Developing key messages is perhaps the most essential practice of a strategic communications department or company.  But it’s not always easy.  The process can take time and patience, but by identifying the features, advantages and benefits (FABs) of your offering, you can ensure consistent, targeted messaging across all communication platforms.

Although we are in the business of marketing healthcare, we can learn a lot from auto manufacturers; they are expert FAB’ers.  Watch carefully the next time you see a television commercial for a new car to see if you can follow the pattern. I’ll bet you’ll be able to identify the three components:

• Feature: A prominent part, characteristic or special attraction
  • “The new Cadillac CVS has pop-up navigation, a 40 gig hard drive, wood trim and a sunroof.”
• Advantage: A favorable impression or effect (of the feature)
  • “It’s a luxury vehicle…”
• Benefit: Something that promotes well-being (from the perspective of the recipient)
  •  ”…that will turn you on.”

Granted, healthcare benefits may not be as stimulating, but they certainly fall into the “well-being” category.  Auto manufacturers drive home the benefit by using sound and images. They create their brands on television and rely on the internet and dealerships to sell them.

Check out my article to learn more and soon you’ll be creating FABulous messages with confidence!

“Live a creative life!”

This was the challenge proposed to a bewildered group of grad students during my first night of this semester’s class, The Creative Process.  I know I am not the only student who arrived that night eager to spend a semester discussing advertising production processes and sharing war stories about creative departments and campaigns.  Turns out, the course strategy is ‘to read and discuss leading texts on the theory and practice of creativity in science and business.’

So, here I am in week five, writing a paper in support of the belief that creativity is process-oriented rather than talent-oriented, as exemplified in the book The Double Helix:  A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA.  Yep, you read that correctly - I’m learning about creativity via bioscience.  Yawn.  I am an absolute proponent of process and agree with the theory that there are steps we usually take (even if they are not consciously defined) to generate new ideas.  I just didn’t know that there are people out there who study creativity so thoroughly.  Or that I would ever read a book about DNA. 

More interesting are these definitions of ‘creativity,’ from my notes:

The ability to combine old elements in new ways.
It’s about making the familiar strange and the strange familiar.
It’s effective surprise.
When nothing is new except the arrangement.
It’s an anti-probability event.
Whatever makes more out of less.
One word:  Bioassociation

According to my professor, all creative types have something in common: They pay attention and they take notes.  That’s exactly what I am trying to do during class this semester – it’s keeping me awake. 

Creatively yours,
R~

For those of you who follow my blog (thanks, boss), you’ve probably wondered why I haven’t posted lately.  It seems that my decision to go back to school to earn my Master’s degree has affected more than my checkbook.   Time is my new precious resource.  I had just entered a new phase of life – you know, the one when your kids are teenagers and suddenly you are alone watching The Bachelor?   So what do I do with my newfound, much-anticipated freedom?  I enroll in grad school!  No rest for the…crazy?

For you, this translates to four years of listening to my ‘aha moments’ and scholarly pontifications.  For me, this means great blog fodder, stimulating discussions with other marketing professionals, and a balancing act between my ‘real’ work and my homework.  To demonstrate how well I’ve balanced everything so far, I actually took my first class last fall.  It started about the time I posted my last entry.  Now, I’ve caught my breath, adjusted to being the oldest person in class, and am ready to share. 

My degree will be a Master’s in Integrated Marketing Communications (MMC).  I’ll need to complete 36 credit hours, or 12 classes.  I plan to take one class per semester, year round.  Come on, follow along – it’ll be fun.

As seasoned marketers, we all know about ROI, but how much do you know about the other R’s of marketing measurement: ROO, return on objective, and ROE, return on engagement?

By applying these performance metrics to your marketing initiatives, you can more accurately measure the success of nonmonetary objectives that could be as vital to your company’s success as the bottom line.

To learn more, check out my article on our Web site under News.  It explains the differences among ROI, ROO and ROE and how the three R’s can work together to paint a clearer picture of your campaign’s success.

Last week I attended Missouri Association for Healthcare Public Relations and Marketing’s annual Summer Forum at the Lake of the Ozarks.   MAHPRM, pronounced “mop-rum” by us acronym-loving healthcare marketing folks, is a professional organization comprised of mostly marketing, PR, and communications people who work in Missouri hospitals.  This year, we were pleased to be asked to speak during a session at the conference, which Carol and Darrin handled nicely.  I nicely handled sitting in the audience smiling at them for encouragement – a role I’m really good at. 

