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Beacon Healthcare Communications recently conducted the 2012 Healthcare Marketer Survey to find out what industry issues and trends are most affecting your businesses.

• In 2011, three quarters of you and your colleagues saw decreases or no change in your marketing budgets compared to what was originally planned. However, many of you remain optimistic and expect a larger budget next year.
• You are slowly shifting your marketing budgets away from traditional print advertising and investing in digital media such as Web, mobile, and social media.

Even with fewer marketing dollars to work with, you are adapting to the new industry landscape, and implementing more diverse marketing plans.

We encourage you to read the full results of the survey. It’s well worth your time.

Here at Beacon Healthcare, our promise can be summed up in three words: “We hear you.” We take the time to listen so we can deliver the best possible solutions specifically designed for your brand, your challenges, and your customers.  Isn’t it time for you to really be heard?

A visit to the doctor’s office can be a nerve-wracking experience, especially if we don’t know what’s wrong with us or why we’re feeling sick. We anxiously await our names to be called while sitting in the waiting room and try to calm our nerves by reading magazines. After we are called into the examination room, we tell the doctor our symptoms and hope he holds the answer to end our suffering. But what happens when the doctor breaks the news that we have an illness that we don’t know much about? This can be scary, so we’ll want to be comforted and have the doctor clearly explain our illness and how it can be treated. This is why patient education is so important.

According to a February 2011 study in the Archives of Internal Medicine, patient education and medication adherence go hand-in-hand.  Even for the most highly educated patients, taking multiple medications daily can be overwhelming.  And missed or incorrect doses can lead to disease progression, complications, and even death.

The National Council on Patient Education and Adherence reports that poor adherence has reached a crisis level in the United States and around the world. A September 2010 survey conducted by MedTera Healthcare Intelligence found that doctors aren’t doing enough to educate patients about disease management. Of the 7,028 patients surveyed, 95% indicated that they are looking for more comprehensive information about disease management, and 77% said they hadn’t received any written information about their illness or medications directly from their doctor.

Our healthcare providers must use effective tools to help us before, during, and after our office visits. The American College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists suggests that doctors use visual tools such as posters, animations, or models, to help them convey information.  Newly innovated technologies, such as digital media, give marketers more options to create educational campaigns that can help improve the patient experience. With more than half of Americans using the Internet as a source for medical information, physicians can also refer patients to specific Web sites, podcasts, or applications as additional resources. These visual education tools will help us better absorb the information our doctor is telling us.

Patient education that creates a clear and comprehensive dialogue with our doctor is becoming increasingly important. The use of proper educational tools can increase retention of medical information, allow us to better understand our illness, and teach us how to properly take our medications to avoid complications. What communication tools does your doctor use?

As a marketer, I’m sure you see the appeal of using social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn as part of your marketing campaign, but aren’t quite sure how it’s affecting your bottom line.  These sites are all the rage, and are a great way to gain valuable consumer feedback and assess interest in your brand. On the other hand, you want to know your efforts aren’t without reward, which is a valid concern.

The Bazaarvoice Social Marketing Survey of Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs), representing US and global companies, showed that social media plays a key role in today’s marketing strategies, with 90% of recipients participating in 3 or more social media activities. However, they expressed the desire of wanting accurate and measurable results of their social media marketing efforts. They’re optimistic this is possible, with 74% expecting to be able to measure ROI this year.

Winners will be announced on September 9, 2011.

1. They like to network…with each other
Yes, young doctors like to network. But this doesn’t mean they go to Facebook for medical information. According to data from Accenture Life Sciences, 70% of HCPs say they want to participate in physician-only social networks. Why? Physicians like to share information with each other, and the rapid exchange of information among peers through social networks facilitates this exchange in a way they are comfortable with

2. They have a life outside their jobs
This doesn’t mean they work less. A study comparing Gen X docs to Boomers found that both groups work the same amount of hours. However, younger docs tend to compartmentalize their lives much more than their older colleagues in an effort to balance their work life with their personal life. So don’t be too surprised if they don’t show up to your dinner meetings. They want the info, but they want it on their terms.

