health marketing

Tracey Yaw of Populus Media discusses new telehealth research, and MM+M senior reporter Lecia Bushak recaps reaction to President Joe Biden’s pandemic pronouncement, along with an inclusion event she attended that drew some big names from the policy realm.

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Resources

• Why investors are pouring billions into primary care
• Joe Public 2030 LinkedIn Group
• Joe Public 2030 Book

In this episode, Shavonne Reed sits down with twin brothers, Khalil & Khyre Bray, to unpack their unique perspectives on their personal health journeys as well as how effective public health communicators really are at reaching their generation today.

About Khalil

“I’m a junior at Grambling State University where I major in business marketing. After receiving my degree, I have plans to work at a company as a part of their marketing team. Later in my career, I have hopes to start my own business and obtain my real estate license.”

About Khyre

"I am a junior at Grambling State University majoring in business and marketing. I aspire to become a self-employed businessman after working for a company for a few years. Being a role model for other young black men is my goal in life."

CREDITS

• Theme Music 🎵 lesfm from Pixabay
• Produced by ChatWithLeadersMedia.com 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This episode features Desirée Duncan, Revive's Vice President of Health Equity and Inclusion. Desirée advises clients and internal teams on addressing health inequities in the communities our clients serve. Desirée is passionate about sharing the stories of those who have been silenced and lifting the authentic voices that deserve to be heard. 

What is inclusive marketing? 

• Inclusive and multicultural marketing is not new, but George Floyd's death, coupled with the health inequities revealed by COVID-19, spotlighted diversity and inclusion.
• When you think of words like "misrepresented," "underserved," or "marginalized" to describe your audiences, it's unclear which populations you're talking about, leaving more room for error of interpretation.
• Be clear about the groups you're referring to and who you're trying to reach. For example, if you're looking to reach a specific audience, identify the audience explicitly. Identifying homeless populations, Black populations, or LatinX populations, for example, offers more specificity and clarity.
• According to the 2020 census, the American population is becoming increasingly diverse. As our population diversifies, it becomes increasingly important to make consumers feel understood through inclusive marketing efforts.
• Marketers and health systems can feel like they have conflicting obligations: mission vs. business. In reality, inclusive marketing has a positive impact on business.

Brands leading the way in inclusive marketing

• Our first interaction with advertisements is through creative, making creative a crucial first interaction with the consumer. Fenti, for example, creates advertisements that represent diverse populations, making their audiences' experience of the Fenti brand more authentic to their lived experience.
• In 2020, Peloton pledged to invest 100 million to fight racial injustice and inequity in the next four years. The money went to increasing wages, supporting non-profit partners, growing learning opportunities.
• For example, Peloton partnered with Beyonce and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) to improve access to fitness through their platform. The takeaway here is that it's not just about advertising or reputation; it's about the entire package. How do we make DEI part of our products, business strategies, and beyond?
• It's also not just about race. It's also about creating content for specific languages. Not just translating content but "transcreating" content in a way meant to resonate with a particular audience. Gary Vaynerchuk, for example, speaks to the power of language in inclusive content.

Opportunities to improve marketing inclusivity 

• Inclusion goes beyond ads and should be embedded in every touchpoint within the consumer journey. For example, an advertisement will lose authenticity with diverse audiences if its landing page doesn't communicate in the same way.
• Health system marketers have an opportunity to improve inclusion and impact business outcomes by auditing each step of the patient experience.
• Expand your circle of influence to avoid groupthink and to expand cultural intelligence and community understanding.
• The documentary, Who gets to be an influencer, talks about black creators' challenges when growing audiences. These challenges have implications for brands' partnership choices. If we evaluate influencers by their following size alone, we miss a large population who can speak authentically with our audiences.

Takeaways

• Chris Bevolo initiated our Halloween episode of The No Normal with a tribute to SNL superstar, David S. Pumpkins.
• In the spirit of Halloween, this episode centers on three scary trends facing marketers today, including climate change, political polarization, and you guessed it – Facebook.

Climate change as a public health crisis

• Until only recently, climate change hasn't been recognized as a public health crisis. With the rise of severe weather and natural disasters, brands are increasingly focusing on their role in addressing climate change.
• Climate change will drive more significant public health issues that health systems will have to figure out how to manage. For example, the winter storm in Texas last year made it difficult for patients to receive care and providers to deliver care.
• How to avoid a climate disaster by Bill Gates compares climate change deadliness to COVID-19 deadliness. By 2060, climate change could be as deadly as COVID-19 and, by the end of the century, five times as fatal as COVID-19.
• Hospitals and health systems are significant contributors to global warming because they produce massive amounts of carbon and will need to find ways to address their contribution to global warming.

The politicization of health

• The politicization of health isn't a new concept. During the 1918 Spanish Influenza outbreak, masks were a hot topic of political and social debate.
• COVID-19 accelerated the politicization of health. While health has always been a public issue, platforms like social media have increased the rate at which we share, consume, and react to information.
• Society calls for brands to become more actively involved in public health issues, which puts providers between a rock and a hard place.
• Health systems must stand up for medical truths, but doing so can alienate large parts of a community. As community-based organizations, hospitals and health systems cannot afford to alienate those who disagree with their principles and values.
• As the staffing crisis continues, health systems need to also think from an employee perspective so that they can retain talent. Perceived alignment with a political party could impact staffers' willingness to work for their current health system.

