Marjorie Stiegler MD is a physician who has managed to become successful with some unexpected and diverse projects. When she notices that a need is unfilled, she often jumps in to fill that unique gap in the market. An anesthesiologist herself, she and her husband started a thriving maternity active wear company with very little experience in fashion and almost no initial investment. Her social media experience gained through marketing her active wear line has helped her become an expert in social media, and she has taken that know-how to teach physicians how to use social media. Dr. Stiegler is regularly invited to speak and give workshops, and, always looking to explore the latest trends in social media, she has launched a course on the new platform Facebook Live.
Dr. Stieger’s initial leap into active wear began when she was pregnant with her first child in 2009. She explains that had been a fitness instructor prior to medical school. Unable to find maternity active wear, and encouraged by her husband who was getting an MBA at the time, they decided to create their own products. Since they lived in Los Angeles, which had a fashion-manufacturing infrastructure, they drove 20 minutes to the fabric district, and began selecting materials and designs. She herself wore the first prototypes and was inundated with people who wanted to know where they could buy the styles.
The couple created a website to feature their products and launched a purely ecommerce maternity active wear business, fortwofitness.com. And this is how Dr. Stiegler learned about social media. It turned out that whenever a mommy blogger or a fitness blogger commented about the items, traffic and sales went up. At a time when there were few bloggers, she began reaching out to brand influencers and offered them the products as a marketing strategy. Now, when there are thousands of bloggers, fortwofitness.com receives requests from bloggers, rather than searching for the brand influences. Dr. Stiegler’s company can select bloggers based on whether their sites are the right fit for the target audience. Fortwofitness.com has customers in over 300 countries and the products are available on Amazon.com, Zulily.com and other sites. In the meantime, she and her husband are still able to maintain their full time jobs and they hire professionals to help with the marketing process. She credits the initial impetus that led them to create the company with the fact that they were surrounded by an entrepreneurial attitude that was prevalent in her husband’s MBA program and that they were so close to LA’s manufacturing center.
And all of the social media experience led to yet another venture for Marjorie Stiegler. Active on social media since 2010, she gained early experience before most physicians adopted it. She began to notice that doctors were not using social media to their advantage, along with the fact that there are inherent risks involved with physician use of social media. Because of her experience with several social media platforms, she was invited to speak and present at conferences. Never satisfied with the status quo, she recently decided to explore the newest platform on Facebook, which is Facebook Live. She created a physician social media course composed of 30 mini modules that are easily accessible onlinehere. She is presenting an intensive social media course to a physician audience next month. And, if that wasn’t enough, Dr. Stiegler also co-edited a textbook, Quality and Safety in Anesthesia and Perioperative Care.
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