Key Point or Message?

By Christine Fife | Published: April 17, 2011

When a startup company first begins to tell the world about them and the product(s)/service(s) they’re developing it’s best to have a framework set up to use as a guide for writing all the pieces you’ll need to use as sales tools, lead generation campaigns, end-user documentation for using the product/service and all the information you’ll need to share about your company as you begin to carve our niche in the market space. There are many people who will be interested in what you’re doing, unless of course you’re making a product that sucks or has no actual real-world use. But going under the assumption that you’ve done your homework and there really is a need or desire for your offerings, you’ll need to share information about your company, your product/service, the founders of the company and possibly other employees, as well as where you see your product/service fitting in the market space, how to use your offerings and so much more. All people won’t be your potential customers, but many others will be interested in it for other reasons: i.e. potential investments, analysts research for your industry, publications that monitor the market space for news, etc.

As a marketing professional I’m often surprised at how many executive-level people in business don’t understand the value of developing a comprehensive messaging document. In fact, I often run into very smart business people with different types of degrees that have served them well in their business careers who really don’t understand the difference between corporate messaging and key points or benefit messages and marketing tag lines. The misconception I find most amusing is that business professionals think corporate messaging is the same thing as key messages for press and analyst opportunities.

When a startup neglects to develop their corporate and product/service messaging before they start writing press releases, website copy, speaking proposals for industry events and subsequent presentations for those events, contributed articles for publications, blog posts, user documents, etc. they end up have a confusing mess of product or company nomenclature used in different ways, not to mention varying voice styles and multiple ways of talking about their company or product/service that only serve to confuse the readers. When you’re trying to get consumers to remember you, consistency is really important.

Here’s a breakdown for corporate communications messaging that I’ve found to be very useful. I urge all startup companies to put effort into creating a comprehensive messaging document. I’ll list these without definition as you can easily search for definitions and find ones that you feel most comfortable with. Remember, this type of work is inherently creative so use the definitions as a guide.

  1. Mission Statement
  2. Vision Statement
  3. Value Proposition
  4. 3 to 4 Key Corporate Messages
  5. 5 to 7 Key Product Messages
  6. Key benefits
  7. Elevator Pitch
  8. What Is It Statement
  9. What Does It Do Statement
  10. Corporate Profile Statement
  11. Elevator Pitch

After you’ve gotten these written out and gotten feedback on them and put them through your target audience filter to make sure they’ll resonate with the target audience, you’ll then be able to use them as a starting point and guide for everything else you’ll need to write. It will be rare that you’ll want to reuse one of the 11 items listed word-for-word, but you’ll definitely want to use some of the language and convey the meaning in many of your materials and collateral.

As an example, if you’re working with a PR firm, they’ll need these messaging document to help guide them as they write specific messages for press opportunities. Because the media are not interested in a company’s self-service messages about their product, a PR professional will be looking at what journalists are currently writing about in the industry and how your company/product fits into that. They’ll craft the press key messages accordingly, but with the corporate messages as a guide.

Finally, when you’re ready to write pieces such as web copy, brochures, advertisements, demo scripts, etc. if can really help you to have a branding and positioning document to also help guide you. This is a topic for another post, but in general, where the corporate/product messaging document acts as a guide on how to talk about your company and it’s offerings and benefits, a branding and positioning document will tell you how to write copy that conveys the corporate messaging in a voice and style that will resonate with your target audience. If you’re writing something for teens as the target audience, you don’t want to sound like lawyers or insurance documents.

Now, go write your hearts out, but establish a guide piece so that all your company communications talk about your company, your product/service and your industry clearly.

Posted in Marketing Communications, messaging, Speaking | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Claim Ownership of Your Words

By Christine Fife | Published: March 30, 2011

“If you build it, he will come,” only worked for Kevin Costner. This is real business life, not the movies. You can’t simply create a blog—or any other online content—and expect that people will come to read it. You need to proactively invite visitors and be listed on free and/or paid-for directories.
In the old days (good or not) people found businesses by “letting their fingers do the walking”. If you’re younger than 30 you might not even know what company used this tag line. It was The Yellow Pages and they weren’t online, either. It was a giant book that you flipped through to find a particular type of business. Now your fingers do the typing, and very often that simply means you type in some words in a search engine and start browsing. But if you leave everything up to a search engine, you better have really great Search Engine Optimization. Honestly, though, you should put more effort into it.

