10 Questions to Ask Your Potential Digital Advertising Agency

Download this white paper and learn 10 important questions you should ask that will help as you vet potential partners, including:

Should the agency specialize in digital?
Should the agency specialize in healthcare?
How does the agency tackle channel strategy?
How does the agency report success?

You’ll find out the answers you should be looking for and how to use the answers to understand which type of agency is right for you. Use it to evaluate potential partners, including the pros and cons of different types of partnerships. With it, you can find the perfect match for your health system.

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4 Tips to Take the Headache Out of a Web CMS Change

For many hospitals and health systems, their CMS is out of date and the path to an upgrade is complicated. For others, their tool isn’t user-friendly and requires too much dependence on I.T. or a web vendor. Regardless, it’s a headache – and an opportunity.

Make the most of this chance to reevaluate the digital experience you want to put forward and vet new platforms and partners that can help you get there more effectively. Discover the top four things to look for in a new platform – and partner – that will help you find the right path forward

4 Tips for a smooth web CMS transition

When you entered into your current partnership and selected your current platform, you had high expectations the investment would go smoothly for years to come. Yet, here you are – on a legacy CMS with no clear upgrade path and maybe even an unsympathetic vendor.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

Tip #1: Find a platform with proven upgrade history and active roadmap

CMS platforms must be continually invested in to keep up. Remember, your CMS should keep up with everything from changes in consumer behavior to algorithm updates from search engines like Google. Ask how many major and minor software upgrades there have been in the last year and a brief overview of what they were.

Also, ask to see a roadmap. It will help you to understand where the software is going and that there is a team actively working on enhancements. It’s also critical to ensure you don’t find yourself on a platform with no future.

Bonus: As you evaluate potential CMS systems, be sure future software updates aren’t an additional cost. Ask what the upgrade process looks like – will there be downtime? How does client feedback get incorporated into upgrades?

Tip #2: Confirm ease of use

If your marketing team can’t easily and quickly make edits without the help of a programmer or I.T. team, your platform can quickly become a burden. Make sure you select a platform that allows your team to easily:

Make content edits
Add videos and images
Spin up new pages
Update SEO data
Add documents
Change out banner images
And other common tasks you have to keep up for your website

If you can’t do these things on-team, you may end up spending valuable budget dollars on easy edits, or waiting for other teams to prioritize your work.

Bonus: Ask about training. With large healthcare organizations supporting dozens of content contributors – many of whom are often in different locations – it’s crucial to ensure there are training opportunities for your team and assets to help you onboard other users.

Tip #3: Make them prove their “proven” implementation process

When you sell a platform and plan of action internally, your reputation is on the line. You have a vested interest in making sure that the project gets done on-time and on-budget. The implementation phase of a platform change – and often site redesign – can take weeks, months, or even years. Know what you are getting into ahead of time by asking for a sample timeline for a project of your scope.

Some helpful questions that will help you get a sense of just how experienced they really are:

Have you done this for healthcare organizations with similar scope? (Ex: bringing microsites into the main site, building a provider directory, etc.)
Have you migrated from my current platform to this one?
Do you have experience with the type of APIs we need? (ex: credentialing systems)

Bonus: Don’t be afraid to ask for references. When you contact those references ask specific questions around implementation.

Tip #4: Ask about support – during implementation and beyond

The technology you decide to go with is obviously important, but the support around that change is a critical part of the re-platforming process. Pick a partner who will take the burden off your team and reduce stress throughout the project.

Look for a partner who will take a long-term view. Implementation partners who are only there for part of the journey might be fast to launch, but they don’t stick around for the long-term to make sure the platform actually works past go-live. They certainly won’t be there as you build on that new platform foundation to support more complex patient journeys.

Bonus: Asking for some common stats can also help you compare. For example, what’s the average client tenure? Or, are there client satisfaction scores the company can share? At Geonetric, many of our healthcare clients have been with us for over a decade. And in our last client satisfaction survey (2021) 80% of our clients gave us a 5.65 overall rating out of 6. These are numbers and stats we actively share and keep updated. Ask your potential vendor for stats like these to see what you can expect.

