DEV Community: Newfire Global Partners

Healthcare Marketing Tips in 2021

Newfire Global Partners — Wed, 14 Apr 2021 15:30:41 +0000

The healthcare industry is constantly changing and growing. And while you might provide a wholly unique offering, along with an excellent team and value proposition, you may still be missing the mark in the absence of a data-backed marketing strategy.

That’s why we’re sharing some essential insights, derived from our broad background in marketing for healthcare and medical organizations. Major overhauls to your business model, operations, or marketing budget are likely not necessary. Instead, we suggest small, strategic changes that can ultimately have a significant impact.

Ideate your strategy

It might appear difficult to compete in a world where big brands cater to the customer with a rollup of hundreds of medical services. However, we see smaller, innovative organizations and digital health startups find effective ways to compete with these giants. It takes real expertise, a great offering, and strategic marketing tactics.

To keep your customer pipeline flowing, start by conducting an audit of your products and/or service offerings. Beyond gaining a better understanding of your business, you’ll also get a better sense of the marketing personas —your target audience— that will eventually become the focal point of your marketing activities.

Take a look at your current patients / customers to get a sense of who they are:

What’s the average age?
What is the average income level?
How are they paying us?
What are their primary concerns?
What are their life goals?
How do they consume information?

By answering questions like these, you’ll start building a basis for your marketing strategy to achieve the most return for your marketing investment. For example, if you discover you have a majority millennial audience, you might consider paying for social media marketing and building a mobile-first website. On the contrary, if you’re audience is predominantly Gen X-ers, promoting your brand via search ads in Google and Bing is also a good idea.

Pro Tip: In general, nothing will get new people to you faster than a brilliant website that indicates who you are, what you do, and how they can find you. Prior to booking an appointment, more than 75% of patients use search engines. Your website should clearly communicate your offerings so you begin to rank in search engine result pages.

Narrow your segmentation

After gaining a deeper understanding of your target audience, you’ll be able to start developing more narrow segmentation for both advertising campaigns and email marketing. When sales and marketing teams are equipped with detailed intel, they can build better messaging to those who are most likely to make a purchase. The approach should be focused on showing people how your solution will benefit them by using succinct and concise wording.

Additionally, it’s useful to equip your marketing team with demographic data for a deeper level of segmentation. For example, a patient downloads a specific guide on oncology types from a lead magnet, or a user registers for one of your thought leadership webinars – now you can use that information for segmenting purposes.

Keep the buyer’s journey on track

The road to making a sale to healthcare facilities is often a long, detailed one. Medical professionals expect extensive information and sometimes clinical evidence that demonstrates why your product or service is the right choice. Conversely, when healthcare organizations are selling to consumers, it’s an incredibly personal journey that requires empathy and true value output. Marketers have to be prepared in both situations.

The B2B sales process likely begins with an initial email optimized to capture the attention of a busy medical professional who is likely giving it a quick glance on their mobile device. Messaging and design should tie together, conveying why your particular speciality is worthwhile (i.e. what unique value are you providing?). A quality call to action then encourages a reader to take the next step.

Marketing and sales teams typically achieve results when they have the resources to form strong relationships with healthcare professionals and guide them through this extended purchase path. A data-driven marketing strategy points the way toward better campaigns.

Create meaningful content

Did you know that thoughtful content is (still) king? Over 20% of users employ ad blockers, so placing a fancy banner or pop-up is not enough to attract new people to your key offerings. In a world filled with promotional noise, it’s never been more difficult to get your value proposition heard. Whether it’s tips and tricks about telemedicine usage, new diagnostics options, or general industry news — every piece of educational content will boost your brand awareness and generate people to your website.

At this stage, with your strategy and audience segmentation in mind, a content marketer can work to get your offerings to the right audience at the right time. For example, if you’re a local clinic in a highly-populated area, common symptoms and long-tail keywords (such as ‘how do I know if I have…’) will be super effective. If your target audience is located in a more complex area, consider focusing on keywords with a high search volume while paying for more specific keyword search ads. For example: you’re a family practice located in Austin, Texas. We’d recommend crafting content and marketing campaigns around keywords like “top family clinics Austin,” “best family practices Texas” or “pediatrician Austin list.”

Pro tip: Each piece of content should go beyond the website and be repurposed for social media platforms, guest posts, and email campaigns.

Institute multichannel approaches and customer touch-points

Note: most people do not convert on the first interaction. Think about the last purchase you made. Unless it was a pack of gum at your local convenience store, you probably put some thought into it. You might have researched your alternatives and complementaries, considered the ROI, debated its necessity. This is true for anyone interested in your offerings. To get in the consideration set of your audience, consider multichannel marketing approaches such as online chatbots, landing page contact forms, social media advertising and group interactions, digital retargeting, email marketing, and your standard offline brand awareness tactics. Anything that offers a consistent user experience and increases customer engagement is key to the success of a healthcare marketing campaign.

Additionally, consider providing your audience with more touchpoint options—from website to mobile app—to enhance their experience and increase engagement rates. Although many people love to contact chatbots, some go straight to Facebook or Google to report issues they have with your business. Keep all options open and show appreciation towards your customers, and the result will pay off.

Pro Tip: Providing contact information on your website, including a phone number, will vastly benefit your SEO rankings and user experience.

Craft unique messaging for social media

It’s helpful to have one of your managers devote a couple of hours weekly to manage your social pages by replying to comments and messages, and sharing announcements. However, that’s likely not enough to turn visitors into customers. We recommend building a social media healthcare marketing plan.

A lot of healthcare professionals get bogged down with paperwork, making social media efforts feel like less of a priority. However, in our opinion, social media remains a vital part of business growth. Let’s look at the facts:

42% of customers use social media next to Google to view health-related reviews (PwC)
84% of people say that they’re more likely to purchase a product or service by watching a brand’s promo video (Wyzowl)
24% of patients look at before and after images of other patients (PwC)
70% of millennials trust social media influencers for recommendations and advice (DMI)

That last point explains why more and more healthcare professionals are growing their businesses by becoming thought leaders on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram. Consider investing in social media thought-leadership activities and building relationships with other influencers who can showcase your offerings and communicate your unique messaging.

Wrap up
At its core, your marketing strategy should identify and understand the drivers of your key audience and personas. That’s how you can effectively make content that meets their needs.

