Last week we hosted Day 1 of our Virtual HITMC – Part Deux event. It was fantastic to see members of the HITMC Community on-screen and it was a reminder of how much fun we all have when we are together. Of course, it would have been better in-person, but it was still exciting to be together with the community.
Lead Generation
The day started with two high tempo sessions on lead generation from Justin Campbell, Vice President of Strategy & Marketing at Galen Healthcare Solutions and Cristina Stahr (nee Dafonte), Marketing Operations and Strategy Leader at ProviderTrust. Both presenters, rose to the challenge of delivering their content in just 20 minutes.
Campbell, shared his experience using whitepapers to generate leads. One of his best tips was the 3-30-3 rule to entice people to click to download the whitepaper.
According to Campbell, you need to grab a person’s attention within 3 seconds (think email subject line, article headline, or ad copy). If you can do that, then you have only 30 seconds to fully engage with them. This means your landing page needs to be compelling enough to hold someone’s interest for 30 seconds. From there you have 3 minutes to tell the full story.
Stahr’s presentation, like Campbell’s, was full of useful information. Her most memorable was this RELAX acronym:
- R = REUSE & RECYCLE content
- E = behavior-based triggered EMAILS
- L = dynamic LIST segmentation
- A = AUTOMATE nurture campaigns
- X = AXE your batch & blast strategy
Her last statement, axing the batch-and-blast style of email/outreach strategy, is music to the ears of marketers. In the days before marketing automation tools, retargeting, look-alikes, and personalized funnels, batch & blast was the way most companies did LeadGen. But those days are long past. With the exception of early-stage startups who might not have the budget or in-house marketing skills, no company should be using batch-and-blast emails as their main lead generation or nurture approach.
The batch-and-blast approach was one of the first topics that was discussed on the Lead Generation panel that followed Stahr’s session. The panel featured:
- Susan Biddle, Healthcare Solutions Director at Proofpoint
- Mark Erwich, VP Marketing at Imprivata
- Aaron Glauser, Senior Director of Product Marketing at AdvancedMD
So much fun moderating this panel discussion on LeadGen. We all agree batch & blast doesn’t work as well anymore AND there are many ways to make things consumable – video, infographic, blogs, etc. #HITMC pic.twitter.com/lg7AZxoQ3S
— Colin Hung (@Colin_Hung) November 5, 2020
All of the panelists shared that they have experienced an increase in consumption of their content since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. In particular, short e-books seemed to be the right “snack-sized” piece of content that the healthcare audience were seeking.
Jingles
Peter Radd, a professional musician and jingle producer, gave a memorable presentation about how original music can propel your brand. Of note [pun intentional], was Radd’s comments on sound logos – short bits of sound or music that is associated with a brand.
The example he gave was Intel’s Pentium sound. When you hear it, you immediately think of Intel. They have done an excellent job of drilling that sound logo into our heads.
We’ll have more details about Radd’s session in a future article.
Lights + Camera
Based on the comments in the conference chat and on Twitter, many attendees found the camera and lighting tips shared by Doug Farra, CEO of Red Valley Media Group to be extremely helpful. Farra, a professional photographer and videographer, spoke at length about the need for appropriate lighting:
- Avoid being backlit
- Filming in front of a window can work IF you have sufficient lighting on the subject
- Diffused light provides a warmer look
- Ring lights are a great starting point
- When possible, use 3-point lighting
Based on Farra’s tips, I now realize I need a least 2 more lights. Hello Amazon!
After Farra’s presentation a panel that included: Whitney Cole, Dalton Patterson, Dan Dunlop and John Lynn discussed the rise of video in marketing. Everyone agreed that video is now a must-have for any content campaign, but contrary to convention the panel believed that raw videos shot on webcams and cell phones could be just as effective as professionally produced videos.
Fantastic panel discussing video. Consensus is that “raw” videos vs highly produced ones are gaining in acceptance. A wonderful thing. @MrDollyPat @dandunlop @techguy @Mission_Maven #HITMC pic.twitter.com/vmQoG0R74O
— Colin Hung (@Colin_Hung) November 5, 2020
HITMC Tradition
No HITMC event, virtual or not, would be complete without a selfie. Luckily the Virtual Reality meetup provided the perfect opportunity. Here is a wonderful selfie taken by Ashley Dauwer…and in the pool no less!
- Back row, left to right: Beth Friedman, Beth Cooper, Ashley Dauwer, Hollon Kohtz.
- Middle row, left to right: Brett Christiansen, Colin Hung, Brittany Quemby
- Front: Jemma Roche, Dalton Patterson
Virtual HITMC20 – Part Deux – Day 2 is happening Thursday November 19th, 12-3:30pm ET. Register here (free for those who were registered to attend HITMC20 in-person). We’ll be covering ABM, Content Marketing, Marketing Automation, Press Releases and Podcasting. See the full agenda.
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