Hodgson Helps CDC Respond to H1N1

Hodgson's current client, the American Association of School Administrators (AASA) recently came to us with an urgent request. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) wanted a landing page that would allow schools across the country to provide information on the closings due to H1N1 (swine flu). Hodgson got the request at 3:00pm in the afternoon and by 9:00pm a page was ready to be deployed. In addition, Hodgson created an administrative page that CDC could use to generate an Excel report on closings. Since the CDC is no longer recommending school closure for the H1N1 virus, the page is not currently active. Depending on the severity of flu outbreaks in the fall, it may be put back in service later in the year.

Marketing to Women

In honor of Mothers Day, and all those women (moms or not) who control the purchasing power, I thought I'd share some research I recently came across regarding women, marketing and the internet. According to a recent survey by eMarketer, gender, more than race or ethnicity, is a distinguishing factor of online use, informing online behavior and attitudes.

• There are more women online then men–currently 96 million males are internet users, compared with 103 million females.
• Women visit fewer sites and stay a shorter amount of time than men. They are quicker to abandon sites cluttered by online ads than men are.
• Women are more likely to spread information about products they like through word of mouth and social-networking sites.

Given that most of the layoffs in America have been in male-dominated fields like manufacturing and construction, women may bring home an even greater share of household income in the months to come. I read recently that while women control 80 percent of all purchases, men develop 70 percent of all advertising. I don't think it's impossible for a male marketer to develop a message that's going to be effective in the female market; I just think it's important that marketing teams keep in mind the female perspective and their purchasing power as they develop those messages.

Wine Tasting in the Digital Age

Even when the economy is booming, I'm looking for ways our clients can increase business efficiency through technology applications. With today's budget tightening reality, those solutions are even more critical. I just came across a great example of how the wine industry is using technology to adapt.

As the recession continues to pinch budgets, tech-savvy wineries are moving away from the practice of flying their winemakers around the country for in-person tastings with top critics and are instead conducting virtual tastings online.

Instead of face-to-face meetings, wine critics are shipped the bottles to be sampled, then emailed the tasting notes. If they don't have a webcam, the winery supplies them one, and the winery's tech folks do a test run to make sure everything works. The actual tasting is the same as one conducted face-to-face, except for the webcam connection. The winemaker and critic can still talk about the wine as they taste it, and exchange real time comments on growing conditions and the other factors involved in a particular wine.

In another technology adaptation, an industry group partnered with Twitter Taste Live, an online beer and wine tasting site, to host a real-time wine tasting. A live video feed of the event showed participants on East and West coasts sampling wine. People following along across the country could post their opinions via the site's live Twitter feed. While the online tastings might not have the same atmosphere as the traditional wine cellar set-up–they allow a lot more people access at a much lower cost.

I'm just waiting for the Guinness Taste Live–that's an event I could get behind.

hodgsonConsulting recently launched www.loyalteamrewards.com, a unique employee benefit program that allows dentists to reward their team members for job performance critical to patient satisfaction and practice profitability.

Hodgson was originally contacted by Loyal Patients, Inc. (LPI) for help maintaining their current site, www.loyalpatientsinc.com, a patients' rewards program dentists use to reward patients for behaviors such as keeping scheduled appointments, recommending friends to the practice, and having a healthy check-up. Based on the feedback from this site, LPI knew there was an opportunity to create a second service that would allow dentists to reward their staff members based on 20 key behaviors critical to practice success.

Working with LPI, Hodgson created a design and information architecture for the new site, developed in-depth wireframes, and developed the site's functionality including the interactive forms and database management needed to collect enrollment information, display administrative information to enrolled dentists and team members, and manage billing and reporting.

"During the recession, while many Teams are working harder than ever, many offices find patients are deferring care and practices are coping with flat or even reduced monthly revenue, making it too expensive to increase salaries or pay employee bonuses," said Gary Serota, co-founder of Loyal Patients, Inc. and the Loyal Team Rewards program. LoyalTeamRewards.com gives dentists a cost-effective, efficient tool for rewarding solid job performance and encouraging retention, and allows LPI to fill a critical market niche.

LPI is currently raising its third round of funding to support marketing efforts to bring its PatientRewards and Team Rewards programs to the dental market.