Today I’ve submitted this blog to Technorati.com. It’s been on my todo list for ever! And today is the day!!! So here is my claim token, Technorati! 2P67JXBS4DF8. Most free and paid-for blog directory services require that you put some type of code, or in this case, a claim token within a post, so that their machines can see that the blog you’re claiming is really controlled by you. For more details on claiming a blog on Technorati, click here.

There are many different blog directory services and depending on what you use to host and publish your blog, there may be submissions to some directories built in. If you use Twitter, be sure to also post your account on Twitter Directories. Here are a few free directories for both blogs and Twitter:

Blog Directories Twitter Directories
Technorati WeFollow
Blog Toplist Twellow
Top Blog Area Just Tweet It
Bloggapedia Tweet Find

Another important task in claiming ownership of your words is making sure your SEO is the best it can be. Look into website listings and directories that might be appropriate for your business. And definitely, everywhere you have an online account that is related to your business, fill out your profile. Make it easy for people to know who you are, what company you are with and what you do for them. Anonymous posting is something you should only do if the content in question is, well, questionable!

Posted in Participating in the Conversation, promotion, Speaking | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

The ABCs of Startup Marketing Communications

By Christine Fife | Published: March 23, 2011

ABCStartups are like superheros. You could have the greatest product idea ever, abound with superpowers, but if you don’t have a killer superhero name, a kick ass cape and a tagline your fans can yell when you arrive on the seen you’ll never get anywhere.

I grew up on the Monterey Peninsula in CA. It’s a beautiful place and it has more than it’s fair share of restaurants. I once heard a restaurant owner friend of my grandfather’s telling him he wasn’t worried about 2 new restaurants that were opening in town. “I don’t need to worry. We put great food out to our customers and everyone at the restaurant treat customers like family. Of course, we’re Italian, so here in Monterey most of our customers are family! But those other two restaurants will not only need to make great food, one of which I’m sure will, but they also have to be able to sell themselves. They need an inviting decor, a well run kitchen, good business management and so much more. If they can get all that, then I’ll worry, but it’s a long road ahead.”

Recently I engaged with a new client to develop a sales presentation and some landing pages. I was very intrigued by this client’s product and really wanted to work with them to help get their company off the ground. The original proposal was for a comprehensive branding, positioning, messaging, marketing strategy, tactical plan and collateral creation. Unfortunately, the company was a bit nervous to use up their small budget on such a large project, so they requested just a couple of sales pieces. This is something I’ve done before, so I simply asked them to give me all the messaging, positioning and market research they did have, as well as the copy they’d already written for the website, product and a datasheet, so I would have something to work on for the presentation.

Unfortunately, what I received was an overwhelming amount of disparate market data, pages of brainstorming lists and notes, copied text from different pitch emails they had already used (in which they spoke about the product in inconsistent ways) and much more of the same. What they didn’t have were the basics without which it is almost impossible to write coherently or consistently. And certainly, you can’t write sales presentations, website copy and marketing pieces without having made some initial decisions on messaging and positioning.

Here is a list of items that all startups should invest the time and money to do before you start pitching out to potential customers, VCs, press, analysts and other influencers. With these done, you’ll find it is much easier to write web copy, develop collateral and pitch prospects. It can also be a big help in getting funding, hiring quality employees and much more.

  1. Vision Statement: This defines the desired or intended future state of an organization or enterprise in terms of its fundamental objective and/or strategic direction. A long-term view, sometimes describing how the organization would like the world to be in which it operates.
  2. Mission Statement: A mission statement defines the fundamental purpose of an organization or an enterprise, succinctly describing why it exists and what it does to achieve its Vision.
  3. Product Type: A “what is it” title. It’s purpose is to quickly convey what type of product you offer.
  4. Product/Service Category: A list of potential budget/product/service headings your company’s product could fit into from the point of view of a potential customer. It’s also an great idea to list adjacent market spaces—market spaces that could compliment your product to use in choosing marketing opportunities, campaign locations, market conversation locations, influencers, etc.
  5. Positioning Statement: A succinct description of the core target audience to whom a brand is directed, and a compelling picture of how the marketer wants them to view the brand. A well-constructed positioning statement is an invaluable means of bringing focus and clarity to the development of a marketing strategy and tactics. Every decision that is made regarding the brand is judged by how well it supports the positioning statement.
  6. Value Proposition: A business or marketing statement that summarizes why a consumer should buy a product/service. This should convince a potential consumer that one particular product/service will add more value or better solve a problem than other similar offerings.
  7. Business Pain Points: Specific understanding of problems/issues businesses currently have that they want/need a solution for. These are real-world problems that companies have that cost them a lot of time, money and other resources, thus affecting their bottom line.
  8. Product Benefits: A list of quantitative and qualitative benefits your company’s product will bring to a customer. This is used to create site content, sales collateral and marketing campaigns, as well as to assist in choosing influencers to approach and countering sales objections.
  9. Key Product Messages: At least 5 specific statements that are key in conveying what you offer, what the product does and what the benefits are. These statements may be used as is, but more importantly, they will be used for developing all other content and collateral.
  10. Differentiators: Knowing clearly what is unique to your product versus competitors in the market space.
  11. What it is statement.: A short paragraph that clearly describes what the product is.
  12. What it does.: A short paragraph that clearly describes what the product does.
  13. Elevator Pitch: A short couple of paragraphs that can quickly grab the attention of a potential customer and encourage them to want more information.

