Notes from the Back of the Book

Pharma Marketers: Eight Things We Might Learn From Zappos.com

Here’s my take after reading Delivering Happiness:  A Path To Profits, Passion, and Purpose by Tony Hsieh CEO, Zappos.com, Inc. While it’s true that Zappos lives in a less regulated business environment than the pharmaceutical and healthcare industry, Tony’s standards for communicating with consumers are now part of the context of our work. Patients have come to expect Zappos- level experiences.  This blog accepts that challenge:  what might a pharma company or hospital might look like if Tony were CEO…

Eight marketing insights for Pharma (or any healthcare or consumer business for that matter):

1. Are you sitting at the right table? If not, it’s never too late to change!  It’s easy to get caught up and engrossed in what you’re currently doing, and forget that you even have the option to change tables. It’s also easy to overlook that the game starts even before you sit down in a seat… Don’t let inertia win, be sure you’re playing in the right game—one that you can both win at and fulfills your goals.

 While Tony learned this lesson during a phase of heavy poker play, he switched tables quite a few times during his life, and certainly for Zappos, they switched tables when they shifted the company strategy to focus on customer service and experience as a brand differentiator. It caused a shift in their business model from one of drop-shipping to one of carrying their own inventory so that they could be in control of their customers’ experiences…What’s the game your pharma co is playing?

2. Be patient and focus on what’s best for the long term.  Poker teaches that you may win or lose individual ‘hands or games’, but it’s what happens in the long term that matters…Zappos has a track record of making decisions based on the longer term. Tony provides numerous examples of this e.g. free shipping in both directions, shipping upgrades to high potential customers,  turning down skilled new hires because they didn’t fit into the Zappos culture…Focusing on the long term and making the necessary tradeoffs is not a new concept, but one that Pharma and all companies bump up against every day.  Unfortunately, all too often, most decisions are made with a short term view and little thought for the long-term impact or consequences on the brand and/or the patient's health …

3. Never outsource your core competency.  Zappos learned that if they were going to build their brand to be about the very best customer service, that they shouldn’t outsource that department.  This meant that core competencies that they had built as an e-business, like inventory management and warehousing and/or customer service, couldn’t be outsourced. 

What are healthcare and pharma companies' core competencies? What happens when a new drug is licensed-in, but the clinical trials have not been done with the insights to optimize claims and information for physicians and patients?

4. A Brand’s critical success factor (CSF) must be the responsibility of the entire company, not just a department.  For Zappos, when they decided that they wanted to build their brand to be about the very best customer service and the very best customer experience, they believed that customer service shouldn’t be just a department, it should be the entire company. For pharma, customer service is largely not considered a true success factor let alone the responsibility of each and every person in the company.  Further, how many pharma cos like to call themselves patient –centric, yet we see inconsistent decision making, demonstrating that patient-centricity  isn’t the responsibility of each and every person in a pharma company ….it's usually the responsibility for a few members of a brand team, but is this enough to ensure consistency and success?  (What does it take to truely be patient-centric? Read Pharma: Is Your Brand Patient-Centered? 5 Critical Success Factors)

5. Culture is the best way to build a brand for the long term.  At Zappos, they believe that if you get the culture right, most of the other stuff—like great customer service, or building a great long-term brand, or passionate employees and customers—will happen naturally on its own.  It’s Zappos belief that your company’s culture and your company’s band are really just two sides of the same coin.  The brand may lag the culture at first, but eventually it will catch up.  Your culture is your brand.  Zappos takes it a step further…core values are only core values if you can commit to them—and by commit, they mean that you’re willing to hire and first based on them…

If pharma cos had strong cultures of patient- centricity, and/or transparency, would we have situations where safety or clinical data was held back?  Is your company  guided by ‘committable’ core values?

6. Deliver WOW!  At Zappos, anything worth doing is worth doing with WOW.  "To WOW, you must differentiate yourself, which means do something a little unconventional and innovative.  You must do something that’s above and beyond what’s expected.  And whatever you do must have an emotional impact on the receiver. ..Whether internally with co-workers or externally with our customers and partners, delivering WOW results in word of mouth. “

When was the last time that a doctor or patient felt a WOW and personal connection from a Pharma company?  How could Pharma achieve more WOW from more customers and patients? Every brand wants to achieve consumer buzz or to have patients advocate on their behalf…but what is the brand’s responsibility to help instigate this? Word of Mouth or WOW doesn’t just happen, it can’t be bought— it has to be earned…  Ask yourself:  What are things you (your brand or your company) can improve upon in your work or attitude to WOW more people?  Have you WOWed at least one person today?

7. Build Open and Honest Relationships with Communication. Transparency is no longer a nice to have, but an imperative in today’s world. With the internet connecting everyone together, companies are becoming more and more transparent whether they like it or not. Both the good and the ugly can spread like wildfire by e-mail or with tools like Twitter and Facebook. Zappos lives in a world of transparency…Why can’t pharma and healthcare companies act with greater transparency and openess? Really?

8. It’s not just about the money, but about happiness. Cliché but oh so true!  Tony reviews different frameworks for happiness.  All roads lead to greater happiness based on an individual world filled with more passion and purpose—being part of something bigger than yourself.  Is there a greater purpose than helping people to live healthier and happier lives? Then why aren't pharma companies and the people in them happier?

Having had positive purchase experiences at Zappos.com in the past, I decided to revisit Zappos the other day when I realized I still needed hiking boots for two of my sons for camp.  When I hit the send button for free shipping I knew that I might not get the order in time, but I decided to put my faith in the Zappos culture and hope for a 'surprise' shipping upgrade…to my ‘joy’, I received a ‘fun’ email letting me know that my order had been upgraded!  Thank you Zappos! 

Here's the email I received:

A New Reality in DTC Advertising?

The last few months, I've been deeply entrenched in "Execution" for an important client. So needless to say, I've been thinking A LOT about what it takes to move from strong strategy to superb execution, and more specifically, what it takes to achieve what I call "High Return Execution" (HRE).    Look for more thoughts on HRE in the upcoming weeks... (And my sincere apologies for the resulting lack of blogging and staying connected with many of my friends' blogs these last few months)

Today, I want to share a personal experience.  Last week my team led an advertising shoot for a prescription product's new multi-channel campaign we are intimately involved with.  There was much to feel good about - the creative idea tested very well and is strong. We also had a terrific creative and production team, a wonderful photographer who we've all worked with before, and we were shooting in a venue that turned out to be magical...not to mention the beautiful picture- perfect, dry sunny days ... [How can you  complain about spending two days on an unspoiled 200 acre ranch in northern California?]

