Dear reader,
I hope you are healthy and enjoying your summer.
While I promised to write to you monthly this summer, I got a bad case of COVID and have spent the past 2 weeks in bed.
The latest version of this virus is a trickster.
At first, I thought that I had a bad case of allergies since I had stayed inside due to the bad air days. So I went to business meeting in Brooklyn. By the time I got home, my entire body hurt. I laid down and slept for 3 hours.
Table of Contents | Volume 11, Issue 27
- Major Marketing Dynamics – Summer 2023 To-Date
- Marketing Reads
- Plan Ahead: Mark Your Calendar
The next day, I tested for COVID and watched the telltale red line appear. By contrast, my husband never tested positive for COVID so he could go out with a mask.
So I made a video doctor visit. Wearing a red plaid shirt and a deep tan, the doctor smiled and went through a list of standard questions regarding COVID. Due to my asthma, he recommended that I take a 5 day course of Paxlovid, one of the first COVID drugs.
What he didn’t do is to check my recent medical history. If he had, he would have seen that I had been in the ER recently after getting dehydrated from a bout of food poisoning due to extreme vomiting and diarrhea in the last couple of months.
This illness would have been a red flag not to prescribe Paxlovid since the first side effect of this medicine is extreme vomiting and diarrhea. In fact, one in ten patients presents with this problem.
My husband read the instructions on the medication. Unlike most medications, the information was written in short, easy words and had drawings to help patients understand how to take the medication. The 5 day course of medicine came in 5 separate blister packs.
While I didn’t have much appetite, my husband kept pushing me to drink water and to eat some plain toast to have something in my system. I spent most of the time sleeping.
By Saturday night, my system started to violently rebel. It expelled whatever was in my system at both ends. I couldn’t keep water or ginger ale down. Within an hour of my husband getting me back into bed and cleaning up the bathroom, I’d call him again.
We considered calling 911 but I wasn’t sure that I could stop being sick long enough to get dressed and into an ambulance. We decided not to call 911 because we didn’t want to risk that I would get placed in a unit with people with worse COVID symptoms than me.
By Sunday morning, I was still sick. We called one of my friends who is a nurse at NYU Langone Hospital. She spoke to my husband who explained my symptoms.
“It’s the Paxlovid. Stop taking it immediately!” she responded. Since nothing stayed down, I hadn’t taken any medication after Saturday morning.
When my husband asked if we should go to the ER, she responded that we could do a video ER visit. She patiently walked my husband through the registration and he made an appointment for 1:30pm.
The ER doctor got on the call in green scrubs. When I described my symptoms, he told me that I was experiencing extreme side effects from the Paxlovid. He instructed me to stop taking the medicine.
He prescribed a strong dose of an anti-nausea medicine. He also told me to get as much water and electrolyte drinks down as possible. If I got dehydrated or if I didn’t feel better in 24 hours, I should go to the ER.
When my pharmacy notified me that the medicine was ready, my husband put me in bed. At the pharmacy, he spoke to Veronica, the pharmacist. She recommended Liquid IV for electrolytes
By the end of Sunday, I stopped throwing up. The problem was the new medicine caused other side effects. As a result, I spent most of the week consuming water, Liquid IV and small amounts of apple and rice.
While the COVID most likely cleared up within 5 to 7 days, I was sick longer due to the fact that I had side effects to every medication I was prescribed.
I’m sharing this with you so that you can be prepared to deal with COVID and any other health issue.
Here’s my medical health checklist. Create a separate version for each member of your family. Also, keep a copy on the refrigerator. This is where EMS looks for these papers.
- List of patient’s medical history. Include all major illnesses and surgeries. List all medications with the amount taken and the reason for taking the drug. Include a list of allergies. Add the patient’s average temperature, blood pressure, oxygen rate, height, and weight. At a minimum, have a paper copy of this information. Yes it’s old school but it can save your life especially if your information is locked behind a set of firewalls.
- List of current doctors with phone numbers, addresses and hospital affiliations.
- Signed health care proxy. Include the name and phone number of the designated individual. Also include “Do Not Resuscitate” and “Do Not Intubate forms.”
- Names and phone numbers of people to call in case of emergency.
