Healthcare Systems Must Harness The Power of Online Marketing To Bolster Their Business

“Healthcare Innovation: Trends from the Trenches” Webinar Series Offers Latest Techniques To Recruit & Engage Patients

NEW YORK, Oct. 15, 2014 /PRNewswire-iReach/ — Reaching the right people at the right time with the right message is a key goal of online marketing, especially in the increasingly competitive marketplace of healthcare systems. This is just one of the many topics to be addressed in “How To Harness The Power of Online Marketing,” the next webinar for Healthcare Innovation: Trends from the Trenches, the popular series launched last year by Simon Associates Management Consultants (SAMC). The webinar will start at noon, EDT on Friday, October 24. Click here to register.

Photo – http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20141015/152269

SAMC Founder/CEO Andrea Simon will co-host the webinar, with help from other leading healthcare marketing gurus, including: Interact Marketing Co-Founder/President Joe Beccalori; Children’s Medical Group CEO Joe Heavey, and Resolutionary Marketing Communications CEO Peter Michos. This group will team up to show attendees how to successfully create, execute and evaluate an integrated, online campaign.

Andrea Simon

Joe Beccalori

Joe Heavey

Peter Michos

Specifically, they will demonstrate how to: use SEO to propel brands to the top of Google’s rankings, successfully jump on the social media bandwagon, and drive a brand’s online reputation. They also will preview what’s coming next in the world of online and inbound marketing.

“The days of asking five neighbors to recommend a family physician are gone,” said Beccalori. “Inbound marketing is becoming a rapidly growing market segment, largely because potential patients are going online for everything. It’s important that healthcare professionals understand what goes into patient search engine behavior, how patients are engaged on the web and even which mobile devices they prefer to use.”

Simon added that having a website that new or returning patients can find is just the first step in inbound healthcare marketing.

“Today’s healthcare systems need websites that translate well onto smartphones or iPads and convey a good experience,” she explained. “The majority of consumers are investigating options and booking appointments on the run — between business meetings or errands. This means that mobile marketing needs to be top of mind for healthcare organizations.”

The webinar also will explore how to properly measure inbound marketing efforts along with the opportunities and challenges presented by social media.

Beyond hearing advice from Beccalori, Michos and Simon on navigating online and inbound marketing, attendees also will benefit from Heavey’s case study delineating how the Children’s Medical Group has conducted its inbound marketing. This case study will offer many key learnings that can apply to most healthcare organizations. Not only is Heavey the CEO of the Children’s Medical Group, he’s also the father of 11 children, so his understanding of effectively marketing healthcare options to parents is unparalleled.

“The big takeaway from this webinar is that you need to hire people who have some expertise in this type of marketing,” said Beccalori. “You can’t just rely on your receptionist or a ‘tech guy’ or a ‘web person’ to learn HTML or photoshop and then assume that this individual can become your online expert. Online marketing is too competitive these days to go that route.”

Other webinars slated for this year, include: “The Ultimate Guide To Healthcare Marketing Metrics And ROI” on Nov. 14 with David Marlowe – Principal, Strategic Marketing Concepts; and “Building a Culture of Innovation in Healthcare” on Dec. 12, with Simon as the featured speaker. Many other interesting topics are slated for 2015, as well.

For more information on the popular webinar series, go to: www.simonassociates.net, where SlideShare presentations of past webinars also can be downloaded. To read more about pertinent healthcare topics, go to the SAMC Trends from the Trenches blog.