Healthcare communications and marketing news and information

Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal published an interesting article focusing on how small business owners can leverage social media tools like blogs and podcasts to build relationships with their audiences and attract customers. 

“According to the Journal: “When it comes to generating goodwill between a company, its customers and prospects -- the very essence of public relations -- it's a buyer's market for small businesses. . . Much as the Web has enabled entrepreneurs to sell products independent of bricks-and-mortar retailers and their limited shelf space, so too is it letting them engage the public without the mainstream press or the spinners who court it.”

Steve Rubel of Micro Persuasion is cited in the article as a leading representative of a new breed of public relations specialists that are gearing up to help companies – large and small – take advantage of the brand building potential of the Internet. 
Law Firm Illustrates Power Of Web & Social Media To Drive Business

Another article in today’s Journal focuses on a small Seattle-based law firm Marler Clark and illustrates the ability of blogs to raise a company’s profile and profit margins.  The firm, which specializes in litigating lawsuits relating to food-borne illnesses, is using a combination of online and offline marketing to attract clients.  As news about the E. coli outbreak spread, the firm posted messages on its blog, ecoliblog.com about it.  Once people started to search online for information about E. coli, they found the firm’s blog and sometimes decided to hire it.  According to the Journal:

“One of Marler Clark's first spinach cases came to it via the Internet. Gwyn Wellborn, a 27-year-old escrow officer, was hospitalized in late August with a potentially life-threatening complication from the E. coli bacteria. Her husband, David Wellborn, went online looking for more information on the condition. Clicking around the Internet, he came across a Marler Clark Web site. ‘It was a really good Web site,’ he says. He canceled an appointment he had made with a local lawyer and phoned the firm.

Now other law firms in the food-borne illness area are turning to the Internet and launching blogs and Websites to attract clients. Bill Marler, founder of the firm, said: "This might be the first time when other lawyers say, 'We've got to get Marler off the front page of Google.'"

This is a great case study for anyone looking for metrics on the ROI of blogging and online marketing.