Facebook, enough said. 

• Chris deleted his Facebook account in 2018 because he didn't like how the company manages data. This process took "the better half of a day," demonstrating the depth of Facebook's information on its users.
• Facebook is how many marketers built their careers. What used to be seen as the "cute" side of marketing is now a significant driver in marketing strategy across industries.
• Recent news highlights the potential harm of social media on our society, including its adverse effects on mental health and inflammatory content. Reports show that Facebook has knowingly chosen to ignore these problems because solving them would negatively impact revenue.
• Our team's biggest concern about Facebook's recent scandals is that they chose not to take action. By not taking action, Facebook demonstrates value for the bottom line over the public good.
• Stephanie acknowledges that those in the social media space have known for a while that emotional content goes viral much more quickly than non-emotional content. With this in mind, it makes sense that inflammatory content goes viral more quickly and more frequently.
• Around 25% of digital marketing dollars are spent with Facebook today, which speaks to Facebook's monopoly on digital advertising. With Facebook baked into the digital advertising ecosystem, brands must ask themselves if they want to diversify their advertising channels.
• Chase identified whitelisting as the most shocking Facebook practice exposed by the Wall Street Journal, stating that this is hazardous because it lowers the standards for people with more influence, increasing the likelihood of spreading harm and misinformation.
• A few years ago, Facebook changed its algorithm to prioritize content that gets more engagement rather than content individual users express interest in. Since inflammatory content receives more engagement, the algorithm prioritizes it in users' feeds, quickly leading to "us" vs. "them" dynamics.
• Facebook renamed its holding company "Meta," reflecting its goals to build a metaverse beyond the Facebook platform.
• Stephanie follows a 70-20-10 model for financial investments in digital advertising, with 70% of your budget dedicated to what is proven to work, 20% for platforms that work fine, and 10% for experimentation.
• Experimentation is health systems' opportunity to diversify their media mix and to take ownership over their audiences by investing in building out their CRM and bolstering their email marketing efforts.

Resources

• Consumer behavior changes following COVID-19

Takeaways

Facebook in hot water 

• Last week the Wall Street Journal released a powerful and damning series on Facebook's negative impact on society and repeated decisions to turn a blind eye. Former Facebook employee, Francis Haugen, identified herself as the whistleblower and soon after shared a congressional testimony.
• Following this debacle, the entire Facebook ecosystem, including Facebook, Instagram, Oculus, WhatsApp, and Messenger, went down for six hours with limited response from the company.
• Facebook, following these events, announced that it would be postponing the development of the app 'Instagram for Kids."
• The outage highlighted how powerful a marketing tool Facebook is and how reliant marketers and businesses are on the platform. The outage may be the catalyst marketers need to diversify their marketing mix and experiment with new channels outside the Facebook ecosystem.

Life spheres … but smaller 

• Last year we did a joint study with The Healthcare Association of New York State (HANYS) to reveal the long-term consumer behavior changes resulting from COVID-19. One of the changes listed in that was "smaller life spheres."
• COVID-19 abruptly forced the world to operate from home. From entertainment to education to work to social gatherings – we, as a society, operated from home. Even with fewer restrictions, consumers are now used to traveling shorter distances for goods and services.
• We call this the shrinking of life spheres — a phenomenon in which people have become accustomed to the convenience of at-home or nearby goods and services and continue to seek that convenience. The question has become: How far are you willing to travel for certain activities?
• Our team resurfaced this finding and shared new research that demonstrated the trend of smaller life spheres has continued into the present.
• Stats that support this finding: When it comes to driving, the number of miles the average American has traveled is down to 2007 levels. Air travel is still down 26% from pre-pandemic levels.
• People will think and act differently about how far they are willing to go. This trend is risky for health systems as retailers like Walgreens and CVS live within miles of every American consumer. Because these options are closer and more convenient, consumers may be more inclined to use them as an alternative.
• Not to mention CVS's recent announcement to transform hundreds of its retail stores into primary care outlets.
• Home healthcare is growing rapidly and is predicted to grow almost 8% more by 2028. From a business standpoint, many believe the home is the solution to high healthcare costs.

The wheel of fortune 

• Our team came prepared with three different topics to discuss and spun a wheel to select the topic they would talk about randomly. The three trends on the table included the great resignation, nostalgia marketing, and the rise of minimalism. For this episode, the rise of minimalism was selected.
• The standard definition of minimalism: The movement toward a sustainable self-aware lifestyle where people learn to spend less, save more, and have a less negative impact on earth and resources.
• While this definition applies to many cases, our team expressed that the motivator behind minimalism may vary. For example, millennials are known to rent items rather than purchase them (think Rent the Runway, Spotify, etc.). In many cases, this trend stems from a desire to reduce clutter.
• The team noted that they see this trend represented through brands like Apple through packaging Chick-fil-A through billboard design.

