Gandolf's Marketing Magic

Here is an interview about our success with this blog…

By Stewart Gandolf | January 29, 2010

http://bit.ly/bNJ1iD

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Medical Marketing “On The Cheap” Can Be Hazardous To Your Health

By Stewart Gandolf | January 28, 2010

I am as frugal as the next guy, but in competitive markets, doing things on the cheap is not only ill advised, it can be downright dangerous.

A doctor called us the other day, saying that he wants to expand into a new line of business, despite entrenched competition. Now this a really nice guy who enjoys a good reputation, but he has never had to deal with ANY competition before. Since things have always been easy for him, he assumes that it will be a “walk in the park” to get referrals for his new business from area doctors.

That’s a big assumption. If he is right, great, but if not, the consequences could be dire.

It seems our doctor spent a lot of money getting his new center up and running. So much so in fact, that he has no money left over to market his new business. I explained that is like buying an expensive racehorse, but then being unable or unwilling to feed it.

His plan is to send an employee (who has never sold anything in her life) out into the market to win doctor referrals, using some “home-grown” marketing brochures and a website.

To prevent a potential debacle, I introduced him to one of the professional physician liaisons work with. Also known as physician relations, business development, practice reps, etc., physician liaisons are on-the-ground experts at generating referrals from doctors.

This particular liaison shared some interesting insights, based upon his experience personally walking into hundreds of doctors offices.

1. Referring doctors are used to seeing state-of-the-art marketing materials from pharmaceuticals, manufacturers, hospitals and competing groups. Home grown marketing materials always look amateurish. You wouldn’t think that would matter, but it does.

2. If his employee has a talent for sales (we don’t know that yet), she may be successful. However, if she doesn’t have any talent, she will fail. And even if she does have talent, her going out into the market without being appropriately trained, managed and compensated will probably result in failure as well.

3. This is a rural area, so if his new business gets started on the wrong foot, it may never recover. In small towns, good reputations take forever to build, but long-lasting bad ones can be created in an instant.

4. Given the big money at stake, the existing competitors will probably not take this encroachment on their turf lightly. Therefore, the level of competition is sure to increase, and an “arms race” may well ensue. Our doctor needs to be ready for a much more aggressive situation than the one he is walking into.

This doctor is a good guy, but he will greatly improve his odds of success if he finds the money to 1. train his rep, 2. get some decent marketing materials, and then 3. market appropriately.

In any event, I urge you to avoid painting yourself into a similar corner.

Whenever you start or own a business, your business plan needs to account for marketing too, not just the lease, build-out and employees. And, be ready for competition that turns out to be much stronger than you would hope for.

I recommend you look at your marketing dollars as an insurance policy to mitigate the risk of a painful misstep.

After all, a financial fall will leave you badly bruised for a long time.

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How to protect your privacy on Facebook – and why

By Stewart Gandolf | January 26, 2010

I’ll write in the future about how to use Facebook for business, but in the meantime, I want to share a great article about privacy settings that a good friend forwarded to me.

January 20, 2010
The 3 Facebook Settings Every User Should Check Now
By SARAH PEREZ of ReadWriteWeb

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Have Providers Finally Given Up Passively Waiting For Recovery?

By Stewart Gandolf | January 16, 2010

I am a partner in a medical advertising agency, and something very intriguing has happened for us during the first two weeks of this year….

Our inquiry rate from doctors, hospitals, manufacturers and other potential health care clients has tripled over what we are used to.

Now, we expect a small bump due to New Years resolutions, and we’ve also made a few tweaks to our marketing efforts.

But I think the real cause of this explosion of interest is that doctors and health care organizations have finally given up on passively waiting for the recession to end.

For two years, I have exhorted readers, audiences and prospective clients to continue marketing despite the recession. Now, apparently, at least some people are fed up with waiting.

I want to make an important distinction here.

I didn’t say that our prospective clients are excited about the recovery we are alleged to be in the middle of. In fact, quite the opposite.

Out of the dozens of inquiries my partner and I have been fielding lately, not one person has mentioned any evidence of a recovery in his or her business. (I wrote in recent post about how I often get laughter from doctors and healthcare professionals whenever I mention our “recovery.”)

Which by the way, don’t even get me started. On January 14, CNBC reported that, “Retail sales unexpectedly fell in December, leaving 2009 with the biggest yearly drop on record.” What’s more, the same article reported unemployment was up. Again.

