HME Marketing Expert Releases New Book on Social Media

Author and marketing consultant Lisa Wells has written a new e-book to guide home medical equipment providers and healthcare marketing professionals in creating patient-focused social media programs.

Inside the pages of “Get Social: How to Use Social Media for Healthcare Marketing“, you’ll learn how to leverage social media to strengthen relationships with your existing healthcare patients as well as how to position your products or services to a brand new audience that has healthcare needs.

Throughout the book, Wells shares real-life business examples and success stories from her marketing career that spans more than 20 years of professional experience with health care providers, medical suppliers and medical device manufacturers on three continents.

Wells explains, “After searching for e-book resources about marketing and social media within the HME industry, I realized how few were available. Pulling from many of my teaching presentations, this book illustrates best practices in social media marketing, for use by health care professionals nationwide.”

Each chapter provides easy-to-understand analogies that bring technical steps down to the level of a beginning or non-technical person. At the end of each section, Wells also offers additional resources for extended learning on specific marketing topics.

Get Social: How to Use Social Media for Healthcare Marketing is an easy, entertaining read that will help you visualize ways to raise your social media campaigns to a new level.

So what are you waiting for? The first step to getting social is to get started on Chapter 1. Purchase the book online through Amazon.com’s KDP Select website at http://www.amazon.com/Get-Social-Healthcare-Marketing-ebook/dp/B00ATFC162

Additionally, participants in the following events will receive a complimentary copy of Get Social: How to Use Social Media for Healthcare Marketing. See the event web sites for registration costs and full details.

Event: HME News Educational Webinar
Topic: Top 10 Marketing Ideas to Kick Off 2013
Date: February 7, 2013
REGISTER ONLINE: www.hmenews.com

Event: Medtrade Spring 2013
Topic: Business 101 – Fundamentals of Online Marketing, a 4-part webinar series
Dates: January 23, February 13, February 21, March 19
REGISTER ONLINE: www.medtrade.com

Book Information
Title: Get Social: How to Use Social Media for Healthcare Marketing
Author: Lisa Wells
Publisher: Lisa Wells/Get Social, Inc.
Published: December 2012
Words: 15,814
Cost: $4.99
Download a Copy for Kindle or iPad: http://www.amazon.com/Get-Social-Healthcare-Marketing-ebook/dp/B00ATFC162

About The Author:
Lisa Wells is a veteran of online marketing and e-commerce, with nearly 20 years of experience in public relations, marketing communications and web-based product management at medical device, medical supply and health technology companies.

As a consultant, she has advised on the development of numerous online marketing programs and strategic marketing plans for HME providers and medical device companies worldwide.

Frequently published as a subject matter expert in Marketing, Wells was also ranked the #1 speaker for two consecutive years after presenting at the 2010 & 2011 HME News Business Summits.

For more information, review copies, or interviews, please contact:
Lisa Wells
Email: lisa@getsocialconsulting.com
Website: http://www.getsocialconsulting.com
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Aligning Technology to Improve Sales Success

A few months ago, I had the pleasure of co-presenting a webinar with renowned HME Sales Consultant Eric Kline as part of the ongoing webinar series offered by HME News.   Together, Eric and I shared our best practices for Aligning Technology to Improve Sales Success. 

If you missed our webinar, catch the replay at http://www.hmenews.com.

Here are a few of the highlights from our presentation that cover many of the questions we received from participants.

Main Point
Improving the productivity and effectiveness of your sales reps is a great way to boost profitability, especially when you use a process-driven sales approach supported by technology-driven marketing tools.

HME News offered these bullet points to summerize the topics we covered:

* Fostering consistency and utilizing technology to share new information in referral source visits
* Creating online communities using social media to develop a trusted relationship with referral sources
* Being proactive in asking for referrals and providing those referral sources with online tools to guide their decision-making

A couple of quick and easy techie tools that can assist sales reps in the planning process are:

Healthgrades.com: This website was designed to help consumers find a local healthcare provider.  But you can use it to better understand your referral sources before you visit them.  Look up a physician on Healthgrades and their profile will include the number of patients they see per day, their areas of specialization, office hours and locations AND a list of the health insurances they accept.  Pretty good details to know before you call on them, right?  And the best part — it’s free.

Task assignment and management thru CRM. If you don’t have a system for assigning follow-up items to field reps, how can you expect them to remember the details?  It’s very hard to drive a process within your sales team without implementing a tool that makes them follow one.  A system that records and reminds reps of their to-dos, follow-ups and opportunities is key, as it helps them organize their next steps in terms of the biggest wins first.

As your call lists change, your outbound marketing efforts should coincide to support their sales focus.  Here’s another advantage of CRM, if you are storing contacts and call priority in a database, you can export that list to target with personalized email campaigns  that contain your rep’s contact information. That way you are still communicating with that prospective referral even when the rep isn’t in the office, and providing them with a means to connect with you on the spur-of-a-moment when they have a need.

Route planning tools: When your reps are heading out, do they plan their stops in order or do they cut back and forth across town all day?  Save time in traffic by GPS-ing your destinations to determine the quickest routes before you set out.

If you don’t remember anything else:

Eric says it’s crucial to emphasize that sales reps should “Always ask for the referral on every call, every time.”

But because referrals sources don’t always decide on the spot, I always stress importance of creating an online resource on your website, so you can direct referrals sources there for more information.  Also, be sure to leverage online marketing, direct mail and email efforts to target those prospects that don’t merit an in-person visit as the charge for e-communication is only a fraction of what your feet on the street cost you.

Watch the Recording Here

About Eric Kline
Eric offers more than 20 years of sales and management in this industry. On a daily basis, he helps HME companies increase their top-line revenue by hiring, training, managing and mentoring salespeople.  He’s also a volunteer pilot for Angel Flight, donating his time and resources to fly critical-care patients to treatments across the Southeast.

To contact Eric, visit:
Website: http://www.hmesalespro.com/
Email: ekline@hmesalespro.com
Cell: 850.341.7467

About Lisa Wells
As a HME/DME/Medical Device marketing consultant, I have ž+17 yrs of global product management and marketing experience with a technology focus.  I often give back to the HME community by serving as a subject-matter-expert on marketing for industry publications and speaking at events like the HME News Business Summit, Invacare Supply Group’s annual Customer Appreciation Meeting and Medtrade. ž

Feel free to contact me at:
Website: www.getsocialconsulting.com
Email: lisa@getsocialconsulting.com
Phone: 678-232-1330