Every action has a reaction in both physics and effective marketing plans, and modern CRM has allowed healthcare marketers to design business rules tailored to individuals at specific stages in their patient journeys. These steps are defined by if/then statements that anticipate an action and adapt the campaign to create a truly "smart" journey.

As an SEO professional focused on the healthcare industry, I regularly come across articles declaring that "SEO is Dead!" For the most part, these are reactionary pieces in response to some sort of shift in the search landscape, such as Google removing access to keyword-level data in analytics. To an extent, these articles are right. SEO is dead. However, it's not that simple.

In 1960, E. Jeremy McCarthy defined the 4Ps conceptual framework for marketing decision-making - Product, Price, Place and Promotion - thereby documenting the fundamental marketing forces that dictate the ultimate success of the product in the marketplace. In the nearly six decades that followed McCarthy's marketing mix concept, those marketing fundamentals have not changed.

Why the keys to innovation, creativity, and self-actualization lie in how we think.

"Story" is a well-worn term in healthcare marketing. We call Facebook posts "stories," sales aids "brand stories" and anyone who creates them "storytellers." We use the term because we want communications to engage and transport with the power of a well-told story. Yet, with the highly regulated language of health marketing, our stories often land flat.