Introducing: Healthcare Idea Email from Hammock | Like Hammock Inc.’s popular Idea Email, the new Healthcare Idea Email briefly explores one topic, every other week. Learn more about the new Healthcare Idea Email at the bottom of the page.
Click to to receive your Healthcare Idea Email from Hammock.
By John Lavey | Hammock President and COO
In 1999, a space probe launched to study the climate on Mars flew too close to the Red Planet and disintegrated. The mission—which cost more than $125 million—failed for one simple reason: The navigation commands were set up in English units (pound-seconds) by the contractor that built the craft, when they should have been set up for compliance with NASA’s use of modern metric units (newton-seconds).
Introducing: Healthcare Idea Email from Hammock | Like Hammock Inc.’s popular Idea Email, the new Healthcare Idea Email briefly explores one topic, every other week. Learn more about the new Healthcare Idea Email at the bottom of the page.
Click to to receive your Healthcare Idea Email from Hammock.
By John Lavey | Hammock President and COO
Back in the olden days, I wrote for a newspaper. For many of us cub reporters, newspaper writing was great training in how to communicate clearly and effectively. I remember bracing myself for my editor’s red pen after racing to turn in an article on deadline.
Introducing: Healthcare Idea Email from Hammock | Like Hammock Inc.’s popular Idea Email, the new Healthcare Idea Email briefly explores one topic, every other week. Learn more about the new Healthcare Idea Email at the bottom of the page.
Click to to receive your Healthcare Idea Email from Hammock.
By John Lavey | Hammock President and COO
Often in a first meeting, I sit with a pad and a pen, listening and taking notes. Paging back through my notes, two words emerge from first conversations with healthcare business-to-business marketers more than any other: “thought leadership.”
Introducing: Healthcare Idea Email from Hammock | Like Hammock Inc.’s popular Idea Email, the new Healthcare Idea Email briefly explores one topic, every other week. Learn more about the new Healthcare Idea Email at the bottom of the page.
Click to to receive your Healthcare Idea Email from Hammock.
By John Lavey | Hammock President and COO
If you were to see the contents of the neatly stacked piles of papers that cover my office credenza, you might wonder if I’m a collector of sales presentations aimed at healthcare providers. I’m not. As part of our work with several clients on sales presentation and product launch systems, a team of Hammock writers and artists have examined every presentation we could get our hands on. For the past two years, when we weren’t working with clients on perfecting their presentations, we’ve spent countless hours studying the pitches of their competitors.
What we’ve discovered isn’t pretty.
Introducing: Healthcare Idea Email from Hammock | Like Hammock Inc.’s popular Idea Email, the new Healthcare Idea Email briefly explores one topic, every other week. Learn more about the new Healthcare Idea Email at the bottom of the page.
Click to to receive your Healthcare Idea Email from Hammock.
By John Lavey | Hammock President/COO
How often do you hand your smartphone to your kids so they can show you a better way to use it? I have two teenagers whose phones are like an extension of their bodies—not an unfamiliar scenario for parents of teens.
Almost two years ago, we decided that something was broken with the company email newsletter we sent to our clients, friends and those who requested it. It was easy to decide that, as fewer and fewer recipients were opening it. So we decided that instead of sending out a traditional email newsletter reporting on all the great things we’re doing, we would put to practice what we preach and send out something we think can help people communicate better with customers and prospects.
So we launched Idea Email. Internally, we’ve called it an “un-newsletter” as it breaks lots of rules. And it’s working, say the email marketing experts who have analyzed the mailings’ approach and metrics. The novelty of sending out a short e-mail that is intended to help a reader and not overwhelm them with too much information is a curiosity, it seems.
By John Lavey, Hammock President & COO
Creating editorial slates or designs in advance of research is merely guessing, and an exercise in competing aesthetic sensibilities. In other words, it’s a waste of time. Four basic areas of research are required to build a successful content marketing plan. These areas help fulfill the following critical marketing commandments:
Earlier this year 20|20 Research approached Hammock with the need to drive more qualified leads to its salesforce. We were already working with 20|20 executing an online content strategy with a clear objective: to position 20|20 Research as a thought leader in its industry while improving their organic search results on relevant search terms. This work included the management, creation and measurement of blog posts and research content for their online Learning Center.
20|20’s assignment to Hammock was to assist them in gathering contact information from potential clients that have a specific need for executing qualitative research.
A few weeks ago, we talked about how content marketing can generate leads by getting the doorbell or phone to ring. Now we turn our focus to how content marketing can lead to direct sales. In other words, how can content can get the cash register to ring?
If you Google content marketing and direct sales, you will find blog posts and marketing experts who claim that content marketing is not intended for the purpose of direct sales. I disagree, and a few examples from our experience at Hammock and other great marketers might help you see how content marketing can be a direct sales engine.
At Hammock, we create content that helps our clients accomplish business objectives. Sounds great, but what objectives are we helping them achieve?
The following five objectives are what you can expect to influence and measure with a well-developed and executed content marketing strategy:
1. Lead generation
2. Direct sales
3. Customer retention
4. Branding support
5. Thought leadership
For today’s post, let’s focus on lead generation.