Trying to move forward with getting funding, selling to customers, speaking to the press and engaging in industry activities without this initial work, could be detrimental. This work is very important to ensure that you’re giving your audience clear, conscience, consistent information that they can relate to and want to find out more about. If you talk to people about your product and they have too ask too many questions just to understand what you offer, that’s not a good sign.

Posted in Audience Engagement, Marketing Communications, messaging | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Make a Memory

By Christine Fife | Published: March 21, 2011

Marketing professionals have long known that commercials that are humorous or evoke another strong emotion in viewers are more likely to be remembered. 47.  Remember Wendy’s Where’s the Beef campaign? Or if you’re a bit older and/or have ever read any marketing 101 books, you’ll remember the famous 1970s Coca Cola commercial in which a field of young people drinking Coke want to teach the world to sing. But why are these commercials so memorable? Why do we find it easier to remember something that is funny or a catchy song that says, “I’d like to buy the world a Coke and keep it company.”?

The human brain remembers certain types of information better than others. First, our minds are much better adapted for remembering visual imagery as opposed to words. Second, we’re better at remembering visuals that evoke an emotion or that trigger reference to memories in our long-term memory. And in the case of words, we’re much better at remembering words that rhyme or words that are set to a catchy tune.

Different types of memories are created in different areas of our brains and some of those are easier filed away in long-term memory as opposed to the area of the brain that stores short term memory–do you recall the random number that appeared at the end of the first sentence of this blog post? But you just read it moments ago. How can you not recall?

So, it’s wise for marketing professionals to use visuals that are appealing and create emotional responses and that their target audience can relate to on a personal level. And creating a catchy jingle can be really helpful. But that isn’t actually enough sometimes. One of my most favorite commercials was a beer commercial in which two guys, stranded on an tropical island, are sitting next to each other on the beach. One guy is wearing a fishing hat. Being that they’re stranded and thirsty, the other guy starts imagining that his buddy’s fishing hat looks like a cap on a bottle of beer and suddenly we see him trying to unscrew his pals head. Unfortunately, I have no idea what brand of beer the commercial was plugging. It made me laugh and I’ll always remember it, but the marketers didn’t do they’re job because it made me remember beer, but not their beer.

The job of marketing professionals today is to make a memory that their audience wants to file away, as well as a memory that includes their product.

Posted in Audience Engagement, promotion | Tagged , | Leave a comment

8 Tips to Highlight Yourself

By Christine Fife | Published: March 14, 2011

Last weekend I attended a surprise party for a friend’s birthday. The party was held at the home of a 32-year-old enterprise sales professional who is intelligent, outgoing, attractive and an all-around generally nice guy. I’ve known this person for a while and know that he enjoys his bachelorhood, but he does very well with women. For the party the girlfriend of the birthday boy, who was really the one throwing the party, brought boxes of 1960s style glasses, food trays and cocktail paraphernalia (i.e.  cocktail shakers, glass punch bowls, etc.), as it was a Mad Men theme party. Certainly, it would not have expected for my bachelor friend to own these types of items, who would? But when you throw a party, granted the birthday boy’s girlfriend was actually throwing a party, you would expect that the homeowner would want to make a good impression on his guests. My bachelor friend apparently didn’t think much about this.

I arrived at the party a little bit early to help set out to food and help greet guests before the birthday boy showed up (this was a surprise party.)  When I got there a few guests had already arrived, but the kitchen trash can was overflowing, they were dirty dishes in the sink and the bathroom was a mess.I started thinking, is this usually held my bachelor friend’s apartment looks? Does he bring women he dates over for dinner? How can he even offer her something to drink in his plastic Giants baseball tumblers?