Producing concise educational content—from blog articles to short explainer videos—is a great way to attract new people to your business. But first, start by making sure your website is (1) mobile responsive, (2) clean, and (3) communicates your value proposition with simple and direct language.

Finally, we recommend social media marketing to boost your brand awareness and attract new customers. Review platforms like Facebook and Google should also be considered to control the narrative around what people say about your offerings online. When done correctly, social media marketing campaigns can increase engagement rates for your healthcare product.

Don’t know where to start when it comes to building a comprehensive marketing strategy? Contact one of our marketing experts for a free consultation.

Source: https://www.newfireglobal.com/learn/healthcare-marketing-tips-in-2021/

Immediate Steps to Strengthen Your Data Security

Newfire Global Partners — Wed, 14 Apr 2021 15:03:08 +0000

Data security is no longer just about the confidentiality of your information. It encompasses operational resilience, commitment to best-in-class data security practices, and the enablement of ethical principles across the organization. Despite massive investments of time and money, this topic remains a frustrating pursuit for many organizations. The pandemic-induced increase in remote work highlighted many of the potential issues with data privacy and security. Cloud access, ransomware, and data mishandling became threats as teams moved to remote work, and therefore expanded potentially breachable surface area.

Here we’ve outlined some trends that executives and data security specialists might find useful, along with immediate steps to prepare for or tackle them.

But first, let’s start with the basics.

Do You Know Your Enemy?

What is data security?

We define data security as a way of thinking about and dealing with today’s cyber threats. It implies various techniques for protecting information from unauthorized access, including the hardware security on your database servers to the access control and secure architecture of your software. At the top, it is regulated by organizational data policies that often derive from governmental regulations. Proper data security is about securing your information without limiting the ability to capitalize on it and ensure end-user privacy.

Data security relies more on the foreseeing and preventing of potential threats than merely complying with standard security practices. Proper data security requires the application of practices like data encryption and compliance monitoring. The ultimate goal is to defend your organization from cyberattacks – malicious attempts to damage, steal, or destroy sensitive corporate information.

Why is data security important?

Current day hackers are driven by the idea of monetizing information, which means they go far beyond credit card scamming or social media phishing. In 2021, we define a cyberattack as a complex raid led by professionals that innovate faster than their targets.

The volumes of data we operate are constantly growing, driving a need for secure data governance. Your cybersecurity expert should ensure the data privacy of your company, working to protect against cyberattacks as well as the reputational impact of a breach

What is a data breach?

A data breach is an incident that exposes an organization’s sensitive corporate data to the unauthorized public. The breach not only affects enterprise itself, but can also expose additional individuals such as patients or customers.

These days, technologies are being created sometimes faster than we can protect them. One CITL research study finds that many new digital products and tools are going to market with minimal security testing. A breach happens due to weakness in the technology itself or how it’s being utilized.

However, even if your back-end works perfectly, human error due to poor digital habits can compromise the whole resource or network. Without a cultural shift on the one side and data-savvy leadership on the other, you’re almost guaranteed to be at risk.

Preventing a data breach starts with the comprehensive understanding of how these breaches occur. There are various myths about data breaches occurring due to an external hacker attack, however some of the most common causes include:

A lost or stolen device such as an employee’s unencrypted laptop unlocked smartphone or hard drive.
Accidental misuse such as an employee borrowing a colleague’s laptop without proper authorization. While the misuse was unintentional, the data should be considered breached.
Malicious intervention, which occurs when a person purposely shares sensitive data to affect an individual or a company. While such persons might have legitimate authorization for data usage, their intent is malicious.

What can you do when facing a data breach?

While every organization is vulnerable to complex cyberattacks, a company’s board and executive team should be prepared to identify the key disruption points and to solidify immediate response tactics. Here are a few tips to start:

Immediate Steps to Protect Your Data

Ultimately, company leadership is responsible for managing cyber threats and related business risks. It is critical that an organization’s leaders are knowledgeable about data security, and are sufficiently aware of the state of cyber resilience within the organization. To assess the impact of cyber attacks on your business, there are some immediate steps you can take.

Secure sensitive data architecture

While modern data management tools help businesses capitalize on their data and reduce TCO, keeping information safe is still a major challenge. It requires a scalable and streamlined process that starts with the data provisioned. Make things more manageable for your data science team by automating routines and enabling them to assess risk by sharing the big picture of your data landscape.

Additionally, it’s critical to collect protected data with mature defensive practices. Most modern data protection solutions are built with secure options by design. Don’t know what fits best for you? Schedule a complimentary call with one of our specialists for some expert insights.

Finally, it’s necessary to consider data landscape monitoring. Are your deployment models flexible and secure at the same time? Can you monitor your data activity? Are you in control of access to sensitive data? Agentless architecture is easier to deploy, while agent-based architecture won’t compromise your bandwidth because of local data collection. Each architecture has its pros and cons, yet they can still monitor and secure your data sources without burdening your infrastructure teams.

Learn best practices for destroying organizational data
Once information is no longer needed, it should be disposed of properly. Failure to properly destroy organizational data will lead to compliance issues, breaches, and additional expenditures. Some of the core disposal practices include:

Data overwriting: One of the easiest and cheapest options for general purposes. It can be done by software to clean the entire storage or just a specific set of files. Generally, data overwriting is cost-efficient and a climate-friendly option for small tasks. However, overwriting large data storage isn’t necessarily 100% secure. In addition to ‘blind zones’ (the inaccessible zones of every hard drive), there’s also the chance for unexpected data change. Additionally, note that overwriting only works when a hard drive is writable and operable – overwriting won’t work properly on damaged disks.
Data erasing: This method, also referred to as degaussing, is done by a degausser – a machine that disrupts and eliminates magnetic fields stored on tapes. This method of destroying data makes sensitive information completely unrecoverable. However, large data storage requires a solid degausser, which is expensive and can lead to complete equipment outage. Once degaussed, there’s no opportunity for service or replacement warranties. Also note that this method leaves room for human error – even an extra minute of electromagnetic activity can lead to a system breakdown.
Shredding/Crashing/Destroying: One of the most universal ways to get rid of sensitive data is to physically destroy it. Disk melting or shredding makes both storage and data unavailable forever. This method provides the highest assurance of complete data destruction, making it impossible to ever restore. However, it’s also one of the most expensive ways to get rid of critical information, given the high expenditures involved. It can be a good option for short-term data destruction tasks but likely should not be considered as part of a long-term strategy.

