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your-dietician · 4 years ago

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Post-Pandemic Business Strategies: 5 New Truths

New Post has been published on https://tattlepress.com/business/post-pandemic-business-strategies-5-new-truths/

Post-Pandemic Business Strategies: 5 New Truths

It’s safe to say that 2020 was a year like no other, and 2021 will certainly not revert back to the old normal. As print service providers think about building business this year and beyond, what lessons from the pandemic apply? What do printing/marketing service providers need to do to grow faster?

Combining these interviews with what I’ve learned from three decades of working with printing and marketing service providers, and the unprecedented changes initiated from a pandemic, one thing is apparent: business basics still apply.

Service providers still need to focus on the right target markets; provide the right products and services; deliver excellent customer service; build strategies to drive new business development; and establish solid customer relationships. COVID-19, however, has caused changes in the ways that service providers are executing on these business basics.

Here are five business basics or “truths,” and how successful service providers are altering or updating their execution to improve business results.

1. Old Truth: Targeting the right vertical markets is critical to business success. New Truth: Understanding how target markets are changing and the ability to adjust are critical to business success.

In today’s challenging and competitive market environment, it is vital to use all resources, capabilities, and capital effectively to produce goods and services that customers desire. The majority of print service providers have target market segments they focus on but now, more than ever, they need to pay attention to the market dynamics impacting their client base and adapt strategies accordingly. Successful providers have been quick to pivot target marketing strategies to meet changing market demands.

B2C Versus B2B

When the pandemic hit, many B2B (business-to-business) companies that do business with other companies halted print marketing efforts. With their end customers working from home, these B2B firms didn’t know how or where to reach clients or prospects. B2C (business-to-consumer) companies selling directly to individual consumers knew that people were working from home and used the opportunity to put in place more aggressive direct mail and digital marketing campaigns. While vaccines are rapidly moving into the market, B2B firms are not in a hurry to make employees return to corporate locations.

DS Graphics/Universal Wilde (DSG/UW) shifted its market focus to B2C opportunities. According to Executive VP Chris Wells, “We were heavily weighted to B2B and a lot of that business disappeared, while B2C clients were driving more communications. Going forward, the B2C space continues to use more print, as well as digital communications, to reach people working from home.” He adds, “B2B marketers are still focusing more on digital solutions because their customers are still not in offices. Some corporate offices are not even accepting mail. This is not something that is going to change quickly.”

Finding the Right Verticals

A number of print service providers focus on specific vertical industries: for example, finance, insurance, healthcare, gaming, hospitality, or education. Service providers needed to adjust focus during the pandemic to pursue industry segments that were stable.

According to Quantum Group Executive VP of Marketing and Sales Michele Brennan, “Some of the vertical industries we served, like gaming, declined dramatically. We refocused our efforts on verticals where we could help our customers with more effective communications, including pharmaceutical, healthcare, financial services, and retailers with an online presence. Other segments, like senior living and education, are starting to come back.”

Highlighting the verticals that provide emerging opportunity to LCP (Lake County Press) during the pandemic, Dean Petrulakis, senior VP of sales, reports, “We proactively worked with a client in the RV space that needed marketing asset management solutions for their dealer network, as well as identified opportunity in the cannabis market.”

2. Old Truth: Print service providers need to deliver great products and services. New Truth: Print service providers need to deliver great value to customers in response to changing market needs.

Consumer appetite for good communications has piqued marketers’ interest in creating personalized experiences. Marketers realized that generic mass-marketing campaigns are not working. The best way to attract and hold a consumer’s attention is through personalized communication and a great customized experience. All of the providers interviewed highlighted the drive for more and more personalization.

Data-driven marketing is a top priority for Quantum Group’s direct mail customers. “Data is front and center when serving our direct mail customers,” Quantum CEO Cheryl Kahanec notes. “We waited a long time for customer adaptation of variable data and personalized communications, and they are ready now.”

In addition, Melanie De Caprio, VP of marketing at SG360°, notes that her company has seen a rise in customer demand for personalization. “SG360° has seen an increase in laser-focused targeting. We work with clients on data modeling to identify high-potential prospects — those most likely to respond. We leverage client demographic and behavioral data (including website behavior) to build a hyper-targeted prospect list for customers. The end result is that we improve the ROI for every marketing dollar our clients spend,” she says.

Innovations in digital printing technology also play a role in the expansion of personalizing print, Andrew Henkel, VP and principal of Johnson & Quin, points out. “Inkjet printing has enabled us to produce high-quality, full-color personalized messages and graphics quickly and cost-effectively on forms and envelopes. We continue to see increased focus on personalization, especially personalized envelopes that get the consumer’s attention.”

Omnichannel Expectations

Print service providers are continually challenged to rapidly adapt to rising customer expectations across all channels. Whether it is essential communication touchpoints like bills and statements, or sales or marketing materials, the bar has been set very high for marketers to provide consumers with easy, engaging, and personalized digital and print interactions. This is putting increased pressure on print service providers to deliver omnichannel services.