When you go for an interview for a new job you probably dress a little nicer than you normally do and speak a little more formally than you normally would. Why? Because you want to highlight your positives.

In this day and age, with our real-time, always on lifestyles, we’ve gotten rather diligent at highlighting ourselves, particularly in our professional lives and online. Have we forgotten how to do this in the real world? For the most part, probably not, but for all you bachelor types who aren’t sure how to highlight yourself when throwing a party here are 8 tips for you.

  1. Make your kitchen functional. You don’t need to spend a lot of money to have a few matching glasses, a set of basic kitchen knives and a nice bowl or plate to set out a few refreshments.
  2. Clean. Empty waste bins before they overflow. Your environment will smell fresher and it’s more hygienic.
  3. Ensure usability of your powder room. Be sure the toilet paper roll is full and have soap and a hand towel available for guests to use (preferably a towel that has been washed within a reasonable amount of time.)
  4. Clear away dangerous items. If you’re going to have a house full of people, it’s a good idea to put skateboards away and clean up art projects in progress.
  5. Be proud of your style. Take pride in your appearance, whatever that means to you. As a very liberal-minded person, I accept that people have their own style and what is “acceptable” in the sense of appropriate forms of dress can vary. Whatever your style is, just be sure you feel proud to show it off.
  6. Find strength in your opinion. Have your own thoughts and be confident to endorse them. Even if you’re a shy person, you should never be afraid to feel confident about your own opinion. If you don’t stand up for your ideas, why would anyone else?
  7. Surround yourself with acceptance. Who you spend time with has a big reflection on who you are. Be sure to surround yourself with people who accept you and your right to have your own opinions and wear your particular brand of style.
  8. Do unto others. Be thoughtful. That doesn’t mean you have to open the door for every woman you see or give up a parking place to someone else. Don’t go against your own convictions, but when you see an opportunity to be thoughtful to someone else, just because, do it.

I was going to do 10 tips, and I was going to tie this all back to business and marketing, but I’d rather give that as an assignment. Look at your company or your products/services, and figure out how you can highlight them as well. Is the figurative company kitchen functional? Are you proud of your brand’s style? Do you believe in your company’s position in regards to your market space? See if you can come up with two ways that uniquely highlight you. Then think of how you would apply that to your company/product.

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Put Your Best Foot Forward

By Christine Fife | Published: March 1, 2011

Prestimedia Graphic

I got a glimpse into an amazing company yesterday, which I will be blogging about as soon as I have a formal demo sometime in the next week or so. The company is Prestimedia and they’re looking to duplicate their success in Europe here in the U.S. with their online and mobile interactive catalogs and eBooks.

My introduction to Prestimedia was a PowerPoint (ok, it might have been Keynote since she was using a Mac) presentation about the solutions offer. The company has two options for online and one for mobile. The potential applications for their solution is vast. Their interactive catalogs are reinvent the online shopping experience with interactive catalogs that let you shop in a way that mimics a real-world shopping experience (see item within a display context, look at it more closely with zoom features, quickly navigate to matching items while being able to take notes on items you want to review again and more. But there are also many other options for use: interactive brochures, entertainment websites integrated with product placement shopping, training manuals, car/home/health insurance policy guides, annual business reports and other investor or business documents, etc.

Throughout the entire presentation, I couldn’t help but think, “This looks really cool, why aren’t they using their actual technology/service solution for this presentation?” They’re doing themselves a disservice by flipping PowerPoint slides with bullets and then bringing up sample demos of pieces they’ve created for past clients. It seemed to me that they weren’t putting their best foot forward by putting their own presentation into the format of their own solution. If they’re trying to engage with me as an audience for their offering, being able to use their offering in (or as) the pitch would certainly be impressive.

Companies that develop products or services for use by sales, marketing and/or business operations (or in many cases, information technology teams) should absolutely use their own products in their  own sales, marketing and/or business operations activities. If your company develops something for one of these business purposes, but your own company doesn’t use your own products/services, why would anyone else use them?

If your company develops these types of products, you’d be wise to use your own company’s usage as a case study and proof point. If your company can’t do that, than maybe your product isn’t worth selling. And if you’re looking to purchase a product or service for sales, marketing and/or business operations, the first question you should ask the sales rep is, “what kind of success have you had using your own product?”

