Are You Marketing With Your Eyes Closed?

By Tina Rudisill and Gail Schwartz 

If you’re confident that your organization’s marketing efforts and decisions (1) have the full buy-in and backing of senior leadership, (2) generate clear, quantifiable value, (3) are fully aligned with organizational goals and objectives, (4) are anchored in strong business cases that include hard data, and (5) are never based on subjective or political concerns, congratulations—maybe you don’t need to read this article.

But if you have even a glimmer of uncertainty on any of these points, read on—and, even better, join us for our upcoming breakout session at the AHRA 2016 Annual Meeting: “Marketing with Your Eyes Wide Open by Counting What Counts” on Sunday, July 31, from 2:30 PM.–4:00 PM.

The session focuses on one key theme: that marketing, like medicine, is a mix of art and science. In the words of Dan Zarrella, author of The Science of Marketing, “Marketing without data is like driving with your eyes closed.” Our goal is to equip you with essential concepts and tools to learn to market with your eyes wide open by:

• Analyzing data that will help you make better marketing decisions
• Applying appropriate metrics to the evaluation of your marketing program

For further details about our session, see the description posted on the Advanced Track page.

Here’s Your Chance to Shape Our Session

To maximize the relevance of our session to you, we would like to tailor the content based on the current marketing practices and concerns of attendees and, more broadly, of the AHRA membership. You can help us make the content more valuable to you by completing our brief survey at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/GMBLFDQ by July 22.

All AHRA members are welcome to complete the survey, regardless of whether or not they will be attending the Annual Meeting. We’ll ask you a few questions about your organization and its current marketing activities. Your individual responses will remain anonymous. They will be tallied and presented during the session at the aggregate level only. We won’t “single out” anyone’s responses for specific discussion. But your responses will make a vital contribution to making the session a better professional-education experience for everyone. An analysis of the survey findings will also be published after the conference, in a forthcoming issue of Radiology Management. 

Enjoy a Free Starbucks Treat on Us
Now that we have your attention with an opportunity to help us cater our session on marketing metrics to issues of specific concern to you and your colleagues, we’d like to sweeten the deal for you even more. If you’re one of the first 50 survey respondents, you’ll receive a free Starbucks gift card.

Meanwhile, we look forward to the insights your survey responses are sure to provide, and we hope to see many of you at our session on July 31!

Tina Rudisill brings more than 25 years of experience to trg Marketing Works, the agency she leads in York, Pennsylvania. She has delivered presentations and published articles on healthcare marketing strategies and spearheaded strategic marketing programs for clients in healthcare, garnering awards for external marketing, advertising, and general brand awareness initiatives. She can be reached at trudisill@marketingworks.net. 

Gail Schwartz is Vice President—Healthcare for trg Marketing Works, with offices in York, Pennsylvania, and Norfolk, Virginia. She has an extensive background in planning and executing strategic marketing and branding initiatives for entire healthcare organizations and specialty service lines. Her work has been recognized with Quest Awards, Aster Awards, and the Annual Healthcare Advertising Awards. She can be reached at gschwartz@marketingworks.net.