We have more communication channels to reach our customers than ever before—but that doesn’t mean that it makes sense to use all of them for every campaign. Before choosing a platform, we need to ask: “Who is my customer?” and “How do they get for information?”
A smart example of this communication platform strategy in action is how U.S. children’s hospitals are using the right tools to reach patients. It’s not easy to connect children with health messages outside of a controlled environment. So children’s hospitals looked at children’s environment and leveraged the insight that young children often play on their parents’ mobile devices—cell phones and/or tablets. They identified the mobile platform as an interactive channel to educate children, promote the hospital and connect with parents. When working with children’s health, although the child is the patient, the parent is the “customer.” Using the mobile platform became a way to reach both parent and child.
MobiHealthNews recently published an article detailing the top 10 patient apps from U.S. children’s hospitals, including games on how to identify poisons from Kosair Children’s Hospital in Louisville, KY and how to identify common safety hazards around the house from Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, WI. C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital in Ann Arbor, MI is targeting parents, creating apps for them to manage their children’s health, such as Return2Play which allows parents to track symptoms and activities and write journal entries while their child recovers from a concussion.
This all goes back to knowing your customer’s environment, habits and influencers—what are the entry points and how is information best shared? In an age where there is a lot of noise and various ways to hear it, it’s best to focus your efforts where it will provide the most value to your customers.