- Phone number for private ambulance and preferred hospital. If it’s a major medical issue, EMS will take the patient to the nearest hospital for the specific issue.
While this list may seem like overkill, having it can save your life. The goal is to get the doctors the information they need to get you the best possible outcome as quickly as possible.
If you’re traveling, keep 2 copies of this information in separate waterproof bags. Keep one on your person and one in your luggage.
Major Marketing Dynamics: Summer 2023 To-Date
Three major trends define Summer 2023 to-date. As a marketer, it’s important to understand what these factors are and how they are changing the social, cultural and financial environment.
► Climate Change Becomes An Everyday Reality Around The World
While Rachel Carson first rang the alarm about environmental change with her classic Silent Spring back in the 1960s, this summer her forecasts became a daily reality across the globe. .
As the particle-filled toxic smoke from the uncontrollable forest fires in Northern Canada slowly moved south moved into New York City, my husband and I stood mesmerized watching out of our living room windows like we were seated in a movie theater. The sky turned yellow and got darker until it became a reddish orange.
At the peak, we were unable to see the buildings across the street. We remained standing in front of the windows unsure of what we expected to happen next.
About an hour later, the sky started to lighten slowly. But it never totally returned to its normal color. The biggest change: People in the street voluntarily donned masks again.
This sediment filled air has continued to move further carried by the airstream. Slowly it enveloped area after area. While people were warned to remain indoors during the peak activity, no government or business has been able to do anything to stop or decrease this harmful air.
In addition, temperatures during June and July reached new highs, often without any cloud cover or rain. As a result, people have had trouble being outdoors for more than a matter of minutes.
This has put pressure on the energy grids across the US and beyond as people use increased amounts of air conditioning. This has resulted in power outages and fires due to power overuse. At the same time, reservoirs have dipped below normal levels due to the lack rain and people using greater amounts of water to hydrate and stay cool.
Implication:
Everyone and every business around the world must reduce their carbon footprint immediately.
Assess every activity in terms of whether it’s necessary to maintain life and the amount of energy needed to accomplish it.
- Focus energy and water use on key functions. Where possible, time shift activities and energy use to low usage periods.
- Reduce food intake and eliminate food and other waste wherever possible. Expect food and other prices to increase due to drought and other factors.
- Change daily routines. Sleep during the peak heat of the day to reduces the use of energy and other resources.
► Increased, Extreme Partisanship
While the Edelman Trust Barometer has shown increased partisanship over the last 10 years, these divisions have become more extreme. They are increased by political groups and extreme minorities. As a result, there’s an overall lack of trust in organizations and people across the spectrum.
Across ideologies, media entities including social media continue to make the situation worse. The Dominion Voting Machine litigation against Fox News related to the 2020 presidential election revealed the depth and power wielded by media entities to influence and manipulate the views of their audience.
In addition, the case revealed a total lack of fact checking. As a result, “newscasters” are no more trustworthy than the latest social media influencer.
What does this mean for you and your marketing?
- Fill the trust void by fact checking every piece of your content across formats and devices. This includes what your employees say. They represent your organization while they’re at work and when they’re off the clock.
- Stop using advertising and other forms of paid promotion since it’s difficult to determine what’s true and what’s not due to trolls and foreign actors.
- Assess every element of your organization to ensure that it’s fair. This includes examining your salary structure to ensure that it’s merit-based and not unfair to any specific group. Or, it may cause you to lose employees and/or customers.
► Generations Alpha and Z Reach Voting Age And Want Change
The age dynamics across the US and elsewhere continue to evolve. Since 2024 is an election year, expect the Alpha and Z Generations to register and vote in large numbers. They will not only register early but also make sure to help others to do so as well.
Unlike previous generations, these individuals have grown up watching the world change around them and are ready to do something about it.
Expect these new, often first time voters to support and get out the vote for the key issues they believe in.
- Pro-choice rights. “My body, my choice.” Beyond overturning the extreme anti-abortion laws across the US, they will replace these current laws with humane laws that put decision making in the hands of patients and their doctors.
- Equal rights across the board at every level of government. This includes black, brown, immigrant, religious groups and/or sexual orientation. Where allowed by law, they will run for office at local, state and federal levels.
