition tape and shared our story on the air (Listen: WAV | MP3) with Jane and Kidd from WMYX.

We may have a knack for identifying good talent. You also might get a kick out of knowing that we produced a commercial for our client Bank Mutual featuring Tina Fey. She went on to be a head writer for “Saturday Night Live” and now stars in her own show with Alec Baldwin on NBC, called “30 Rock.”

I’m not sure we can take credit for their success, but I do think it’s safe to say we can spot talent when we see it.

New Media. New Ideas.

It isn't enough these days to simply create a message, send it out and hope for the best. In today's radically changing media landscape where the audience is invited to participate, the say-and-spray method of the past is not the tried and true approach it once was.

In the case of the Southeast Wisconsin Transit Systems, our client's charge is to build a brand image around an alternative to driving, in addition to increasing ridership on the six bus systems.

We view the new media as a new way to reach out to a young and emerging audience base. To take a page from Marshall McLuhan, the medium is the message.

So our most recent marketing campaign is all about inviting transit advocates to make the media. After all, who knows the reasons for riding the bus better? And, with the advent of easy-to-use technology (phones, digital cameras, editing software and fancy personal computers) and a savvy demo bathed in bits, it's the natural marketing extension.

That's why we invited riders to tell – no, show us – why people should ride the bus with a make-your-own video contest. Go to www.yourotherwheels.com to see the details. To reach the demographic, we partnered with a hip (hop) radio station and utilized the popularity of their morning DJ. In addition, online advertising at targeted sites such as myspace.com and e-mail marketing became the primary tools of engagement.

It's a departure from the traditional approaches, but we are lucky enough to have a client that sees the future and isn't afraid to get on board with it.

Focus on Customer

I started my career at age 16 with Sears as a sales associate. I include my five years with Sears as part of my professional career because working in the retail industry taught me some great lessons that I have since applied to my role in client services here at Versant. In retail, we were taught to focus on the customer – if there were people shopping in your department and no one had greeted them, you needed to get over there right away. If your department was empty, then you needed to be doing things to prepare for customers, such as straightening the merchandise, dusting and stocking the shelves and making sure the latest sale items were properly presented and priced. And we were held accountable for our actions – or lack thereof – when "secret shoppers" came to visit, anything less than a perfect 100 score wasn't good enough.

In our business now, focus on the customer is equally important. I think about my retail experience a lot because it translates directly to client service – when client e-mails, calls and requests come in, they need that same immediate attention as customers walking into our department at Sears. And every day, we're trying to make an impact with each client by doing the right things on their accounts and projects. If it's a quiet time, we try to share articles, ideas and events that will make that impact. My performance continues to be measured by customers, based on their feedback, the success of their projects and our annual Versant client satisfaction survey.

I'm grateful now for having that retail experience because it so shapes the work I do today. I also appreciate great retail service when I see it and become a little agitated when I don't, like when employees talk to each other rather than to customers. Both situations make me realize how important focus on customer has been for me, and I hope it can benefit today's retail workers in their future endeavors the same way.

Domain Names are Not Just for IT

Early in the lifecycle of the Web, domain names were the responsibility of technology teams because they served primarily a functional role – providing a common-name alternative to IP addresses that non-technology folks would understand.  Domain names were used in marketing, but primarily via word of mouth so IT could tell the rest of the world how to access a company's Web site (back when there was no Google to help).

Today, the role of domain names is so much different, although not all companies realize that times have changed.  Businesses, brands, products and people have their own Web sites, and often those sites are the first point of contact with potential customers, employees, partners and vendors.  The domain name has become an essential part of marketing and corporate identity – it has a place on business cards, letterhead, advertising and virtually all communication going out that represents the business.

So the role of the domain name has been elevated, but along with that must come its protection.  Domain name piracy and hijacking are prevalent, as is the registration of alternative versions and misspellings of domain names by others on the Web to divert traffic to their Web sites rather than yours.  Thus domain names now must be an important consideration for companies because a hijacked or pirated domain name can result in lost business and damage to the company's brand.

Companies today need a domain name strategy rather than simply one domain name to represent the business, products and services they offer.  Developing a domain name strategy includes asking questions like these, many of which come about after not doing things the right way.