According to Ken Gammon, VP of healthcare sales and business development at RR Donnelley (RRD), “Client demand for marketing automation through technology and business process outsourcing services have increased post-pandemic. The increase in marketing automation correlates with staffing declines in marketing departments. More use of data for 1:1 communications will continue. Email is not an effective tool from a standalone perspective. It needs to be part of an omnichannel experience,” he notes.

Wells, of DSG/UW, highlights the importance of direct mail as part of the omnichannel experience. “Millennials appreciate the creative pieces they get in the mail. We are working with clients to deliver direct mail that gets the consumers’ attention. The direct mail is used to drive them to a digital experience — augmented reality, QR codes, or the Web. From there we help clients nurture the leads on the right communication channel.”

Self-Service Online Tools

As more people worked remotely during the pandemic, offering customers self-service tools for managing print work became extremely critical. This was good news for service providers that already had the right Web-to-print enabled portals in place. Multi-location organizations sought print providers who offered quick-turnaround marketing materials and signage that supported a brand identity, and that could be customized at a local level.

For more than 25 years, Tukaiz has supported the quick-service restaurant (QSR) market and multi-unit retail community with a technology platform called Backstage. “Each Backstage portal is designed to suit the client’s purpose, Dan Defino, Tukaiz’ VP and managing director, explains. “It’s made up of several building blocks that can accommodate a large suite of marketing capabilities, ranging from print to digital and social media solutions.

“With our Backstage offering, clients had easy access to materials they needed. During the pandemic, people still needed to eat, so QSRs did well. Our big clients didn’t slow down, but they altered the materials they printed.”

There was a shift in the pandemic to applications like floor graphics and window clings. They also did a lot more on the outside of the buildings and printed coupons. Backstage facilitated orders and let Tukaiz accelerate delivery with a consistent set of services, according to Defino.

LCP has taken a similar approach to the market. “The future of our business is programmatic sales,” Petrulakis explains. “We want clients looking for a partner to manage everything from one source.”

Organizations like a national franchise are a good fit, he adds. “LCP can give them access through an online entry point. We worked with one international account that had four different suppliers and helped them consolidate suppliers. Now, they can order everything (from uniforms to trade show graphics and business cards) from a single site.”

3. Old Truth: Your clients prefer face-to-face communication. New Truth: Customers are embracing the efficiency of digital interactions with suppliers.

As society begins its return to normal, a likely permanent change will be how businesses and organizations communicate with customers. Virtual meetings are here to stay, so improving staff’s digital sales skills will continue.

The loss of sales visits, “live eyeballs,” and events definitely hurts “old school” sellers. The struggle to create compelling reasons to call and provide engaging meetings in the absence of live events and non-verbal communication is real.

Salespeople may get more virtual calls because the customer time commitment is much smaller compared to a face-to-face meeting. The virtual option also means faster follow-up meetings, which could shrink sales cycles. It’s much easier to assemble customer decision-makers and internal subject matter experts on a virtual call. There is efficiency for the sales team in terms of both time savings and money for travel.

The key is that print providers need to invest in mastering the new sales call process. It doesn’t mean face-to-face meetings will go away, but they will be used more judiciously and virtual meetings need to be made more meaningful.

The printing industry has a lot of “old school sellers” that need to adapt to new technology, which ultimately means training. Gammon acknowledges that modernizing one’s sales approach was necessary even before the pandemic.

“As communications evolve, we’ve kept pace by developing the new solutions our clients need, many of which are built on new technologies we’ve had to learn,” he says. “We were fortunate to have had training around the digital channels and virtual selling very early on, allowing us to stay close to our clients during the pandemic. Our new skills and competencies allowed us to respond faster than we would have had we not been prepared.”

Make Customer Meetings a Fun Experience

The sales experience is a critical part of any customer decision. According to Lumoa Research on B2B buying behavior, the sales experience accounts for 25% in a buying decision, and is more important than the product/service and its price. Savvy print providers are using a variety of sales tools ranging from direct mail with integrated augmented reality (AR) demos, to Zoom meetings with virtual lunches — where sales reps arrange to have lunch delivered to the client.

Wells shared a perfect example of delivering a memorable customer experience. When DSG/UW hosted a virtual grand opening of its new facility, it sent prospects invitations for a virtual cocktail hour complete with a Charcuterie board for all of the participants who provided their home addresses. It not only helped them gather more customer data, but provided a meaningful customer experience that won’t quickly be forgotten.

4. Old Truth: Prospecting and cold-calling is hard. New Truth: Prospecting and cold-calling is hard, but more tools are readily available.

“Cold-calling” refers to calling a prospect you haven’t previously made a connection with before. COVID-19 forced printers’ prospects to work from home, which eliminated in-person sales opportunities, such as visiting offices, meetings, and events.

