Back to the basics: Health Care Marketing Revisited

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

Most people who work in marketing and advertising have taken at least a few classes related to the subject during their education. Depending on the depth and breadth of that education, many come away with memorable nuggets such as “type in all caps is hard to read” and “newspaper ads should extend above the fold” and “ads should include a call to action.”

All those things are true. Sometimes. But not at all times or in all places or in every situation. Sometimes, a headline demands to speak forcefully to prospects in big, fat, capital letters. And there are times when creative use of space in printed publications outweighs other size, shape, and placement considerations.

And, sometimes, the call to action in marketing communications messages is so clearly evident that a direct invitation is silly. In fact, if you’re advertising a product or service pretty much every person in the free world already knows what you’re up to—running an ad of what you’d like them to do.

Still, there at times when advertisers will insist—based on those old chestnuts of knowledge—that viewers of a video on your web site must be invited to call or, better still(!) visit the web site!

Silly, for certain. Unnecessary, for sure. But, hey, that’s what you learned in school.

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Next time: Of course you care.