See a CMS change as an opportunity

Switching platforms can be a burden – but you can use the need to upgrade platforms to also advance digital strategy. At the end of the day, the technology you select is essential, but it’s also only part of the puzzle. If you can find a platform and a partner that meet your needs, you can truly build a reimagined web presence that lives up to its potential.

At Geonetric, we’re known for our healthcare-specific CMS, VitalSite. But our expert designers, developers, and project managers have proven experience implementing on multiple platforms, including Sitecore, WordPress, and Drupal – delivering the strategic support after go-live that’s key to success. Reach out if you’d like to see a demo of our CMS, learn about other platforms we support or talk about digital strategy needs.

A pair of microphones and headsets on a desk in an empty studio.

VitalSite Demo: Helping You Put Digital First

Join other healthcare marketers for this live demo and see the different ways VitalSite can help you create marketing results. This 30-minute session is packed with best practices and examples of how leading organizations are using VitalSite to manage their website, support marketing campaigns, promote providers and increase volume for their services.

3 Content Marketing Ideas to Mark COVID-19’s One Year Anniversary

Many marketers are beginning to think about planning a remembrance for lives lost, a celebration for lives saved and an event to thank healthcare staff for their dedication and sacrifices through it all. That’s a tall order and one that still needs to follow social distancing guidelines.

Content marketing ideas to remember patients and honor healthcare workers

You’re the expert when it comes to what will resonate with your organization and your community. Even though your plate is likely full promoting vaccination clinics and filling elective service line patient volumes, spending some time to observe the year-mark of the pandemic can offer the following benefits:

Shows your appreciation (and gives your community the opportunity to show their appreciation) for your healthcare workers, which supports employee engagement, retention, and recruitment
Gives your community an opportunity to engage with your brand, building on the goodwill and support they’ve shown in the last year
Provides an opportunity for your community to grieve those lost to COVID-19 after a year when public mourning rituals haven’t been possible, helping your community and team better cope

1: Share Patient Stories

Your hospital or health system likely had many patients who were critically ill with COVID-19 but recovered. Consider identifying a handful of patients that match your key personas and spotlight them through patient stories. You may even consider reuniting the patient with his or her care team and capturing the moment on camera, followed by interviews with both the patient and some of his or her care team to do a look back – and ahead. You can share the articles, videos, and photos on your content marketing hub and promote via eNewsletters and social media.

Sharing stories of patients who have passed can be hard, but also impactful. Some organizations may choose to mark each patient lost in a certain way – such as through candles or luminaries – and perhaps tell some of their stories too, especially if a provider or care team member went above and beyond to support the patient or their family. You could partner with patient families or even local schools to decorate the luminaria. If space allows, you could even plan a drive-through luminaria ceremony honoring and remembering all those who lost their battle with COVID-19.

2: Plan Acts of Appreciation

There is really no adequate way to tell your care team how much you appreciate them, but marking a historic, unprecedented year with words and acts of gratitude for their sacrifices and compassionate service to others is a great place to start. In addition to promoting the ongoing availability of employee wellness programs and mental health resources, consider doing a full week of appreciation starting March 11th for your healthcare heroes, maybe honoring a different department each day.

You could partner with local companies to deliver different items each day for the team to enjoy. Consider meals, flowers, or maybe even hire a local musician to play in the lobby. Partnering with local companies also gives them needed exposure, as many small businesses and artists have taken a hit this year.

You could even turn this week-long event into a giving program with your organization’s philanthropic arm or foundation, asking your community to show their appreciation and support through donations to employee relief or other funds.

Be sure to capture the acts of appreciation on camera, interview the care team on what it’s like looking back, and share all of it through your eNewsletters and social media channels.

3. Get Leaders Involved

The one-year anniversary is an important milestone, and your leadership team may already have some thoughts on how to mark the occasion in the context of the organization’s strategic goals. Consider doing a video recapping the year and having executive, clinical, and service line leaders make statements thanking the team for their hard work and dedication. Also, consider creating a video or blog post from your CEO reflecting on the year and sharing areas where the organization has grown. Even if this content isn’t for public consumption, sharing videos and posts from key members of the executive team on your intranet can be inspiring and boost employee morale.