But as I flew home from the shoot, reflecting upon the previous few days, I kept feeling there was something even more special ... something that I rarely feel after shoots ... and then I realized ...

Our work included real patients and in some cases their families as well.   We shot three different print executions using three different patients.  In one case, the mom brought her daughter who was not only proud of her Mom, but also proud to be photographed. 

You might ask, what's the big deal?  As everyone knows, so often in branded consumer and healthcare advertising -- TV, print, web etc., ads are created using models or professional talent.  Certainly, using real patients or ‘real people' adds a great deal  of complexity and tension, as these shoots require much prep and planning, and have a sizeable cost ... Using real patients means you're never quite sure until ‘it's a wrap' -- that you have captured the idea you are trying to communicate ... It also takes more time and requires special artists and production types to work with real patients...

We decided to use real patients because the idea behind our ‘first person' campaign  ‘demanded' authenticity.   Lest you dismiss this as just a current buzzword, keep listening. These are real patients who are living their lives to the fullest extent they can, and genuinely grateful for their prescription product's ‘contribution' to their improved health and QOL. Additionally, these patients were willing to step up and be photographed about a medical condition that is embarrassing to most and difficult to manage.  These patients weren't participating in these ads because they were going to get rich (hardly), they were participating in my client's campaign because they are thrilled to be living their lives in a fuller way -they had reached a milestone so to speak, and wanted to give back. They each stepped up in the hopes of leading others like themselves to try to get the right help for themselves (It may be this prescription product, or it may be another)... to help spread the word, and bring hope and attention to a medical condition that gets little attention otherwise...

Each patient joined in the production process...they were not just models that showed up for their ‘job'; they were on mission, ... tasked to rise to the challenge of being center stage and photographed...something that none of them had ever done in their lives...and in itself a huge personal risk.  There were times that you could feel the wheels in their heads spinning, "this sounded like a good idea when I was in the comfort and safety of my home, but now that I'm here, this is more than a little overwhelming and scary ..."

As a result, everyone on site joined in to support these patients to be able to do their personal best ... It was also a continual reminder to each of us why we were at the shoot ... certainly to capture DTC advertising and patient communications for our client, but it was more than that ... we were there to shoot a new campaign that would  help the many patients with this condition that are still not feeling their best ... to help spur and initiate awareness, education and dialogue so that these patients can participate in their own health decisions and have more enlightened discussions with their doctors ... The vulnerability was gripping.  I'm confident that we at the shoot will not be the only ones to respond.

It leaves me wondering what the increasing use of using real patients will mean for "direct to consumer/patient" advertising and relationship marketing in the future?  Are we witnessing the birth of a new standard that will demand real patients who are advocates for themselves and others? ... Who make a difference each day by being true participants in their health? Will consumers be touched by their 'less than perfect' delivery as actors and models?   

I suspect this trend is here to stay. The pressure is on to "come clean" when the ad suggests that it's a real patient and it isn't (See the Abilify example).  There's no faking ‘real patients' who are actively participating in their health; time will tell what impact they will have on our industry going forward--and how they potentially transcend  advertising and marketing...

My heartfelt thanks to the three patients who made a choice to join us this past week.  I learned with each conversation, and I hope they learned a little too.  I also made three new friends... :-)

See other examples of current DTC Print Ads Using Real Patients, click on image below

5 Marketing and Social Networking Lessons from the Dead...

In honor of my "Deadhead" hubby and the millions of others out there, and the pending Grateful Dead Archive soon to open at the University of California at Santa Cruz, it's a great time to recognize the Grateful Dead for their marketing and social networking prowess.

But even if you're not a Deadhead, the Atlantic's Management Secrets of the Grateful Dead  is a must read article.

The Grateful Dead Archive, scheduled to open soon at the University of California at Santa Cruz, will be a mecca for academics of all stripes: from ethnomusicologists to philosophers, sociologists to historians.  But the biggest beneficiaries may prove to be business scholars and management theorists, who are discovering that the Dead were visionary geniuses in the way they created "customer" value", promoted social networking, and did strategic business planning. -by Joshua Green

Why Should corporate America or Pharma and Healthcare Marketers care?  The Dead pioneered ideas and practices that were subsequently embraced by business and 'Internet business models'.

Here are 5 Marketing and Social Networking Lessons that I took away from the Grateful Dead's incredible marketing success. They are masters at:

1. Creating and delivering superior value. This is evident by their great music (content), their sprawling repertoire and well-loved improvisation, long concerts, sophisticated sound system, radical at the time, and widely emulated today. They treated their fans well. Treating customers well may sound like common sense. But it represented a break from the top-down ethos of many organizations in the 1960s and '70s.
   
2. Promoting social networking--forming friendships and deep bonds across distance.  As early as the late 1980s, a sociologist at the University of North Carolina noticed deep bonds between Deadheads.The bonds seemed to belie the idea, then popular among leading social thinkers, that communities based on common interest, whose members do not live near each other, lack emotional and moral depth, and couldn't possibly form meaningful relationships.Today, everybody is intensely interested in understanding how communities form across distances, because that's what happens online.
3. Giving away stuff free. Giving something away and earning money on the periphery is the same idea outlined by Wired editor Chris Anderson in his recent best-selling book, Free: The Future of a Radical Price. Writing in Wired in 1994, Barlow, the band's lyricist, posited that in the information economy, "the best way to raise demand for your product is to give it away." What Barlow recently explained to the author:  "What people today are beginning to realize is what became obvious to us back then--the important correlation is the one between familiarity and value, not scarcity and value.  Adam Smith taught that the scarcer you make something, the more valuable it becomes.  In the physical world, that works beautifully.  But we couldn't regulate taping at our shows, and you can't online.  The Internet doesn't behave that way.  But here's the thing: if I give my song away to 20 people, and they give it to 20 people, pretty soon everybody knows me, and my value as a creator is dramatically enhanced.  That was the value proposition of the Dead." Interestingly, voluntarily or otherwise, it is becoming the blueprint for more and more companies doing business on the Internet.
4. Focusing intensely on loyal fans  The Dead established a telephone hotline to alert fans to its touring schedule ahead of any public announcement, reserved for them some of the best seats in the house, and capped the price of tickets, which the band distributed through its own mail-order system.
   
