We see a ton of healthcare, medical marketing and hospital websites in our work. We review them, we critique them and we provide advice how to improve them. And sometimes it’s downright frightening what we find. Perhaps the scariest moment is when we discover a provider or healthcare organization that has no website at all. […]
Many of the “old rules” are up in the air. It seems like nearly every aspect of our nation’s healthcare delivery system is in flux. An example of this—one that we see daily—is the turbulent competition among and between providers. It’s skyrocketing. But please proceed with caution; there are legal issues to consider for your […]
If you don’t know a lot about “The Father of Advertising,” please invest a few minutes with David Makenzie Ogilvy. Your return on investment will be an insight to some of the most powerful and effective ideas in advertising. This is a tiny piece of advertising industry history, but we can assure you that David Ogilvy’s […]
What’s your hospital marketing, advertising and public relations strategy going to be with Goliath in your back yard? Here’s the picture… St. John Medical Center in Westlake, Ohio, is less than eight miles (and under 15 minutes) from Fairview Hospital, a Cleveland Clinic facility. If Cleveland Clinic isn’t a Goliath in the hospital world, it’s […]
Editor's Note: This is a further installment in our continuing series of articles about social media and healthcare marketing. YouTube, and other video content sharing platforms, represent a low cost, easy to use and highly effective communications tools to engage and inspire your medical and healthcare marketing audience. The enormous popularity of YouTube makes it […]
Social media is a means for patient and provider to interact, to humanize institutions, to learn from each other and to support a patient-centered system. It is a means to speak, listen, understand and begin a relationship. Social media isn't just for socializing, in the frivolous and inconsequential meaning of the term. In fact social […]
We first spotted a “SuperColon” ™ article in a small town community newspaper. Who wouldn’t want to “take a stroll through a giant colon: an inflatable pink tunnel, lined with healthy tissue, abnormal growths, protruding polyps, and informative facts.” One of the world’s largest, most elaborate models of the human body is definitely attention getting. […]
Even in the nicest of “waiting rooms,” who really wants to wait for medical services…or anything else for that matter? And if reducing wait times for medical services is a key to improving patient satisfaction, doctors' offices can now follow hospitals in communicating wait times to patients. To illustrate, we can all relate to the following […]
It is a daily challenge for most hospitals, medical practices and healthcare public relations professionals to get to and through the "gatekeepers" in the media in order to tell their story to the public. The problem is that prospective topics or story ideas that are important to PR professionals (and their employers) must also be […]
Patients have more say in their choice of hospital. Through the eyes of the general public—patients and prospective patients—hospitals tend to look alike. A doctor is a doctor, and a hospital is a hospital. And when the typical “consumer,” is pressed to make a choice between “Hospital A” and “Hospital B,” they relate to what they […]
Last week’s feature newsletter article, Facebook Fundamentals: A Guide to Social Media in Healthcare Marketing, generated a lot of thoughtful comments from our readers. And—since this is part of a continuing series about social media tools in healthcare marketing—here’s a brief follow-up about Facebook:
Why You Need Facebook and What It Can Do For Your Practice, Hospital or Medical Group Editor's Note: This is an installment in our continuing series of articles about the intersection of social media and healthcare marketing. A Facebook presence is a basic component of most social media plans, but the platform-and the way people […]
One of the things we like about the ad industry term “out of home media” is that it can mean so many things that are fun, foolish and effective. But the first challenge for healthcare, provider and hospital marketing planners is budget—or lack of it—to do all the things that are creative and fun. But […]
I don’t know anyone who isn’t occasionally guilty of using “medical-ese.” It's the verbal shorthand, technical talk, healthcare jargon, slang or hospital lingo that spells trouble. Doctors, nurses, hospital marketing executives, and practice administrators are all experts, but our audience is not. And we kill our well-intended message quicker than you can say "hyperlipidemia." The […]
Here's what goes into a hard-working healthcare logo that does a powerful branding job without a multi-million dollar budget and global exposure. Why you don't need or want a logo like Pepsi. Picture this. Wouldn't it be terrific to have a logo for your medical group, hospital or physician practice that had the recognition impact […]
Six fatal design flaws that can muzzle your results-and what to do instead. The effectiveness of even good-looking marketing materials can be poisoned by any of these classic design flaws. Here's how to spot the most common art and visual mistakes in the making and what to do instead. It's practically impossible to describe excellent […]
We have a collection of “classic comments” in healthcare marketing. Here’s a sampler of what we hear from time to time from medical providers, office managers or facility administrators about the age-old and ever-popular Word-of-Mouth advertising (WOM). “The only marketing I need or want is word-of-mouth advertising.” Or maybe, “I’m really good at my profession, […]
There’s no doubt that Americans are going to the doctor less frequently than they did a few years ago. The downtrend in patient visits is well documented…there’s plenty of empirical as well as anecdotal evidence. We hear about it routinely from our clients in primary care practices, which is not surprising. But it’s a bit […]
On December 21, 2010, the U.S. Census Bureau announced the results of Census 2010—the resident population of the United States is now 308,745,538. But Census 2010 data isn’t just about counting noses. You may be surprised to learn that there’s a “new majority” in town, and there’s an important paradigm shift underway for healthcare marketing […]
How the patient experience is increasingly vital to financial success in our changing healthcare delivery system. From large health systems to hospitals, to medical practices, relationships and satisfaction connect directly to the bottom line. Professional practices, hospitals and virtually all healthcare providers of any size are increasingly aware that, like the retail business down the […]
For some time now, we have championed the benefits of video content as a powerful, and often underutilized, tool in healthcare marketing. No pun intended, but here are two cutting-edge video examples of surgery—direct and graphic from the OR. Viewer Discretion Advised. These video examples of actual surgery include graphic content. Online video broadcasts (and […]
Try “Googling” search terms for your practice or hospital. Your healthcare site page ranking may have moved (or may move soon). The world’s biggest search engine has changed the secret formula that it uses to index all that is cyber. And different rules are now producing different results.