Speaking to a group of people (the dreadful PowerPoint presentation) with a preplanned script while standing and holding a ‘clicker’ that advances slides and points via laser while clipped to a microphone that never works properly is not my idea of a ‘great opportunity.’  Those that know me well will be surprised by this confession, because, well, I’m not exactly shy around the dinner table if you get my drift.  I’m not shy around the conference table, or the blackjack table or any other table to which I SIT.  I’m not shy, period.  I communicate for a living, for goodness sake.  But, when placed in front of a large group whereby I have to STAND (gasp!) and refer to my notes so I don’t  SAY the wrong thing, I revert back to childhood, where I was consistently called out by my peers because I had a “boy’s name”, had “four eyes” or “raised my hand too much.”  

The interesting part of this confession (I know you’ve been waiting for something interesting here) is that my inability to communicate clearly in front of an audience is a recent development.  This, along with eyesight loss, slower metabolism and darker roots, is just another item to add to my growing list of Things That Happen to You After 40.    I expected some of these, but this?  It’s so unfair!

I’m always amused by speakers who share their disappointment in their “time slot” with the audience.   How many times have you heard a speaker say, “Well, since I’m the first one today, I’ll talk slow while you wake up,” or “Well, I know I’m the last one before lunch and you’re hungry so I’ll talk fast,” or “Well, since you just had lunch, I won’t wake you,” or, my favorite “I hate it when I’m last!  I know that we all want to get out of here and head to happy hour…”  All beg the question, is there really an ideal time to speak to a crowd? 

Nope!  Not to me.  Too much pressure and too many variables I can’t control.  Just give me a CHAIR, an assignment or a question, and an interested, interactive audience and I will communicate nicely.  As long as I have my glasses.

What brands are you loyal to?  And why?

That was the ‘elevator’ question (no really, we were in the elevator!) I recently posed to a colleague following a rather insightful meeting with a client about….you guessed it – branding.  Corporations today (healthcare or not) are busier defining and protecting their brands than ever before.   Social media is in full swing, which means companies are ‘out there,’ for better or worse.  Brands are created every day online whether a company participates or not.  Heck, personal branding is now exemplified online.  But that’s another blog.

Before you answer my question about brand loyalty – I’m guessing you’re still pondering – let’s further muddy the waters by agreeing on the definition of ‘brand.’  I tell clients:

• It’s not what you say, it’s what you do:  ‘live the brand’.
• It’s the emotion you want to evoke when a customer experiences your product.
• It’s a concept that lives in the minds of your customers.
• It’s not a logo or a slogan (pleeeeease!).

I call this muddy water because most marketing-types like me agree that there is very little clarity around the conference table on this subject.  It’s a complicated concept.  We’ve all heard someone say, “I don’t believe in branding.”  Or, the old mantra in healthcare, “It sounds too much like advertising.” 

I’m loyal to Southwest Airlines – they are almost always on time and are very pragmatic and practical.  Their employees live the brand.  All without a slogan!  I like that.  Also, I am in love with the Lucky Brand clothing line.  Why?  Their ‘peace and love’ concept makes me feel young and carefree – two things I most definitely am not!  (But used to be!!)  However, I don’t want to wear the logo – the Lucky Brand is all about how I FEEL shopping for and wearing their clothes. 

These aren’t very sophisticated examples – and quite frankly, they weren’t very easy to come by either.  Which goes to prove how difficult it is to successfully create a brand that is meaningful and memorable.  

Your turn!  What products, and especially services do you love and why?

We’re into social media here at Dobies. But unlike the cobbler’s kids who have no shoes, our kids  are social media gurus. That’s why recently when we dove into the world of moms and will-be-moms to research and write a marketing plan for a hospital client’s obstetrics department, I was able to passionately endorse the strategy that we reach new, Gen Y moms via text messaging. Because younger moms text. Heck, now even old moms text. Of course, I’m an old mom – my kids are teenagers and ‘young adults’ (it’s hard not to smirk at that description, but that’s another blog).

I’ve come a long way from the short, one-syllable words that beginners use like yes, no, huh? I’m even able to have complete arguments by text, a necessary line of communication with teenagers.  I even have actual conversations with other grown adults about important stuff. For example, last week, Kelley (who works here at Dobies) and I discussed via text what newspaper ad to run for a client.  I happened to be having lunch with this client at the time, so Kelley sent a text asking me to discuss this particular topic while we ate our chips and salsa. So, I did. Thirty seconds later, we were all content because we had checked something quickly and efficiently off our lists.

But compared to Generation Y women (those aged 9-31), my accomplishment is mundane.  Our next generation of moms has been raised in a world of instant information and connection. To effectively reach these young women, we need to join their world, because they’ve left ours way behind. In this case, ‘joining’ means offering pregnancy and parenting information via opt-in text messaging. I haven’t felt this good about a communication strategy since I texted my daughter to ask her to text a friend to text her mother to ask if she was interested in car pooling. It worked.