In it together

Remember, your community has lived the last year right there beside you. From depending on you for facts about the virus to delivering homemade PPE to trusting you with their care – COVID-19-related or not – your entire community has ridden the same ups and downs. They will likely respond well to commemorating the milestone with you.

Counterintuitive to traditional event marketing, it’s important to think about the events you plan and be thoughtful about not attracting a crowd. That’s where content marketing and digital come in. Plan to release content on your online content hubs and through social. You can Facebook live certain interviews or events, record videos ahead of time and release the day of, or even partner with your local news stations who are likely going to be looking for this very content. Digital is a great, socially-distanced way to safely share the experience with your community and continue to build those bonds.

If you need assistance interviewing patients or care team members for articles and blog posts, our expert team of writers can help. We know you have a lot on your plate and would love to share our expertise in whatever way possible.

Answering Questions About Life After the COVID-19 Vaccine

You’ve addressed the concerns of myriad audiences, from hospital staff to expectant parents to donors and more. Now it’s time to add one more audience to your list: The newly vaccinated.

As of February 26, more than 14% of Americans had received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. These people still play an important role in helping to contain the spread of the coronavirus — and they have their own distinct questions about how to keep themselves and others safe. Google Trends shows that searches for “after covid vaccine” reached an all-time high in February. As states roll out vaccines to more people, interest in the topic will likely remain strong.

Hospitals and health systems can continue being a trusted resource for COVID-19-related information in the post-vaccine phase. Here are some tips for meeting the information needs of people in your community.

Consider Local Needs

People in different areas of the country may need to hear somewhat different messages. Does your organization need to primarily educate? Change or reinforce behaviors? Consider what opportunities you have to bolster information or fill in gaps based on what local media and public health agencies are (or aren’t) communicating.

And keep track of vaccine distribution in your state through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)’s vaccination tracker, which shows the percentage of the population that’s gotten one dose or both doses. The data can help you understand, at any point, what stage your audiences may be at in terms of need for information.

Discover Trending Topics

Invest some time in researching common questions of those who have received a vaccine—or are looking forward to receiving a vaccine and want to know what to expect. You can certainly get some perspective from your colleagues who were among the first in the country to get the vaccine. Take time to also understand what’s top-of-mind for those with less familiarity with medicine.

Great sources for information include:

Keyword research – Check Google Trends and other keyword research tools to find common post-vaccine-related queries in your area. For example, in Iowa, “can you spread covid after vaccine” is a rising search term.
Primary care providers – Ask them what questions patients have related to safety precautions after being inoculated.
Surveys – Ask your followers on social media or add a popup survey to the COVID-19 section of your website. Ask users what questions they have about what to expect after getting the vaccine.

The media — What questions are news outlets covering? What similar concerns can you address in your own communication?

The post-vaccine questions you uncover may be the start of a helpful frequently asked questions (FAQ) page on your COVID-19 resource hub. They also may fuel story ideas for your e-newsletter, blog, or content marketing hub.

Reach Your Audience

Many people in your community have spent the last year taking in a lot of COVID-19 news, sorting through changing or conflicting public health guidance, figuring out vaccine eligibility and scheduling, and more. They may be coping with grief, burnout, or general distress. They’re probably tired. So, consider these strategies to make your messages resonate.

Keep Messaging Simple

At this point, it’s more important than ever to keep your messaging simple and straightforward.

Omit unnecessary words
Speak directly to the reader
Use an active voice
Use familiar, everyday words
Use short words, short sentences, and short paragraphs

Consider also translating vaccine communications into languages commonly spoken in your service area.

Try a New Format

If you’ve been relying mainly on text, consider a new format for this last stretch of public health guidance related to the pandemic. You’ll likely be repeating some messages people have heard for months (for example: wear a mask). Engage the audience by presenting information in a new way – like an infographic, social media graphic or short video. Research shows that novelty motivates us to explore.

Focus on ‘Do’s

Positive phrasing can be easier to understand than negative. Focus your guidance on telling people what they can do more safely in the days, weeks and months after receiving their vaccine, rather than simply stating what they shouldn’t do yet.

Find More Tips or Ask for Feedback

Read further strategic recommendations for COVID-19 vaccination communications, or contact Geonetric today if you need any help with your efforts.