Posted in Audience Engagement, B2B, Conversation Tools | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

At Least Half of the Real Problem with Health Care

By Christine Fife | Published: February 18, 2011

I would like to let you know upfront that this post is going to be a bit of rant about medical insurance and the health care “system”, but also customer/patient relations. Through the course of trying to treat a serious back problem, I have discovered what I believe is the problem with our health care “system” in the US. I use quotes around system because it isn’t a system at all. System implies that it is parts working together, but medical insurance, doctors, labs and treatment facilities don’t work together to help patients. They work independently to help themselves. It seems to me that this creates at least 50% of the the ridiculously high cost of health care and at least that much in debt for average Americans who find themselves in hot water because they didn’t realize how much they’d have to pay for by just doing what their doctor said.

Doctors’ offices, labs, medical treatment facilities, etc. do not make much (if any) of an effort to help patients understand that their medical insurance may not cover the treatment, test, procedure, etc. that they are prescribing or that the patient has an option to go to a different lab or facility where the treatment might be less expensive. That isn’t their job, right? Of course, a patient probably went to that doctor because he was listed on their insurance company network, but the labs and facilities that doctor tells his patients to go to, isn’t necessarily on the list of places that have a price deal with the patient’s insurance company. AND The insurance companies, make it as hard as possible, if not impossible altogether, to determine if a treatment or procedure is covered before you go have it done because they have hundreds of policy documents deciding that certain treatments are only covered under very specific conditions, but the insurance customer service rep doesn’t understand the documents, so they tell you to talk to your doctor or read the policies on their website.

The major problem with health care is that the doctors, insurance companies, medical labs and facilities do not work well together, and certainly don’t work as a cohesive “system” to help someone with an ailment. In fact, they each put up their own roadblocks and red tape so that patients can’t figure out what is or isn’t covered and how much it will cost. Of course, the patient is still in need of the medical care, so they move forward with the treatment only to find out they’ll be paying for it financially for the rest of their life.

Follow Along

23 years ago I had a horseback riding accident, after which I began having back pain. I was 15 at the time and after complaining a lot, I saw a whole host of different types of doctors until one of them in about 1988 told my parents and I to do a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scan. The images showed a bulge in a disc in my lower back that was pushing against the spinal column and the nerves that extend down my left leg, thus the pain. Surgery was not recommended at the time as I was young and rest and anti-inflammatory medication might prove to relieve the pain. Unfortunately, it didn’t.

Over the years, I tried every conservative method of treatment to reduce the pain.

  • Physical therapy (at least 5 different times and continued to practice the stretches, exercises and methods of bending and lifting I learned throughout my life.)
  • Acupuncture (many times when my back would really flare up with pain due to bending wrong or exercising too strenuously)
  • Chiropractic treatments (about different times with multiple sessions each time)
  • Massage Therapy (all the time!)
  • Integrative Manual Therapy (What was I thinking?)
  • Yoga and Pilates (which I continue to incorporate into my weekly exercise routines.)
  • And one invasive treatment of a steroid injection into the spine in the late 1980s, which was the worst thing I’ve ever done in my life. It not only didn’t help the back pain, but it ended up giving me excruciating headaches with major sensitivity to light for about a month. Apparently, the way they used to do these injections (patient sitting on the side of the bed bending over while they stick the needle in your spin) wasn’t very full-proof and it was likely that they could nick or puncture something in there that would cause serious pain along the spine or headaches.

Nothing ever made all the pain go away, and for 23 years I’ve had tingling and numbness down my left leg. Many of these did ease the severe pain in times that it was especially aggravated, which the doctors seem to call “flare ups.” Essentially, a flare up means you’ve done something to get the disc and surrounding muscles, tendons or whatever to swell, causing more intense pushing on the nerves and spinal column.

Special Note: Many of these conservative treatments have not been covered by medical insurance policies I’ve held over the years so I had to pay out of pocket.

So, What Happened?

In about September of 2010 my back started feeling worse–a flare up was coming on and this was the worst I’d ever had. I decided to try some chiropractic treatments again. I heard good things about a practice that sounded like they were very modern and forward-thinking. After about 8 treatments of cracking my back and such, the pain, especially the shooting pain down my leg, was really starting to ease up. Another treatment (I had paid for a serious of 12 to get a price break) and suddenly the pain shifted more to my left hip and butt. I told the doctor that the pain was different and felt like something was happening in the muscles. But he continued on with the treatments. By mid-December I could hardly walk without wanting to cry.

