Digital Solid: Marketing Technology ROI

Content requirements for the web site of a healthcare system are formidable. Audiences include current and potential patients, as well as current and potential employees, physicians-with-privileges and donors. It’s no wonder that in their Ask the Experts piece, featured in a just-released Strategic Healthcare Communications newsletter, Dan Ansel and Susan Emerson recommend that the first step in planning site enhancements is to get a content management system. Their advice goes well beyond this tip, but two suggestions that I’ve never seen stated so bluntly are as follows:

• Any enhancement should minimize the use of staff time, as this is often in short supply.
• Any enhancement should be turnkey and simple to use. Simplicity and ease of use should apply to healthcare consumers and, just as important, to staff members who must administer the program.

I can’t think of many categories of sites where so much service must be delivered by such a thin staff. Dan and Susan have acknowledged this throughout their excellent “how-to” article, reprinted on their Private Health News web site.

NOTE: You may recall that I’ve talked about this company before, in a piece on generating ROI from your email newsletters.