eHealth Articles & White Papers

Aiming for the Right Target

Linda Barnes - Vice President of Business Development

The Web is an interesting marketing communications tool in that it's immediate. As a result, there can be an unfortunate tendency to substitute speed for accuracy or thoroughness. It's easy to fall into the philosophy of "just get something out there."

Unlike print media, the website can be edited quickly and easily if there are errors or once you hear back from slow-to-respond stakeholders, so the risk may seem relatively low. It's the "Ready-Fire-Aim" approach.

Obviously, this can backfire. If you don't understand your audiences, align with your hospital's goals, and get your stakeholders on board, you may be aiming at the wrong target.

Or, in reacting to a specific request, you may make a change that unintentionally alienates the target audience. That can happen because often your internal stakeholders and the site's external audiences are different groups with different, perhaps even conflicting, needs and priorities.

It's all about perspective

As an example, Geonetric recently worked with a client whose physicians wanted their online information searchable and displayed in a way that aligned with how they, as doctors, thought about their information.

They requested changes to our Provider Directory based on that input. As we talked about their goals and needs, we realized the physicians were approaching the issue from a different perspective than we had, which was that of the end-user.

We conducted extensive user experience testing on our Provider Directory, which included a summative usability study with multiple users performing a number of tasks on a given "find-a-doctor" solution. We used industry-standard usability metrics to measure:

• Effectiveness: whether or not a user can successfully use a given product to complete a task,
• Efficiency: the time spent completing given tasks, and
• Satisfaction: as measured by standardized rating questionnaires which assesses perceived ease of use.

Of course, we found interesting opportunities for product tweaks and a couple of new feature ideas. But for me, the most interesting insight was seeing firsthand the difference between how a user - in this case a site visitor or patient - approaches the task versus how the stakeholder - in this case the physician - thinks about the problem.

Data talks

The Provider Directory discussion reminded me of a couple of key phrases I've learned over the years. In Lean Six Sigma training, I was taught, "In God we trust. Everyone else must bring data." Pragmatic Marketing simply says, "Your opinion, although interesting, is irrelevant."

Bringing data to the table certainly takes a lot of the emotion out of the discussion. And translating that data to understand the benefit or value of a different approach is even more important.

Maybe your physicians' goal is to get more people to find them online, review their credentials, and make an appointment. If that's the case, then data showing success in achieving that goal is the key to building consensus.

Everyone has a viewpoint. And while they all must be considered, your job as the Web marketing guru is to make sure you're listening for understanding, considering the many viewpoints, needs and goals objectively, determining the best way to accomplishing those goals, getting consensus, and then proving the results with metrics.

That way, you'll hit the target every time.