5. Being able to turn on a dime--strategic improvisation.  It is precisely this flexibility that many scholars believe holds the greatest lessons for business.The Dead's team of musicians were anything but naive about their business.  They incorporated early on, and established a board of directors (with a rotating CEO position).  They founded a profitable merchandising division and, peace and love notwithstanding, did not hesitate to sue those who violated their copyrights.  But they weren't greedy, and they adapted well.  They famously permitted fans to tape their shows, ceding a major revenue source in potential record sales, on the shrewd assessment that tape sharing would widen their audience, a ban would be unenforceable, and anyone inclined to tape a show would probably spend money elsewhere, such as on  merchandise or ticket sales. The Dead thrived for decades, in good times and bad times, and due to their strategic improvisation and flexibility became one of the most profitable bands of all time.

So it seems obvious as we continue to move in the direction of an Internet Economy, that the Management and Marketing secrets of the Grateful Dead may turn out to be almost as enjoyable and important  to us as  their music has been these last 40 or so years...Thoughts?

 

Image credit: hippieshop.com

 

 

 

What Would A Pharma Marketing Champ Do? 9 Imperatives for 2010

This is the final post of a four-part series.

What Would Steve Jobs Do? 

What Would Google Do? 

What Would Jake and Rocket Do?

These are champs.

What would a 'new marketing' champ do in Pharma and Healthcare?

Here are 9 imperatives I see for Pharma Marketers as we enter 2010 and a new decade:

1. Adopt human-centered thinking across everything you do. Both Steve Jobs and Google share a relentless focus on knowing and pleasing their core customer - the consumer. No detail is ignored if it brings value. Importantly, these champs don't think of consumers sporadically or when it's convenient, but in every decision and action they take.  The customer experience is front and center from beginning to the end.
   
   Pharma and Healthcare marketers: are patients at the center of everything you do? Really? As Steve Jobs might ask, are you taking full responsibility for your patient/e-patient user experience? Are you thinking about every touch along the treatment pathway, that is no longer a straight linear line, but made of multiple touches, information and influences often hitting at once and with circular repetition? (You may also want to read: Is Your Brand Patient-Centered? 5 Critical Success Factors)
2. Get outta town. Experience and see what your patients see. What are your patients' challenges? How could you help? How can you insure that learning is turned into action back in the office? Who should 'own' a particular learning or insight and see it through? Pharma and Healthcare Marketers: is listening and learning part of your everyday doings? What are consumers and patients saying about you? your product? your service? What are they saying on twitter? Facebook? patient communities? How are patients rating your brand on sites such as iGuard? (You may also want to read Jonathan Richman's Dose of Digital blog: The Best Pharma Products According to Patients)
3. Simplify.  Challenge your product and marketing design: Is it simple enough? Simplify your products and services; simplify your customers' lives; simplify your own life...Create simple experiences.  Think about starting a search on Google...or picking up an iPod...Pharma and Healthcare Marketers: During every step of product development and marketing planning: stop and ask yourself: If Steve Jobs was the Product Manager on this, what would he do? Is the design and implementation  of your product/program flawless?
4. Embrace publicness and openness. Transform your relationship with the public in every quarter of the organization.  You may extend this new relationship in many ways from blogging, interacting with bloggers and e-Patients, participating in twitter or Facebook, customer service and sharing ideas.  Overtime, you may even truly involve customers in the real-time design process for products and/or services...But 'publicness' is much more than having a web site. It's about taking actions in public so people can see what you do and react to it, make suggestions, and tell their friends.  Living in public is a matter of enlightened self interest. You have to be public to be found. Every time you decide not to make something public, you create the risk of a customer not finding you or not trusting you because you're keeping secrets....the more public you are, the easier you can be found, the more opportunities your have...(Read Privacy (and Publicness) by Jeff Jarvis Buzz Machine)
   
5. Don't try to control content and distribution, and think about how you can bring your customers 'elegant organization'.  First, think in distributor ways.  Go to your consumer whenever and however you can.  This is still the opposite of many companies who continue to think centralized and want to make consumers come to them.  They spend large dollars to advertise to attract consumers.  Many try to make their home pages into destinations.  In sum, while many internet sites think of themselves as an end--Google thinks of itself as a means.  While many see the job of their home page to take you to where they want you to go, Google sees its home page as the way to get you to where you want to go.  Google distributes itself.  Google enables others to use tools as they wish. Think of your site as 'answers for every question you can imagine'.
   
   Second, it will also be helpful to think about 'elegant organization' as Jeff Jarvis outlined in What Would Google Do?--Mark Zuckerberg originally coined the phrase to stress that communities already exist... As marketers, entrepreneurs and technologists, we can benefit from these communities by providing them with elegant organization. Help them do what they are already doing better.  Pharma: how can you aggregate and curate useful and valuable content for your patients/ customers? How can you replace focus on mass market with focus on mass of niches? And how can you provide helpful content consistently?
6. Think mobile. Engage real-time with your customers 24/7. Mobile doesn't have to be just about apps; consider the value of texting, geolocators, and/or the use of quick response (QR) codes for simplification...
7. Takers may eat well, but givers sleep well. While most will wait for the FDA guidelines to be published for social media and web, some will move forward to listen, learn and to "give as well as to take." There are still opportunities for Pharma to learn, and support patients and their communities, especially if Pharma starts to see themselves not only as products, but as a service, a platform, a means to enabling others. The bottom line: help your patients (and customers) build value. One new example may be the launch of the new Patients Like Me Epilepsy Community in Partnership with UCB. (While UCB is a client, I have nothing to do with their epilepsy business.)
   
