Marketing Travel to Women: Do Travelers Trust Online Reviews?

It’s the travel season.  I recently booked rooms in far-flung places where I had to rely on online reviews to steer my decisions. I looked for high ratings, seemingly honest guest reviews and photos that travelers had taken.

Do consumers trust online reviews for hotels?  Yes, of course they do, and they trust online reviews more than brand websites and ads.  TripAdvisor recently celebrated an impressive new statistic:  the travel review site reached 100 million reviews and opinions this month.  The reviews include more than 2.5 million accommodations, restaurants, attractions, and local businesses in more than 116,000 destinations.  Central Park in New York has more than 12,000 reviews!

 Here are some of the findings from Trip Adviser:

95% of travelers say reviews are trustworthy.

78% of travelers say reviews help them feel more confident in their booking decisions.

74 percent of travelers say that they write and post online reviews because they want to share a good experience with others.

53% of travelers won’t book a hotel that has no reviews.

35% of new reviews on TripAdviser are submitted by Facebook-connected travelers.

5% claim the hotel was not as good as the reviews implied, but 80% say the hotel met their expectations based on the reviews.

What signals a trustworthy review?  Travelers look for the number of reviews, pictures and images, and the quality and detail.  And all hotels should respond to hotel reviews.  I gave the Hard Rock Hotel in Chicago high marks because they have an active social media presence and will respond to guests on social media.  It sets them apart. Almost 90 percent of hotel general managers agree that it’s critical for their staff to manage, respond to, and monitor hotel reviews on user review websites like TripAdvisor, Yelp, Google+ Local, and Travelocity.

To find out how to spot a fake review, check out the infographic from Olery.

Are You Marketing to Women? You Need to Lean In Too!

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg

The idea of “lean in” is not a new one.  Lean in means to press forward like leaning in to the wind so you won’t be blown over – or leaning in because you are more than interested, involved – all in.  In the past few weeks, you need to have been in a cloistered retreat to miss all the hoopla over Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg’s new book “Lean In:  Women, Work, and the Will to Lead.”  Sheryl Sandberg is an amazing woman who tells an engaging story about the workplace today and women’s own responsibility in moving up in business.

But marketers need to “lean in” as well.  Marketers need to recognize the power and influence of the women in the consumer arena and to greet that knowledge with more intuitive marketing that allows today’s women to see themselves in marketing.  Marketers need to be “all in” on the importance of women as consumers.

Here are just a few facts that support marketers “leaning in” on the subject of women and their purchasing behavior.

1.  One-third of Women are Single and Independent.   This is a growing group of women who think being independent is their most important life goal.  They have more disposable income than other women.  They are well educated, growing in management and happy to be single.

2.  Breadwinner wives are the highest wage earners in 40% of marriages.    From 2007 to 2011, women’s contribution to household income grew from 44% to 47%.  Male dominated jobs suffered the most in the past recession and women were more stable in their jobs.  Women now compose half of the workforce and are moving up the ladder.

3.  Women don’t think marketers understand them.  Women make 85% of all consumer purchases and yet, 91% of women don’t think marketeres understand them.  Women want authenticity, transparency, honesty and accurate portrayal.  Families are not longer nuclear, and women don’t measure success by how clean their laundry is.  It’s no surprise that only 3% of advertising agency creative directors are women.

4.  Marketers need to embrace women’s tools – social media and smartphones.  The newest figures out on social media usage from Pew show that the percentage of female internet users exceeds that of men (75% vs. 63%, respectively).  A new study by Weber Shanadwick provides richer insight on this social usage.  Here are some facts you can’t ignore -

• 86% have a social media account/profile with 2.2 accounts on average
• 81% Facebook is by far the most prevalent social media account
• Women spend an average of 12 hours per week using social media (nearly 2 hours/day)
• 19% say some of their best friends they know only through Facebook or Twitter

And why is this important?  Well, social women are social and have influence with friends.  They tell friends about products and services at a higher rate, they like or recommend services online, and they post comments and write reviews about products and services online.  And they post pictures or images online.