Service providers are leveraging tools like LinkedIn, ZoomInfo, and Competiscan to identify the right prospects and effectively reach them. For example, Johnson and Quin uses LinkedIn to learn more about prospects and leverages Competiscan to see who is mailing what and if it is a fit for the shot’s business model.

Tukaiz’s Defino also recommends asking satisfied customers for referrals. “What has worked best for us is leveraging our customer relationships. Cold calls are difficult. I go through LinkedIn and see who is connected to whom.”

In 2020, SG360° attracted more new customers than in any recent year. According to DiCaprio, SG360° relied on social media to create more networking opportunities. “We also invested in Pardot for marketing automation to continually communicate on multiple channels and to nurture customer relationships.”

Quantum’s Brennan points out the importance of also monitoring customer contacts who changes jobs. “As companies downsize, and employees are displaced, we make sure we stay up-to-date with their job changes using LinkedIn. That way, when our contact gets a new job, we can be proactive and, hopefully, it brings us a new client or customer.”

5. Old Truth: Marketing is important for print service provider growth. New Truth: Marketing across all channels is critical to print service providers for reaching new prospects and driving business.

Historically, print and marketing service providers have made limited investments in marketing initiatives. The pandemic has forced service providers to develop new go-to-market strategies, customer engagement models, and digital programs. Successful providers are leveraging a myriad of tactics across all channels to reach existing customers, as well as to reach new prospects.

Potential buyers are doing their homework — and making decisions about whether to even reach out — before they pick up the phone. Ensure that you’re giving prospects a steady stream of thought leadership articles, blog posts, and data-driven information they can use to vet the value of doing business with you. Service providers are increasing posts on LinkedIn, publishing monthly newsletters, and enhancing websites.

Virtual events also offer a fresh way to get your team in front of prospects. Identify opportunities to speak at virtual conferences or create your own conference or webinar.

Believing that a company cares about you is also a powerful source of attraction. Sending customers and prospects gifts creates a positive memory, forms a personal connection with your organization, and delivers a lasting impression. Print service providers are creating custom-branded “swag” bundles containing physical gifts; the branded items in these bundles can range from socks and tumblers, to eco-friendly tote bags and reusable straws.

DSG/UW sends out high-value promotional items. “One promotion was called Fire and Ice. It included a DSG/UW-branded mug where the recipient could control the temperature of the mug with an app on their smart phone,”according to Wells.

“The follow-up was a water bottle that integrates with a smart phone to track and remind people to stay hydrated,” he says. “The key message we got across to clients was the importance of integrating physical and digital worlds. It also illustrated DSG/UW capabilities to deliver very creative ideas.”

The Bottom Line

As buyers and sellers continue to be faced with the challenges of the pandemic, business basics still apply. What’s new is finding creative ways to refresh and execute tried-and-true strategies. Targeting the right markets is essential to success, but printers continually need to assess changes and refocus. Clients are looking for more personalization, partners that support an omnichannel experience, and those that offer a full range of services.

Communicating with existing clients is critical. Even though more face-to-face customer interaction will resume, virtual meetings are here to stay. Train your teams to deliver a quality experience. Prospecting has always been a challenge, but there are now more tools available. It has never been more important for print providers to also become effective marketers.

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kristinsimmons · 5 years ago

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Telehealth’s Missing Link: In the Rush to Implement Virtual Care, What Did CMS Leave Out?

By RAY CONSTANTINI, MD

Imagine three months from now when the predicted ‘second wave’ of COVID-19 is expected to resurge and we’re still without a vaccine. Telehealth has become the entry-point to care, widely adopted by patients both young and old. Now, when an elderly diabetic patient wakes up in the middle of the night with a dull ache on her left side and back, she doesn’t ignore the symptom, like she may have during the first COVID outbreak. Instead, she logs online to her local hospital’s website from a cell phone and accesses a simple questionnaire to report her health history and presenting symptoms. The whole process takes just a couple of minutes and she immediately hears back from her health provider with the suggestion to schedule an in-person appointment for further testing to rule out any kidney issues.

This patient doesn’t become one of the nearly 50% of Americans who delayed care during the initial COVID pandemic. She was able to access care without having to download an application or wait to schedule a virtual appointment during normal business hours. She receives virtual asynchronous care on-demand, coordinated to sync with her electronic health record. The next day, she receives a follow-up call from her primary care doctor to ensure her symptoms were alleviated with the over-the-counter pain medication she was prescribed.

I applaud the article written by Paul Grundy, MD, and Ken Terry, “Primary Care Practices Need Help to Survive the COVID-19 Pandemic,” in which they called on Congress to make health policy decisions that will provide immediate financial relief for primary care practices. We must mitigate the real risk we face: the highly possible shutdown of our healthcare system. Amid the coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. healthcare system has taken an enormous financial hit and primary care practices have been especially affected and are struggling to survive. As the authors point out, telehealth has taken the spotlight to fill the acute need for an influx of patients needing to access care under social distancing practices. Telehealth can increase access to care, relieve provider burden, reduce costs to systems, and improve patient outcomes. However, this is only possible with on-demand telehealth, or asynchronous care.