8. Do one thing really really well--focus on what's most important.  Each champ does one thing really, really well.  Google never loses sight of what search means to their business strategy, and in their continuous focus for improvement of search, it continually spurs other applications and new products/services. Apple never loses site of flawless and simple design for maximum consumer appeal. Jake and Rocket for Life is Good always stay close to their roots of humor and humility. What does your company or brand do really well? Where can you focus resources to continually innovate?
9. Raise Your Bar. Good isn't good enough.  If you don't think it would pass Steve Job's bar, then don't let it pass yours...Or you can think like Google: being great is a starting point, not an endpoint. But as Steve Jobs says, Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Welcome to the new decade of new-marketing--any other imperatives that you'd like to add or delete from this list? Please do share!


Muhammad-Ali Image: 1976 World heavyweight boxing champion. Photo Source: Frank Tewkesbury/Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Marketers: What Would Jake and Rocket Do? 13 Imperatives for 2010 (part 3 of 4)

What Would Jake and Rocket Do?
This is the third of a four part series for Consumer and Pharma/Healthcare marketers looking to tame the rigors of 2010... In case you're just coming in now, here is the first of the series: What Would Steve Jobs Do? And the second: What Would Google Do?

Who are Jake and Rocket you ask? Jake and his trusty dog Rocket have become icons of optimism, and Life is good ® America's little clothing brand that could-that is trying to spread good vibes all over the world. Having recently returned from a few days of holiday skiing in Vermont, and the proverbial t-shirt buying with ‘my three sons'... Life is good was all around us spreading their optimism and good cheer.

Here are some of Jake and Rocket's insights that all marketers-Consumer, B2B and Pharmaceutical/Healthcare - may want to pay attention to in 2010.

What Would Jake and Rocket Do?

1. Run like a dog. Dream on. High end destination.
Optimism, hope and dreams are crucial for human beings, healthy and/or sick...If you forget what it feels like to ‘run like a dog', take a look at: 19 Seconds of Pure Joy and Steve Woodruff's young dog experiencing snow for the first time! Or listen to Dr. Groopman speak about Hope and Medicine on NPR. You can also read Jen McCabe's blog on the importance of hope.

2. Consider yourself a lucky dog.
Go deep. Think out of the box. Don't knock something, build something. Create your own happy hour. This is not a year to wish you had more. Use any financial or human constraints to innovate...to build something big, to go deep. Constraints are not something to fear, but often spur innovation. Read 37 signals Getting Real: Embrace Constraints; a concept duly noted by Tim Brown and Matthew May's Change This Manifesto on Elegant Solutions (no.6 p 22)

3. Whatever you are, be a good one.  Style points count. Get dirty.
Successful people and companies raise the bar, and continually strive for excellence with every move they make...If you take nothing else away from What Would Steve Jobs Do?, think about the bar of excellence he sets and expects for himself and others at every step of the way.

4. Get outta town. If you don't go, you don't see. If you don't live it, it won't come out your horn. Who feels it knows it.
Reading Tim Brown's book Change By Design, I was stuck by this quote: "Good design thinkers observe. Great design thinkers observe the ordinary." How true it is that you have to get out to see and experience what your customers are doing and thinking, and how they're interacting with the world. Yet how many busy executives actually do? And then actually take the learning and insights and share them across the organization and find rightful ‘owners' to turn them into action? (Brian Solis often speaks to this very need of leveraging what you hear in social media throughout the organization by insuring rightful owners.)

5. Mix it up.
We seem to be stuck in a world of X OR Y, TV advertising or web, traditional advertising or social media, facebook or twitter, branded advertising or value-add conversations...when we could be mixing it up and thinking AND...The consumer mixes it up, why don't marketers?

6. The little things in life are the big things.
How true it is that what we most often remember is not the big things or the big/expensive presents, but those little special gestures that let us know that people really appreciate us, trust us, care about us, and know us. (You can also read Linda Kaplan and Robin Koval's Power of Small)

7. Takers may eat well, but givers sleep well. Sometimes the best conversation is a game of catch.
We all know that building relationships is a give and take. What better analogy for two-way conversation than a game of catch? When your catching the ball, you can't be throwing at the same time...it's a rhythm of give and take... While it's never this simple, much has been written about how the new world of marketing is no longer about ‘sell and tell' or ‘push', but give and take (with more emphasis on giving than taking), remembering to listen first - sell later, adding value via marketing with meaning), earning trust a la Brogan's trust agents, and ‘earning' customer love and word of mouth.

8. Hold a true friend with both hands.
This is the year for quality over quantity and this goes for relationships as well. Only those that add value to your life will get your time and attention. Who are your true friends? Who are your most loyal customers? What do they need and want? How can you help? How can you bring them value?

9. The best things in life are free.
If you are around kids, how many birthdays and holidays need to go by before we realize that it's not the most expensive present that people/kids like, but the box that it comes in...The concept of Free is everywhere and shouldn't be overlooked or taken lightly. The web is full of content... so it's critical to create content with value or to organize content to bring value: ‘elegant organization'...Think free or the minimum you must charge or take out of the system if you want to maximize growth and usage. Read Jeff Jarvis' What Would Google Do? or Chris Anderson's Free: the future of radical price if you're still are unsure....

10. Change your perspective.
Experts in education suggest that adult learners should "jiggle their synapses a bit" by confronting thoughts that are contrary to their own..."bump up against people and ideas" that are different. (NYTimes: Neuroscience-How to train the aging brain) If you are a ‘social media' guy, look at the world through other lens...most of the world still doesn't know what RSS feeds are, let alone use them...email is still the most widely used way to send others information...Marketers, look outside your industry for ideas, seek different perspectives that may bring new value to your customers' and patients' lives. Look to other disciplines, from science to design, for new thinking.

11. Write on. Read ‘em and reap. Keep Growing.
They say 2010 is the year that Content is King. We know that Links create value. Creating valuable content and acting as a ‘content curator' are critical new marketing and leadership skills...think "elegant organization".

