Marketing Communications Today Blog

Healthcare is one of the largest industries and with so many options (as well as “Dr. Google”) it’s important for marketers to know the strategies to reach patients. Christopher Caserta, Vice President for Strategic Development at United States Medical Management, joins us to discuss how marketers are changing the healthcare industry, as well as how the industry has evolved on the WVU Marketing Communications Today podcast.

Susan Jones: Sure, so let's start with something very general: we've all heard the term healthcare industry, but what exactly does that mean and what does that encompass?

Christopher Caserta: You know Susan I think that's a common term that people will undershoot. They will just limit it to basically what they know. You know chances are you know, in today's time you were probably born in a hospital or you, you have family members who were born in a hospital so that comes to mind. Maybe you've had a family member in an assisted living facility or skilled nursing facility, and we all use pharmacies as well, at least most of us do unless you're uber healthy. If you are, I would like to know what your secrets are. Otherwise it's just kind of what we know, but in actuality healthcare is a huge industry, I mean it's actually our largest contributor to the gross domestic product in this country. I know it's grown significantly in the last 50 years; it is ahead of technology in the United States when you talk about an industry, industry and how big it is, and it kind of breaks down into six categories. You know, there are pharmaceuticals which those are obviously the medications to hear and vaccinate, we all know them with a pandemic we're all well aware of what goes on there. Biotechnology is another industry using enzymes or microorganisms to produce products, you know you think of baking bread because you're using yeast with the living organism that would qualify biotech. You have the equipment side, devices for like pacemakers and ultrasound imaging you have to have distribution, which is actually a category under healthcare because there's hundreds of thousands of pharmacies and hospitals that need medicines and products for patients. You have the facilities; I mean that's what we see that's usually where people go when they think of healthcare and then you have the manage healthcare side. I think we've all probably read about health maintenance organizations and other types of groups or ways to have healthcare and pay for healthcare. So really when you include all those when you look at the healthcare industry there's over 784,000 companies in the United States right now. So, and the good news for those of us in this field is they all need strategy, they all need sales and they all need marketing so it's a wonderful opportunity and only getting bigger.

The marketing communications programs at WVU have aided brilliant and talented people to achieve their dreams and to find success within the industry. As you think about your future career in Marketing Communications and consider advancing your degree, view the success of the WVU Marketing Communications Integrated Marketing Communications alumni.

Adrienne King has been promoted to serve as UToledo’s vice president of marketing and communications. King has led institutional crisis communications efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic and provided direction for the rebrand efforts of UToledo and more recently, UTMC. Her teams have won numerous awards for their creative work to support enrollment initiatives and crisis communications efforts.

Emily recently moved companies to join HMP Global, a multichannel leader in healthcare meetings, content, and education. In her new role as a Marketing Communications Manager, she oversees the promotions and marketing of healthcare education events. Tactics include everything from social, digital and traditional marketing methods.

Mixed reality is everything between AR to VR and in-between, evolving the consumer experience with virtual try ons, but where is mixed reality marketing going? Instagram and Snapchat have embraced AR and VR more than other platforms, people are virtually viewing houses, trying on lipstick, glasses and more and the outlook for mixed reality is bright. Join David Smith, Teaching Assistant Professor with West Virginia University's Reed College of Media as he discusses "Where's the Beef with Mixed Reality Marketing" on the sub-series, Marketing Horizons.

Cyndi Greenglass: What is mixed reality?

David Smith: You can think of mixed reality as a term that includes everything from augmented reality and virtual reality. It is helpful to think about it through your user experience. Augmented reality includes everything from headset-based reality like Microsoft HoloLens and glasses that you would wear to phone-based AR on Snapchat and Instagram, as well as filters on Snapchat, Instagram and TikTok. VR is a little bit further down that spectrum towards more immersion, where you would put on a VR headset. That's more immersive than AR and altogether, it's more about moving from our traditional 2D screen-based experiences to more spatial 3D interactive experiences that take advantage of the world around us to overlay information that you would interact with. Looking at it from the perspective of brands, what people are most familiar with is phone-based AR. That's what people are using on social media, on apps and even web-based augmented reality face filters.

Bringing a new product or service to the market can feel like a daunting task to some. If it is not promoted properly, you could miss out on an opportunity or lose money down the line. Join Alex Virden as she discusses what it takes in real life to bring a new product or service to market and how she combines creativity and innovation into her work.

Susan Jones: What is product marketing?