Oh, and smartphones are the most important tools in women’s handbags.  50.9% of smartphone users are women and we are using smartphones to stay in touch with our families and friends, interact on social media, and shop, shop, SHOP!!  If women can’t easily find you on their mobile phone or if you are not competitive, she will move on to another source.  Moms are on their phones six hours daily and  readily admit that their smartphones are more important than sex!

5.  Women buy based on emotion and facts. Okay, everyone does.  But marketers don’t seem to understand that in many arenas.  In purchasing decisions, 83 percent are willing to spend more on a product or service if they feel a personal connection to the company. One fifth of respondents said they would pay 50 percent or more if they felt the company put the customer first.  And yes, we have crushes on companies.  Who are those companies?  Think about your own list.  Mine includes Apple (oh, yes even if Samsung is making competitive products), Amazon (I smile when I see a box), Nordstrom’s (even my husband knows this is my brand), and Costco (a Saturday shopping pleasure).

So what’s a marketer to do?  Portray women accurately, don’t talk down to us, appeal to our emotional side, allow us to discover things about your brand, surprise us once in awhile, lavish us with great information and advice and like any good marriage – communicate, communicate, communicate.

Marketing Healthcare to Women: The Anatomy of Content Marketing

Content marketing is important to healthcare brands.  For many reasons.  The idea of content marketing is to intersect the consumer with content that promotes an idea, spurs an action or engages the audience.  No, this is not cat videos or elderly people playing dueling pianos.  This is real information that consumers can discover for themselves.  It is a targeted marketing approach that has quality, original content at its heart – hence, the infographic below – The Anatomy of Content Marketing from Content Plus.

Here are just some of the important facts to consider:

HubSpot research shows companies that blog typically get 55% more visitors than non-blogging competitors. This might have something to do with the fact that such sites get 97% more inbound links than others, which is also beneficial for their performance in search engine results pages (SERPs).

McKinsey Quarterly found up to half of all buying decisions are driven by a word-of-mouth recommendation.

Around 60% of Twitter and Facebook users are more likely to recommend brands they follow, so small businesses should focus on building their fanbase via quality content so they reap rewards.

The majority of consumers say they’d much rather get to know a brand through reading articles they publish than checking out advertisements about them. And 60% of consumers said they felt more positive about a brand after reading custom content on their site.

Marketing to Women: Get Ready! New Face for Facebook!

When Facebook announced its new design for the Facebook newsfeed, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said it was their goal to to give everyone in the world “the best personalized newspaper.” Who is everyone?  The 67% of online adults that use Facebook —  71% of women and  62% of men.  Read on to see what it means for consumers and marketers.

What does this mean for consumers?

Larger Images.  Well, it means there are larger images in your feed.  According to Facebook, photos make up 50% of all news feed stories.  So the new news feed takes up more of your Facebook page.  They call it putting a spotlight on what friends are sharing.  The shared articles also feature larger images and more information like longer snippets. Check-ins are also more visual with large map images, as is content from third-party sites like Pinterest.

Multiple Feeds.  Content specific feeds will allow you to sort between a range of different categories: Close friends, all friends, music, photos, games and people and brands you “follow” (as opposed to friend). And you can still see the chronological news feed.

Continuity in Look across All Devices.  Instead of a different interface on all media, Facebook has figured out how to incorporate the same look across smartphones, tablets, and laptops.

Okay, how do I get it? Well, there’s a site for that and it’s pretty simple.  But don’t hold your breath, it’s a rolling conversion so you may have to wait awhile.  First, go to facebook.com/about/newsfeed.  Second, click the big green “Join Waiting List” button at the top of the page. Done!

What do marketers need to know?  

Good news here:  Ad Are Much Bigger!  Even the sidebar ads look bigger.  The larger canvas is good news for creative – but will it by annoying to users?  It will need to be engaging.

New Opportunities for advertising.  Promoted Posts, Sponsored Stories, and Page promotion ads can be visually engrossing - to flow with the rest of the news feed.