Healthcare Website Design Portfolio

You can have a hospital website that achieves an amazing user experience and embraces the latest trends in design. Download this eBook and see examples of how healthcare organizations like yours:

Build designs that cater to new technologies and mobile devices
Tell their brand story with the latest design trends
Keep user experience top of mind at all times, while still executing award-winning and eye-catching designs

Want to see more? Be sure to check out our latest design case studies.

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How to Make Sure Your PPC & Organic SEO Work in Tandem

Digital Marketing from Separate Silos

There’s a problem with how we usually think about digital marketing. It’s a widespread problem, existing regardless of organization size or industry. It’s in itself a large problem, but it can have wide-reaching effects. It’s an often-necessary problem, originating simply as a means to methodically approach the large task of marketing on the internet.

The problem is this: we often treat organic marketing and paid marketing as two separate and distinct avenues. We see, time and time again, one team responsible for SEO and another responsible for Pay-Per-Click (PPC) with neither communicating with the other. Worse, often these teams are not equipped to speak with each other, with multiple agencies accounting for PPC and social media (itself split into paid and organic) and legacy marketing and organic. Some are managed in-house, some are outsourced. Oftentimes, focus can only be made for one, and the others are ignored.

Why is this the case? A number of reasons. Bandwidth limitations and individual expertise tend to be the biggest factors. Ultimately, regardless of the reason, the effect is the same: even though there are often multiple points of overlap between organic and paid marketing, many organizations continue to keep them siloed.

What is PPC Cannibalization and Why It Matters

Why this is a problem may not be obvious. If the right hand and the left hand are competent, what difference does it make whether either knows what its counterpart does? Brass tacks, when the right hand is your SEO and your left is your PPC, the difference is this: money.

Let us assume that you bring your SEO and PPC onto the same team.

SEO Work

Consider the work often performed for SEO:

Pinpoint service lines that are critical for success.
Perform keyword research to see how your audiences search for those service lines, finding terms that you try to weave into on-page content with an eye for balance of readability and popular terms.
Write in references to your organization name and service area throughout, on-page and off.
Use these tactics and many others, all the while benchmarking and measuring the organic traffic flowing in to find success.

PPC Work

Now, you turn your attention to managing your PPC. Maybe you have a specific objective: a maternity class that you want to offer, a flu vaccine clinic that you want to schedule. Maybe you just want to advertise a service line. You do your due diligence. You do our keyword research here, as well. You write your ads. You build your audiences. You set up your tracking and define your conversions.

Bridging the Gap

Finally, consider, your SEO work is working. Organic traffic grows month over month. You perform strongly with your branded keywords and you are making headway in your priority service lines, too. Your PPC is working, too. CPCs are low. Click-Through-Rate (CTR) and Conversions exceed expectations.

However, when you look at the search terms on which you are spending the bulk of your budget, you find your organization name or brand again and again. You look at these same searches organically, and you see that these are also high-performing. The average position is high, CTR looks good, and none of your competitors are bidding against your brand in their own PPC campaigns.

You are, in effect, paying Google Ads for keywords that you have already mastered organically. The name for this, colorfully enough, is PPC Cannibalization.

Bringing Your Digital Presence into Sync

Thankfully, this problem is easy to fix. We can bring keyword lists in line with your high-performing SEO searches, reducing overlap as much as possible. The trick is finding the overlap in the first place. In order to do so, we need to be able to audit both your PPC and your SEO performance.

This can be a challenge organizationally for a number of reasons, some of which I have described in this article. However, it is critical to protect your advertising budget. Every dollar spent in advertising that you lose to PPC cannibalization is a dollar that could be used for another ad auction on a search for which you haven’t (yet) built an organic approach.

Ready to Get Started?

There’s no one-size-fits-all solution to this problem. By auditing your SEO terms and PPC searches side by side, you can help your SEO and PPC work together, in sync, instead of independently. If that sounds overwhelming, request help from our experts. By keeping a holistic view of your digital presence, we can help you pivot to account for changes in the search and organic landscape. So, ensure that your advertising budget works for you more efficiently and more intentionally. Reach out to us and schedule a time with one of our experts to get the ball rolling.

