Earlier this month, I had the privilege of attending the Healthcare IT Marketing & PR Conference (HITMC), a get-together specifically tailored to professionals in the healthcare marketing space. Daily sessions included strategy discussions about the common challenges healthcare marketers face, and how to overcome them. There were also panel discussions about how the holistic industry; an industry that has historically been slow to adapt to progressions in technology, and what it can to do keep up.
After chatting with some marketing professionals at the show, there seems to be a bit of a disconnect between the common video professional and a corporate healthcare marketer. Meaning, some things that marketers view as challenging hurdles, we see as opportunities to collaborate. Here are two key problems and solutions:
PROBLEM: Just because your organization has a video, doesn’t mean it’s engaging. Some healthcare companies may see that “a video on the website” as a checklist item – something that needs to get done so they can point people in its direction and move onto the next thing. Even before I attended this conference, I cannot count how many smart companies overlook this. Seeing a YouTube channel which only contains hour-long webinars makes me cringe, and you should feel the same way. I appreciate that there are a lot of restrictions when it comes to healthcare marketing, with HIPAA being the most prominent. For this sole reason, a lot of companies just assume they won’t even bother make public-facing videos.
SOLUTION: Instead of focusing on the hospital as a whole, focus on one single patient, a single procedure, or a single doctor.Humanize great care. The story of how a revolutionary new treatment helped someone live a better life is a story worth telling, and it has a long shelf life. Take a look at this video our team produced for UMass Memorial Hospital back in 2016.
PROBLEM: Marketers know that they want video, but feel like it’s on them to create everything. The mentality seems to be, “this is my brand’s story I’m trying to tell, and since I’m the one with insight into our customer’s perspective, nobody can tell the story but me.” Marketers then believe the burden of scheduling, coming up with interview questions, and crafting the messaging in editing is on them to nail, because the videographer doesn’t understand X, Y, and Z. about their business.
SOLUTION: A video production company. A videographer is your typical “guy/girl with a video camera” who tends to get thrown into the mix at the last moment, and is often setup for failure at the get-go. A video production company will do its best to take care of all the logistics up front, so that you, the marketer, only has to answer a few questions here and there. We also strive to produce videos like the one below, to help get rid of the “fear of the unknown” that you may have.
C-Level decision makers are (finally) realizing the value of video. One fact all CMOs can agree to is that they would like to be everywhere at once, but can’t. Internal announcements, new hire processes, and sales tools can all be streamlined with concise videos so that money isn’t wasted on travel or extra training. The C-suite must understand that the real value of video is that the exact same message is getting to the right people in a shorter amount of time, and available 24 hours a day. Although it’s taken awhile, I’m noticing that companies are beginning to have less sticker shock when it comes to the price of video, because they know how it will prove its value – and even alleviate many headaches – later. Less companies are coming to us saying “we want to do a video,” and instead are providing examples they like and asking how to replicate it for their own use.
Overall, marketers in the healthcare space have challenges to overcome, but help is out there. Preparation is key and while patient privacy is something to be respectful of, it’s not a reason to stop your creative idea dead in its tracks. Video can be a key differentiator for a healthcare brand, and the sky is the limit when you partner with the right creative team.
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