Technology has helped with participation of getting people to interact with products. Certain applications like Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, LinkedIn all have interaction options which are not in your face but the new idea of click baiting makes these apps so successful in showing off products. For instance, instagram allows for products to be placed in an add on your feed, and then if you select the product it takes you to an entire page of the product. Here you do not have to interact with someone else but if the product catches your eye you know have all the information needed. Additionally, little ideas implemented into these applications like giving a thumbs up, voting, polls, dislikes, or the ability to comment on a product freely, makes a product more accessible and for it to circulate through the internet. Also, if you google a product now, the applications you have that are joint with those search engines can now pop up on your social medias. Then once again, those products are linked up to prices or their information pages as stated previously. We live in a world now where its so easy to target a specific audience via technology and using social media!
In this day and age of streaming sites instead of cable television, it can be quite difficult to have a consumer sit through a commercial. However, some streaming sites like Hulu or YouTube will still show ads or commercials if one does not have a premium subscription to that site. I don't know many who like to sit through ads (including myself), but I have found that the ads that pop up on these sites seem to be way more engaging than the ones you'll see on television. I think putting some marketing focus on these services may be more beneficial.
Another thing great way to increase participation is to provide a consumer with something or someone they are familiar with. On a visit to a big medical device company for my internship, I noticed they had some flyer with Snoop Dogg on it. I don't know if Snoop Dogg knows much about medical devices, but mostly everyone knows him, so it definitely caught my eye.
Ads are also a hit when they pop up on popular, live events like the Super Bowl, which often times also have a celebrities starring in them. It's almost a guaranteed way to be able to reach thousands of potential consumers, even if most will either step away or change the channel. The more people watching, the more likely someone will want to participate.
You are absolutely right, the share a coke campaign was a genius marketing strategy for Coca-Cola. It’s a fun, interactive way to not only make people purchase their product, but also extends the amount of time they spend in the store.
I'll expand upon your idea and take this one step further. I remember that if you were to bring specially marked cans of coke to Six Flags, you could bring one friend for free. I am not sure of how many people took this advantage of this promotion, but I certainly did many times. I even went to the extent to save several coke cans to bring family members to the park all summer long. This method was a way to get people into the park and also to purchase the soft drink even if one prefers Pepsi. So, not only is The Coca-Cola Company increasing their sales, they are also dipping into their competitor’s market.
As many have mentioned before me, the best way companies can market their products nowadays is through social media. With more and more social media platforms being created and gaining popularity, establishing a social media presence is a great way for companies to engage with customers. To take it a step further, an effective way companies nowadays can broaden their reach and engage with more potential customers is to combine their marketing efforts with partnerships or sponsorships with people who have a large social media presence. Today, it isn’t uncommon to see celebrities or internet personalities advertise a company’s services and products. More recently, these public figures can be seen advertising mental health services, prescription skincare services, new technologies, and even medication.
I agree with the majority here with the best form of participation in marketing being social media. I would have to admit that I also have purchased items that I find on Instagram ads all the time. Another good form of the 5th "P" in marketing that I have seen, is having a popular influencer on YouTube or Instagram being utilized as a sponsor for the company. Usually these influencers are given a percentage of the sales and are given a coupon/discount code that their viewers can use. For instance, a immerging medical device company can reach out to a good medical device reviewer YouTube channel and offer that person either a small percentage of sales, some free product/merchandise, or some other incentive in exchange for them to sponsor their product on their video and/or give a discount code to their viewers.