Communication Tips for High COVID-19 Vaccine Demand, Limited Supply

As if you weren’t busy enough trying to reassure your community of the COVID-19 vaccine’s efficacy, safety, and potential ability to make a real dent in the pandemic, add something else to your list: answering an understandably eager, growing number of people who want to get themselves or someone they love vaccinated as soon as possible. Emotions are running high and your community is looking to your organization to learn when and how they can access this potentially life-saving care.

The Biden administration has announced the U.S. will have enough doses to inoculate every American by the end of the summer and the country is on pace to vaccinate almost one-third of the population by May 1. But limited supplies, along with federal and state requirements for priority groups during the initial roll-out, have led to confusion and anxiety.

Follow our tips to help your community feel more informed, position your organization as a leading authority, and deliver remarkable content.

Translate State & County Guidelines

Help people understand how vaccine allocation phases will work in your community. Translate jargon or complex information into plain language. Tailor this content to your target audiences’:

Health literacy
Search terms
Languages spoken

Explaining Vaccine Distribution

Spell out who is eligible and when, as well as the logistics of getting vaccinated at your organization. Be transparent about limited vaccine quantities while communicating your work to secure additional doses. Link to relevant federal, state, and county websites.

If you have an existing COVID-19 hub on your website, this is a great place for this information to live.

Communicate What Steps People Can Take Now

Make your content actionable and empowering, even for readers who aren’t yet eligible for vaccination.

What can people do right now so they’re best prepared when the time comes to get vaccinated? Check out an excellent example from the Pennsylvania Department of Health on how to get ready, including talking to your doctor about whether the vaccine is right for you and learning what to expect during and after vaccination.
Advise readers what steps they’ll need to take to successfully access vaccination services at your organization. For example, if they don’t currently have a MyChart account, do you recommend they create one?
Continue your messaging on the importance of mask-wearing, handwashing, and social distancing to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Protect Staff Capacity

Clear, easily found information that answers common questions and follows the recommendations in this blog post can help lower potentially overwhelming call and email volumes. If you don’t want people to contact specific offices or healthcare providers at this time, make that clear in your content. Let community members know if there’s a specific phone number or email address you want them to reach out to instead.

Publish Updates Regularly

Your audience needs ongoing reassurance, and regular updates help them stay informed while lessening anxiety. Aim for weekly social media posts. Send email updates whenever relevant news breaks or information changes.

Make an Emotional Connection

Maya Angelou said it best: “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” To make your content resonate with your target audiences:

Appeal to their sense of community. Make it a virtue to wait one’s turn and let others who have greater need go first. Put a human face on this message. Accompanied by “thank you for letting us go first,” feature your organization’s healthcare heroes or the patients who were vaccinated due to age, occupation, or other risk factors.
Be positive. Aim for an optimistic, confident voice and tone.
Lead with empathy. Everyone’s lives have been disrupted to some degree by the pandemic. Let your community know you understand how they feel — the people in your organization feel the same and are working hard to meet their needs.
Err on the side of sensitivity. If you’re trying to make your message resonate with a specific group, get feedback from people in that group. Ask how your content may be interpreted, if there’s a more effective approach, if there’s any potential for offense or misinterpretation, and if the message is relevant to their needs, preferences, and concerns. Establishing these relationships if they don’t already exist not only benefits your content, but also shows that your organization cares about serving their needs.
Weave in your brand ethos. Let your community know how your mission and values apply to your COVID-19 response, including your vaccination efforts. In real time, they’re seeing your organization works to improve everyone’s health and well-being.

Find More Tips or Ask For Feedback

Read further strategic recommendations for COVID-19 vaccination communications, or contact Geonetric today if you need any help with your efforts.

Do More with Healthcare Digital Advertising

But achieving true success can be elusive. Too often healthcare organizations are paying for keywords they are already getting organically, or reporting on success metrics that just don’t move the revenue needle.

Join Geonetric pros Tim Lane, Director, Digital Marketing, and Joe Dreshar, Digital Marketing Strategist, and learn how to take a holistic approach to paid search and SEO to make sure your efforts are working in tandem. They’ll cover why healthcare is unique when it comes to paid efforts, and why the nuances around how search engines respond to searches to conditions and treatments matter to the campaigns you’re running today. You’ll also learn how to take your tracking to a new level, from custom campaign tracking to optimization tactics to tying efforts together across disparate MarTech stacks.