I gave up on the chiropractor and found out at the end of December he had left the practice. I got a call from another doctor at the practice in early January who was calling to see if I wanted to schedule more appointments. I think they were checking to make sure the first doctor wasn’t trying to take his patients with him when he left because their’s is a corporate practice. I gave her an earful. She invited me in for free services to be treated by a new doctor. After a few treatments that did not include cracking my very tender back, I couldn’t stand from the pain. The chiropractor suggested I needed a new MRI as it had been so long and clearly there was a lot going on because I was in so much pain. An urgent care facility doctor I went to for some pain pills while I worked on figuring out what to do said the same thing.

The new MRI showed that there was a “broad-based bulge with central protrusion/extrusion and facet arthropathy resulting in moderate canal stenosis with moderate right and severe left neural foraminal narrowing.” The MRI also showed “Degenerative Disc Disease” in that particular disc. In English, that means, the disc was really basically dead and not being much help to cushion between the two vertebrae, and it was bulging out and  pushing on the spinal canal, especially pinching off the nerves to my left leg.

We Arrive At Today

I learned the results on February 4, 2011. I found a doctor, listed in my insurance company’s network, who seems great. He has recommended a steroid injection. I didn’t want to do that again, but he said that the way they perform the procedure is much different now and that what happened to me before couldn’t happen again. So, I decided I would like to try it.

Now I’m in insurance company hell! I’ve been burned by insurance companies before who said something would be covered and then it wasn’t, or by doctors who prescribed treatments or tests at labs or other locations that I later found out were 3 times as expensive as another location and I was stuck for my portion of the payment (what insurance didn’t cover). So I wanted to do my due diligence and get this right.

I have a PPO through Aetna with a $2500 deductible. After talking with the Orthopedic Doctor who recommended the injection, I started down the path to make sure it would be covered before I schedule the appointment. Here’s what’s happening:

  1. The doctor gave me the name of the procedure he is recommending.
  2. I called my insurance company who had no idea what that was and without the medical codes to look up they couldn’t help me.
  3. The doctor’s office is very busy (I live in San Francisco and every doctor here is always overbooked), so it takes a couple of days to get to the right person to get the codes for this procedure.
  4. Meanwhile, I’ve been on pain pills for a few weeks now and feel like a giant blob with a back and leg ache, laying around in bed with my knees propped up and feeling miserable.
  5. The very nice woman at the doctor’s office gives me the codes and I call the insurance company.
  6. The customer service rep at Aetna informs me that 2 of the 3 codes that make up the treatment my doctor recommends will be denied. Here’s where it really get’s good.
    • Through asking questions of the Aetna rep I find out that she says the 2 codes that will be denied are the same thing. Huh? She says they say the same thing and that they are either exploratory or experimental so it won’t be covered unless my doctor determines, and provide documentation after the procedure to the insurance company, that I fall within Aetna’s Clinical Policy Bulletin #725 ruling. Huh? The rep has no idea what that bulletin says or means.
    • So I take to the internet. I’m already laying in bed doing nothing but being on the computer (with a head full of pain killers). These 2 codes are CPT codes 64483 and 64484. Apparently, they both have to do with injections into the spine. I found this wonderful article, Understand the spine to code back procedures correctly, which shouldn’t be on me to understand–Isn’t that why I am paying for insurance and choosing a doctor and agreeing to pay for what the insurance doesn’t cover? I love the first paragraph of this article:

      Two problems that frequently surface when coding spinal procedures are inadequate physician documentation and lack of coder knowledge of the anatomy of the spine. Both can lead to a loss in reimbursement.