Video content in healthcare marketing is increasingly affordable and useful for many reasons, but to our budget-stretching mindset, but using “leverage” is the best part of the equation. We talk about leverage in our popular instructional series about the many uses of video. (All six video segments are on this page.) But the compelling value idea […]
We launched our new series of marketing articles at ImagingBiz this week with a short lesson in branding. We’re pleased to contribute to the ImagingBiz educational and informational portal on a regular basis. It's for decision-makers in medical imaging in both the outpatient and hospital environments. And although our initial article is directed primarily to […]
Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and a few others are the recognizable names in the social media phenomenon. Frankly we’ve lost count of the online social media tools that have emerged, and disappeared, recently. There are dozens of wanna-be, also-ran social sites, all chasing the few popularity pacesetters. But the big names get bigger. The “public awareness” […]
Two Central Illinois hospitals are pulling out the stops in a hospital marketing and advertising tug-of-war. Springfield’s St. John’s Hospital and cross-town rival Memorial Medical Center see the emergency department as the new front door of their hospitals. Perhaps that's not entirely new, but emergency care is a primary access point for patients needing immediate […]
So you think you’ve arrived. Solo practitioner or group medical practice…hospital or health system…you’re at the top of your marketing game by whatever measure you want to use. You have the first Search Engine Optimization (SEO) ranking, or you’re the undisputed leader in brand awareness. And now that you’ve arrived, you can sit back and […]
Having a branded YouTube channel is like having a second website specifically to showcase your video content. And once you’ve produced several healthcare marketing videos, creating your own YouTube channel is an inexpensive way to expand online visibility, use your video materials in multiple locations and attract additional online visitors for your medical practice, hospital, […]
For healthcare marketing, there’s value in knowing people’s preferences and the medical gateways that are important to consumers. It’s important insight for healthcare providers, hospitals and other medical and patient-facing organizations. People--healthcare consumers and prospective patients, that is--tell researchers they want tests that predict if certain serious diseases are likely to be part of their […]
Part of the job of every healthcare provider is to be an effective educator—informing, teaching and sometimes persuading patients about getting healthy and staying healthy. We’re talking about what you do, or can do, that's above and beyond the traditional “informed consent” and elementary “patient education.” Take this instructional idea a step further: Hold classes […]
This little exercise in healthcare marketing and branding is harder than it seems. Try this: In one word, and only one word, what is your competitive edge? What is your practice, hospital or healthcare organization all about, and what makes you different and better than the competition? Your unique value proposition is about what you […]
Every day we see a sign for “Oral Surgery” or read a healthcare advertising headline that is mainly the physician’s or hospital’s name. Unfortunately for the marketing budget, it’s not advertising…it’s a failure to communicate. Whatever the intent, the medical marketing message missed its mark. The fundamental truth here is that no one goes shopping […]
Prompt service is the essence of urgent care, and “faster is better” has become a marketing linchpin. In fact, some providers are willing to guarantee it. It’s practically old-school these days as many hospitals, urgent care centers and other healthcare providers have been racing to post their Emergency Room waiting times on their website, digital […]
Perhaps you’ve followed the Taco Bell ("Of Course We Use Real Beef") PR brouhaha, or you recall the PR catastrophe for BP regarding last year’s gulf oil spill. Admittedly these are big business issues at the tip of the PR disaster sword. The media has a field day, and it’s a spectator sport for the […]
Be honest...does your boss think that “marketing” is an evil word? Or maybe it’s just a “necessary evil” that has to be tolerated because they still need the business. From time to time we discover a negative undercurrent about marketing in all sorts of healthcare organizations. We work with physician groups, hospitals and individual practices […]
Take a quiet two minutes for a demographic reality check. Trust me, this isn’t an academic exercise. Private practices, physician groups, pharmaceutical companies, hospitals and virtually all healthcare organizations should take note. Census data reveals some disruptive trends at work in the US population, researchers say. And, we would observe, if your healthcare marketing plan […]