This week, Facebook went down! Was your thumb twitching nervously all of Monday evening? Did you rush to update your Pinterest account or sign up for MailChimp? As everyone is reminded yet again of the dangers of building your business on borrowed land (i.e. relying on one company's apps as a source of leads and clients), this episode digs into some of the single points of failure that can arise in a freelance business. Specifically:

• Are you relying too much on one industry, channel or tool?
• How do you keep your business running smoothly if the tools you rely on go down?
• Are YOU the single point of failure in your freelance business? (And what to do if so)

"You don’t ever want to be in a position where there’s a single point of failure in your business. You don’t want there to be a single tool or process where a glitch with that thing means your whole business grinds to a halt. So how can you spread your risk? "
-- Louise Shanahan

Louise Shanahan is a freelance health copywriter and health tech white paper writer. She's on a mission to help others build a freelance business that feels easy and works for them – in weekly snack-sized bites.

 Say hi to Louise:

LinkedIn: Louise Shanahan
Twitter: @LouiseShanahan_
Instagram: @Louise_Shanahan_
Website: thecopyprescription.com

Wanna send Louise a voice note? Go to memo.fm/15 and leave a question or comment.

A case for boldness 

• Health system marketing comes with many stakeholders, opinions, and expectations, making it challenging to deliver imaginative and bold campaigns. 
• Despite these challenges, marketers must continue to push on ideas that don't just "check the boxes" but truly influence behavior in a way that improves public health. 

The campaign that pushed the envelope 

• During the pandemic, health systems and hospitals across the country promoted COVID-19 vaccination within their communities. A literal life or death situation, VCU health knew they would need something more than a safe, traditional campaign. 
• To increase vaccine uptake in Virginia, VCU Health honed in on Virginian pride and the unique stories that make the people of Virginia. 
• Younger populations in Virginia were vaccinating at lower rates than other populations, so VCU Health's messaging needed to address these people directly rather than using broad messaging. From this direction, a provocative direction was born: This Sh*t Matters. 

Clearing the "buy-in" hurdle

• To bring this bold idea to life, the VCU Health marketing team needed to build a strong case for the campaign and why the provocative approach was necessary to drive impact. 
• The team bolstered their argument by testing the work in-market, collecting feedback from legislators, and collaborating with clinical experts. 
• Cynthia credits VCU Hea position as a challenger brand and the system's forward-thinking leadership for getting this game-changing idea across the finish line. 

Bolder campaign, bolder results 

• The campaign plan originally included three to four stories from Virginians. After a short stint in the market, however, more and more people came to VCU health to share their stories. The result: 15+ stories told by community members who knew their audience's context. The campaign also received coverage from several local news stations. 

Meet AJ Roberts...Fitpreneur, Marketing Icon, Iron-clad Teddy Bear

Download the transcript by clicking here

You're about to witness some real Marketing Muscle in today's episode with AJ Roberts. If it's true that "How you do one thing is how you do everything," then it's no surprise that the man who conquered the world of powerlifting has made such a big splash in the marketing world...

AJ Roberts is a fitness hall of famer with a world record squat and he's the bestselling co-author of the book Change Agents. He's a two time world record holder in powerlifting and rumor has it, he once made Chuck Norris do his dishes. (That's unsubstantiated, but since you're reading it on the internet, it must be true)

AJ is also the world's premiere fitness marketing consultant, pursued by gyms, supplement companies, trainers and anyone looking to take their revenue, business, and ultimately life to the highest levels.

He's also one the most sincere, genuine and gentle souls you could meet and has a gift for showing others how to dream bigger than they thought was possible while he helps them plan the steps necessary to achieve even the loftiest goals.

I invited AJ to the show so he can share with us his bacon wrapped strategies for getting guaranteed results, running a powerful referral system, and helping people get that mindset that anything is possible as long as you think huge.

Here’s what we discussed:

7:09 - AJ’s back story growing up in England and moving to America

9:54 - How to set higher goals

10:21 - Greaking the all time world powerflifting record

13:22 - Deciding to get his health back, losing weight and stepping on the bodybuilding stage

14:13 - The power of delayed gratification and how to master it

16:23 - How AJ chooses his coaches and his advice for you

23:48 - Building a vision around Growth, Experience, and Contribution

25:42 - Living in a limited reality: Why people can’t think beyond their current situation

27:41 - The importance of getting help from a mentor

33:35 - Running The Fitness Profit Workshop and mastermind groups

35:45 - People AJ is working with now

43:22 - Implementing perfect referral systems

48:54 - How to raise your fees and create the ripple effect

54:14 - Selling what you do vs. selling the results

59:34 - Outsourcing personal vs. business tasks, which should you delegate first?

62:43 - Decision fatigue and how to avoid it

Resources

AJRoberts.com

The Fitpreneurs Podcast

If you have any questions or challenges or would like a second opinion on your business strategy, email askbrad@baconwrappedbusiness.com and let me know.

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