- Fair immigration policy. New immigration policy will take a rational approach across all points of entry for all groups, not just the southern border of the US. These new immigration laws will focus on creating a path to citizenship while ensuring that the US creates and fosters citizens who want to live in the US and to make it a beacon of democracy for the rest of the world.
- Economic distribution. The Alpha and Z Generations have watched their older siblings and peers face lower and lower economic opportunities. They’re unable to pay off their college debt or to move out of their childhood bedrooms. Expect new voters to reduce the economic disparity between the extremely rich and the poor.
- Real gun control. Having grown up with mass shootings at schools and elsewhere, members of the Alpha and Z Generations are ready to get all guns off of the streets and out of homes. Recent data from Utah, shows that self-inflicted gun wounds is the biggest medical problem for men between 25 and 50 in that state.
Marketing Reads
Now is the perfect time to get your marketing organized for budget season and for the end of year promotional push.
Don’t worry we’ve got you covered with these in-depth articles.
► Budgeting. Just the mention of budgeting caused even the most seasoned marketer to break out in a sweat.
Instead, take a deep breath because you’ve got this. Budgeting is just a matter of collecting historical information by promotion and assessing how you can improve your results next year by taking into consideration how your customers and business have changed.
The Ultimate Marketing Checklist To Guarantee Success
Here’s the Ultimate Marketing Checklist. It includes content marketing, social media marketing, and mobile marketing.
How To Develop Your Sales Forecast
Need a sales forecast for your marketing? Here are 8 steps every marketer can use. Use these formulas and questions to guide your revenue forecast.
► Promotional calendar. This involves laying out a week by week set of promotions to ensure that you continue to give your broader audience a reason to purchase from your business.
The easiest way to start this exercise is to lay out the promotions that you’ve used over the past 3 years. In addition to tracking them by week, include the number of people reached, the dollar results and unit results. Also make sure to note any tests and their performance on a separate tracking sheet.
Where appropriate note major annual promotions and other planned events.
Promotional Plan: How To Create An Effective Calendar To Improve Your Results
Need marketing promotional plan to drive profitable sales? 10 tactics for any business conditions.
Easy Guide To Solopreneur Pricing: How To Set Rates That Will Make You Happy
Wonder how to price your services as a solopreneur, consultant or freelancer? Use this easy guide to solopreneur pricing. It outlines (with examples) 5 types of pricing to help you.
Celebrate Customers: 100 Ways You Need To Follow
Want to improve customer relationships & increase marketing ROI? Use 100+ tactics based on psychological research to celebrate customers & community.
► Editorial Calendar. Include a plan for all of the content you plan to update and create this year. At a minimum, allocate resources to ensure that existing content reflects your current branding, colors and other seasonal elements.
How to Develop Your Editorial Calendar
Like magazine publishing, an editorial calendar helps you to manage the content creation process regardless of your goals. To develop your editorial calendar, here are ten easy steps that will support your social media, content marketing and/or traditional marketing communications.
Annual Content Planning: 5 Types Of Content You Need To Improve Results
Annual content planning is not just about filling your content marketing editorial calendar. Done well, annual content planning enables you to laser-focus on the content your organization needs to build your addressable audience and ultimately to purchase from you. Includes tips and examples.
Monthly Content Themes: How To Get Your Blog Content
On Track
Want to structure your blog content better? Create calendar of monthly content themes to streamline content creation. Worksheet & examples
Plan Ahead: Mark Your Calendar
► Voice and AI – September 5th to 7th in Washington, DC
► Content Marketing World 2023 – September 26 – 28 in Washington, DC
► MarketingProfs B2B Forum – October 4 – 6 in Boston, MA
► Are you hosting an event that you’d like us to add to the Marketing Calendar? If so, let us know by using our Contact Form with the Subject Line: Event For AMG Newsletter Calendar.
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Happy Marketing,
Heidi
P.S.: Want Heidi Cohen to contribute a quote or other commentary to your next article, presentation, video, research, or book? Then hit reply to this email and ask.
P.P.S: Did you miss our last AMG Newsletter? Previous newsletters can be found in the AMG Newsletter Archive.