Healthcare Success

Somewhere in everyone’s job description—expressed or implied—is the need to be creative. And we know from experience in that it’s doubly challenging to be creative on demand. Surprisingly, a little coaching can help the process of generating good ideas for better healthcare marketing and advertising. Here are some secrets about being creative from, of all […]

You’re familiar with the social media marvel Twitter. With about 250 million active users (and another 250 registered users), Twitter is a well-known cultural phenomenon. Just about everyone has seen it. Tons of people are using it. And as a medical marketing tool, Twitter is second only to Facebook among the most popular social networking […]

Here are some (relatively) easy and (generally) non-technical SEO tips that everyone can use for better healthcare marketing results. Everyone appreciates that proper Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is vitally important to being found online and makes for more successful healthcare marketing. But a techno-talk vocabulary of  “title tag,” “Googlebot,” or phrases beginning with “meta,” tends […]

One of the oldest forms of advertising is everywhere, but it's tough to do it right. The first American "billboard" appeared about 175 years ago to announce the circus was coming to town. These days the billboard is only one of many forms of Outdoor Advertising-and that's a totally different animal. Approach with caution, however, […]

Hospital and healthcare marketing professionals have only begun to experience the rise of the new consumer. There’s even more consumerism likely in the future, according to the 2012 Altarum Survey of Consumer Health Care Opinions. This and other findings are influencing the shape of healthcare marketing and advertising. Of significance for marketing and communications planners, […]

How to know what you want to achieve, so you know how to hire right for success. How you define the job of an in-house marketing person sets the road to success (or failure). Marketing and Physician Referrals go hand-in-hand, but there are different skill sets for each, and they don't all fit into a […]

It seems that our recent post, If We Trust Doctors with Sharp Instruments, We Can Trust Them with Social Media, ignited some lively discussions among healthcare marketing professionals on LinkedIn. As a bit of background, the big idea behind our “If We Trust Doctors” post is that social media has taken a leadership role in […]

On the surface, a medical marketing email campaign is appealing, in part, because it is immediate and low cost. The proliferation of high-speed Internet connections, computers, laptops, smartphones and other mobile devices rapidly connect healthcare providers and hospitals with constituent audiences. Although a single email is fairly simple, creating a successful email marketing effort with […]

This is a curious business concept: One of New York’s largest hospital networks wants to keep their hospital beds empty. That notion, says Kaiser Health News, would be the case for some hospitals that want to provide health insurance. Disruptive business ideas are innovations intended to improve a product or service in ways the market […]

Often, It’s important to know what not to do in healthcare marketing…and especially when it comes to website design. Creating and maintaining an excellent online presence can be a challenging task. But it’s well worth the investment when your web presence creates brand (and reputation) awareness, generates inquiries and produces a stream of new patients. […]

Those of us who know (or know of) Ed Bennett have to applaud his pioneering work in creating and maintaining the Hospital Social Network List. His work during the past few years resulting in the highly informative list—a giant scoreboard really—of hospital social media resources around the nation. For professionals in hospital marketing and communications, […]

Each year about this time, many healthcare providers are thinking about their marketing plan. Only a few pages remain on the calendar, and some planners are close to the finish line, while others realize they need to begin. Still others have a “rolling” marketing plan that is reviewed and adjusted monthly on near-term items, and […]

Understandably, interpersonal and communications skill is one of the vital core competencies for physicians. But communications is also one of the biggest gaps in physician competency, according to the American Hospital Association’s Physician Leadership Forum. Some of the obvious applications for good communications include working effectively with provider team members, professional colleagues and doctor-patient interaction. […]

In this podcast interview, Chris Nelson and Dennis Jolley of University of Utah Health Care share the reasons they think it makes a lot of sense, financial and otherwise, to use outside marketing talent. They also share 6 specific principles for hospitals and doctors to follow: 1. Demonstrate need 2. Embrace your strengths and compensate […]

[Another in our series.] More than at any time in our history, healthcare marketing and advertising planners have a ton of media choices available. There’s the familiar “tradition” media basket that includes newspapers, direct mail, radio, television, billboards, Yellow Pages, postcards, and others. Plus there’s the ever-expanding batch of digital channels—including email, the Internet, smart […]

The emergence of the wave of “consumerism” in healthcare delivery is, in some respects, not entirely new. Consumers have been making purchase decisions about products and services for…well, forever. What’s new is that patients are better informed and are more actively evaluating their purchase options in healthcare as they typically apply in retail or other […]

For the past few weeks we’ve had a lot of fun presenting our seven-part educational video series of successful marketing strategies for healthcare practices and hospitals. Lonnie Hirsch and I (Stewart Gandolf) decided to make these fast-paced and informative presentations available to our readers at no cost, but for a limited time only.