Reduce data breach costs

Based on research from the IBM & Ponemon Institute Annual Cost of a Data Breach report, we’ll highlight some of the biggest factors in data breach costs and strategically pinpoint some of the ways to reduce them. In general, we’re seeing average costs for a breach decrease when a company has already invested in advanced cybersecurity services. Given that, we can conclude that the cybersecurity investment cost-efficiency has decreased.

Another important indication from the research is an increasing gap between higher and lower cost breaches. We’re seeing that costs correlate to response time. According to the IBM study, “In 2020, a breach with a lifecycle of fewer than 200 days, on average cost an organization only $3.21 million. But for a lifecycle greater than 200 days, the average cost jumps 30% to $4.33 million.”

Finally, the IBM breach report remarks on the benefits of cloud security. Cloud service providers have a myriad of security benefits ranging from standalone features to complex system solutions. These things speed up the data breach response time and cut the costs for an attack. Are you still considering the right way to move forward with a cloud migration? Get a free consult from our Cloud Engineering experts.

Craft a disaster recovery plan

In a world that expects companies to be continuously functioning, the ability to minimize the impact of disruption and quickly recover is crucial. One Forbes survey finds, “only 42% of global executives are confident that their organization could recover from a major cyber event without it affecting their business”. Formulating a disaster recovery plan is exactly what you need to respond to and recover from the complexities of a breach or cyberattack.

A disaster recovery plan (DRP) is composed of detailed instructions to address disruptive incidents (access lost, power outage, cyberattack, natural disaster). In short, any event that leads to brand damage, lost revenue, or customer dissatisfaction can be treated as a disruption. Your DRP becomes a roadmap for rapid recovery, regardless of the source. A DRP focuses on all types of operational disruption and enables launch instructions for anyone.

While plans will differ according to industry and organizational structure, there is a general sequence that any standard DRP will follow:

Outline the major goals of your plan. Write a list of key points using the example in the image above.
Highlight the staff members responsible for data processing in your organization and outline a critical list of applications and assets.
Document inventory, including manufacturers, serial numbers, and costs.
Include detailed backup procedures for each IT service, recovery action procedures, and ways to restore the entire IT system
After assessing any damage, the organization should rebuild its processes and create/test a new DRP.

Establish a security-first culture

Cybersecurity solutions can’t guarantee your operational security as long as there is a human component. Employees, including leadership, make individual decisions about what page to visit, what resource to trust, and how much to invest in data security practices. That’s why building a security-first culture and enforcing the right data policies are critical.

It means establishing a framework of habits that lead people to behave in a way that enhances organizational cybersecurity, not threatens it. We like to refer to this as ”cybersecurity consciousness.” Security becomes a matter of mutual benefit not only internally, but also on external projects. No more last-minute guesswork or staying silent while unsure about the safety protocol.

Pro tips:

Cultural transition doesn’t happen overnight. It requires continuous communication that starts with listening carefully to the biases, assumptions, and concerns of your staff.
Ask some of the C-suite / company leadership to set cybersecurity as a standing agenda item at board meetings. Show the issues it addresses and how it may affect your business goals.
Educate your employees on cybersecurity best practices at their workplace.
Have HR organize company-wide training events and provide insight on employee reactions.

Marketing specialists can provide a strategy and roadmap for promoting cybersecurity culture across the organization – from email campaigns to webinars and PDF-guides.

To Sum It Up
Although you may have a few techies in your IT department, even a single mishandled email can handicap your budget and reputation. No matter where and how your organization operates, there are well-documented strategies to maintain security, even in the face of a potential breach.

Secure-first digital transformation requires operational, technological, and cultural change. Safeguarding this growth and keeping data security at the top of the agenda requires rethinking the technology stack and implementing agile processes. Ultimately, business leaders can (and should) drive change and innovation in cybersecurity just like other aspects of the business.

Source: https://www.newfireglobal.com/learn/immediate-steps-to-strengthen-your-data-security/

How to Create a Disaster Recovery Plan

Newfire Global Partners — Wed, 14 Apr 2021 14:24:37 +0000

Losing sensitive data is any organization’s worst nightmare. However, the quickest way to recover after any type of disaster - from cyberattack to hurricane or building fire - is to have a business continuity plan (BCP) in place outlining the company’s approach to crises.

And in our opinion, the most important aspect of the BCP is the IT disaster recovery plan. In this article we’ll highlight the key features of the IT disaster recovery plan and how to go about creating one.

What is an IT disaster recovery plan?

The IT disaster recovery plan (IT DRP) is a documented process used to outline the recovery path of IT infrastructure in case of disaster.

An IT disaster recovery plan is the lynchpin of organizational business continuity strategy that maintains (at least) a minimum level of service while restoring the usual operations. When businesses fail to put an IT DRP in place, they risk losing reputation, funding, and customers if/when disaster strikes.

Why is IT disaster recovery so important?

The overarching benefit of an IT DRP is that it dictates detailed, accurate, simple, and up-to-date information about your organization’s IT operations. This document should have a coherent format and be easily consumable for employees, allowing them to be ready to take actionable steps when necessary

A solid IT disaster recovery plan can help your organization:

Minimize interruption to normal operations and establish alternative operations to utilize if necessary
Limit the extent of a cyberattack or natural disaster
Train staff in emergency procedures
Cut costs regarding relief efforts

These types of preventative measures will reduce the risk of a man-made disaster and will hopefully improve your customer service by reducing the risk of downtime and securing customer care (and retention!) after a disaster.

How to create a disaster recovery plan

Building an IT DRP requires research, a strong understanding of your organizational risks, and coordination with stakeholders. The plan should be tested and continuously updated by relevant team members.

Consider the following suggestions when creating and testing your disaster recovery plan:

Include the processes for contacting support and escalating issues. This information will help to avoid prolonged downtime.
Evaluate the business impact of application failures.
Choose a cross-region recovery architecture for mission-critical applications.
Identify one specific owner of the disaster recovery plan, including automation and testing.
Document the process, particularly any manual steps. Automate the process as much as possible.
Establish a backup strategy for all reference and transactional data, and test backup restoration regularly.
Train operations staff to execute the plan.
Perform regular disaster simulations to validate and improve the plan.