• Do we own the .net version of our primary domain name?  How about the .biz version?  If not, who does and what are they doing with it?
• For companies with offices or business outside the United States, have we registered our primary domain name with the local country code extensions, such as .co.uk?
• Are there common misspellings of our company name or domain name, and have they been properly registered?
• What does our domain name sound like when said over the phone, or read from an advertisement?  Does it allow for easy word of mouth marketing (ever tried to pronounce a dash?), or is it easy for people to misspell the domain name in those situations?
• After our company name is protected, what about our product names and other sub-brands?

A company that does a stellar job of applying a domain name strategy is Crate & Barrel (not our client), proving that domain name protection is not just for companies like Google, which does happen to own many domain name variations of its name and products.  Crate & Barrel recognizes that its name allows for many potential domain name variations, and does a great job of both protecting them and also redirecting them to its Web site, allowing customers to fee smart even if they spelled "barrel" wrong.

Check out this list:

• www.cratebarel.com
• www.cratebarell.com
• www.cratebarrel.com
• www.cratebarrell.com
• www.crateandbarel.com
• www.crateandbarell.com
• www.crateandbarrel.com  (primary domain name)
• www.crateandbarrell.com
• www.crate-barrel.com
• And on and on…

Sure, Crate & Barrel only really needs one domain name from a functional, technical perspective, but the list above protects the company from potential brand degradation and lost sales, as well as its customers from ending up on the wrong site or seeing error messages.  The cost of a domain name strategy is worth preventing those things, a wise investment in both marketing and IT.

Essential Online Advertising

Online advertising is no longer an option.  Speaking specifically about search engine advertising, all companies should implement an ongoing program in their branding and marketing efforts for the purpose of brand protection, not just for promotional purposes.  Why?  The ads that run alongside search engine results on Google, Yahoo! and MSN can be purchased by anyone using any words or phrases they are willing to pay for, even if those words happen to be your company name or trademark.  Why would other companies purchase your name for their ads?  To steal traffic away from your Web site.  So online advertising is now about brand protection as much as it is brand promotion.

How does it work?  Companies can set up text-based ads that run on the Google AdWords and Yahoo! Search Marketing networks by picking terms they think will drive traffic to their Web sites.  In many cases, they may be your competitors, and in other cases, even your partners or vendors.  Because there is no restriction on those words and phrases, your company name can easily be included in the list.  The problem then becomes the following – when your potential customers, partners and employees search for your business online, they will see those ads, and might even be diverted to a competitor's Web site rather than your own.  It's brand hijacking.

This type of scenario is especially true for competitive industries where Web site traffic equates to business, such as online job boards.  In fact, you can see one of the classic examples of this type of brand hijacking through searches on Google, Yahoo! or MSN for "Microsoft jobs" – you'll see the Microsoft Web site in the results, but also ads from job boards, competitors and others hoping you'll click over to their sites instead.

The lesson here is that the perception of online advertising has to change.  There is a minimum commitment that companies should make to protect their brands, product names and trademarks in search engine results that is not about promotion.  Rather, it's a level of protection to ensure that when your audiences look for you online, they find the real you and not someone else.

Marketing Live with Webinars

I wanted to share some observations about how a Webinar (for those new to the term: a live seminar on the Web, allowing for Q&A with the audience) has just been added as a tool in a client's marketing toolbox.  The interesting thing is not so much the actual technology (Webinars have been around for a while), but how a professional service company that has historically not utilized technology in brand development has embraced this form of customer/prospect communication.

Plunkett Raysich Architects (PRA) here in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, like most of its competitors, has relied on a traditional mix of marketing tools: cold calling, referrals, direct mail, advertising.  In the past couple of years, however, PRA has expanded its vision of marketing, adding innovative radio commercials, knowledge-sharing luncheons for clients and, most recently, Webinars.

A recent Webinar with Plunkett Raysich Architects featured two PRA clients talking about the design process in building their Women's Health Facilities.  The approach we took was not a "hard sell" of PRA, rather an opportunity to gather a widely dispersed audience together for an hour to share experience from the clients' point of view.  The audience targeted was comprised of CEOs, hospital facilities directors and even a few construction firms specializing in health care.

Sales certainly are a priority in this effort, but as importantly for the brand, PRA is positioning itself as a leader in its field, an industry expert and a more visible player in its market.  PRA is taking the lead, not just as one of the largest architectural firms in Wisconsin, but as a leader in using technology effectively.  They see the need to adopt ever more innovative ways to reach customers to do business more effectively, and they are embracing tools that help them do that.  For me, it's always encouraging to watch a business "do business" differently.  The expectations are high and it will be interesting to measure the results.