We see in the news that Dr. Gregory Smith is making “house calls” via Skype. What’s more, he has between 350-500 appointments each year. A lone report may not signal an explosive trend, but the lesson for healthcare and doctor/physician marketing is that the enabling technology is now mainstream, and medical provider innovators and early […]
by Steve Smith, Healthcare Success Senior Consultant Scholarly articles about retail customer service tell you that continuing success in business is not about making an individual sale, it’s about creating a relationship that wins a customer. It’s a principle that applies in healthcare delivery, and with every patient (the customer) interaction. And these winning […]
Editor’s Note: This is an informal round up of iPad healthcare deployment applications that we’ve seen since the product was introduced less than a year ago. Many of the uses listed can be adapted to various professions, specialties and healthcare delivery situations. Most importantly, please help us expand this list. Comment below or send us […]
An oral surgeon called us not long ago. He had been referred to us by a friend, another oral maxillofacial surgeon who knows us well. The caller (now a client) told us that he had just fired his in-house marketing person. He was calling for guidance about not making another wrong hire for his oral […]
Everyone in healthcare marketing has something to learn from the pages of the Urgent Care Marketing Handbook. Even if your point on the spectrum is as a physician provider, hospital, medical center or other healthcare entity, there’s much to be learned from walk-in clinics and ambulatory care facilities. Consider this: You don’t have to wander […]
The AMA’s American Medical News carried an excellent article recently titled: Hospitals' new specialist: Social media manager. It told the tale of how various hospitals—such as Swedish Medical Center (Seattle) and Mayo Clinic—are hiring staff members dedicated exclusively to social and interactive media. What's more, other hospitals, health systems, and medical practices either have someone […]
Does this sound familiar? A prominent doctor with tons of experience picks up a magazine and sees an ad for a competitive practice. The other practice has significantly less experience, but they do have a half page, full color ad. And to the public they look like the biggest game in town.
The numbers are an eye-opener: Two-thirds of primary care physicians say they regularly send patient referral information to specialists, but only one-third of specialists report receiving it. Clearly there’s a communications disconnect, according to a national study published this month in Archives of Internal Medicine. The study did not directly address the marketing implications of […]
Twitter is one of the four best known social media tools—YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. And if you look at Ed Bennett’s accounting of 890 US hospitals using social networking tools, almost 75 percent have Twitter accounts. (That’s a close second to hospitals with Facebook pages at nearly 80 percent.) But name recognition isn’t as […]
If you’re a member of the Society for Healthcare Strategy and Market Development (SHSMD) you got the same email that we did about their new Principles and Practices for Marketing Communications in Hospitals and Health Systems. It’s another example of the SHSMD and American Hospital Association’s thought leadership, and we recommend downloading their advisory. It’s […]
Here’s a civic-minded idea that a hospital, urgent care center and many other healthcare organizations can organize and produce for the benefit of the community…and capture a bit of publicity and public relations in the process. It also illustrates the fact that your budget doesn’t have to do all the heavy lifting if you recruit […]
Hospital marketing is increasingly using hospitality to differentiate their brand. News reports say hospitals are looking more like luxury hotels. And we’ve posted articles about facilities throughout the nation that have linked their hospital marketing, advertising and public relations messages to exceptional “patient experience.” These nonclinical patient benefits include spa-like women’s centers, family-friendly patient rooms, […]
A physician’s reading list is more likely to include JAMA than Wired magazine. Although the tech-centric journal seems an unlikely source, this month’s edition (Dec 2010) provides a vividly illustrated case example for marketing communications. Doctors, hospitals and clinical labs in particular will find a brief but dramatic lesson in how good graphic design can […]
When Holy Cross Hospital in Fort Lauderdale officially opened its new women’s center a couple weeks ago, it promised a one-stop healthcare experience in a relaxing, spa-like environment. Their concept is to provide a completely unique patient experience. Their website explains, “When you walk through our doors, you will feel as though you have walked […]