Key steps to create a successful IT disaster recovery plan

1. Identify critical operations

Begin by identifying the business operations that are critical to the functioning of your organization. Begin by outlining the following:
Comprehensive list of services and products you provide
Any known vulnerabilities that could impact your organization
The extent to which you must operate from your company's headquarters

Determine what data is crucial to keep your business operational in any situation. Consider including the following in your data back up plan:

Business-critical data and assets
Alternative meeting channels
Crisis and post-disaster communications
Proactive security measures

Next, determine the priority level of services and products with the following classifications:
Absolutely mission-critical: The major revenue generators requiring the least amount of downtime possible, measured in minutes or hours.
Semi-important services and products: Minor revenue generators with larger acceptable downtimes.
Low-tier services and products: Little to no revenue-generating impact. These might have a downtime of several hours to days with little or no impact on the mission-critical services and products.

Each tier should have its own service-level agreement detailing potential downtime losses and explaining how the risks will affect business operations and growth. Emphasis should be placed on two key elements:

Recovery Time Objective (RTO): The maximum acceptable time that your services and products can be offline.
Recovery Point Objective (RPO): The maximum targeted period in which data might be lost from an IT service due to a major incident.

This effort may require various meetings with leaders and executives who can help identify what risks would impede operations in their department. To ensure accountability, we recommend establishing someone on your team to be responsible for the planning process, which includes defining the essential elements of your business, the sensitive data assets, and a financial plan to maintain disaster recovery.

2. Evaluate disaster scenarios

A one-size-fits-all IT DRP doesn’t necessarily work for all scenarios. That’s why it’s critical to evaluate a variety of scenarios, review how they impact your business and how to react to each, and formulate several DR plans.

Here are a few examples of the types of disaster scenarios your IT DRP could/should cover:

Natural disasters (fire, hurricane, Datacenter destruction)
DDoS attack and cyberattack
Hardware or software failures
Human factor

We recommend working closely with department leaders to identify possible scenarios and formulate procedures for each. As a result, you’ll gain a big picture overview of your recovery objectives, timelines, and processes.

3. Create a communications plan

In the case of disaster, it’s critical to keep staff, suppliers, business partners, stakeholders, and customers informed of your responses and actions via a thoughtful and efficient communications plan.

As a first step, we recommend defining clearly articulated communications roles. If you’re a small team, you’ll likely appoint just one person (often the business owner, though it’s wise to also identify a back up) to be in charge of all disaster/recovery communications. Within a larger organization, there may be a larger comms team assembled with a variety of disaster-related roles.

When developing a communications plan, consider using a few possible disaster examples, such as:

Example #1: Building fire. In the case of fire/fire damage, you’ve assigned the maintenance supervisor with the responsibility of notifying the CEO. CEO then triggers a cascade of communications to be disseminated to staff.

Example #2: Natural disaster (e.g. hurricane). In this case, daily operations will likely need to be moved to another location. Assign a POC to ensure customers are communicated with and know how to get in touch regarding questions/concerns.

Example #3: Data breach. Your communication plan should include both the required regulatory communications (example of GDPR) and appropriate PR communications to assure stakeholders and customers of the actions you are taking to protect them.

Finally, create a task list using a who/what/when format along with the audiences that should be contacted. Messaging about the situation should be honest and clear, outline consequences, and highlight the action steps you’re taking in response. Ensure your plan can be implemented without delay by preparing templates for press releases, website notifications, emails, and social media.

4. Document Entire Disaster Recovery Procedure

For an IT DRP, these three elements should be addressed:
Emergency response procedures: Outline of the appropriate emergency responses to a fire, natural disaster, or any other activities in order to protect lives and limit damages.
Backup operations procedures: Steps to ensure that essential data processing operational tasks can be conducted after the disruption.
Recovery actions procedures: Steps to facilitate the rapid restoration of a data processing system following a disaster.

Following the identification of a disaster recovery incident, having a documented set of procedures will help carry out the disaster recovery strategy. The DRP should be in accordance with the already established RTO and RPO standards. Both automated and manual processes should be neatly documented for maximum efficiency of the DRP.

It’s critical that at the end of the disaster recovery procedure, all recovered data should be in operational state.

The extent of the appropriate IT DRP for your enterprise will depend on your business impact analysis (BIA). It might be one of the following:

Pilot light: A small implementation in another region that can be easily spun up to take full production traffic.
Cold site: Backup region has sufficient resources when one region goes offline. All backups from the primary region are replicated to the cold site.
Warm site: Backup region has infrastructure setup and configured in offline state. Frequent replications going back and forth in a larger implementation.
Hot site: Both regions may serve the same amount of traffic, but each region has sufficient resources so if one region goes offline, the other region can take all the traffic seamlessly.

As organizations review the options for a given application as well as the impact of cost and budget, it is common for the IT DRP to be updated and changed over time.

5. Plan, test, repeat

Once you’ve developed an IT DRP, we highly recommend testing it out. Simulate a breach or a natural disaster to ensure your plan has no gaps and your team is ready to address any issue. The secret to a strong IT DRP lies in regular reviews and updates, especially when hiring new people, connecting with new suppliers, or expanding to new locations. Ensure that essential data and contact details are always up-to-date.

Think we can help?
Interested in making your organization more resilient by formulating a solid IT disaster recovery plan? Set up a complimentary consult to see if we can help.

FAQ

What is disaster recovery in IT?

A disaster recovery plan is a set of policies, tools, and procedures to enable the recovery of vital IT infrastructure following a natural or human-induced disaster. While often included as part of an organization’s business continuity plan, it can be a standalone policy, especially useful for tech-first products and organizations.

What is included in an IT disaster recovery plan?

A strong disaster recovery plan is impossible without recovery time objectives (RTOs) and recovery point objectives (RPOs). These data points refer to the amount of time needed to recover all applications (RTO), and the age of the files that must be recovered for normal operations to resume (RPO). Next, your disaster recovery plan should include inventory, staff roles, response procedures, and a sensitive information list. Everything should also be covered by a proper crisis communication plan.

What are the five major elements of a typical disaster recovery plan?