If COVID-19 has a silver lining, it is that forced social distancing has accelerated telehealth adoption by as much as 20 years, according to Deloitte. And while no one is certain when or how the crisis will end, one thing is abundantly clear: widespread use of telehealth is here to stay. Or, as CMS administrator Seema Verma said, “The genie’s out of the bottle on this one.”

That said, in the rush to implement telehealth solutions, CMS and many providers—failed to include asynchronous virtual care as a viable alternative to in-person care. Now though, we have the opportunity to develop a more thoughtful strategy going forward––one that can brace our system at a time when it needs the support.

First, we must establish a broader definition of “telehealth” that includes modalities other than video visits. Non-video forms of virtual care also deliver value for both patients and providers. In some cases, they may go further than video can to increase access and affordability and to protect a patient’s continuum of care.

Take asynchronous virtual care delivery, for example.

According to the FCC, approximately 21 million people lack broadband access, which makes video-based telehealth unavailable to large portions of the U.S. Asynchronous telehealth solutions don’t require high-speed internet or even a 4G mobile connection to deliver care. The store-and-forward nature of these platforms means very little data is required to exchange the crucial information needed to provide a complete episode of care.

Asynchronous telehealth platforms that fully integrate into clinical workflows ensure a patient’s electronic health record is intact. This is especially important during times of crisis when a patient seeks care remotely to avoid possible infection. If he or she receives care that isn’t reflected in their record, important information is lost and can impact the quality of care they receive in the future.

Because store-and-forward telehealth platforms boost clinical efficiency by saving provider time over in-person or video visits, they provide cost savings for all involved—healthcare systems, payers, and patients. When some of those savings are passed on to patients, reducing their overall out-of-pocket costs, those patients are less likely to avoid care due to financial concerns that include the threat of surprise bills.

It is likely, if not inevitable, that how patients access care has been changed forever by COVID-19. Telehealth will continue to play a major part in how patients get care, but virtual care has much more to offer than video visits. Regardless of the modality, if a provider is able to deliver an episode of care that is held to the same standard and quality of in-person care, that visit should be reimbursed at a level that is fair to all parties involved.

CMS has a real opportunity to help strengthen our injured healthcare system. In addition to patients who have access challenges, providers and systems are struggling financially. If patients put off visits because securing a video or in-person appointment is a challenge, we are going to see fewer ambulatory and non-acute patients, which has an immediate financial impact on systems and could lead to more chronic and emergent conditions that could have been avoided.

Now is the time for Congress to take action and adjust the CARES Act to include ALL types of telehealth solutions, including virtual care like asynchronous telehealth, and to compensate providers for using it accordingly. These telehealth policy changes should be permanent – our new normal. Perhaps then we will look back at the COVID era as a pivotal time in our nation’s history when healthcare changed for the better. When we considered new entry points to care that are effective, reduce burden on clinicians, and offer more immediate care beginning with triage for patients. It’s the silver lining in this cloudy mess.

Ray Constantini, MD is the CEO and Co-Founder of Bright.md.

Telehealth’s Missing Link: In the Rush to Implement Virtual Care, What Did CMS Leave Out? published first on https://wittooth.tumblr.com/

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brentrogers · 5 years ago

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How Are Healthcare Consumers Responding to the Coronavirus Pandemic?

COVID-19: The New Normal for Healthcare Consumers

A “new normal” is emerging in healthcare for both providers and patients. Healthcare industry leaders and medical marketing professionals constantly struggle to keep pace with changes. We all have the challenge of adjusting to pandemic demands and shifting consumer attitudes. Some questions are emerging:

What do healthcare patients want and expect in a post-pandemic world?

How best to address new and future consumer fears and desires?

Why “COVID-speed” has become the new normal in healthcare marketing.

How to leverage a new and more efficient role for telemedicine, outpatient clinics, urgent care, and other healthcare delivery options.

To that end, I recently led a webinar with our friend and marketing research partner Rob Klein, CEO, Klein & Partners. Rob delivered insightful data from his Wave II Omnibus Study, which captures shifting attitudes among American healthcare consumers. If you have time, you really should invest the time to watch the full webinar and download the data slides.

However, since we recognize that many of our readers require an abridged version, I am sharing the essential points here.

Time Has Become the “New Currency” in Healthcare

One of the most dramatic indicators is how people seek care now. The increase in COVID virtual healthcare visits is more than double Rob’s previous Wave I survey.

Rob Klein advises that “time is the new currency. If you don’t have a virtual care strategy, you are behind the 8-ball as a provider.” What’s more, hospitals and health systems have recently proved they can innovate quickly.

Further, American consumers now expect providers to be proactive and to adapt quickly to market changes and consumer needs.