Filters for content are a question mark.  Facebook says there’s been consumer demand for filtered content like photos and music.  But will users use the filters.

If the filtered feeds are used, it could make for a splintered, hard to reach audience.  If people use the feeds, it will fragment the audience.  And, if they only use their friends feed, advertising will be lost to them.

Filtered feed might become sponsorship opportunities.  No real news here but if the music feeds and other entertainment feeds take off, sponsorships might follow.

Marketing Healthcare to Women: Use of Social Media by US vs. UK

I am always surprised at how the UK surpasses the US in areas of advertising and social media.  Here is an excellent example.   Here’s an excerpt of an infographic showing the relative use by hospitals in the Netherlands, United Kingdom and United States of Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Twitter.  The compiler  Tom van de Belt created the data by crawling through the websites of hospitals in the same way an interested patient might do so.   This comes courtesy of a former hospital CEO Paul Levy who has had an active blog for several years.

Currently there are 1,229 hospitals using social media.  That means that approximately 20% of the 5,754 U.S. hospitals are active in social media.  But the numbers using Facebook are much smaller.

 

Marketing to Women: More Connected with More FOMO

New information released from My Life shows that while women are more likely to be a member of Facebook and login more frequently,  they also exhibit a “fear of missing out (FOMO)”.  The study also reinforces the fact that women are more likely to check their e-mail accounts more often.  We are all living in “real time”.  Social media and email brings the world to us on a constant basis.  The world is increasing our interactivity constantly.  As I write this the first Presidential Debate is airing.  It was the most tweeted and Facebooked political event in history.  Social media has become the proverbial “water cooler” and “backyard fence”.

Facebook Fascination

Lots of studies have shown that women are more active in social media so what’s the news here?  Well, not only are women more likely to be a member of Facebook but they also check-in with more frequency.

• 95% of women surveyed belong to Facebook vs. 86% of men
• 67% of women login to Facebook once a day or more as compared with 54% of male Facebook members
  • 21% of women login 2-3 times a day vs. 15% of men
  • Only 13% of women say they login to Facebook less than once a week. One in five (20%) of men said the same

Women are also checking into their email more regularly than men.

• 83% of women check their primary email once a day or more vs. 75% of men
  • This goes up to 90% of females age 35-44 as compared with 85% of men the same age

Why the FOMO Funk?

Why do women have this fear of missing out on things?  For email, could it be that women are constantly in charge as the Chief Operating Officers of their families?  They are dealing with children, family, spouses.  Women are juggling work expectations and dealing with family schedules.

In connecting to their social networks, women are looking to their friends for the news they can use.

• 65% of women (vs. 59% of men) say they keep an eye on their social networking profiles because they don’t want to miss news or an important event or status update
• One quarter of female respondents (25%) said they typically visit or log-on to their social networking profiles when they wake up, before they check their email accounts. Only 18% of men report checking social networking profiles before e-mail
• 47% of women wish there was a solution to help them manage all their social networking profiles (vs. 40% of men)

Related articles

• Marketing to Women: OMG! Do you have FOMO? Social Media Addiction? (jamiedunham.wordpress.com)
• Jeffrey Tinsley: FOMO Trumps FOPL With American Adults (huffingtonpost.com)

Marketing Healthcare to Women: What Does Patient Satisfaction Mean?

Hospitals are beginning to realize they are in the “hospitality” business.  And the things consumers value in hospitality are going to have to invade the hospital.  Things like “Ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen” will help hospitals begin to score higher in patient satisfaction.  Increasingly, warm friendly service, appetizing food, entertainment amenities like WiFi and cable, and a pleasing atmosphere are becoming more important to patients.

Patient satisfaction has always been important to patients and hospitals, but it’s getting ready to hit the most important nerve in the body for hospitals – the one attached to their pocketbook.