The five major elements of a typical IT disaster recovery plan include:

Identify critical operations
Evaluate disaster scenarios
Create a communications plan
Develop a data backup and recovery plan
Plan, test, repeat

In addition, it is good practice to have an action plan defining the disaster recovery process in a simple way.

What is the purpose of disaster recovery?

The main purpose of the DRP is to craft a set of procedures required to get each part of the business up and running again after a disaster. Steps to resuming operations may differ based on the type of disaster, whether natural (e.g. tsunami or hurricane), server failure, data breach or global power outage, so every scenario requires its own IT disaster recovery plan.

Source: https://www.newfireglobal.com/learn/it-disaster-recovery-plan/

Actionable Healthcare SEO Tips to Outrank Competitors

Newfire Global Partners — Wed, 14 Apr 2021 14:07:04 +0000

What is healthcare SEO?

When searching for a healthcare company, clinician, or product, many people simply Google their closest or most suitable option. If your website appears on the top of the list, chances are you’ll get a lot of traffic likely resulting in customers. If your website is not at the top, you can assume that you’re losing new customers/users to your competitors.

Healthcare SEO is a set of practices that optimize your website to increase both the quantity and quality of your traffic from Google’s organic results. Simply put, SEO drives free and passive customers and/or patients to your website.

Utilizing medical SEO to outrank your competition

If you aren’t capitalizing on organic traffic from Google, you’re losing your customers/patients to the competition. That’s why we recommend medical SEO approaches as critical to any type of healthcare service or product. While medical SEO may not be complex, it takes time and attention to fine-tune your website for a Google search. In this article, we’ll show you how to beat out the competition and establish your digital presence, ultimately making people fall in love with your brand.

Medical keyword research

If nobody is searching for your content, you won’t get any organic traffic. Keywords are the cornerstone of a successful healthcare SEO, so it’s crucial to be in the know about the language your patients/customers use when Googling your product or service. 91% of content gets no traffic from Google, research says.

To land in the other 9%, start by thinking about how your target audience searches for your business. A good practice here is to look at the keywords your competitors are already using by Googling for one of your primary keywords and then seeing who’s on the top. Another option is to use a free keyword research tool like Google Keyword Planner. Plug in one of your keywords and see how it pulls ideas from the Google keyword database.

These approaches are a good start because they often generate tons of keyword ideas, but they can’t drill down which ones might be best for you. That’s where keyword metrics come in. Start out with free trials for tools like SEMrush or SimilarWeb to narrow things down and understand what keywords will work best for your service/product. Consider these metrics to get a better understanding of the average number of times a keyword gets searched and how many clicks it gets from your potential customers:

Search volume (starting from 1K)
Keyword difficulty
Cost-per-click (CPC)
Clicks volume

Pro tip: When working with doctors or healthcare companies on SEO, we search for the keywords in a spectrum of 3-6 months to better capture the current healthcare-related trends.

Write new and update old content based on keywords
Customers rarely search for your exact offering, then go directly to your website and perform the desired action right away. Instead, they go on a digital journey that begins by learning your brand exists, getting to know how your product/service can solve their problem, and reviewing any concerns or questions they may have about your offering. At that point, they may move forward to become your customer.

If you create helpful content that people are already searching for, it has the potential to drive a lot of traffic. Even when your marketing team takes a short break or switches its focus to another set of activities, the traffic will continue to flow.

Here are three main approaches to capitalize on SEO for doctors, medical practices, or digital health products by refining your content regularly:

Only write things that matter. If your content answers your readers’ questions while being SEO-friendly – it will definitely outperform your competitors’ content.

Update your old content. Update and/or revise your blog posts at least every 6 months in accordance with new keywords and trends.
Make content revision a cycle, not a single activity. Search engines love when content is regularly updated, resulting in better rankings.

Title tags & meta descriptions optimization

Tags are snippets of code that tell Google important things about your website. While every page has title tags and meta descriptions, they can only be spotted in the code. Google states, “Titles are critical to giving users a quick insight into the content of a result and why it’s relevant to their query. It’s often the primary piece of information used to decide which result to click on, so it’s important to use high-quality titles on your web pages.”

While titles are clearly significant, there are many benefits in the meta description as well. Because the meta description summarizes the content of a page, Google uses it for the snippet in a search result. Although descriptions are not a ranking factor, they concisely inform and interest your potential customers/patients by providing a summary of the page.

Pro tip: Add keywords to your title and meta descriptions, ideally at the start of the sentence. Monitor the user’s intent when searching for an exact keyword and ask yourself: is this high-volume keyword really important for my product/service? Is there a way I can choose some middle-volume ones as well?

Utilize internal links

Internal links send users from one page to another on the same domain. While they may not look particularly important, when utilized correctly internal links enable you to rank higher in search results.

In their “How Google Works,” search engine developers explain that the robots must constantly search for new pages and add them to their list of known ones. Many pages are discovered when Google’s crawler robot follows a link from a known page to a new one. Unknown pages are called “orphans,” and it’s crucial to identify and remove them as they come up.

Internal links on your website – from the blog post to the service offering page and vice versa – must be optimized and structured. Think of it as a triangle with the most valuable pages at the top. Link the pages with relevancy in mind, prioritizing the most important web pages that highlight your value proposition and drive users to them from your blog posts. For example, if your call to action is a contact form or an appointment schedule frame, place it across your blog posts and hyperlink related words in your articles.

Images and video optimization

There’s a paradox with Google’s search ranking rules: the content should be optimized for users, not for robot crawlers. However, by adding more context about the media you upload, search results can become much more useful, which leads to higher-quality traffic to your website.

Here’s how you can optimize your medical search engine optimization without compromising the user’s experience:

Context is king. Make sure the video or image you’ve provided is relevant to the topic of the page. Google discourages pages where imagery or text is out of the original context.

Content is also king. Informative and high-quality content is crucial to get better Google rankings, as its algorithms consider the content quality when ranking the imagery.

Ensure you have all the “alts” in place. “Alt” attributes not only improve the accessibility of your webpage but also boost your topic relevance.

Pro tip: Embed video content to your website pages – the more time users spend on your page, the better rankings it will have.