3. They want the details
A physician can find 90% of the information on a standard detail aid using many different sources online. They expect sales reps to tell them something they either A) don’t already know, or B) can’t readily find on their own. Case studies that address specific patient challenges are a lot more likely to grab their attention than a simple clinical study results graph.

4. They are efficient, impatient, and frankly, kind of fickle
These people are starved for time, trying to maximize their ability to bring value to patients during office hours. They’ve developed a nifty habit of turning to their mobile devices at the point of care to help them find pertinent information quickly. They gravitate towards tools that help save them time and help them see more patients. If you waste their time, don’t expect them to see you again or return to your Web site.

But that’s not all. Younger physicians have yet to leave their footprint on the industry. As the Boomer Generation starts to retire, the Gen X and Y docs will be the driving force of the medical industry. What trends have you begun to see in the market? Post them in the comments section below.

Take the impact of healthcare reform for example. About half of you are negatively affected by healthcare reform. But we hear the opportunity for the other half that do not see healthcare reform as a negative, and may actually feel that it is affecting their business in a positive way.

Or how about the reduced access to physicians? Almost two-thirds of you use traditional tried-and-true alternatives to reach the physician, such as e-mail and direct mail. We hear innovation though, with about half of you using web marketing, one-third e-detailing, and one quarter reaching physicians through social media and mobile applications.

We invite you to watch a video that discusses these findings and more, which point toward new strategies for maximizing healthcare marketing success today…and tomorrow. Let us know your opinion on these or other important issues within the healthcare industry.

At Beacon, we hear you. Be sure to watch for future videos from us that provide practical approaches for achieving more with less.

Robin to Villain: You can’t get away from Batman that easy!
Batman: Easily…Good grammar is essential, Robin.

No wonder I admired him—in the midst of fighting off a criminal, he was worried about adverbs? They don’t make superheroes like that any more.

Batman carried a utility belt with tools to help him escape dicey situations that ranged from being lowered into a vat of sulfuric acid to becoming a giant sno-cone. As a marketer, your “utility belt” is language. Words are key to connecting with your audience. You just have to select the right ones.

Start by knowing what you want to say. Get your ideas down on paper and then refine them. Can’t think of the right word? Check an online dictionary or thesaurus. Consult the Elements of Style by Strunk & White and grammar books like The Gregg Reference Manual: A Manual of Style, Grammar, Usage and Formatting. Vary the length and structure of your sentences to hold your readers’ interest. Really. It works.

Read your message aloud. Listen carefully, because how it sounds can be as important as what it says. Rewrite until your words deliver the sense and rhythm you want to convey. At that point, you’ll know that the tools in your utility belt helped get your message across loud and clear. And that’s what every marketing superhero aims to do, isn’t it?

But all the while, the Internet was evolving. From something that was accessed through an application to being the application. More and more we see tasks, once unthinkable without a specific program, now only require Internet access and a standard browser.

And something else unthinkable happened: your operating system—the software that runs applications on your computer—became less relevant. The new breed of programs (cloud-based Web apps) works on any type of computer.

Developers realize that as browsers get more sophisticated, more applications can be built to run in a browser. Programming applications to run across different browsers can be tricky, but that’s nothing compared to making a traditional application work across a Windows computer, a Mac, and various smartphones.

Web applications aren’t just cheaper and easier to make than traditional applications: putting applications in “the cloud” offers tremendous value to anyone using them. For example, I’m writing this blog entry with Google Docs, which auto-saves my file; if I lose my computer, I can log in to Google Docs from any other computer and locate this document. No more back up.

How we access the Internet is changing at light speed. Apple started it with the iPhone—the first popular smartphone with a quality browser. Android is challenging the iPhone for market share, while the WebOS from HP and the new Windows Mobile platform have entered the fray. Then there’s tablet computing, which multiplies the types of devices and competing (incompatible) systems. Competition between these platforms is a horse race; the winners are far from certain.

But all these platforms have one thing in common: a browser. Any marketer thinking about where to best spend a fixed budget should focus on the browser.

And if you can’t afford to pick the wrong horse, and need to reach the widest audience, develop solutions that work on all of them.