Last year, PAN’s 2018 HIMSS media guide broke down our essential tips for an effective, multi-channel approach designed to help healthcare marketers connect with target audiences, build brand equity and grow awareness by capitalizing on the largest HIT conference of the year. This year we’re taking it a step further.

Two of the top questions today’s savvy healthcare marketers are asking include:

• How can I attain optimal growth in a fast-paced competitive market without sacrificing quality or a customer-centric approach?
• How can I avoid making premature and impulsive decisions that may misrepresent my company before we even create buzz?

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Marketers can support their brand’s vision and turn the unattainable into the achievable by utilizing moments in time such as HIMSS, be it as an attendee or by participating in conversations alongside the action remotely. But the event itself is just one piece of a comprehensive strategy that can drive your growth marketing journey forward. In order to make the most of it, take a page from the conference itself and be a champion of health.

Be A Champion

This year’s HIMSS challenges attendees to discover which champion of health you are. Be it the disruptor, the gamechanger, the influencer or the trailblazer (and several more), HIMSS is tapping into the inner champion inside all of us. It’s a persona-based approach designed to create a unique conference experience based on how you self-identify in the world of healthcare. An event right-sized just for you. Uniting this diverse group of individuals, so goes the theme, invites a more robust collection of ideas, perspectives and solutions from across a healthcare spectrum so poised for change, it’s no wonder the 45,000+ anticipated attendees – representing all corners of the industry – are convening at a time when there is broad consensus that a new path must win. That for all the integrations, the partnerships, the tech advancements; the feeling that change is a necessity vs. a nice-to-have is as palpable as ever.

Events like HIMSS are powerful reminders that there is something to solve yet. This coming together of developers, communicators and innovators – wherever they may be on their growth strategy – believe in the power of group-think; that together we’re stronger, richer and more capable than what we could dream to achieve on our own. The true beneficiaries of all the show floor meetings, of exhibit hall demonstrations, the hallway networking sessions and the hands-on sessions are those who follow through on these collaborations long after everyone falls back in line and retreats behind their screens.

Define Your Journey

Just as this year’s event is attempting to appeal to a diverse cross-section inside the healthcare ecosystem – the healers, the visualizers, the explorers – so too should your marketing strategy appeal to the range of influencers, decision makers and evangelists that are paramount to moving your ideas and growing your brand. Why? Because the healthcare PR strategies and tactics that have helped you successfully differentiate your brand and amplify awareness for your solution up to this point – social, influencer, content marketing, earned media – are table stakes for staying ahead of the competition.

Is your marketing strategy pushing you to be an active participant or a passive listener? Will you be center court or sidelined? Center stage or stage left? What’s needed in today’s competitive healthcare market, is understanding that to grow, you must become more data-driven, think critically about who is advocating for your brand and implement a multi-channel marketing campaign to increase visibility. This is no more critical than during high-impact events such as HIMSS when such a robust collection of thinkers assemble to present their ideas, showcase the value of their investments and promote how their ideas are transforming health.

PAN defines growth marketing as a journey for good reason: just as you achieve one goal, two more may emerge as you progress to the next stage of maturity. It’s just as much for you to define as it is for the market to dictate what it should be at any given point. And that’s what makes it a journey.

Stay tuned for more conference-related content this week and next as #HIMSSanity get into full swing, including Q&As with some of our clients attending the show and insights directly from the event itself.

Want to connect at HIMSS? Contact us to set up a time to chat. We’d love to hear from you.