Website speed & mobile use optimization

Since Google rolled out its mobile-first indexing algorithm, it became essential to have a mobile-first design, interface, and text. This has become especially important for content writers who used to craft long text. Now, to provide the mobile audience with a good user experience, you need to build short sentences and compact paragraphs. Font sizing and white space should also be fine-tuned because more than half of mobile searchers are more likely to contact you if you have a mobile-friendly website.

As the study indicates, mobile devices currently account for up to 70% of the total digital media time in the US. If that’s not an argument, what is? Note that optimizing your website for mobile-first indexing doesn’t require any sophisticated efforts. Just ensure that you have a responsive design, mobile-friendly content, and buttons that are large enough to tap.

Pro tip: Leverage the browser caching, compress your images (we recommend this free tool), and test your website performance on Google PageSpeed.

High quality backlinks

Backlinks are the opposite of internal links – they link from a page on one domain to another. For example, when Wikipedia links someone to your website, then you have a backlink from Wikipedia.

Backlinks help you to (1) get better rankings, as Google sees backlinks as votes of confidence; (2) boost discoverability of your website, because crawlers love to revisit popular pages; and (3) drive referral traffic, where other web pages point their readers to your website as a subject matter expert. You might notice how we did it with Google across this article.

To make the most of your backlinks, consider the following steps:

Add your website to free healthcare-related listings and ratings.
Repost and publish your content on other platforms like ClinicAll, Healthcare in America, or Tincture.

Submit your articles or op-ed content pieces to local healthcare authorities, including digital magazines, newsletters, and blogs.

Local SEO

Almost half of all Google searches are local. And while many healthcare organizations don’t claim their Google My Business (GMB) listing, we highly recommend doing so and here’s why:

Once Google instituted their “Medic update,” the search engine marketing for healthcare became much more complex. Google sees healthcare as a YMYL-category (“your money – your life”), meaning Google considers it closely tied to well-being, happiness, and quality of life.

Google’s search engine requires the YMYL-category websites to follow strict quality standards and ranks them based on their expertise, authority, and trustworthiness. It becomes especially challenging for organizations who offer a wide array of treatment services – being a know-it-all website for Google’s algorithms is almost impossible.

That’s where local SEO comes into play. It helps landing pages or outdated websites continue to get traffic from potential clients. As a quick tip to fine-tune your GMB section, consider these questions:

What are our core keywords? Why do we get the most traffic from them? What is the search volume for our core keywords?
What questions did our customers Google this month? Can we answer them clearly in our Q&A section?
How quickly are we answering the commentaries on our local page? Can we improve this process?

Wrap Up
Here’s a quick and digestible summary for creating a successful SEO strategy for the healthcare industry:

Conduct deep keyword research for medical terms and questions
Produce thoughtful and consistent content, and continually update and revise past content with new keywords and trends
Optimize meta & title tags for your website
Correct internal link utilizations
Optimize media for different platforms and disabilities
Create a mobile-friendly website with good PageSpeed rankings
Generate high-quality backlinks
Institute a local SEO effort
Don’t know where to start? Check out more of our marketing services offerings.

FAQ

Why do doctors’ offices need medical SEO?

Almost three-quarters of online health searches start with Google. While many SEO rules work well across different industries, there are a few differences for healthcare that should be considered. Read more about it in our “Local SEO” section.

How long does it take for medical SEO to work?

If you are actively investing in creating high-quality content for your website and utilizing backlinks – you should reach Google’s first page within about 6 months.

What’s included in medical SEO services?

In general, many SEO services include:
In-depth competitor research
Keyword research
Content strategy & production
On-page & off-page optimization

Is medical SEO important in 2021?

Yes. Effective SEO strategy plays a key role in helping people make informed and data-backed decisions on where to receive the best care, purchase a healthcare product, or schedule an appointment.

Source: https://www.newfireglobal.com/learn/healthcare-seo-tips/

7 Things We Learned About Data Science in 2020

Newfire Global Partners — Mon, 01 Mar 2021 12:16:55 +0000

It’s been a pivotal year for the data science industry. Framed as 'the sexiest job” of 2020, data science has proven its applicability to a variety of industries – from healthcare to agriculture.

The constantly maturing market requires cohesive end-to-end data science solutions endowed with diverse expertise. For years at Newfire Global Partners, we've been sourcing data, building models, and operationalizing machine learning insights for future-thinking companies. Here are the seven most important things (backed by research) that we've learned about data science throughout this unprecedented year:

#1 – Python Is King

A comparative analysis among 65,000 professional developers has shown that Python remains preferable for 66% of developers. It is more loved than Java, R, and C#!

Python's extensive selection of frameworks and simple syntax makes it easier for programmers to focus on problem-solving, rather than tinkering with complex algorithm testing.

Due to the rapidly growing library ecosystem and collaborative community, Python's popularity for machine learning and data science is projected to continue through 2021 as well.

#2 – Data Management is Time Consuming

While moving from hype to maturity, data professionals have much work to do before actually delivering actionable insights. And a lot of this work is about ingesting, cleansing, and loading chunks of data.

The fact that data wrangling still takes a lot of time negatively impacts overall job satisfaction as well as productivity. We expect an 'effectiveness gap' will emerge so that the industry can start working on a solution.

#3 – A T-Shaped Skill Set Is a Must

A data scientist's routine requires a very diverse skill set - from math and modeling to visualization best practices and proper DevOps deployment. Having a strong handle on these various components will be a must-have skill for a thriving data scientist. The ability to create across disciplines is as important as fluency in core technology.

Nearly half of the CIOs in a Gartner survey said they were in the market for employees with AI skills, yet 37% of those same respondents found such qualifications hard to recruit. In fact, slowed hiring for AI was cited as the biggest barrier to adoption in an MIT Sloan & BCG Henderson Institute study. About 80% of respondents said they lacked the needed skills to manage AI programs.

#4 – Open-Source Is The New Black

As with any development process, data science comes with inherent security challenges. Open-source projects, unlike proprietary software, enable their supporters to fix issues and vulnerabilities quickly. Additionally, a data scientist can use them for experimenting with algorithms without worrying about payments or vendor lock-in.

However, while developers value the speed of innovation coming from open-source solutions, there are security challenges that come along with open-source projects. Data scientists tend to take a more hybrid approach, using both open-source and proprietary software.