Based on new health care reform legislation, beginning October 1, patient satisfaction surveys will factor into how much money a hospital gets paid by Medicare.  Patient ratings will compose 30% of  the consideration, and clinical quality will determine 70% of the payments.  Hospitals could lose 1% of their Medicare payments.  The only way to earn it back will be improvement of scores.  There will even be a bonus pool to reward those that do well or show improvement.

Why is this important?  Medicare is the leading payer for most hospitals, accounting for 35 to 55 percent of overall revenue.  And rate adjustments have been raining down lately.

Many healthcare providers will argue that the quality of healthcare is more important than patient satisfaction.  The types of issues covered in patient satisfaction surveys include courtesy, respect, listening, attentiveness, cleanliness, quietness, pain management, medication counseling, and how likely you are to recommend the hospital.

Hospitals have long measured patient satisfaction.  The national average of patients rating hospitals overall as 9 or 10 on a 10-point scale is around 68%.  If we were talking about the restaurant industry, that would not be such a great score.

What’s important to patients

Patients can only measure the things that they see and experience.  Most of us have very little way, other than personal recommendations or health ratings, to determine the skill of any physician or clinician.  In focus groups with patients, I often ask them to create mind maps of those things that were important to them during their hospital stay.  The responses always include communication with them and their family, creature comforts, time and speed, respect, cleanliness and safety.

Here are some of the things that are important to them and yes, food is one of them:

Amenities – Food, Private Rooms, Entertainment options like cable and music, Wi-Fi, Easy Access and Convenient Parking

Atmosphere – Cleanliness, Hospitality, Friendliness, Comfort, Relaxing Environment

Treatment – Pain Management, Services Offered, Technology

Safety – Patient Safety, Personal Safety, Privacy

Nursing – Attitude, Attentiveness, Responsiveness, Courtesy, Caring, Respect, Treatment of Family

Physicians – Access to them, Listening ability, Knowledge, Manner, Compassion, Reputation

Admission and Discharge – Quick, Timely, Follow-up, Discharge, Support, Affordability, Information

Where Consumers Get Their Information

It looks like hospitals and healthcare providers are going to need their own form of Trip Advisor.  Consumers get their information on healthcare providers mainly from online searches, recommendations from friends and family, physician referrals, past experiences, and advertising/media exposure.  These sources are why testimonials are so important whether they are served up by advertising, social media or one-on-one.

It’s the soft side of healthcare that is going to shape patient satisfaction.

Marketing to Women: Healthcare Missing Out on Social Media

In the South, we would say that healthcare organizations are taking their sweet time in the adoption of social media, while community sites like Caring Bridge, Daily Strength and Baby Center have become vital platforms for healthcare conversations.  Healthcare organizations are lagging in social media usage when one out of three consumers are using social media for health discussions.

In a recent survey conducted by Pricewaterhouse Coopers, eight in ten healthcare companies (hospitals, health insurers and pharmaceutical companies) have a presence on social media sites, but community sites have 24 times more social media activity than health industry companies.

There are various reasons that healthcare has been slow to utilize social media.  There are concerns about HIPAA and patient privacy.  Some think that the majority of healthcare consumers are not active  in social media.  Others don’t have staff to manage social media, and many can’t measure the effectiveness and ROI of social media efforts.  Among those using it, many have not created a formal strategy for how to use social media.

But here are some notable facts from the report that healthcare providers should take to heart.  Of course, most of those active in social media are women.

Social Media Activity

• 42% of consumers used social media to access health-related consumer reviews.

• 30% have supported a health cause.

• 25% have posted their health experience.

• Younger consumers are more likely to share information.  More than 80% of persons 18-24 are likely to share health information, compared to 45% of ages 45-64.

How Social Media Can Influence Consumer Decisions

• More than 40% said information found through social media would affect the way they dealt with a chronic condition.

• 45% of consumers said information found through social media would affect their decisions to seek a second opinion.

• 41% said social media would affect their choice of physician or medical facility.

• 34% that it would affect their decision about a medication

• 32% that it would affect their choice of a health insurance plan.