12. Simplify.
With the number of emails, blogs, tweets, friends contacting us, more and more it will be critical to simplify and focus on what's most important. Only a few can stand out. Focus on less and make each ‘friend', ‘contact', ‘tweet', 'program'  more impactful and valuable...both simplify and 'elegance' are at the very core of both Steve Jobs/Apple and Google's success. Do You Have a Stop Doing List? (Also read Power of Less or Mathew May's The Elegant Solution)

13. Laughter has no foreign accent. We will never know all the good a simple smile can do. Celebrate.
Let's promise each other that we won't overlook a little laughter and smiles in our busy lives this year...(You can also read Dave Murray's 11th Lesson of Life)

 

Marketers: Which ones are most meaningful for you this New Year?
Which ones would most help spur growth and innovation for your brand and business?

Pharma and Healthcare Marketers: Which ones would most bring growth and innovation to our industry? Which ones would help bring back hope and trust? Value to our patients?

Stay tuned for part four of 4...What Will Pharma and Healthcare Marketers Do? What Will Champs in New Marketing Do in 2010?

Marketers: What Would Google Do? Ten Imperatives for 2010 (part 2 of 4)

What Would Google Do? What would the fastest-growing company in history and a model for thinking in new ways do? Even this week, Google makes waves with their launch of their new android-based Nexus One (MIT Says Yes).

Welcome to the second of a four part serious for Consumer and Pharma/Healthcare Marketers looking to tame the rigors of 2010... If you missed post 1, read: What Would Steve Jobs Do?  And by all means, I hope you'll stay tuned for What Would Jake and Rocket Do? And What Would Savvy Marketers Do?

"Once upon a time, all roads led to Rome. Today, all roads lead from Google." - Jeff Jarvis

What Would Google Do?

1.    Focus on the user and all else will follow. Design with simplicity. Google strives to provide the best user experience possible—from the user/customer’s point of view.  Google often forgoes paying for marketing and instead focuses on creating something so great that customers distribute it—it goes viral.

2.    Don't try to control content and distribution. Instead think about creating open networks that sit on platforms. Think in distributer ways. Go to your consumer whenever and however you can. This is the opposite of most companies (even still) that think centralized and make consumers come to them. They spend large dollars to advertise to attract consumers. Many try to make their home pages into destinations. In sum, while many internet sites think of themselves as an end- Google thinks of itself as a means. While many see the job of their home page is to take you to where they want you to go, Google sees its home page as the way to get you to where you want to go. Google distributes itself. It puts its ads on millions of web pages it does not own, earning billions of dollars for these sites and for itself. Google enables others to use tools as they wish. They know their own needs.

Think of your site as ‘answers for every question you can imagine’. 

3.    See yourself not as a product, but a service, a platform, a means of enabling others. Help others build value.  Google has many platforms to help its customers. e.g.: Blogger for publishing content, Picasa for pictures, Google docs etc.

4.    Cede control. Embrace ‘Publicness’ and openness. Transform your relationship with the public in every quarter in the organization. You may extend this new relationship in many ways from blogging, interacting with bloggers, enabling customers to critique your products or services (hard to do in Pharma) and sharing ideas.  Overtime, you may even truly involve customers in the real-time design process for products and/or services…

But 'Publicness' is about more than having a web site.   It's about taking actions in public so people can see what you do and react to it, make suggestions, and tell their friends. Living in public today is a matter of enlightened self-interest.  You have to be public to be found.  Every time you decide not to make something public, you create the risk of a customer not finding you or not trusting you because you're keeping secrets. Publicness is also an ethic.  The more public you are, the easier you can be found, the more opportunities you have.  (For more on privacy (and publicness) read this insightful blog by Jeff Jarvis.   

5.    Bring them "elegant organization". Ask how you can bring constituents, customers, community-even your competitors- elegant organization. Create value through links. Replace focus on mass market with focus on mass of niches. Understand that the economy is made up of a mass of niches-the aggregation of the long tail. Small is the new big.

6.    Extract the minimum value from the network so it will grow to maximum size and value.  In other words, charge as little as the market will bear.

7.    You don't need to be at your desk to need an answer. Google is looking to fuel greater innovation for mobile users everywhere with Android, their free, open source mobile platform. It sure feels like 2010 will be the ‘year of unprecedented mobile growth'...

8.     Move faster-not slower. Most companies say this in reference to making sure they move fast to develop new products and services. Google means this from a user experience because they know how valuable time is to their customers.

9.    Do one thing really, really well. Google does search, and in their continuous focus for improvement of search, it spurs other applications and new products/services. But they never seem to forget the role search plays in their business strategy.

10.    Great just isn't good enough.... Being great is a starting point, not an endpoint.  Ultimately, our constant dissatisfaction with the way things are becomes the driving force behind everything we do.

Is Google the only one who knows how to survive and prosper in the internet age?  Stay tuned.

What Would Steve Jobs Do? Six Marketing Imperatives for 2010 (part 1 of 4)

What Would Steve Jobs Do? This is the first of a four part series for Consumer and Pharma/Healthcare Marketers looking to tame the rigors of 2010...by taking a closer look and asking ourselves what three incredibly successful people and companies in business today would do...

The genesis for this series first came while reading Fortune's CEO of the Decade and The Decade of Steve, and thinking about the question that Apple executives asked themselves over and over during Steve Job's six month leave of absence in early 2009: What would Steve Jobs do? Recently, I picked up What Would Google Do? by Jeff Jarvis (great book)... I hope you'll stay tuned for What Would Google Do? And What Would Jake and Rocket Do? And What Might Marketers Do in 2010?

As you're developing new products, services and/or marketing plans this year, here's a question to ask yourself at each major milestone and decision point...

What Would Steve Jobs Do? The threshold for moving forward: Would it pass Steve's test? In the past 10 years alone Steve Jobs has radically and lucratively reordered three markets --music, movies, and mobile telephones--and his impact on his original industry, computing has only grown.

"There's an old Wayne Gretzky quote that I love. 'I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.' And we've always tried to do that at Apple. Since the very very beginning. And we always will." - Steve Jobs

"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." - Steve Jobs, Leonardo da Vinci

1. Know what consumers want. Paint a big-picture vision that will WOW your consumers and competitors. Create new experiences that can change the world...create a story. Create an adversary and a new way to win. In every story there's an antagonist-the hero fights the villain. Introducing the antagonist (the problem) rallies the company and audience around the hero. In Job's case, create and act upon a ‘digital lifestyle' strategy...He was a very successful ‘David' fighting Goliath... iTunes new paradigm, Macintosh launch in 1984 against IBM

2. Make it your business to know everything about your product area and company. Small details matter and are not to be overlooked. Steve is known for being involved in details you wouldn't think a CEO would be involved in. He's also well known for "One more thing".