#5 – The Value of Data Science Continues to Gain Ground

Demonstrating the effect data science has on an organization's business outcomes is essential. However, the degree to which data scientists feel they can demonstrate the impact of their work varies. In terms of demonstrating value, data scientists in the IT and financial industries have the highest rates, while those in healthtech say they're able to do so only one-third of the time.

#6 – Ethics Should Be Taken Into Account

As the impact of data science grows, it affects our day-to-day business approaches, society, and politics, which brings up some complex questions around ethics. Fairness and personal responsibility are considered must-have soft skills for every data scientist, software developer, or general business executive.

Anaconda's findings show that only 15% of universities are offering ethics training, while business knowledge is also only covered in 15% of data science programs.

As data science becomes increasingly keyed to business outcomes, we suggest investing in training activities geared towards business-related ethical considerations. Ethics is already an essential component of a data scientist's work and will become even more critical in the coming year.

#7 – Social Impact Is A Big Deal

Given the increasing impact of data science in our lives, data professionals grapple with big questions like inclusiveness, job automatization, and information warfare.

According to Anaconda's survey, the bias in data modeling and the impacts to individual privacy rated the highest amongst problems to be tackled in data science.

Forward-thinking organizations should treat ethics, fairness, and open-minded culture as strategic risk vectors. In order to affect change, these considerations should be constantly threaded through data science work processes.

Looking ahead

We’re optimistic that the industry is on track for continued growth and that data science will eventually become a strategic business function. Spreadsheets are finally taking a backseat to data visualization and dashboards providing actionable insights. Embedded analytics has simplified data-driven decision making.

However, many organizations still underinvest in the data-first strategic transformation of their culture and processes. As data specialists, we understand that creating a culture that embraces data is a complex process requiring bold moves and new (sometimes out-of-the-box) ideas. We are experts in crafting a strong data foundation within organizations and tackling specific data issues.

Are you interested in learning more about whether our expertise aligns with your 2021 data needs? Check out more about how we strategically partner with companies around data and let us know how we might be able to help.

Source: Data Science in 2020

Top Trends Shaping the IT Industry in 2021

Newfire Global Partners — Fri, 26 Feb 2021 15:30:36 +0000

2020 threw many of us for a loop. Successful organizations tend to be well-practiced in riding out fluctuations within the market and their industries, but there’s now a novel, increasing pressure to stay competitive within the COVID landscape. Based on my experience serving in senior operating roles and speaking with many business leaders, I anticipate that some COVID-driven changes will likely outlast the pandemic.

These trends are not independent of one another, and organizations are challenged to pivot in new ways. I'll share my findings on what trends I anticipate shaping the IT industry in 2021 and how to manage these changes.

1 – Privacy-First Data Sharing

Data analytics is one of the most impactful trends across industries and many organizations aren't paying enough attention to data privacy. Equipping your business with secure data analytics and processing is essential for alleviating your customers’ most critical privacy concerns.

What to adopt

Data encryption – to satisfy essential criteria in terms of the proportionality and security principles detailed in data protection laws.
Data obfuscation – to limit data disclosure risks
Data tokenization – to replace personal data with pseudonyms during the data processing stage

By capitalizing on the privacy-enhancing technologies (PETs) that embody fundamental data protection principles, you’ll be minimizing personal data usage, maximizing security, and hopefully avoiding the significant fines that can result from data breaches.

2 – Internet of Behavior

A year ago, Gartner predicted an emerging concept coined as the “Internet of Behavior” (IoB). It extends from the IoT concept that gathers data from interconnected devices. Your smartphone, laptop, voice assistant, car camera, and fitness band produce the “digital dust” – a specific set of data that companies are using not just for targeted advertising, but also to measure and assess marketing campaigns and personalized content.

Top data sources for the IoB:

Laptop
In-home voice assistant
House camera
Smartphone
Fitness band
Smart home devices

Beyond powerful insight-generating mechanisms, the IoB presents pervasive ethical concerns in terms of policing and sharing of personal data. As the IoB grows and more detailed data becomes available, scamming will become even more lucrative and will, in turn, be on the rise.

How To Manage:

Consider local data privacy laws
Offer a mutual benefit for customers and data collectors
Select a proper tool for analyzing the IoB data

Not sure where to start? Schedule time with me here for an exploratory chat to see if we might be able to help.

3 – Distributed Teams

I firmly believe in the power of in-person collaboration as well as remote-friendly delivery techniques. In the end, it's not about where, but how the job is done. I see location independence or an “anywhere operations” model as a great opportunity, despite its challenges.

Three pillars of efficient remote operations

Secure access
Multi-factor authentication
Data governance policy
Collaboration excellence
Meeting & workstream solutions
Brainstorming hubs in place of conference tables
Digital whiteboarding
Data-first approach
Workplace analytics
Eliminating time spent in meetings

The most successful work-from-anywhere approach requires reshaping the components of digital collaboration - from infrastructure and management to policies and security practices. While the pandemic has hastened a rise in remote working, it’s also introduced some new challenges, one being in-time communication across time zones. At Newfire Global Partners, we've tackled that by incorporating geographically distributed teams that enable 24/7 operations.

4 – Industrial Automation Growth

Ubiquitous automation is nothing new. Organizations are using it to drive operational efficiency and improve business processes. From my perspective, what’s changing with automation is its ability to adapt and evolve.

As manufacturing and supply chains return to full operation, workforce shortages will create future challenges. Along with AI and robotics adoption, industrial automation will become a promising alternative to operating manufacturing.

Digitization + Connectivity + Machine Learning = Hyper-Automation

Gartner defines 'hyper-automation' as the process of adopting AI/ML practices to automate as many processes as possible. AI-backed hyper-automation will unburden organizations from complex management issues allowing them to orchestrate autonomous operations. Everything that can be automated probably should be automated, in my opinion.

5 – Worldwide Digital Health Adoption

In my earlier days working in healthcare, the industry was known for being slower to adapt and innovate. The pandemic has changed that and the digital transformation currently happening within healthcare has become less of a choice and more of a critical necessity.