How do we get patients back after a cancellation due to COVID-19? Data reveals that a large percentage of patients changed to a virtual visit. “No matter how we asked the question about receiving care,” Klein notes, “virtual visits pops to the surface. It is truly our number one opportunity to get patients back for care.

“Virtual service eases the strain for those who need to be seen in person. The ability to see those patients sooner is especially helpful to people who couldn’t or wouldn’t leave home.”

Surprisingly, the two top reasons that would make patients change providers are “attitude” and “access.” Survey responses were “Another provider can get me in faster than my current provider,” and “My current provider has been difficult to work with to get me rescheduled.” Once again, time is the new currency according to Klein. Responding to these concerns is an open opportunity to retain patients and/or to capture new patients proactively.

What can be done to ease access to healthcare? According to the survey, the top opportunity is to provide virtual visits in place of in-person appointments, when medically appropriate. This is especially helpful for women and individuals working at home. Further, expand the weekday schedule with early morning and evening hours.

Now, more than ever, cost concerns and financial help in healthcare are vital. Unemployment has been astronomical, and normal income, for many, has disappeared. Consumers would welcome provider options to ease their cost concerns, as are offered in other industries. For healthcare, consumers would like to see lowering or eliminating co-pay, waiving deductible, working with insurance companies to reduce out-of-pocket costs, and other options.

Key Take-away and Action Items

Coronavirus is unlike nearly any experience that we have known in our lifetime. And for providers and patients, it is permanently changing healthcare systems to a “new normal.” The Wave II Omnibus Study, presented by Rob Klein, delivers valuable guidance for industry leaders and marketing professionals about consumer perceptions and behaviors — now and in the future.

After many weeks of living this experience, some consumers’ negative emotions — loneliness, anger, fear, and anxiety — are beginning to abate. However, these perceptions are still higher among women and people age 18 to 44.

Consequently, this is an excellent opportunity to build on the goodwill that you have instilled in consumers and patients to grow your marketplace brand.

Significantly, this experience has proven to everyone that we can innovate quickly (i.e., remove bureaucracy). Now, consumers expect us to continue innovating. In other words, our “new normal” means we can’t go back to our old ways.

One of the most significant healthcare changes in a post-pandemic world is having and using robust virtual care options, whenever appropriate.

Further, this is an opportunity to change behavior and expectations regarding where patients seek care — e.g., inpatient to outpatient procedures and the availability of a Nurse Practitioner and/or Physician Assistant, especially for patients under age 45.

For healthcare providers, organizations, and marketing executives, multi-method communications are required. In other words, one size does not fit all, and a comprehensive plan is needed to connect with consumers and patients.

As we begin to emerge from the worldwide Coronavirus experience, our perceptions and behaviors have changed, and healthcare needs to shape a “new normal” for health providers and patients.

As we alluded to earlier, Rob and I share more ideas in the full on-demand webinar replay. You can access both the webinar and data slides.

The post How Are Healthcare Consumers Responding to the Coronavirus Pandemic? appeared first on Healthcare Success.

How Are Healthcare Consumers Responding to the Coronavirus Pandemic? syndicated from

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wikimakemoney · 5 years ago

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Live events may remain digital for the long term — words of wisdom from Certain’s CEO

30-second summary:

Certain, Inc. is an event automation and management platform headquartered in San Francisco whose clients include Microsoft, Oracle, and SAP. Their focus is with companies that have over a billion dollars in revenue primarily within technology, financial services, and health care.

We spoke with Certain’s CEO, Peter Micciche, to learn about their technology and how they’re working with customers to navigate the fundamental shifts in the event industry as a result of COVID-19.

Certain’s customers have had to scramble to replace live events that they had scheduled and move them to their platform to deploy virtually.

Micciche recommends that marketers stop thinking in terms of running large conferences virtually, but take larger conferences and carve them into many slices aimed at specific segments of buyers.

Micciche predicts that marketers will see increased capabilities from event technology providers that make it much more conducive to being immersed in a digital or virtual meeting.

Marketers who are moving forward tactically are not going to be as competitive as those who are stepping back and putting together a true virtual event strategy at the CMO level.

Certain, Inc. is an event automation and management platform headquartered in San Francisco. The company works with mid- to large-sized businesses to facilitate global events via the platform with a host of solutions including end-to-end event automation. Certain has an impressive roster of clients that includes industry-leading companies like Microsoft, Oracle, Deloitte, and SAP.

The event industry has been hit particularly hard by COVID-19. Companies throughout the globe were forced to cancel in-person meetings and events as the virus took hold in February and March.

Q) Can you provide an overview of your professional journey and how you came work at Certain?

I’ve been in enterprise software for a long time and I’ve had the opportunity to work for large organizations, as well as small entrepreneurial companies. My experience is a summation of business intelligence in database technologies and applications.

I was originally introduced to Certain and the events industry by investors. Once I began looking at the industry, I discovered that it’s wrapped around this concept of event logistics.