3. Take full responsibility for the user experience. Apple is about being a system... In 2002, Steve told Time, "We're the only company that owns the whole widget -- the hardware, the software, and the operating system. We can take full responsibility for the user experience. We can do things that the other guy can't do."

4. Design is critical and must be perfect. He's a perfectionist to the nth degree. He has a willingness to be a pain in the neck to what matters most to him. (Time 2005) The company believes in "deep collaboration" and "concurrent engineering" so there are no hand offs...just flawless design. (You may also want to read Inside the Apple Ecosystem and Tim Brown's Change by Design)

5. Master the message. Simplify complex information. The message to the public is always consistent, simple, breakthrough, and expert at bringing the benefit(s) to life. E.g.:it's not just a 5GB iPod, it's 1,000 songs in your pocket; iconic "think different" campaign. Jobs practices the message over and over and only a few deliver it. He is also careful to avoid overexposure, preferring to speak only when he has new products to promote. He crates 'twitter-like headlines'. E.G.: Macbook air. The world's thinnest notebook. iPod. One thousand songs in your pocket. (You may also want to read Carmine Gallo's: The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs slide share and book.)

6. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. Lessons he learned after he found out that he had pancreatic cancer. "Your time is limited so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma-which is living with the result of other people's thinking. Don't let the voice of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish."  -  Steve Jobs

Healthcare Marketers:

What if Pharma and Healthcare products/services took full responsibility for the user (patient) experience?

What if Pharma and Healthcare designed the product and user experience to simplify the complex and encourage participative medicine?

What if Pharma and Healthcare mastered the message and dialog so patients and their caregivers immediately and easily understood the benefits and risks and could discuss it with their doctor and family?

Stay tuned for What Would Google do? (WWGD)...

My 13 Favorite Business Books of 2009

As 2009 comes to a close, I want to share my thirteen favorite biz books from this year that I found myself writing the most "Notes in the Back of the Book", and stimulating the greatest new thinking and ideas. The list of books covers social media, marketing and new marketing models, and innovation and leadership. For reference, here are also business book favorites by Fast Company, Mashable, Amazon and The Brand Bubble (John Gerzema).

If you're looking to better understand and excel in today's social media and web 2.0 worlds, here are four: Inbound Marketing is a must for anyone who wants to be found online, and is especially helpful for anyone who is actively considering how to get started with inbound marketing. Written by the leaders of Hubspot, they know what they're talking about. Trust Agents by Chris Brogan and Julian Smith shows how people use online social tools to build networks of influence and how you can tap into the power of these networks to positively impact your business. Because trust is essential to building online reputations, those who traffic trust are "trust agents" and key people for any business.  Putting the Public Back into Public Relations shows how to reinvent PR around two-way conversations with traditional and new influencers, bringing the "public" back into public relations. Both are consistent thought leaders in the area of PR. Web Analytics 2.0 by Avinash Kaushik begins to bring accountability to web 2.0 online programs with focus on customer- centered thinking and measurement, and builds upon his 2007 book.

Of course, to participate in our ever changing digital and social world, strategic marketing and a deep customer focus are still paramount.  How is marketing evolving? In Marketing with Meaning, Bob Gilbreath outlines the next evolutionary step in a progression following direct marketing and permission marketing. The book calls for the end of "push and sell" marketing in favor of adding value to customers' lives. Excelling in marketing also starts with listening...In Listen First. Sell Later, Bob Poole outlines the benefits of listening FIRST. And to remind us about customer- centered marketing, I Love You More Than My Dog by Jeanne Bliss is a great read. Who can argue that companies like Lands End didn't get it right early on?

Eating the Big Fish still feels as relevant today as it was when it was first published. The 2009 edition is packed with new examples and Morgan's eight credos still worthy of consideration-especially for small specialty and biotech Pharmaceutical brands. In FREE: The Future of a Radical Price, Chris Anderson (Long Tail) argues that in the digital marketplace, the most effective price is no price at all. He illustrates how savvy businesses are raking it in with indirect routes from product to revenue with such models as cross-subsidies and freemiums.  But when you stop to think about the real changes in expectations that the web has brought about, this is a book to think hard about.

Tim Brown's Change by Design suggests that innovation in today's world means taking a design thinking approach, and one that is human-centered. The CEO of global design consultancy IDEO offers a guide for thinking and organizing our everyday creative processes.  A great book and a nice break  from so much focus on social media...

The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs is a must read for anyone looking to improve their own presentation skills. Why not learn from a master, who is consistently voted the most important CEO of the decade?  Knowing how to present is critical today, but this book goes beyond just presentation tips...Power of Less is a very useful reminder to focus (and act) on what is most important and forget the rest. It's simple and direct without the fluff. Born to Run, while not a business book per say, provides lessons in mind and body, and shows the advantages of anthropological learning from others, in this case a special Indian tribe from Mexico.

Favorite Business Books of 2009

1. Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs (The New Rules of Social Media) by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah

2. Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation and Earn Trust by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith

3. Putting the Public Back into Public Relations: How Social Media is Reinventing the Aging Business in PR by Brian Solis and Deidre Breakenridge

4. Web Analytics 2.0: The Art of Online Accountability and Science of Customer Centricity by Avinash Kaushik

5. The Next Evolution of Marketing: Connect With Your Customers by Marketing With Meaning by Bob Gilbreath Listen First Sell Later

6. Listen First Sell Later by Bob Poole

7. I Love you More than my Dog: Five Decisions That Drive Extreme Customer Loyalty in Good Times and Bad by Jeanne Bliss

8. Eating the Big Fish: How Challenger Brands can Compete Against Brand Leaders by Adam Morgan (2009 reprint)

9. FREE: The Future of Radical Price by Chris Anderson

10. Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation by Tim Brown

11. The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: How to be Insanely Great In Front of Any Audience by Carmine Gallo

12. Power of Less The: Fine Art of Limiting Yourself to the Essential...in Business and in Life by Leo Babauta

13. Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes and the Greatest Race The World Has Never Seen by Chris McDougall

Other books you think should be on this list?

