Every business will gain and lose customers over the course of the business’s lifetime. Of course the hope is that there will be more gains than losses; however, sometimes businesses find themselves in the opposite situation and struggle to understand why their customers are leaving. While creative companies could come up with a myriad of creative and complex metrics and measurement techniques to try to gain some insights, one of the best ways to determine why customers are lost is to ask them! Continue reading “Do You Know When—And Why—Your Customers Have Left You?”
Category: Healthcare Communication and Marketing
Are You Having a Tough Time Fighting for Marketing Talent?
How quickly things change! Just a few short years ago, it seemed as if the bottom had fallen out for marketing talent-including writers, graphic designers, videographers, and more. In a declining economy, marketing budgets are often the first to feel the pain. But companies have actively looked for less expensive and more cost-effective ways to get the word out about their products and services. Additionally, Google has tinkered with its algorithms to provide SEO rewards to those who can supply rich, varied, and original content on a regular basis. And so, demand for talent has outstripped supply.
The competition for marketing talent is heating up. Continue reading “Are You Having a Tough Time Fighting for Marketing Talent?”
Why It Pays to Be “You,” Rather Than “Me,” Focused
By now, most business owners and business professionals have accepted the value that social media can have in helping to raise awareness, create preference and drive traffic to websites and to brick-and-mortar establishments. But, unfortunately, not all are communicating effectively through these channels.
We often see two common missteps, which we try to advise clients against doing: Continue reading “Why It Pays to Be “You,” Rather Than “Me,” Focused”
Strategic Communications’ Marketing Predictions for 2017
A year ago, we m
ade some predictions for the marketing trends we expected to see in 2016, and we feel we did well enough to give it another shot for 2017. Here are some of the trends we expect to see this year. Continue reading “Strategic Communications’ Marketing Predictions for 2017”
Thanks Google! Content Really is King Once Again.
by Linda Pophal
The world suddenly seems to have a voracious appetite for content as online marketers compete with each other in an attempt to capture the eyeballs and eardrums of current and potential customers. Not just any content, but high-quality, unique and relevant content.
It wasn’t always this way. The bottom kind of fell out of the writing industry back in 2008 as the recession hit full force. Media outlets were laying people off in droves, or closing entirely, and the demand for freelancers was rapidly diminishing. I know because I had been a freelancer for a number of years. Even while employed full-time, I made a very nice “extra income” from writing for a variety of trade and professional publications.
It was this extra income that I felt would help provide me with a cushion when I launched Strategic Communications in 2008. But I was wrong.
Continue reading “Thanks Google! Content Really is King Once Again.”
The C-Suite is Asking the “Wrong” Questions – Really???
Communication folks – ever feel like you’re bumping your head against the wall trying to get “them” to “get it”? Maybe it’s time to take a step back, do a brutally honest self-assessment and consider that maybe, just maybe, you aren’t getting it! Continue reading “The C-Suite is Asking the “Wrong” Questions – Really???”
Narrowing Your Audience: Be Clear to Connect
One of the key decisions that communicators must make is how to segment their audience. Segmenting is basically dividing the overall audience into groups–or segments–that share commonalities so that they can be targeted more specifically. For instance, if you’re a health care organization, you could segment your audience into: women and men. You might further segment the women into audiences of: women of child-bearing age, pre-menopausal women, menopausal women, elderly women. Even among these audiences there might be some need to further segment.
There are (at least) two key points to consider about segmentation:
Continue reading “Narrowing Your Audience: Be Clear to Connect”
The Big Benefits of Blogging
We’re a week into the New Year and, by now, you’ve likely started–or at least considered starting–to work on your New Year’s resolutions. How are you doing so far? Have you started the diet you planned on sticking to? Are you getting out of the old habits you were stuck in? Did you begin something new? From a business standpoint are you making progress on any resolutions that will lead to your desired level of success in 2013?
If not, you must know it’s never to late to start something new! And we have a suggestion for you. Continue reading “The Big Benefits of Blogging”
Key Communication Skills Explained in E-cards
Just as medical students acquire skills in science and math, people with degrees in communication have a different set of skills. They know the importance of creating effective and efficient lines of communication in the work they perform.
Here are three e-cards that explain how communication professionals think. Continue reading “Key Communication Skills Explained in E-cards”
Are You Talking to Yourself on Social Media?
As I work with clients, or evaluate social media sites as part of the research I do on the topic, I frequently find that many sites–even those owned and managed by some top organizations–are more engaged in conversations with themselves than with interested followers or fans. They’re not sharing information that is of interest or value to their audience–they’re talking about themselves! That’s a strategy destined to fail. Why? Continue reading “Are You Talking to Yourself on Social Media?”