Gray Matter at White Space

I am touting some well-known belief, but it’s worth repeating.

A Harvard Business School study says people will respond to warmth as a measure of trustworthiness. Meet its happy cousins: empathy and authority.

No snarky comments, please. I was raised as the oldest of four to believe I was at the helm of our little dynasty—responsible for everyone, caring for everyone, wanting everything to be just-so. It’s a common role for the eldest sibling to take… “I lead, therefore I know.”

There’s nothing quite as humbling as facing what you don’t know.

We are conducting research on healthcare brands to get some data on trends, risks, and opportunities. I’ve been mulling over the pros and cons of sharing the survey with my LinkedIn healthcare connections.

As a veteran ad woman, I understand that building a brand entails delivering the brand promise, holistically. This is realized through design, copy, as well as brand “behavior” such as pricing, service, offers, and innovation, so a brand fully conveys what it means to its present and future customers.

Developing specific marketing materials that sell is about messaging: telling a customer what to do in the moment, and why.

Let’s face it, strategy is often used interchangeably with tactics; with the “stuff” of marketing. 

You’d think that having a strategy would be central to B2B business planning. But remarkably, that’s not always the case. We often hear that businesses want to forgo the strategic process because they have to focus on revenue.

Very few people have the luxury of being a totally free spirit… although wouldn’t that be fun? Most of us need structure and planning to get through the day—and to be able to (hopefully) cross a ton of stuff off the always-growing to-do list.

In marketing, building structure and strategy isn’t a fully linear process (as much as we’d like that to be true). Things come up that force reassessment, redirection. That said, there are key steps that can help make creating strategy a more efficient and effective exercise.

At WSMG, we are a mixed marriage. Some believe we should state our pricing up front during introductory conversations, maybe even on a website or in other marketing materials. Others say wait for conversations to develop further down the process.

This is a conundrum when your service or product offerings are customized on a case-by-case basis. We don’t offer one-size-fits-all services. In fact, customized plans and programs are our sweet spot.

With Labor Day behind us and Q4 looming in the too-near future, we tend to say, “It’s that time of year again.” The time when companies take a sobering look back at the year-to-date and begin to think about the year-to-come.

Since I’ve spent my work-life believing in the power of marketing, this is the toughest season. Questions arise. Was it worth it to spend cash on paid channels? Was the organic awareness-generating effort worth the elbow grease? Do we have the right people-power in place to bring ideas into action, and action into results?

It’s overwhelming to say the least. We know. We are there too.

Separation of church and state is good in politics and publishing, but not in healthcare.

So often, healthcare organizations keep patient and professional engagement activity divided by a whale-sized moat. Most of the time, separate marketing teams run different patient and physician programs. 

While it makes sense to approach subject matter distribution channels differently, this doesn’t mean the strategic thinking should be limited to a view from one audience’s perspective. The perspective, in fact, should be that of the brand.

Middle Child. Latchkey. Sandwich. Boomerang. MTV.

For a group that reportedly hates to be labeled, Gen X has had its share. They’d rather be known for their accomplishments, of which there are many.

Gen-Xers are ambitious innovators and entrepreneurs, having paved the way for advances in science, technology, and manufacturing—all this, in spite of the traumatic events that shaped them (think: Challenger explosion, Rodney King, AIDS epidemic, Vietnam fallout).