    • Clearly this article is meant for doctors’ office personnel and not for a patient to have to figure out. The doctor originally gave me a name for the procedure a “transforaminal epidural steroid injection.” Ok, but they only gave me 3 codes and the article goes on to say: “Whether a transforaminal epidural block is performed unilaterally or bilaterally at one vertebral level, use CPT code 64479 or 64483 for the first level injected. If a second level is injected unilaterally or bilaterally, use CPT code 64480 or 64484.” So I think I need injections at 2 disc levels, because the doctor’s office gave me 2 disc injection codes. But what are the other codes from 64479 to 64482?
  7. So I’ve already emailed the woman at the doctor’s office for additional assistance, explaining to her what the insurance company rep told me. Getting through the phone tree to talk with this woman takes forever and I’ve only been able to leave messages when I do get through, so no point in trying to call, email is much faster.
  8. But, I’m still in bed so I might as well keep digging. I wonder what Aetna’s Clinical Policy Bulletin #725 ruling is that is causing all the problem. I go to the Aetna website and do a search and find Clinical Policy Bulletin 725. What!!!??? The Bulletin heading is “Post-Herpetic Neuralgia”. What is that?! The first Google search results says it is pain associated with a herpes virus! Yes, my painkiller-confused brain is going crazy now!
  9. It’s a good thing I’m an intelligent person who understand how to do online research (how do people who don’t have a master’s degree in marketing and market research figure this out?) I move on to find out: “Neuralgia is severe pain along the course of a nerve. The pain occurs because of a change in neurological structure or function due to irritation or damage of a nerve. Postherpetic neuralgia is a painful condition which affects the nerve fibers and skin.” Apparently, commonly caused by shingles or herpes virus. Obviously, this is not the case for me.
  10. However, Aetna, in their great idiocy lumps many things together in their bulletins. The use of an Epidural corticosteroid, which is the injection the doctor recommends, is listed on this bulletin under treatments for nerve pain that are considered by Aetna to be “experimental and investigational because their effectiveness for this indication has not been established.” No where in the document does it say anything about the use of this injection for pain associated with a disc pushing on the damn nerves. So….? What?
  11. But, let’s not forget that the 3rd code will be covered. Code 77003 which covers Fluoroscopic Guidance in Pain Management Procedures. So the doctor can use a Fluoroscopy, a method that provides real-time X ray imaging, to guide the needle into my back near the disc, he just can’t actually inject anything there or it won’t be paid for! So, what the doctor described to me as “the way they do these injections now” being so much better than what I did before, is covered, but the steroid injection itself the insurance company now considered unproven. Lovely!

So, the next step, if this injection doesn’t work out, would be to have major surgery, called a lumbar discectomy where they drill in and cut off the part of the dead disc that is pushing on the nerves. Apparently, insurance will cover that.

In summary, what it looks like to me is that all of these entities that make up the overall “health care system” in the United States doesn’t really “care” about patients. They all either want to get paid or not pay what they think they don’t have to, regardless of the health of an actual person. The confusing mess these entities all make by not “playing better together” or, in other words, by not supporting one another for the ultimate good of the patient (aka. caring), both medically and financially is what is really causing insurance rates to go up, medical treatment to cost more and more Americans to be in debt from medical costs.

Posted in Caring | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Fewer Service Daily Deals

By Christine Fife | Published: January 12, 2011

I have a bit of an obsession with Deal of the Day sites. Perhaps you’ve read my earlier: Groupon Nearly Killed My Small Business and Getting the Most from a Deal of the Day offer. When these companies really started coming out in droves last year many of the deals were service-oriented offers, i.e. hair cuts and treatments, massage and other spa services, facials and other skin care services and lots of restaurants. As a consumer–wooooo hoooo! I loved them. But the tide seems to be changing.

The economy is in the toilet. None of us have as much disposable income to slap down on personal luxuries like facials and most people are going longer without a haircut (if not flat out heading to CheapKuts at the mall!) When you’re seriously stressed and stretched to the limit a massage at 50% off is a gift from heaven.

The problem, however, is that service industries like hair salons and spas realized that they:

  1. Couldn’t handle appointments for the amount of coupons that were selling.
  2. This kind of “advertising” wasn’t free like the sales person for the deal site said it was (sure, no upfront cost, but big backend in terms of lost revenue and, in some cases, having to pay more to the service provider to do the service than they brought in from selling the deal.)
  3. The promise of developing new loyal, repeat customers was a mirage. Why go back for your next haircut when you can find another 50% deal at another great salon!

I’ve been tracking some of the more well-known deal-of-the-day sites in San Francisco for just over 3 weeks now and this is a summary of what I’m seeing in terms of deal offerings across the sites (sites include Groupon, LivingSocial, Bloomspot, Homerun and Yelp who offer weekly deals):

  • Facial services: Only 6 deals offered.
  • Hair services: Only 2 deals offered.
  • Massage services: Only 3 deals offered.
  • Other types of spa services or packages: 5 deals offered, but… they include 1 mani-pedi, 1 facial at a location outside San Francisco, 1 massage or chiropractic service at a chiropractic office and 1 offer for lash extensions (which are really expensive to begin with!)
  • Restaurants, Cafes or Bars: 10 deals offered. Restaurants can probably afford to do this type of marketing since profit margin on food and beverages can be high, tips and tax are not usually included in the deal and people are more likely to go back to an eatery or bar if they like it rather than waiting for a new deal from another establishment. Food (and for some people drinks) are a necessity!
  • Retail stores/products both on and offline: 11 deals offered. Deals range from photo printing to diet food to music downloads.
  • Activities and Classes: 23 Deals Offered! Is this a trend in daily deal offerings that’s here to stay? From the amazing to the “seriously, how many people would want that?” These deals include pro basketball tickets, bread making workshops, pistol firearms class, language classes, MacWorld conference tickets, gym memberships and drink mixing classes (sign me up!).
  • Hotels and travel packages: 10 deals offered. Unfortunately, some of the hotels are in San Francisco and I already live here. And my friends and family always want to stay with me (I couldn’t talk them into a hotel even if I paid for it!)
  • Other services and offerings: 22 deals offered. These deals just don’t fit into any category above and they are a wide range of, YAWN, interesting offers??? Carpet cleaning services, car detailing, teeth whitening treatments and tattoos (why didn’t they have this when I got my last tattoo!)