I recognized that there was an opportunity to take advantage of the cloud to drive measurable results with event intelligence which can be used to inform better sales and marketing decisions.

My enterprise background includes scaling companies, and I saw that there was an opportunity to give CMOs the ability to capture event intelligence at scale and turn it into a lever to change their business trajectory. That’s the mission we’ve been on, until this latest left turn that we’ve all taken.

Q) Briefly describe Certain – what’s your elevator pitch?

Certain helps marketing executives generate measurable results from the investments that they make in events at scale. We do that by automating all the fundamental processes that companies need to support events.

Certain’s platform enables companies to capture the interaction engagement for thousands of attendees and events by gathering event data and aggregating it. We’re then able to convert the data into meaningful intelligence that contributes to sales, revenue, and the bottom line.

Q) Who is Certain’s target customer?

We focus on companies that have over a billion dollars in revenue, e.g., Fortune 500 and large companies. We have a strong focus in technology, financial services, and health care. We’ve got the largest nonprofit healthcare institution leveraging our platform right now to do significant community outreach.

Large companies recognize that with Certain they can sell and share their message on a large scale. Your typical experience with an event is you walk in, register, go into a conference facility, and listen to a keynote.

So, we tend to think of the event as a singular new activity and it takes a lot to organize just what I described. But if you’re a large company, you’re doing that 100 times, maybe 1000 times or 10,000 to 20,000 times a year. Our largest customers run anywhere between 5000 to 20,000 events per year.

These are thousands of events times tens, hundreds, or even thousands of attendees. The interactions associated with each of these attendees, who are buyers, flows into our platform, so Certain is providing tremendous insight into where that buyer is on their journey.

This enables us to provide an enormous amount of personalization, segmentation, and communication capabilities that so that marketers can continually reach out to those buyers to inform them of what’s next.

Q) How are you working with customers to accommodate events in the age of COVID-19?

The world’s gone digital and virtual overnight. Marketing teams are replacing live events with digital versions of the event which means that we’re not in the same physical place. We’re doing it remotely.

Our customers have had to scramble to replace live events that they had scheduled and move them to our platform to deploy digitally. We just announced Certain Digital to help accommodate this.

It’s the manifestation of several enhancements we’ve made including native integrations into ON24 and Zoom, two very prominent meeting and webinar providers. This will allow the marketer to plug those webinar technologies into our platform and continue as if they’re doing a physical event.

It’s seamless for the marketer. It’s seamless for the attendee and it’s seamless for whoever’s organizing the events. Although we’ve taken this left turn, we’re still on the same journey.

We’ve adjusted the mission a bit to account for more of a digital component, but it’s largely still the same value proposition that we’ve been supporting for quite some time.

Q) Do you think we’ll ever go back to live events?

Yes, we will go back to live events, but it’s difficult to predict when we can get back to critical mass in live events. Meanwhile, our fundamental economy runs on commerce, which is the buying and selling of goods and services. Events have been a huge contributor to helping support that activity.

Right now, marketers and sales teams are struggling to find effective ways of reaching their markets and their audiences. While anyone can turn on their camera and have a meeting, it’s necessary to orchestrate this on a scalable basis to capture the relevant data needed to continue with your sales and marketing activities.

I think this is a strong signal that says the future is permanently changed and that digital will be a significant component of event activity forever.

Q) What is the immediate impact that you’re seeing COVID-19 have on virtual events versus in-person events?

The rich in-person event experience has been replaced by a one-dimensional approach where we’re all looking at screens. In the short term, this has become necessary to convey whatever it is that you need to convey.

But attention spans are far shorter in a virtual environment versus a live event or conference where attendees can wander around, get a cup of coffee, have a conversation with somebody, or walk into another session.

My strong recommendation is that marketers should stop thinking in terms of running large conferences virtually. The B2B marketer, in particular, must leverage virtual events to bring attendees lower into the sales pipeline.

I recommend that marketers take the larger conferences that they might have done three months ago and carve them into many slices, then serve those slices in bite-sized components. This enables them to segment the buyer so they can provide meaningful content based on the buyer’s attention span and interest level.

We’re seeing that customers are trying to replace large events they have already scheduled, but you no longer need that event to occur at a single point in time. You can have as many events as you want.

For a marketer, this is a bit of a dream come true because you can truly segment events to your buyers’ needs and deliver content that’s specific to them.

Q) Were you seeing a shift towards more virtual events before COVID-19 impacted live events?

No. About eight years ago in a reaction to the 2008 crisis — before I joined Certain — there was a flurry of excitement around virtual events. At that time, there were some predictions that virtual events would replace live events, but that never materialized.

Now, eight years later, these virtual technologies are being used out of necessity, so there’s an opportunity for real innovation. I suspect we’re going to see more capabilities from Certain and others in the industry, which will make it more conducive to being immersed in a virtual meeting than the current technologies that are out there today.

