Q&A With Susan Truskey, Siemens

Susan Truskey, Senior Manager, Global Marketing Communications, Siemens Medical Solutions, Health Services

Vital Statistics

Age: 36

Lives in: Kimberton. Pennsylvania

Office based in: Malvern, Pennsylvania

Tenure at Siemens: Five years

Size of team: Six direct reports and two interns

Overall, how is your marketing portfolio evolving?

We’re Health Services, the software division within Siemens Medical Solutions. While many people know Siemens for the modality side—the CTs and MRIs—we develop IT solutions for hospitals. What we’re trying to do is find more innovative ways to reach our audience, so we’re trying different mediums. For instance, instead of doing a printed brochure, we’re doing e-brochures. And we’re expanding our event marketing from just trade shows to more specialized events such as executive breakfasts, webinars and iPod webcasting. We’re trying to get out of relying on the normal print that I think a lot of people use generically within their marketing mix, and going towards solutions that support that Siemens Medical Solutions Health Services as an innovative software company.

How is your own personal role changing?

I think in general, anyone who’s in marketing or communications and management is moving away from being an order taker. Instead of saying, “I need to create five brochures for these products,” we’re asking, “What is the product, where is it in the life cycle, what are the needs for the target audiences and how do we create programs and campaigns that really speak to them?”

We’re focusing on asking what the key pain points are for our customers, and then thinking strategically: What’s the campaign we can put together that will address those pain points in the most innovative way?
So you’re finding success with technology solutions, such as e-brochures?
The beauty of doing an e-brochure is that you can add links that lead your customer through the sales process. These pieces can work in multiple ways or have multiple paths the customer can take. For instance, a prospect can watch the video testimonial of a customer talking about their use of a product; they can then read the case study and learn more detail, such as where their pain points were and how the product helped them succeed; and then they can link to an invitation for an upcoming webinar that addresses a specific issue they have in their business.

What’s your definition of experiential marketing?

To me, experiential marketing is more than just an event. I think we’ve all visited a trade show booth that was a passive event. To me, experiential marketing is how you draw the person into the event that you’re doing and make it personal—even when you have a large audience. It’s how you tailor that experience for each person attending. So whether it’s a large trade show or going to community hospitals and having the executives eat breakfast with a smaller group, it’s really about associating and targeting individuals.

How is the event marketing piece of your mix changing?

We’re not really getting the bang for our buck from the large trade shows anymore. So it’s more important than ever that we make the exhibit visit an experience. To accomplish this, we’ve decreased the number of workstations to focus on key messages. And we’ve broken our booths into different sections that address our customers’ needs. For our biggest show, these include a main presentation area, a partnership section where we have customers talk about their success with Siemens solutions; and workstations where people get a hands-on, one-on-one feel for those successes. We also have private areas in the back where larger groups can schedule demos. So again, it’s more than just showing up at the trade show. It’s about understanding the audience, and creating enough interest to keep them in the booth by giving them different points of view.

So what experiential technique works best for you?

For us, the biggest sell is having our customers hear from their peers. So we integrate that into our tradeshows. It’s not enough for us to talk about our products. We really want them to hear from our customers: how they’re using the solutions, and the best and most innovative ways that they can use the products. That way, it really is a peer-to-peer discussion. And that’s important because at the end of the day, that’s why they buy–because they hear good things from a peer.
This year, we utilized our customers in two different ways at HIMSS—which is our largest trade show. Our new campaign is called “Answers for Life.” So we pulled the campaign into our main presentation area by asking questions—and then having our customers answer them. It really added a different dynamic.

We also had customer pods with one-on-one sessions where people could speak to customers who were using the products that they were interested in. Whether it was a large hospital or a small community hospital, they could talk to someone that they really could relate to from a business perspective.

How do you make sure that your marketing stays integrated?

When we talk about integrating our marketing, we look at it from a campaign infrastructure. When we do our marketing planning, we think about how one piece connects to the next. So at the end of the year, instead of saying I did twelve brochures, 15 direct mail pieces and three webinars—we have a campaign infrastructure where we say my goals were a, b, and c. In order to achieve these goals, I created these messages and these campaigns that moved perception in the marketplace.
In addition, we make sure that we continue to stay in front potential customers and invite them to different events that we have. Even if today a prospect says they don’t have the budget and aren’t looking to buy, in two years they could be a lead that is looking to buy and does have the budget. So we need to ensure that we keep ourselves in front of them throughout the cycle.

Any other insights or advice for other marketers?

A few years ago, we took a look at the marketing mix we had and determined that instead of trying to get the Siemens message across, we really needed to look at the pain points of the customer and address them in our messages and campaigns. I know that seems a little “Marketing 101-ish,” but I think a lot of companies get caught up in promoting the brand and forget to focus on their customer.
-So what does someone as busy as you do with your free time?
I’m the mother of a 15-month-old boy, so when I’m not at work, I’m being a mom and wife. And when I have time to break away from that, my family enjoys hiking with our two Weimaraners. We own a boat and enjoy wake boarding once the weather breaks in Pennsylvania. We’re also big snow skiers, as well as mountain and road bikers.