Have you gone to the ONC HIT Website lately – to check how many systems are certified (Both 2011 and 2014) for Ambulatory Practices? I just did that today at 7 am. I wanted to see the total number, thinking it will be in ‘hundreds’.
3953 ! Whoa!

Granted, this contains Modular, various versions of the same system etc. But my point is, imagine what this does to a Provider that is searching for an EHR system.

Challenge

You – Mr./Ms. Vendor are seeing the effect of this.

• Decreasing Leads
• Decreasing Sales
• Rising Cost of Sales

So, as one of your strategies, you upgrade your website, assemble a team of designers (in-house or expert consultants) to revamp your website. You do the Marketing essentials –

• Target
• Branding
• Messaging
• etc.

Yes, after countless hours of that, tons of money spent, here’s what a provider that visits your site says –

You look just like everyone else. All EMR/EHR is the same. How much is yours? 

After all this, you are still perceived as a Commodity. Not only that, your Online analytics, statistics are the same. Same number of unique visitors, same number of ‘conversions’, i.e. number of people filling out your webforms and/or calling your sales line.

Why? One Word – TRUST

My son is an Interactive Designer. When we were talking about what he does, he said, ‘People think of us as Graphic Designers. Many clients think they know what they want. They just want us to create nice looking website, fancy graphics, something that is cool and attractive. What they need is a Graphic artist, not a Graphic Designer or Interactive designer. My job is to evoke online Trust, which transcends pretty pictures. I spend a lot of time with my clients getting to know their company, their products and more importantly, their clients. That’s when my work starts‘.

Very interesting because why would your online (or email) visitor decide to click and interact? The work of the website is more sublime than the written text. Before your site visitor does anything, there is already something in motion. Those factors are a combination of:

• Have they heard of you before?
• Does your site evoke trust in the first split second? Don’t wing it.
• Tone of voice of the written words must be genuine and conversational.
• Do you have anything of ‘value’ to offer your visitor?
• What have you done to allay Fear?
• Real people and the visitor’s peers talking about your products and services – real testimonials.
• Transparency, or at least a perception thereof.

In the first Second, you will be evaluated and judged – so, unless you do something to make sure you pass this initial split second ‘judgement’, you might as well kiss goodbye to your hard earned marketing dollars.