Some important national surveys about patient satisfaction have been in the news lately. The company credentials are highly respectable, and the healthcare marketing implications are significant. First on the street was the PricewaterhouseCoopers Health Research Institute (PwC, HRI) data that concluded, for healthcare consumers, personal experience is the number one reason for choosing a doctor […]

This year’s Mindset List from Beloit College has relatively little to do with healthcare marketing, at least directly. It’s informative, amusing…and a little sobering. But for healthcare providers and medical marketing professionals, this annual look into the value system of college freshmen helps keep us painfully aware of the life experiences and “cultural touchstones” of […]

We spoke with Kim Reynolds, Vice President, Marketing Services at LifePoint Hospitals at SHSMD Connections 2012 about her talk today, "Patient Development as a Marketing Strategy." (Chis Fenoglio, who is on her web team joined her.) Kim's challenge has been to tie marketing programs from over 23  rural hospitals into a comprehensive program that gets […]

Camille Baxter, Director, Health Enterprise Marketing, University of Illinois Hospital & Health Sciences System, recently spoke wth Lonnie Hirsch about her 2012 SHSMD Connections speech, "Squeaky Wheels and Other Approaches to Strategic Service Line Marketing." During this preview podcast, Camille shares her thoughts about how service line marketing should be an extension of the hospital […]

Healthcare marketing is having a milestone moment. Because the nation’s healthcare delivery system has experienced sweeping changes in the past few years, the textbook list of medical marketing fundamentals needs a significant adjustment. Henceforth, PATIENT EXPERIENCE joins the classic “Seven Ps” of a marketing mix—PEOPLE, PRODUCT, PRICE, PROMOTION, PLACE, PACKAGING, and POSITIONING—for a new total […]

A Bruce Willis tough-guy character might say this—it’s one of those edgy little quips that circulates via the Internet: “I’m only responsible for what I say, not for what you understand.” This cheeky advice plays OK as a just-for-fun Twitter message. But it’s obviously a joke. In the real world of healthcare communications and doctor […]

PODCAST: Prior to his SHSMD 2012 talk, R. Kelly Myers of RKM Research shared a few insights with us during an audio interview. Kelly's research has shown that traditional customer service strategies don't really compare to patient experience strategies, because the stakes are so much higher in healthcare. Additionally, he cautions hospital marketers to go […]

In preparation for her upcoming talk at SHSMD, we interviewed Donna Teach, Chief Marketing Officer for Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. In this audio interview Donna shares insights about the various reporting tools and metrics she and her team use. Donna also discusses how to apply return-on-investment data to convince upper management of the […]

Maybe you first met AIDA in a creative writing class. And that could have been long before there was an Internet, Internet marketing, social media…or the constant challenge to engage your audience. Digital media is contemporary, but customer (patient) engagement is a marketing fundamental that’s been around for years. So, although AIDA is decades old, […]

In the greater Cincinnati area, The Christ Hospital Health Network has a novel idea to capture testimonial-type comments from patients, employees and friends. In fact, it’s a healthcare and hospital marketing idea that literally speaks for itself. (Really.) This idea may also be suitable for some group practices and other provider situations. Here’s how it […]

When it comes to doctor referrals, most primary care offices either 1) hand their patients a piece of paper and HOPE they make an appointment with the specialist, or 2) fax the referral directly to the specialist's office. The trouble is, up to 70% of patients never make their way to actually see the specialist. […]

Bill Oakes, Chief Development Officer for Johnson Memorial Hospital, recently spoke with us about why he and his executive team decided to collaborate with one of their hospital's major competitors. In this audio interview, Bill gives us a preview to his SHSMD Connections 2012 speech, and shares some of the positive results they have seen […]

We’re always watching for new healthcare and doctor marketing tools. But only a few “new, online startup” companies get the necessary business traction to be successful. That said, we spotted something unique from Clear Health in Minneapolis called Clear.MD. [That’s clear-dot-md, not dot-com.] It’s a startup—presently in online Beta testing—but Clear.MD shows some genuine promise […]

There's one vital step in shaping a positive patient experience that is often forgotten or neglected. In healthcare marketing terms, it's the one step that can make or break everything else you do to put the patient first and grow your brand and reputation. The nature of healthcare delivery is, more than ever before, focused […]

Our first post about Happtique—the Greater New York Hospital Association’s (GNYHA) mobile application store—was just prior to its launch in 2010. Much has transpired in the subsequent couple of years. There are some important trends here for forward-looking healthcare and hospital marketing professionals. Including—just this month—a pilot program for an app for issuing prescriptions.