As several of my peers mentioned Social Media is the biggest form of participation in marketing in current times and what's kind of funny is that even the other forms of participation marketing lead back to Social Media. For example, nowadays most big-name companies have their own apps to shop, keep track of the latest deals and newest products, and what arguably is most important is their "Loyalty programs". Campaigns that urge you to check-in or scan your receipt when shopping to gain points for future discounts. For example, at chipotle, if you scan/check-in 5 times you get a free meal for your next visit. For someone such as myself who goes to chipotle a lot this is cool and at the same time can be a deciding factor when trying to figure out where to eat because I'll be like "let me go to chipotle to get one step closer to that free burrito." Sometimes as part of these campaigns, they ask that you share the email of friends or more commonly they request that you'd follow them, tag them, or give them a shoutout on social media for a chance to get some sort of reward in return. They are essentially making you do their work by spreading the word and "participating" in their form of marketing which is honestly genius. Other companies now do raffles where again you have to comment people's usernames and just let them know that you're helping them spread the word. This is funny because you're not even guaranteed a coupon or something in those events but they're guaranteed customer exposure. If anything this 5th P has become the most effective pillar of marketing in my opinion.
Multi-channel analytics is currently one of the strategies in use. Multiple pieces of data from various sources are integrated and stored together in this procedure. Businesses then utilize this data to communicate with customers via Apps, the internet, mobile phones, and retail storefronts by offering discounts.
The technique of garnering traffic or attention through social media is known as social media marketing. These platforms and websites offer products and services that customers can easily share. Data analytics capabilities are built into social media networks. This enables organizations to track patterns and trends that can be used to forecast client behavior.
Participation involves engaging with patients in a genuine and transparent way. For pharma and medical device manufacturers, reaching and engaging today’s busy physicians and C-suite executives is more challenging than ever. According to Physicians, they, are so busy they have no time to see even additional patients, let alone engage with device product sales representatives. Furthermore, 80% of physicians report that they are either overextended or at capacity. Given this shift, how can medical device marketing professionals capitalize on the limited available time to engage physicians, and who are the best available channels to engage them from a product marketing standpoint? Historically, healthcare marketers primarily engaged physicians via utilization of sales reps directly at the practice, or invite them for a lunch to discuss products further. In today’s market, sales and marketing tactics that were effective a decade ago no longer work. The following are examples of physician engagement strategies that have proven to be fruitful for a number of the leading medical device manufacturers:
1. Utilization of Personalized Email
Email continues to provide a mainstay of digital marketing. In fact, it consistently generates the best marketing results of any other marketing medium. For example, 89% of marketers continue to rely on email is their primary channel for lead generation. Over 68 percent of respondents prefer to be contacted through email, while only 11 percent want information via direct mail or in-person visits. However, mass impersonal email with a generic sales message sent to an entire database won’t work today. Effective emails capitalize on segmented lists and personalized messages. Additionally, personalized, relevant emails drive 18 times more revenue than broadcast emails. Make sure your emails speak directly to physicians/HCPs, from the salutation to the content to the images to drive your digital engagement and marketing results.
2. Develop Physician Buyer Personas
As mentioned, personalizing marketing campaigns is critical. But how can pharma and medical device manufacturers create more personalized marketing? Create buyer personas, including one for each profession can achieve this. Buyer personas are fictional, generalized representations of your ideal customers. Personas help “internalize the ideal customer we’re trying to attract, and relate to our customers as real humans,” stated HubSpot. A number of leading healthcare companies are experiencing positive marketing results via persona creation for a number of specialties including surgeons, private practice physicians and hospital chief information officers, to name a few. Buyer persona data provides you precise insight into each target market’s exact motivations, concerns, frustrations, key activities, key issues and opportunities. As a result, while you likely sell the same products to each target audience, your approach, images, messaging and language to each would be personalized differently.
3. Get Social with Physician Prospects
Historically, social media may not seem like the ideal way to engage medical professionals. In 2011, Manhattan Research conducted the Digital MedTech Physician study, the Annual Healthcare Professional Communication Report 2016, to find out how surgeons and other physician specialties learn about medical devices via digital channels. The study found that physicians using medtech products are digitally savvy and seeking ways to interact with device manufacturers online. In fact, 50% of physicians are interested in participating in online promotional programs from pharma and medical device companies for which they do not see sales reps in person. QuantiaMD found 65% percent of physicians use social media sites for professional reasons and the Journal of Medical Research found that 60% of physicians believe that social media “improves the care they deliver” and 24% of physicians use social media daily to learn new medical information. Many medtech companies are capitalizing on the growth of physicians’ use of social media, including Medtronic. They have successfully created a presence on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube. From the top, the CEO tweets, sending a powerful signal about the company’s commitment to social media.