Yet the stock market that same day saw gains. Clearly there is a disconnect between Wall Street and Main Street. (Note: the economists I follow say it will take years before we see good economic times again.)

In any event, true to American spirit, at least some people appear to be dusting themselves off and taking matters into their own hands. They realize that hope is not a strategy, and waiting for things to get better could take a really long time.

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How to avoid the 7 Deadly Sins of Medical Marketing.

By Stewart Gandolf | December 16, 2009

How can you avoid the most common and expensive healthcare marketing mistakes?

Download and read the free white paper, “The 7 Deadly Sins of Healthcare Marketing.” (link below)

It contains the medical marketing mistakes that my partner and I have observed time and again while working with thousands of doctors and other healthcare clients.

So far over 10,000 people have downloaded their free copy, and we invite you to do the same. It comes with a free subscription to the Healthcare Success Marketing Advisor. (You can unsubscribe at any time.)

Download your copy here http://www.healthcaresuccess.com/articles/7-deadly-sins.html and tell us what you think.

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“7 Mistakes Doctors Make When Trying to Attract New Patients From The Internet.”

By Stewart Gandolf | November 18, 2009

I presented a webinar yesterday for Henry Schein Medical customers about how to attract more patients from the Internet. We’ve since decided to make the recording available for free, for a limited time.

While it was created for providers, the concepts apply to all kinds of businesses.

To register to see it, go here Medical Internet Marketing and Advertising.

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Will the “is-it-over-yet” recession ultimately be good for us?

By Stewart Gandolf | November 17, 2009

Throughout this recession, a fair number of thought leaders have opined on whether American consumers have been permanently (and perhaps beneficially) changed in the process.

Here are some interesting related reads: Time Magazine’s “The Great Recession – America Becomes a Thrift Nation,” Time Magazine author Kurt Andersen wrote a feature article and later a book, “Reset: How This Crisis Can Restore Our Values and Renew America,” and ABC “Finance – Americans Adapt to the New Normal.”

Because there are so many conflicting trends happening at once, it will indeed be interesting to see how things turn out.

1. Our leaders denied the recession even existed for a whole year, and a few months after the Q4 2008 abyss began talking about “green shoots” and “over.”

2. My audiences (mostly doctors and healthcare professionals) remain incredibly skeptical – some laughed out loud in New York when I mentioned Ben Bernanke’s recent statement that the recession is “very likely over.”

3. Real unemployment is approaching 20% when you consider people who have given up or work part time.

4. People are finally beginning to be able to pay down debt (good) because they aren’t buying as much stuff (bad?).

5. We know that consumers still lust after big TVs, because it is just so hard to resist when your neighbors buy new stuff. So there could be a consumer tendency to spend again (too much, too fast, too soon), especially among the least educated consumers who can ill afford them.

6. Yet many people recognize that they spent way too much in the past, and are now uncertain about their futures. I for one predict a really poor Holiday shopping season as a result (and I am supposed to be an ever-optimistic marketer).

7. The Obama administration has seen to it that no one has felt any pain, including speculators and the people who got us into this mess. We solved the problems created by outlandish spending by … spending far more.

8. According to my economic hero Nouriel Roubini (who saved me a bundle by predicting our collapse last September), the stock market went up way (“too fast, too much, too soon”) and is based on near zero interest lending, which therefore has speculators spending other people’s money at little cost or risk.

Déjà vu?

9. In “The Great Depression Ahead,” Harry Dent predicted a depression about 2010, not due to current issues, but the fact that Baby Boomer spending will predictably slow as they age.

So the question remains, are consumers really permanently altered?

If Bernanke is right and the recession really is over, most consumers will quickly forget what they have learned and go back to spending. No doubt about it. Most simply haven’t experienced enough pain.

However, if Roubini and Dent are right, “We ain’t seen nothin’ yet.” Unemployment will continue to reign, and the air will begin rushing out of the hyper-inflated economic balloon as Holiday spending crashes on the rocks before it starts.

I expect the latter, and predict a very bumpy ride.

So eventually, yes, consumers will be permanently altered in their spending habits, for good and ill.

Which of course will make healthcare marketing more challenging for providers.

Maybe I should look at it as job security…

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