The missed opportunity.  Trust is important to consumers, and 61% are likely to trust information provided by healthcare providers.  That trust gives healthcare providers a headstart in social media.  Word-of-mouth is the number one influencer in healthcare decisions, and social media is just one form of word-of-mouth.  Nothing is more powerful than patients sharing their positive healthcare experiences.

Those healthcare providers that can navigate the media landscape have the opportunity to provide meaningful conversations with patients, give meaningful information to consumers and gather important feedback on services.

The Pricewaterhouse Coopers report titled “Social media likes healthcare: From marketing to social business,”  is based on a social media survey of over 1,000 U.S. consumers and 124 members of the eHealth Initiative (eHI) — a national association of industry organizations focusing on health information and technology.

photo credit: CarbonNYC via photopin cc

Marketing Healthcare to Women: Ten Things You Need to Know

Two out of three health care dollars spent by women

There is not a lot of healthcare specific research about women and their healthcare opinions.  That’s unfortunate since 80-90% of all healthcare decisions are made or influenced by women.  Also some 2/3 of women feel that they are misunderstood by healthcare marketers. And two out of three healthcare dollars are spend by women.  I thought it would be helpful to compile some great facts that can help guide marketers who realize the importance of marketing healthcare to women.

1.  Majority of decisions are made by women.  Here’s an overview from a 2010 article in Time magazine: ”Women make the primary health care decisions in two-thirds of American households. They account for 80 cents out of every dollar spent in drugstores and are likelier than men to choose the family’s health insurance. Even when both parents work, wives shoulder 75% of domestic responsibilities, including making the kids’ doctor appointments and getting them there on time. “Women are the main brokers of health care in the United States,” says Dr. William Norcross, a family physician and faculty member at the University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine. “This has long been the case and is probably true elsewhere in the world too.”

2.  Healthcare is generational.  Caregivers may be moms, daughters, wives or sisters.  There is some thought that because women stay more connected to health providers because of childbearing, they stay more in tune with the importance of the regular checkups and take the responsibility for their family.  For marketers, it is important to recognize the role of caregivers by speaking to them.  Currently some 75% of baby boomers are involved in raising their grandchildren.  And Millennial Moms are counting on their moms for help in making decisions.

3.  Emotion in advertising reigns over rational thinking.  We all know that most of typically buy with emotion and rationalize the purchase with facts.  But in healthcare, there is so much that we can’t know.  Recently I conducted focus groups with hospital users.  The truth is that the only thing that hospital patients can actually measure is care, concern, responsiveness, respect, and outcome.  They want to see authenticity in advertising – true stories, people like themselves.

4.  Using the color pink is not marketing to women.  So many times, the solution for making an ad targeted to women is to use women in the photography, use pink in some scripty logo and resort to cliche phrases.  No doubt that Susan G. Komen has taken the color pink to a new level and now owns the color pink.  When you can get NFL players to wear pink cleats and get the White House to light up pink, you are on to something.  But as the past few days have shown, a brand represents more than just a color.   For marketers, pink is not a strategy, it’s a stereotype.   There is a study that actually says that when we use the color pink connected to cancer, women know it is dedicated to them and subconsciously go into denial. The point here is that wrapping your product in pink and bling does not mean marketing success.  Women want to be able to see themselves or their need expressed in the advertising.

5.  Families are not nuclear anymore.  Today, 41% of all births today are to unwed mothers.  We are finding that today’s family is not the typical two parents and two children anymore.  More women are the head of household.  A 2010 Pew Research survey found that 52% of Millennials say being a good parent is “one of the most important things” in life. Just 30% say the same about having a successful marriage — meaning there is a 22-percentage-point gap in the way Millennials value parenthood over marriage. If you are marketing healthcare to women, don’t rely on traditional family photos, and don’t forget the importance of diversity.

6.  Smartphones rule.  If you haven’t noticed, smartphones now comprise one out of every three phones.  And with this easy access, 16.9 million access health information through mobile devices.  Some 17% used their phones look up health or medical news.  That number marks a 125 percent growth rate over the same three month period in the previous year. The research firm comScore found that about 3 in 5 or 60 percent of the mobile health information seekers were under the age of 35.