4. Engage with People, Not Titles
Today, personalization is producing the highly successful results. “We judge brands by their warmth and competence. Those perceived to have both attributes are more likely to develop deep, enduring relationships with their customers.” Like other professionals, physicians and medical professionals prefer this approach, instead of a remote relationship defined by traditional buyer and seller roles. Developing this connection includes personalization, relationships, and storytelling. As mentioned earlier, personalization involves tailoring messages to the specific concerns of a target audience versus sending generic messages to everyone. This requires understanding the needs, motivations and challenges of today’s doctors and executives. Physician relationship harnessing requires marketers to pay close attention to what their target audience likes and doesn’t like. According to a HealthLink Dimensions survey, physicians prefer receiving information they can review on their own schedules. Finally, device marketers are also focused on storytelling as a way to gain prospects’ attention and hold it. A number of leading device manufacturers are weaving stories about their devices around real-world facts, such as the number of lives their devices are saving, whilst distributing them in a social setting.
5. Develop and Share Compelling Case Study Content
According to the Digital MedTech survey, healthcare professionals overwhelmingly prefer to receive educational materials from pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers. The top three responses were forms of education that either support the healthcare provider or inform their patient. Case studies being one of the preferred choices of educational content. Case studies share positive patient outcomes, reduce operational costs, increase productivity, lower readmission rates, increased quality of care, and staff and administrative efficiencies. Successful examples of effective case study marketing include Stryker who encourage people to “learn about the positive impact Stryker products can have on your facility, caregivers and patients.” Outcomes are highlighted in the case study through the presentation of specific statistics about the benefits of the given device. Stats outlined throughout their case study page promote Stryker’s attention to the health of the patient and the positive outcomes for caregivers. Another example is Siemens who developed a case study for its Immunoassay Workcell solution. This displays how the Siemens solution enhances productivity and reduces operational costs. Specific numbers show how the solution reduces operator time, increases operator efficiency and decreases total work time. Physicians and medical executives may be busy professionals, but this doesn’t mean they are out of reach for medical device companies. If you want to market to busy physicians today, it requires modern tactics—including forging relationships, personalizing email, creating buyer personas, getting more social and creating compelling case studies.
In the 21st century, another P has been added to the 4 P’s marketing strategy. This is participation, which has increased as the “push market” has declined and addresses how customers are now in control and that marketing must interact with customers directly. According to an article entitled “Participation Marketing: The Need and Impact of Dialogue in Content Strategies”, “traditional advertising is not capable of working because consumers have become blind to it. By marketing with the purpose of getting consumers to participate, it allows them to get the attention they demand while getting personal information that can help with their decision-making process.” The article then goes on to elaborate on some elements to help make participation marketing unique which include being customer-focused, relevant, highly-engaging, fun, and personal. I think social media is a great way to reach many different audiences on their own time. Some clever uses of participation that I have witnessed and conducted on social media are polls on stories. This is a great way to get feedback on your product in a fun, quick, and easy way. I also enjoy when companies have quizzes before entering their site to help you narrow down your search because it makes it easier on the customer and also provides information to the company about what users are looking for. In today’s day and age there are so many creative ways to get people to participate.