Q) How can marketers navigate this shift to virtual events while still supporting business goals?

The first wave of virtual event activity was reactionary. People made quick tactical moves around events they’d already scheduled. Now we’re beginning to see companies step back and recognize that we’re in this for quite some time and the ripple effect will extend significantly beyond that first wave.

The event channel has been disrupted, so marketing and sales need to think through what these changes mean and what they can accomplish virtually.

We’re finding that the organizations that step back and think of it in longer terms, are better able to work with us as partners and take advantage of the complete spectrum of our technology.

Marketers who are moving forward tactically are not going to be as competitive as the ones that are stepping back and putting together a true virtual event strategy at the CMO level.

Q) What advice would you give other CEOs about helping clients and customers through the current uncertain environment?

It’s important to recognize that it’s highly unlikely that the world we were in sixty days ago is going to return. We are best suited to look forward and prepare for a changed world.

That means collaborating with customers, discussing their strategic options, and getting them in alignment so that you’re collaborating about whatever innovation is required.

Our large technology customers immediately recognized that they needed a long-term strategy. We work with a lot of leaders in various industry segments and those companies are typically astute at recognizing when the landscape has changed.

They immediately understood the need to take a strategic approach to dealing with this change, rather than stay mired in executing the same tactical things that they were doing before COVID-19.

The post Live events may remain digital for the long term — words of wisdom from Certain’s CEO appeared first on ClickZ.

source http://wikimakemoney.com/2020/06/08/live-events-may-remain-digital-for-the-long-term-words-of-wisdom-from-certains-ceo/

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seekingperspectives · 8 years ago

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Why Market Data Should Drive Pay, and How To Make it Happen

From my earliest days as a line manager, to my later roles as CFO and head of HR, I’ve been approached by employees who felt they were underpaid; the most common reasons were rooted in what they heard about “a company down the street”, or what someone had told them, or what they had seen online. Usually, the data they were referencing did not account for differences in geography, credentials, job experience, industry or even individual performance level. The discontent arose because of apples-to-oranges comparisons. Usually, a quick chat about our approach reassured the employee that we were committed to paying everyone fairly and competitively for the job they were doing.

Let’s be honest – while company culture and work environment are key influences, the first bridge any prospective employee crosses is whether the pay is in the ballpark compared to other companies recruiting them. According to SHRM, 40% of employers plan to add full-time employees in 2017, the strongest forecast in 10 years. As CFO and head of HR, the risk of losing good talent over an inadequate pay offer spurred me to develop compensation structures using market data. Implementing competitive compensation programs that are grounded in relevant data will improve the prospects of winning over the best candidates.

Fair pay is obviously important to your current employees, too. An April 2016 research report published by SHRM, “Employee Job Satisfaction and Engagement”, revealed that 92% of employees consider it important or very important to be paid competitively, yet only 65% feel satisfied with their current compensation. People want to feel like they are being valued for their contributions; a well-executed compensation review goes a long way toward responding to that sense of fairness.

There are several strategic reasons for pursuing an organization-wide compensation analysis, including:

• Spotlight pay inequities across departments • Reduce pay-related attrition of high-performing employees • Create confidence in your employees that they are paid fairly • Improve recruiting through competitive market pay

A smart planning strategy involves a company’s senior leadership team asking some basic questions, which will improve the prospect of long-term success with compensation data. At minimum, ask yourself three simple questions –

Recruiting – “are we having difficulty attracting talent because of pay?” Attrition – “are we losing people over pay?” Frequency – “when is the last time we did a study? Has our pay structure grown outdated?”

A ‘yes’ to any of these questions should warrant some further discussion on whether to further explore the need for companywide review. Understand Your Objective Annually assessing pay ranges with compensation data will certainly keep you at the leading edge of any developing discrepancies with the market. But updating the entire catalog of jobs in your company with a market pay study every year can be impractical, in terms of either cost or staff time. If you have decided to embark on such a study, the senior leadership team should also reach consensus on the philosophical question of how to use the findings when it comes to balancing internal and external pay equity. Answering three key questions will help frame any analytical effort:

Do you set a broad pay structure where every job resides in a single pay grade? (let’s call this “internal benchmarking”)

Do you go with a straight ‘market pay’ approach for every job? (let’s call this “external benchmarking”)

Do you apply a market factor to a job’s pay range (a blend of the above two)?