 

Books I plan to read in the New Year:

1. Viral Loop: From Facebook to Twitter, How Today's Smartest Businesses Grow Themselves by A Penenberg

2. Googled: The End of the World As We Know It by Ken Auletta/What Would Google Do? By Jeff Jarvis

3. The Social Media Marketing Book by Dan Zarella

4. Chief Culture Officer: How to Create a Living, Breathing Corporation by Grant McCraken

5. Presentation Zen Design: Simple Design Principles and Techniques to Enhance Your Presentations by Garr Reynolds (due December 28, 2009)

6. Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink (due out December 29, 2009)

7. Lynchpin: Are You Indispensible? by Seth Godin (due out January 26, 2010)

8. Rework by Jason Fried (due out March 9, 2010)

What about you? What's on your list to read?

 

Other blogs to read related to these favorite books of 2009:

If You Charged For Your Content, Would Anyone Pay? By Jonathan Richman Dose of Digital blog

Marketing With Meaning: Is there any other way? Advertising Age

Pharma: Are Current DTC Ads Meaningful? By Ellen Hoenig Notes From the Back of the Book blog

How Marketing With Meaning Can Save Pharma (3 Part Series) by Jonathan Richman

Book Review: I love You More Than My Dog - Small Business Trends

Pharma: Say NO To More Bullets! and Presentation Tips  by Ellen Hoenig

Pharma: Is Your Marketing Designed to Engage and Educate or Sell?  By Ellen Hoenig

For my list of top books of 2008 and 2007, click here.

Happy New Year to all! See you in 2010!

 

 

 

Some of the Best Healthcare Blogs and eBooks of 2009

As we move into 2010, I've been thinking a lot about what I've learned this year, much of it triggered by the tremendous number of thought leader blogs, eBooks and white papers that I've read this year.  While there is no way to capture all the great work happening 24/7, here's a smattering of a few (well maybe more than a ‘few') that you may want to read or re-read as we get ready to step into 2010...

Topics cover a range- from social media and technology, to ePatients and marketing, including implications for Pharma and Healthcare, in the US and Europe. Please feel free to share other posts that you found valuable. Happy reading...

Best Blogs

Social Media, Platforms and Technology

Ten ‘Thinks' You Should Know about Social Media by Shwen Gwee at Med 2.0 blog

Pharma Should Forget About Social Media Monitoring by Jonathan Richman at Dose of Digital

Pharma Don't Be Shy About Social Media by Wendy Blackburn at ePharma Rx, Intouch Solutions

10 Social Media Watch-outs for Pharma and Healthcare Marketers by Ellen Hoenig, Notes from the Back of the Book

7 Inputs to a Social Media Strategy by Adam Cohen, A Thousands Cuts blog

5 Social Media Myths by Digital Tonto blog

The 3 F's and 3 R's of Social Media Marketing by Chris Boyer, Hospital Online Marketing

Lee Aase, Mayo Clinic: The Future of Health Brands and Social Media and Greg Matthews, Humana: The Future of Health Brands and Social Media by Eric Brody at Healthy Conversations

A Clinical Infusion of Google Wave  and Healthcare's Google- Facebook -Twitter Platform by Phil Baumann

Is Google the New FDA? By John Mack at Pharma Marketing blog

Google Real Time Search and Crisis Communications and Google and Pharmacovigilance by Mark Senak at eyeonfda blog

Google Sidewiki and Implications for Pharma Brands by Adam Cohen, A Thousand Cuts blog, Rosetta

Why Pharma Needs to Pay Attention to Wikipedia, Guest post Eileen O'Brien at Notes from the Back of the Book

Readability of the Top 50 Prescribed Drugs in Wikipedia by Kevin Kruse, The Patient Will See You Now

Pharma and Twitter: Who's Got Hand by Mark Senak at eyeonfda blog

Follow the Engagement-visualizing #FollowPharma by Silja Chouquet at Whydotpharma blog

The Increasing Use of Social Media to Recruit Patients for Clinical Trials by Sally Church at Pharma Marketing Strategy blog

Video Games: Key to the Future of Pharma and Healthcare? By Ellen Hoenig, Notes From the Back Of the Book

Why the Pharma Industry Should Care About Augmented Reality Guest Post by  Sven Larsen of Pixels and Pills   at Fard Johnmar's Walking the Path blog

Pfizer and Social Media-- an Update by Steve Woodruff at Impactiviti blog and consultancy

Social Media ROI for Hospitals and Health Marketers by Kevin Kruse and Kru Research blog

Splitting ROI by Just So You Know blog (Meredith Gould and Daphne Leigh Swancutt)

Europe You need to Tackle Social Media Now by Silja Chouquet at Whydotpharma blog

The Pachyderm in the Parlour: resisting the legitimation of DTC social media activates in Europe by Andrew Spong STweM blog and consultancy

Pharma, Marketing and Paradigm Shift

What's Hot In Oncology: A Review of 2009 and Predictions for 2010 by Sally Church at Pharma Marketing Strategy blog

Pharma Still Uneasy About Getting Social, Pharma Blog Review by Chris Truelove

The Pitfalls of Doing Nothing by Steve Woodruff at Impactiviti blog and consultancy

Ten things Pharma Companies Will Never Try (But Should) by Jonathan Richman at Dose of Digital

Will Patients Find Value in Discussions with Pharma? By John Mack

Question For Healthcare Marketers: Do You See Patients as Consumers? By Eric Brody at Healthy Conversations

Save Boobs Blasts Attention Glut (guest post Fard Johnmar) Just So You Know blog (Meredith Gould and Daphne Leigh Swancutt)

Refining Patienthood Project Launches: Aims, Goals and Many Questions Ahead by Jen McCabe, Jen's Posterous Health Management Rx

Why Programming Microchoice and Microcontrol into the Healthcare system will lead to the Equivalent of the Microprocessing Revolution by Jen McCabe Jen's Posterous Health Management Rx

Splitting Trouble  and Talking Trash by Just So You Know blog (Meredith Gould and Daphne Leigh Swancutt)