7.  Social media is Word of Mouth!  A recent study from Lucid Marketing and HeardItFromAMom.com confirmed how women share health information.  The report finds that technology that connects friends is a top choice for moms seeking health-related information.  The research shows that  84 percent of Moms often share health related information via email and 69 percent often share via Facebook. Email and Facebook are also the places where they most often hear recent news – email (83 percent) and Facebook (76 percent). And here is the most important stat – 63% of Moms believe word-of-mouth received from other moms and 56% are likely to pass it along.

8.  Peer to peer recommendations have more weight than national awards. Yes, awards can be important but given a choice between Healthgrades and your best friend, women will choose the best friend’s advice.  In fact, they may prefer any peer recommendation more.  Holly Buchanan, coauthor of The Soccer Mom Myth – Today’s Female Consumer: Who She Really Is, Why She Really Buys, notes that women tend to have a “longer checklist” of important factors when shopping, which explains why Web sites with a healthy selection of reviews fare better among women shoppers. “The copy in the review is talking about things further down the checklist that the actual product review does not cover,” Buchanan points out.  A preference for peer-to-peer recommendations on products and purchasing goes beyond the company Web site for many women consumers. A BlogHer study also determined that 35 percent of women trust a product review from a blogger more than a user-generated review on a company Web site. Falling shortly behind was a status update from a friend via social media.  According to Quandcast, about 23 million American women are weekly readers of or contributors to blogs, while 16.8 million maintain a consistent presence on message boards and forums.

9.  All research starts online.  Women go online first to gather information.  In every healthcare study I conduct, I find out the number of women online researching is growing.  We don’t seem to buy anything without gathering information first.  So for marketers, that means that your brand presence and the content you provide is crucial.  And they compare your website with the all-star sites like Mayo Clinic, WebMD and Cleveland Clinic.  Keeping your website up-to-date and informative is crucial.  Also having a presence on social media is important.  And having a regular flow of publicity is crucial.

10.  Digital advertising is very important because women are online.  Digital advertising is still not included on many healthcare campaigns.  I know, it’s incredible, isn’t it?  When your target is online 24/7, you have to have a presence in search engines and in online advertising.  Women are actually more engaged online than men are.  And those digital ads should lead you to important information, videos, instruction and more valuable content.

Marketing to Women: Circle of Friends Keeps Growing

I had an increasingly frequent and enjoyable experience this past week.  I met one of my online friends, Jen Myers, for coffee this week.  It was our first face to face meeting, because although we have corresponded through social media for quite some time, we had not met in person.  Jen is a great business woman, Mom and socially conscious person.  I met her originally because of her ability to use her coupon skills to help fill her local food bank, and now she is part of the growing Daily Deals for Moms.

Average Facebook User Has Never Met 7% of Friends.

Evidently my experience is not too rare.  A just-released Pew study on the ways people use social networking found that on average Facebook users have about 229 Friends, with the majority of their total friends list being comprised of people they know, but the average Facebook user has never met 7% of their Facebook friends in real life.  The friends they know come from the following groups:   22% of old high school friends, 12% extended family, 10% coworkers, 9% college friends, 8% immediate family, 7% people from extracurricular groups and 2% being neighbors.

What is remarkable about women having virtual friends is that for the first time in history, women’s social networks are expanding, at all ages.

Recent research from VibrantNation.com shows that boomer women are the first generation of women in history whose social networks are expanding at mid-life and beyond. It seems that mid-life women, such as myself, are in personal contact with at least 46 persons a month, and 65% share information online with others in their network.  One of the most important facts about boomer women is their reliance on consumer reviews if the source is knowledgeable/experienced. They rely on references on websites like Amazon.com (70%), eBay.com (54%) and TripAdvisor (27%).

It’s such an interesting phenomena that women of different ages, lifestyles and cities who share common interests can meet online and develop friendships.  That’s why women rule social media and will continue to make strong online relationships.