"Digital transformation of health care can be disruptive; however, technologies such as the Internet of Things, virtual care, remote monitoring, artificial intelligence, big data analytics, blockchain, smart wearables, platforms, tools enabling data exchange and storage and tools enabling remote data capture and the exchange of data and sharing of relevant information across the health ecosystem creating a continuum of care have proven potential to enhance health outcomes by improving medical diagnosis, data-based treatment decisions, digital therapeutics, clinical trials, self-management of care and person-centered care as well as creating more evidence-based knowledge, skills and competence for professionals to support health care."
– from WHO's “Global Strategy on Digital Health 2020–2025 Report”

Based on the WHO’s predictions for what to expect regarding digital health adoption, we can likely anticipate more IoT systems, machine learning algorithms, and big data processing techniques. As digital health continues to embed itself into every facet of the industry, the demand for innovation will evolve rapidly.

This quote from the WHO’s global strategy report sums things up well: “The vision of the global strategy is to improve health for everyone, everywhere by accelerating the development and adoption of appropriate, affordable, scalable, and sustainable digital health solutions.”

Wrap-Up
The unusual socio-economic challenges of 2020 demand the organizational plasticity needed to navigate this upcoming year. Those who are prepared to pivot and adapt in such a fast-paced environment will weather the crisis. Understanding that all of these challenges are interconnected and interdependent, is the most essential element of business strategy for 2021.

Even during these uncertain times, our company has continued to grow as have many of our partners. Innovation and resilience can prevail during times of change, disruption and even crisis. Does our vision and approach align with your 2021 strategy? Contact us below to explore how we can help you stay ahead of the curve and achieve your 2021 goals.

Source: https://www.newfireglobal.com/learn/top-trends-shaping-the-it-industry-in-2021/

Top 7 Tips for Choosing the Right Healthtech Partner

Newfire Global Partners — Wed, 24 Feb 2021 19:01:55 +0000

Most of us in the industry understand that there’s a gap between technology and medicine — a variety of programming languages, unclear expectations, interoperability challenges, and misconceptions about the role of IT in healthcare. Working with an effective healthtech partner helps bridge that gap.

Top-notch healthtech organizations have the skills, innovative ideas, and industry expertise to help you achieve your business goals. However, finding the right partner to align your company with can be a challenge. Many executives begin their search through an RFP, which has become the industry standard approach. But in our opinion, it’s not necessarily the most useful or most efficient option.

We’ve aggregated our best advice and insights for evaluating healthcare software development companies. We hope it offers some helpful tips for finding a long-lasting, collaborative partner who can ultimately be as impactful as possible on your business outcomes.

How to Choose the Best Healthtech Partner for Your Company: Newfire’s Top 7 Tips

1 – Define your partnership goals internally

Before assessing external partnership opportunities, start by defining the needs and pain points of the companies, patients, communities, or customers you serve. Prepare a checklist of requirements including points such as:

Service scalability and access-from-anywhere option
Patient connectivity practices and cross-platform features
Secure patient data governance and exchange
Authorized-only access
Data encryption in case of cyberattacks
Compliance with industry-standard frameworks (e.g. HIPAA, SOC2, HITRUST)
Activity log
HTTPS+SSL data protection (consider adopting NIST framework)

Finally, be sure to consider how the product will impact your business model and ROI. Many healthcare products look promising when ideating them, yet there are always risks to consider.

2 – Leverage strong tech expertise

Start your search process by simply reviewing a prospective partner’s background, e.g.i.e. testimonials, past projects, and current partnerships. Next up, consider the specific (but unique) skills needed to match your organization’s ongoing goals. If you’re still defining your needs or comparing different technologies, take advantage of a free consultation with one of our experts.

3 – Encourage an innovative mindset

At Newfire we believe that innovation is not an effort - it’s a mindset. Look for a partner who doesn’t just deliver a product by checking boxes.

Get comfortable allowing your partner to think outside the box. It may sound unconventional, but it’s possible to capitalize on your partner’s non-healthcare expertise too. While healthcare is a complex industry, medical software products often benefit from concepts taken from other markets. For example, Lubrizol is a $7B company most people know from its oil and fuel business. But in recent years they’ve focused primarily on pharmaceutical and medical device innovation.

In short, engage with a partner who you can work side-by-side with you to disrupt the market as it continuously evolves.

“When we proposed an idea or a solution, our Newfire team would sometimes push back and say: ‘I don’t think that’s the right approach. Here’s what we could do instead.’ This type of collaboration helped us be held accountable and get things done.”
–Bill Olsen, CTO @ UptimeHealth

4 – Rely on industry-specific quality assurance

A reliable and effective partner will encourage comprehensive user testing to ensure the quality of your product. After a few rounds of high-load user testing, you'll gain insights about how your product is used by real patients in various scenarios. That's how you'll build software that really works.

5 – Prioritize the long haul

Technology is constantly evolving, especially with health data interoperability. We suggest finding a partner that consistently stays current with changes in the IT industry. Having access to distributed talent can ensure that you're able to work on a technical task of any complexity.

A good partner anticipates roadblocks and unforeseen issues as early as the planning stages and far beyond. Organizations aimed at customer success craft their strategic outlook months and years in advance, with an IT partnership often considered priority. Be sure to discuss the support and advisory structures your partner has in place. A flexible and future-conscious IT partner is an invaluable ally. Looking for a relationship with someone who has a vested interest in your success? Find time for a quick chat with our Head of Growth.

6 – Connect the dots between healthcare and software

The most effective partner will connect the dots between healthcare and software. Look for a partner who understands and respects your product development processes, while also helping your team plug into theirs. This is how a solid partner helps to bridge the gap!

7 – Focus on fit – cultural and ethical

We all want coworkers who share our values and work ethic. The same holds true with your partners. Ineffective communication and conflicting values ultimately affect product quality. Here are a few ways to evaluate cultural fit:

Communication style – are they effective or just wasting meeting time?
Do they maintain a problem-solving mindset or are they just “yes-people?”
How proactive are they to understand and implement your ideas?

While interviewing a tech lead, offer an example problem/issue and see how they plan to tackle it. A solid action plan (backed by expertise), eagerness to problem solve, and clear, concise communication are the keystones of the team you need.

Wrap up
Choosing a partner for your healthcare product development is often a time-consuming process. But we don’t think it has to be. Although bridging the gap is important, consider finding a partner that mirrors your organization’s values, ethics, and working style. Blending their vast expertise with your specific experience and long term goals will set your organization on the path to success.

Source: https://www.newfireglobal.com/learn/tips-for-choosing-healthtech-partner/