Pharma and Social Media: What Roles Should Personas Play? by Ellen Hoenig at Notes from the Back of the Book blog

CMO 3.0: Why Marketing is the New Finance, Odom Lewis, Healthcare Marketing and Medical Executive Search  

ePatients, Patients and Consumers

Video "Tale of 2 ePatients": Pecha Kucha Limerick Dr Val Jones via The Patients Will See You Now, Kevin Kruse and Kru Research

Mayo Clinic Music Fun  and A Bite of Life at Sharing Mayo Clinic

Disease Guilt by Steve Woodruff at Impactiviti blog and consultancy

Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here, Have Something Messed Up Happen? By Jen McCabe, Jen's Posterous

What Part of Give Us Our Damn Data Do You Not Understand by Dave deBronkart at e-patients.net

ePatient 2009: Voice of the Patient by  Kerri Morrone Sparling, at sixuntilme.com

A Patient's Perspective: Day Two of FDA Public Hearing (#FDASM) by DC Patient

Advice to a Cancer Patient Facing News He Didn't Want and Don't Let the Median Scare You To Death by Dave deBronkart, The New Life of ePatient Dave blog, Dave deBronkart

The Pew/Health Internet FAQ by Susannah Fox at e-patients.net (Leads Health Research and Internet Strategy for Pew Internet and American Life Project)

The Social Life of Health Information by Susannah Fox, Pew Internet and American Life Project

What Pharma Can learn from Communities' Opinions by Andrew Spong STweM

The Role of Physician Trust and Communication in Filling New Prescriptions by Kevin Kruse, Kru Research

Best eBooks and White Papers (free)

Best Learning Actions for Pharma and Healthcare Marketers in 2010? Reflections by 12 Sage Bloggers and Thought leaders, Editor Ellen Hoenig AdvanceMarketWoRx

Overcoming Our Social Challenges: Getting Started with Social Media in Biotech by Shwen Gwee

A Bright Future for Digital, a Dimmer One for Pharma by Len Starnes, Bayer Schering Pharma

Pharma and Healthcare Social Media Principles by Jonathan Richman Dose of Digital blog, Bridge Worldwide

Social Media: What's In It for Pharma? A Digitas Health Social Media POV by Sarah Larcker

Getting Started with Social Networking by Steve Woodruff of Impactiviti blog and consultancy

Pharma Twitterama: Exploring the Use of Twitter in Pharma and Healthcare by Shwen Gwee at Med 2.0 blog

WEGO Health Webinar: Twitter Power Tools for Health Activists by Shwen Gwee at Med 2.0 blog

140 Healthcare Uses for Twitter  by Phil Baumann

Social Media and Pharma: Is their value? By Richard Meyer

Monitoring Adverse Events in Social Media for Pharma's Biggest Brands: Hopeless Task or Simple Project? Mini-white paper, Jonathan Richman Dose of Digital

An Edelman Report: Insights and Recommendations in the Wake of the FDA Social Media Hearings, The Health Engagement blog

Considering Neuroscience to Improve Consumer Communications- FDA Advisory Committee Meeting by Ellen Hoenig, AdvanceMarketWorx Notes from the Back of the Book blog

ePatient White Paper by ePatient Scholars team, ePatient.net (2007- but still including this classic!)

Best Wikis

#FDASM by Fabio Gratton of Ignite Health

Pharma and Healthcare Social Media Wiki by Jonathan Richman at Dose of Digital

Hospital Social Networking List by Ed Bennett

 

 

Best Learning Actions for Healthcare Marketers in 2010? (free eBook)

Inspired by Alvin Toffler's quote: "The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read or write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn," we asked 12 leading bloggers and healthcare thought leaders to share their reflections: what would they recommend as top learning strategies for Pharma and Healthcare marketers in 2010?

Overall, there were six themes that contributors brought to life:

1)  e-Patients are at the center and critical to learning and design;
2)  Authenticity isn't a ‘nice to do', it's a ‘must' (and you won't be the one who decides whether you've succeeded);
3)  Don't' get distracted by ‘bells and whistles'-remember the basics and keep your brand core strong;
4)  New marketing challenges require new ROI thinking...the ROI of connection, authenticity and compassion;
5)  The marketing cycle of life is going through unprecedented change requiring all marketers and communications people to unlearn much-the movement from paid marketing to earned marketing requires a different mindset and skills; and
6)  Effective marketing and engagement will require new kinds of leadership skills.

Or as Steve Woodruff would say, "it's a holiday grab-bag of nuggets from the wise travelers--some myrrh, some gold, some SEO, some patient communities--stick your hand in and grab some goodies!"

My heartfelt appreciation to the 12 contributors-yet another example of the power of the community.

• Phil Baumann, Phil Baumann online blog, CareVocate Interactive Media Solutions
• Wendy Blackburn, ePharma Rx blog, Intouch Solutions
• Adam Cohen, A Thousand Cuts blog, Rosetta Interactive
• Dave deBronkart, The New Life of e-Patient Dave blog, Society for Participatory Medicine
  
• Angela Dunn, Odom Lewis blog, Executive Search Specialists in Healthcare Marketing/Medical Education
• Susannah Fox, Health Research for Pew Internet & American Life Project
• Fard Johnmar, Path of the Blue Eye Project, Envision Consultancy
• John Mack, Pharma Marketing blog, Editor-in-chief of Pharma Marketing News
  
• Jonathan Richman, Dose of Digital blog, Bridge Worldwide
• Marsha Shenk, Thriving Enterprise blog, The Bestwork People
• Andrew Spong, STweM blog and Consultancy, UK
• Steve Woodruff, Impactiviti blog and Consultancy

If you enjoy this eBook, feel free to blog it, tweet it or email it. (But please don't change it)...We also hope that you meet some new 'friends' to learn with in 2010. Lastly, we welcome feedback below or on slide share.

Download PDF;  also available on slideshare  (see below) and scribd

The Gift of Learning for Pharma and Healthcare Marketers In 2010 (free eBook)

View more presentations from Ellen Hoenig Carlson - Advance MarketWoRx.

May you and yours enjoy a rich and rejuvenating holiday season. We look forward to more learning and collaboration in 2010!


credits: eBook production: Courtney Justice, The Cournell Group