Healthcare PR: Impacting the Bottom Line
Part Four in a Continuing Series on Healthcare IT Public Relations
I've received several requests for the Powerpoint presentation of my session "Healthcare PR: Impacting the Bottom Line" Webinar I gave a few months ago. Given the readership of healthcare marketers of this blog, I wanted to offer it here. Contact me via Comment to the post if interested in receiving a copy of the presentation.
On a separate topic, my colleague and fellow blogger Bryan Scanlon wrote an insightful piece on the pitfalls of "invention defense." Here's more:
"Far too often companies rely on what worked before; and unfortunately, what didn't work for the last VP of the marketing who lasted just ten months. I'd like to identify a couple additional key make or break points that keep re-appearing and are related primary to public relations, branding and marketing. Today we'll tackle one called "Invention Defense."
Common in companies with strong, smart technical founders, "invention defense" usually hits when the market gets 2-4 strong players duking it out. Inevitably, one company keeps jumping up every time a new entrant emerges---or a competitor does something new or interesting---to remind the market that they were first. "We invented the space. That makes these new guys crap."
It's like parenting. How can anyone else's kid be better than yours? Never! I keep thinking about Horshack shooting his hand in the air and screaming to Mr. Kotter. It gets on your nerves and eventually you just ignore him, even if there was something good coming.
It's one of the fundamentals of PR (heck, business). If you're playing defense, then someone else is playing offense. You want to be scoring; without any points on the board you can't win. A brilliant man, Dan Bricklin, invented the spreadsheet. Did that become the market leader? Lotus seized control and then Microsoft ate their lunch. I'm grossly oversimplying, but being first really didn't help.
The market moves fast and you are either moving with it, or left behind. Resting on invention defense is just that, resting. Once the market heats up, It's time to think about "inventor offense"---keep ball moving and game changing so competitors can't simply "copy" your invention or positioning.
Don't get me wrong. Invention is a wonderful thing. And, for a brief period of time, being first has substantial marketing and PR advantages. And don't take this to mean that you should be changing your positioning and marketing strategies every five minutes. Chaos is not inventor offense. Instead, you need to keep introducing new content and new insight that shows you not only invented the market---but understand and command it better than anyone."
Posted by Shawn Whalen on August 23, 2006 at 12:50 PM
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