The 5P's of marketing with the fifth P being participation/people are changing the way marketing is presented on digital platforms. Engaging patients, consumers, participants in a non-face-to-face sale involves ingenuity and being able to be personable and convey your message clearly and authentically. There are numerous social media platforms and the newest platform Tiktok is everywhere even if you don't have the app. I think it satisfies the short attention span that has increased as a result of overstimulation. I think this platform has found the magic formula to capture attention and direct it to product sales for anything. I can see how if influencers have a large following and a TikTok goes viral a medical device used by the person can have a major impact on an audience resulting in consumer demand. 'TikTok had been surging in popularity prior to the pandemic. But as the world found itself with billions of spare hours, the platform truly soared. It became the year’s most downloaded app, with more than 2 billion users welcoming it onto their phones. The company claims to have about 100 million monthly active users in the U.S., with 50 million of them checking in on a daily basis. As many as a third of TikTok’s users are age 14 or younger, so it’s no surprise that some of the content is just plain silly. Given the anxiety of the times, perhaps that’s why the platform has proven irresistible.' (Mahoney, 2021) My question for companies that want to use this platform for penetration into the digital market is how are you capturing your targeted audience as its many users are 14 or younger?
Like a lot of others here, the most common use of marketing I have seen to date uses social media outlets. With social media, a lot of companies can interact directly wit their customers on a more intimate level. Anywhere from raffles, surveys Q&As, can creative content, there are many ways that a company can use social media to sell their products to their patients.
Some of the most clever uses of participation that I have witnessed and are my personal favorites are the Share a Coke campaign by Coca-Cola and the Shot on iPhone campaign. These are my favorite because participating in these campaigns made me actually care about products that I usually wouldn't care for, (I don’t even drink soda but I bought so many, and I never paid that much attention to details about iPhone camera quality until I participated in the iPhone campaign) which showed that these participation marketing efforts worked. The Share a Coke campaign was built around the theme of community and its goal was to increase the amount of Coke consumed. Everyone felt as if they were a part of Coca-Cola and really wanted a bottle with their name on it! It was extremely successful in all aspects. The Shot on iPhone campaign was just as successful and got so many people staring through their phone cameras with the hopes of capturing an amazing photo all by the great quality of their iPhone camera. To this day, camera quality is one of the main things that drive people to an iPhone.
the fifth p is a very important tool in marketing even if your a small business or a large business.participation marketing brings the brand, the brand’s employees, customers, and industry influencers all into the conversation together. It helps to forge the bond between the brand and its customers. After doing some research online I can across a company everyone loves Starbucks. In April 2014, Starbucks announced its White Cup Contest. Customers were invited to decorate a white Starbucks cup and submit an Instagram photo using the hashtag #whitecupcontest. The winning design was printed on a reusable Starbucks cup and the contest generated more than 3K posts. Starbucks connected with their customers on a deeper level which help them capitalize of their profits around the world.
Engagement and participation are a major part of almost any brand. The most common way of Participation in todays society is social media. Different companies and sites have accounts on different social media sites to promote and engage with potential customers and loyal fans. Clever ways of engagement are giveaways for simple actions such as retweeting or liking a post. This allows the social media team to gather information on people who buy their product as well as those who dont. Participation in a way that isnt intrusive is best as it the potential customer/client is basically willingly giving away information, and information and data are as valuable as money to businesses and corporations. A medical device company named Medtronic uses the Fifth P by engaging with its clients by fully embracing social media, creating a presence on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube. They can run ads to targeted demographics with the data from user profiles that collect different data and connect to other social medias.
Remember “The Four Ps of Marketing”: product, price, promotion, and placement.
Product:
What are you selling & why?
Price:
How much does the product cost? When does the price change?
Promotion:
How will you promote the product? Viral marketing? Internet Advertising?
Placement:
Who sells it? Where is it sold?In recent times, we now have what we call the “fifth P”, Participation. This has changed the typical way marketing has been done. Since new technologies are coming out, it is much harder to get information out to the chain of customers.
Instead of pushing our messages out into people's faces, the people now have the option to block us or walk away or fast forward. Engagement is now the key because unless someone wants to be interacting with you, they won't.
What are some clever uses of Participation you have witnessed or conducted?
Another way in which companies can encourage participation from possible consumers are through the use of music. This powerful tool has allowed for countless people to walk around and sing a simple jingle from a commercial or radio advertisement about a particular product. The use of music draws people in through the use of catchy phrases, rhythms or even instrumental rifts. This type of advertisements keeps the product on a consumers mind without them thinking about it.