Make the Most of Your Investment in Video with Captions

Investing in video makes sense — but it’s important to do it right.

Have you ever been in a public, quiet space without your headphones and needed to watch a video? Or, perhaps one of the characters in the show you’re binge watching has a strong accent, and you can’t understand what they’re saying. If you’ve ever been in one of these situations, you know how handy captions can be. Captions are not just a “nice to have” feature, they are necessary for some people.

Adding captions to your videos and allowing users to toggle them on and off provides a better user experience for everyone and helps your site be WCAG 2.1 AA compliant.

Here is guidance for adding captions, audio description (AD), and transcripts to your videos.

Captioning for Accessibility Compliance

Captions can be confusing if you do not realize there are several different types of captions.

Basic Captions: These are written words, visible on the screen and synced with the video, often used by people who have difficulty hearing.
Audio Description (AD): During pauses in the main sound track, AD provide information about what is happening in the scene (scene changes, characters, actions, and on screen text) for those who cannot see.

It’s important to note that prerecorded videos (with sound and visuals) need to be captioned for both of these user groups in order to be AA compliant with WCAG 2.1. Videos that are live streamed, have yet another set of guidelines you’d need to follow.

How to add captions

There are several ways to add captions to your videos and your approach depends mostly on where the videos will be hosted. Captions can be created using a time stamped text file (.srt, .sami, .xml) that is loaded into a media player and can be turned on or off. These are called closed captions. Or captions can be “burned into” the video layer during production and are always visible, these are called open captions.

Different media players support different types of caption files. There are basic and advanced closed caption files.

Basic file formats (.srt, .sbv, .sub) only require basic timing information
Advanced file formats, such as WebVTT, are recommended because users can configure the font, size, and color to make it easier for them read. Once those settings are saved, they are applied to any WebVTT video that user comes accross

Try not to rely only on one caption file format. Including both a basic and an advanced will ensure your captions are published and viewed by the largest audience.

Many popular video platforms allow you to upload your own captions. For example, YouTube allows you to use “Automatic Captions” or upload your own .srt file.

If you do not have a .srt file, using the automatic captions is a nice place to start, but be aware that YouTube doesn’t always translate the best, so you’ll likely need to go into the generated .srt file and correct some of the text.

How to add audio description

AD is typically added by creating an additional audio track that provides verbal descriptions of the visuals in a video. AD is rarely available, but is required to be AA compliant with WCAG 2.1.

Sometimes, in order to provide the amount of detail necessary, the video needs to be paused while the scene is being described and then started again. If this is the case, it’s usually easier to create two different videos, one with AD and one without. In order to comply with WCAG a version of the video with AD simply needs to be made available. This means that you can embed the version without AD your site, and provide a link to the version with AD.

Not all videos need AD, for example, if the video is simply of a doctor talking to the camera and there are no other visuals (charts, graphs, video clips of them walking through halls or smiling at patients, etc.) then, as long as that doctor introduces themselves at the beginning of the video, AD is not necessary.

YouDescribe is a free online tool that allows you to take a YouTube video and create an audio description soundtrack. There are also companies that will describe the video for you, such as AI Media and CaptionSync.

How to add transcripts

Although only mandatory to be AAA complaint, adding a transcript for your prerecorded media is a good idea.
A transcript is the only way that someone who is both deaf and blind can access the content in your video. The transcript needs to display as text on your website so it can be output in brail on a refreshable brail display.

Transcripts are important for not only video files, but audio files (like podcasts) too. Transcripts typically read like a screen play, including both the spoken words and descriptions of each scene.

There is another perk to adding transcripts for your audio and video files. Just like assistive technologies, web crawlers read text. Providing text versions of your media allows web crawlers to index the wonderful content you’ve spent so much time creating.

Time to get started!

If you’re looking for more information, check out the W3C guidelines on captions. YouDescribe offers a nice step-by-step tutorial on adding AD, and the Bureau of Internet Accessibility shares some tips for YouTube closed captioning. If you’d like to talk to a member of our team about how to improve the accessibility on your site, you can sign up for a free accessibility checkup.