One of the secrets to creating a successful healthcare marketing program is to simply identify and use the strategies and tactics that work. There's less risk in knowing and using the right “proven” strategies. All you need to do is to collect many years of direct knowledge, practical experience and documented resullts from doctor and […]

Our Big Book of All Things Marketing has a page devoted to the symbiotic relationship between content marketing and healthcare. Few strategies and tactics in healthcare marketing combine as easily and appropriately. Here’s why “content” and “healthcare” are natural marketing partners. And why Content should be a key ingredient in the marketing plan for hospitals, […]

OK, let’s just say we borrowed our headline from Lee Aase, director of the Mayo Clinic Center for Social Media. (It’s flattery, not plagiarism, when the role model is the Mayo Clinic.) Our point is that social media has taken a leadership role in healthcare marketing, and while some doctors remain distant to the idea, […]

In our marketing consultations with doctors and hospitals throughout the nation, there’s usually a moment when we talk about the need to work from a marketing plan. While this seems like a fundamental concept to many, it’s surprisingly common for some people to ask us: “Do I really need a plan? Can’t I just market?” […]

We'd like to hear about your experience with Facebook ads. The popular social media giant is experiencing considerable challenges in rolling out its advertising revenue model. By many accounts its present form seems to be a Facebook Fail. Has that been your experience? Holy Timeline, Zuckerberg Fans! Healthcare and hospital marketing and advertising will want […]

The digital and technological tools of healthcare marketing are increasing in importance and opportunity. And, if you haven’t done so lately, right now is probably a good time to weigh your “connectivity goals” against the technical nuts and bolts needed to get the job done.

Who's this guy Vilfredo Pareto and what makes him a partner in my practice? Anyone with a specialty healthcare business –one that is primarily fueled by referrals from other professional practices–should recognize the business rule named after a turn-of-the-century Italian economist. The "Pareto Principle" is better known as "the 80-20 rule." And, as it turns […]

The Patient's Champion helps work all the options that bring services within financial reach Nearly all of our highly successful professional practice clients have at least 1 person on staff whose singular mission is to find ways to make elective procedures affordable. The staff member (often more than 1 person) takes the role of counselor […]

There’s a temptation to forget that effective medical practice public relations begins and ends with the individual patient, client, consumer and/or customer. Although professional communicators use “mass media,” the essential mission of PR is far more singular…and it travels under the label of “customer service” or the “patient experience.” And lately we’ve observed how a […]

We don’t want anyone to miss this insightful “best practices” marketing resource. And, for a short time, it’s free for the asking. Presented by HSS founding partners Lonnie Hirsch and Stewart Gandolf, this new seven video series for doctors and hospital executives is titled, How to Profitably and Ethically Attract The Patients You Want.

Does anyone still need to be convinced that Pinterest should be part of your hospital marketing plan? The typical objections might be that this social media platform is still too new…it may not deliver any value…or they’re still in a beta test phase. A conservative approach to online fads and fancies is reasonable. (This morning’s […]

We’re not sure that we can say this any stronger. Up and down the nation’s healthcare delivery system, professional referrals are the essential lifeblood of business for many practices. In the world of hospitals and specialty practices, doctor referrals are an indispensable factor in the function of the practice. When a professional referral system is an […]

How to know if the 30-minute format should be part of your marketing mix...and get it done right An "infomercial" is probably not what you think it is. Put aside any image of a rapid-fire, late-night TV demo of a Japanese knife set and let me tell you how this long–form of direct response has […]

The core concepts of Likeonomics are so essential to successful healthcare branding and marketing that every doctor, dentist, physician, surgeon, provider (and their staff) will find value in this powerful little business book. Healthcare delivery is a highly personal transaction that primarily occurs while a provider and patient are face-to-face. And if this intersection does […]

We do it all the time…often without thinking much about it. To convince, collaborate, entice or persuade, everyone is “selling” something. It can be as casual as nominating a place for lunch, or presenting an idea. And doctors, dentists and virtually all healthcare providers regularly seek agreement and compliance from patients about a course of […]

Number-crunching executives, administrators and business-minded IT folks will love the remarkable detail in Hospitals & Health Networks magazine’s 2012 Most Wired survey of the nation’s hospitals and health systems. The social media and hospital marketing slice of data is important and informative. But this is a big report, so let me guide you a little.

Who says marketing can’t be fun. Here’s a brief post about two lighter-side ideas from dental marketing that you can steal. Look at these little case studies as idea starters for many other healthcare marketing situations. In each, take your inspiration mainly from the exceptional execution. Dr. Rich’s Patient Picnic: Western Pennsylvania orthodontist Richard Ribarevski […]

Some old-school ideas needlessly linger on. There’s a tired notion that sometimes whispers in the back of a physician’s brain and says: “Doctors shouldn’t advertise.” Or, more specifically, they fear: “My professional peers will think less of me. Physician advertising will hurt my relationships with referring doctors.” In fact, the reverse is often true today. […]