So, it’s interesting to see what businesses are now jumping into the daily-deal marketing world. The key is that they need to have high profit margins, as well as a draw for the purchaser to spend more than just the deal. Businesses only bring in about 1/4 of the retail value when they do these deals (see the break down of how it works on post Groupon Nearly Killed My Small Business), so they need to structure them in a way that is a win for them as well as the customer.

I intend to keep tallying deals from these sites to see where it goes. Be looking for an update in a couple of months!

Posted in Discounting, Marketing Budget | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Where did 2010 go?

By Christine Fife | Published: January 11, 2011

Wow. I posted in November and suddenly it’s mid-January 2011! Where did the end of 2010 go?

I supposed, like much of the country, I got too busy with holiday parties, family gatherings and general slacking off to come up with anything interesting to write about. That ends now!

In 2011 I’ll be exploring more than just marketing topics. I’ll be branching out to include philosophical ideas on more general business topics, as well as some thoughts and ideas about individual participation in communities, society and social norms (and taboos) and interpersonal and group communications and interactions.

Best wishes to everyone for a wonderful 2011 and I hope to see you here often!

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Marketer or Conversationalist: Why Not Marketing Conversationalist?

By Christine Fife | Published: November 17, 2010

With the appearance of the Internet the way companies do business and the way they market themselves changed dramatically. And with the explosion of social media platforms things have changed again. Companies now have to view their business and marketing strategies in real-time. No more simply “putting a stake in the ground” for an advertising campaign that just talks at people. Companies need to consider how people will react, what they’re saying right now and how to respond to them asap for anything that might come up–good, bad or insane.

Marketing is no longer just a one-directional spouting of info, adjectives and rhetoric. Businesses are looking at how to engage with their audience and hold two-directional conversations with customers, influencers and prospects. Marketing Professionals need to reflect this new concept of marketing in their work, ideas, and yes, their title! When people ask me what I do for a living, I say I’m a Marketing Conversationalist.

What is a conversationalist? The definition from Dictionary.com is:

“a person who enjoys and contributes to good conversation; an interesting person in conversation.”

The definition of marketing, as approved by the American Marketing Association Board of Directors, is:

“the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.”

Social Media Guru just doesn’t cut it as a profession. Marketing Conversationalists, however, understand traditional marketing (i.e. branding, advertising, promotion, PR, etc. and the processes and delivery method options), but they also understand how to integrate these practices into a world of real-time communication. Social media is a great innovation, but it’s simply one channel, one option for being part of the market conversation. A Marketing Conversationalist is familiar with social media platforms, influencer relations practices and most importantly, they understand how to use all of this to Listen, Speak, Care, Share and Build Relationships as a means of participation in the market conversation.

So which would you rather hire to work on your company’s marketing?

Conversation Universe image.

Marketing Conversationalists look at marketing in terms of a two-directional conversation.

  1. Marketing Professional: “One that sells goods or services in or to a market, especially one that markets a specified commodity.” Definition a la TheFreeDictionary.com.
  2. Social Media Guru: An expert (definition of a guru) on “any tool or service that uses the internet to facilitate conversations.” Social media definition from a Brian Solis blog post.
    Or, one I think is certainly more funny: “The Ability to trash talk and bad mouth a company or organizations initiative on social media without ever have done anything of importance on social media themselves.” Courtesy of a Jonas Klit Nielsen blog post.
  3. Marketing Conversationalist: A person who understands and enjoys Listening, Speaking, Caring, Sharing and Building Relationships within a market conversation, and is knowledgeable of activities, processes, delivery and intake tools, and human conversation dynamics to generate awareness, increase sales and increase customer retention/participation for a product, service and/or company.

Posted in Conversation Marketing, Participating in the Conversation, The Market Conversation | Tagged , | Leave a comment

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