For example, if you want to lower barriers to interdepartmental transfers, you may opt for a few broad pay bands (or pay “grades”). See the following illustrative example, where a company set five pay bands (A1 – E1) covering everyone from entry-level to the senior leadership executives. The C1 paygrade can span a broad range of positions from different departments:

PAY GRADE “C1” ($75,000 - $110,000) BASE SALARIES Customer Service Manager $78,450 Human Resource Manager $92,320 Sales Manager $106,300 Marketing Manager $77,420

Grouping these positions in one broad band simplifies pay administration, facilitates succession planning across the organization and reduces the risk that someone feels they are taking a step “backwards” when looking at opportunities in other departments. There are key factors that should influence the band decisions, but there is no pure right or wrong answer when choosing to align against external benchmarks or internally among a group of employees. Being consistent across all jobs is the key. This calibration exercise is part science, part judgment based on experience; the final approval of the band schematic should be the job of the CEO and your head of HR. Getting Started: Understand the Jobs The starting point for the project is an up-to-date organization chart of all departments, accompanied by a complete catalog of written job descriptions. Each description should accurately describe the current role and responsibilities of the job, as well as the expected qualifications. Writing a good job description is a topic all its own, so suffice to say here that you need reliable source documents that describe each job in sufficient detail. Validating the accuracy of each job description can be done through manager and employee interviews, and even observing employees doing the jobs. The output from this first step is critical to the legitimacy of the benchmarking decisions that follow, and should be handled by a professional with experience mapping job descriptions to external pay data. If you have HR staff that specialize in compensation analysis, you already have the skills in-house to do this work. Otherwise, there are outside consultants that have experience doing this type of project. Unless you intend to do this type of analysis every year, I would recommend retaining an outsider for the task. Using a temporary consultant keeps the permanent payroll and headcount in check, eliminates any internal politics on pay grade decisions and frees your valuable HR team to continue executing on the essential daily work already on their plate. Beware the Quicksand There are a few pitfalls to avoid when doing a compensation study. Beware of ‘bubbles’ in the labor market; reacting too quickly to current market trends when setting or adjusting salary ranges can create long-range cost dilemmas. In the mid-to-late 1990’s, software engineers were in high demand because of Y2K coding efforts, and the salaries for those jobs rapidly accelerated as a result of the demand for their skill sets. However, a few short years later, the dot.com bust left a surplus of coding talent in the workforce; many companies found themselves overpaying for those positions because of the overreaction to the market in 1999. Another example is the healthcare industry, which has been a rapidly-growing area driving pay up for certain types of jobs. Look not only at the present, but also the demand for the skill sets over the next few years. Before adjusting pay bands or grades via a compensation review, be thoughtful about the message being sent to employees particularly where “pay-for-performance” is highly emphasized in the organization. If you decide to raise the low end of a range, you may find yourself raising the pay of employees who fall below the new minimum. Granting pay increases to poor performers may conflict with your compensation philosophy, and when word spreads, the action can be easily misinterpreted. The low performing workers may view it as a tacit recognition for their work, and top performers may get demoralized that raises are being doled out to low-performers. Any changes to company pay bands or ranges needs to be done thoughtfully, supported by the right compensation data and communicated clearly to everyone. Understand the Data There are numerous compensation data providers out there, all with their own strengths and weaknesses. I’ve used a few, in addition to examining pay data provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A key advantage of the commercial data providers is the extra level of normalization they offer. The BLS data doesn’t normalize for job scope or experience level; pay of both entry-level and senior people in the same BLS job code are all lumped together. Another critical consideration is the amount of data directly relevant to your company. How much of the data sampling contains survey responses within your industry segment? That answer determines the extent to which your benchmarking will be against actual peer companies, versus internal algorithms that impute a figure based on “similar” jobs. However, even without a large sampling size of your industry, most compensation data products will still add a measure of objective value that you can fine tune with some local research – this is one of those moments where ‘some data is better than no data.’ Market pay data studies can be updated every few years. Even when not doing a full study, you should still ‘spot audit’ the job description catalog each year in advance of the annual planning cycle to identify any jobs where new responsibilities may have been assigned during the past twelve months. The job description should be updated (for legal reasons beyond any comp study), and then assessed against market data to determine whether the pay range warrants adjustment that would affect the upcoming budget period. This simple step can save many hours of time explaining budget variances to the Finance group. Communicate, Communicate, Communicate Perhaps the most important consideration to remember when embarking on any compensation project is the unspoken message being sent to current or potential employees and what the data about your compensation programs are showing you. Is your pay lined up with your stated compensation philosophy? Are you trying to encourage internal transfers and promotions among departments; does that rotation serve the company well? Build a solid foundation of trust by clearly explaining how your compensation programs were developed, and how they value each employee’s contributions, learning and development. Organize team meetings to discuss with each department, and encourage asking questions about the process so that everyone understands the methods behind the work. The investment you make in building a credible reputation for fair compensation will pay handsome dividends in loyalty and goodwill up and down your organization, and give your company the edge in drawing and retaining top talent!

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kristinsimmons · 5 years ago

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Telehealth’s Missing Link: In the Rush to Implement Virtual Care, What Did CMS Leave Out?

By RAY CONSTANTINI, MD

Take asynchronous virtual care delivery, for example.

Ray Constantini, MD is the CEO and Co-Founder of Bright.md.

Telehealth’s Missing Link: In the Rush to Implement Virtual Care, What Did CMS Leave Out? published first on https://wittooth.tumblr.com/

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