Alex Virden : Product marketing is an interesting and emerging function. For me at EVERFI, my role as a product marketer is a centralized role, a connector to the key teams that I work with including customer success marketing, sales product development, engineering customer marketing and market Intel competitive intelligence. There are five different areas that I'm working in day-to-day. One would be discovery, where I'm looking into hypotheses around potential markets, potential items to put on our roadmap, flushing out personas and talking to customers. Another area is strategy, which includes product market fit pricing and go-to market planning for launches or feature releases. Next is defining and training, so working with our sales team and our marketers on training about what the new product could be or how to talk about it and how to write marketing messaging about it. And finally, getting set and growing a product from launch and post launch activities.

Through changing times, brands need to consider how best to align themselves with trends and events. How do brands enter a social conversation with honesty and authenticity?

Join Veronica Purvis, Associate Executive Director at Skin of Color Society and Neal Stewart, VP of Sales & Marketing at Deschutes Brewery, moderated by David Hazelton, adjunct instructor for the M.S. Integrated Marketing Communications Online programs and Design Director for ProShares as they discuss branding in context from a recent Integrate Online session.

What are the components of a strong brand? What do you think is the most important and what really built a strong brand for you?

Brands really want to understand the gaming and e-sports for attribution and have migrated to the traditional sports where the BIG money is. Join Johannes Waldstein as he discusses "Follow the Money: The Future of Multichannel Measurement" on the sub-series, Marketing Horizons.

As a big data expert and a lifelong fan of competitive sports, FanAI is the culmination of two of Johannes' passions. A serial entrepreneur, he has founded four other startups that tackled marketplace issues surrounding data, mobile payments, and sports tech. As a Product Manager at dunnhumby, the world’s largest loyalty data sciences company, Johannes helped build data platforms that provided 360° customer insights for some of the world’s largest global agencies and brands, including retail chains such as Best Buy, Home Depot, Tesco, and Macy’s.

Cyndi Greenglass: I wanted to ask you, when we define gaming, I know when I say that sometimes Ruth says what are we talking about here, and I want to make sure we're on the same page when we're talking gaming and esports, why don't you give us a quick definition?

Today, March 8, is International Women’s Day. This is a global day dedicated to the recognition of the achievements of women and call to action advancement for gender equality within all industries and spaces. The first IWD event was a public gathering of over one million people in 1911. However, the digital age has transformed the celebration into this day to cross oceans and empower women to come together, empower others and share their stories digitally.

Today, some of the industry-leading female alumni from the WVU Marketing Communications Graduate Programs share their stories about being a strong woman in the industry and the wisdom they wish to pass down to rising leaders.

M.S. IMC 2014
Executive Communications Manager, Dell Technologies

With the golden age of social media and digital marketing in full swing, the competition for consumers’ attention is fierce. To stay relevant, marketers must understand the changing needs and preferences of their audience and adapt their strategies accordingly. We’ll discuss the importance of innovating to keep your audience’s attention, how to evaluate your tactics to avoid outdated practices and how to maintain your brand values as you evolve your strategy.

Amy Alyson Teller: Can you explain why it's so important to understand your audience?

Isaac Mei: As simple and straightforward as it sounds, that's who you need to please to survive as a brand. At the end of the day, the one thing that always matters most is the consumer or end user that you're trying to reach. Having a real understanding of their wants and needs and means of communicating and consuming content is incredibly important.

Over the years, marketing has continued to evolve as audiences seek more and more ways to become engaged. While many brands continue to take advantage of more traditional advertising strategies, other brands have shifted toward marketing their brands in other ways.

One of these ways that brands have slowly been shifting is toward advertising in video games. The video game industry has been on the rise since the 1980s, and even today, there are no signs of this surge stopping anytime soon. For example, Rocket League, which was initially launched in 2015 as a vehicular soccer game developed and published by Psyonix, reached at least 75 million players worldwide in 2020.

Due to such a large and wide player base, brands such as Ford have eagerly hopped in to take advantage of marketing within the game. In February 2021, Ford took three steps toward marketing with Psyonix in the game:

Kat Shanahan graduated from the Integrated Marketing Communications Online Master's Program in 2015 and decided to come back to earn the Data Marketing Communications Graduate Certificate in 2020. Since coming back, Kat was promoted from Senior Director of Strategic Marketing to Vice President, Marketing & Business Engagement.

Join Kat to understand why she decided to come back for a graduate certificate.

What inspired you to start the Data Marketing Communications Master’s Certificate after completing the IMC program?