This headline really grabbed us: Rude Surgeons Hurt Patients, Increase Costs. It’s about a study with internal hospital and medical practice PR implications that can’t be good. (Let’s hope this doesn’t sound familiar to you. “Those [surgeons] who berate their staffs are practicing 'bad medicine,' experts say,” according to the item in this month’s issue of […]
Healthcare delivery isn’t exactly like Gene Roddenberry envisioned it on the Star Trek television series nearly a half-century ago. Or is it? Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy was armed with futuristic devices like medical tricorders, hyposprays for needle-free injections, and vital signs monitors in Sick Bay. So are any of the science fiction devices similar to what […]
The job of a pharmaceutical company field rep is tough. In our experience, it’s always been hard work, but lately pharma marketing—the up-close-and-personal kind—is getting tougher. (It’s always been a challenge to see a busy doctor during office hours.) What’s worse, now there are news media reports about doctors who refuse to see any pharmaceutical […]
The primary reason that public speaking is a powerful and persuasive tool in healthcare marketing is that it is highly personal. A good speech is a tool of engagement that can make an emotional or intellectual connection—sometimes a bond—between the speaker and individuals in the audience. Physicians, medical practice administrators, hospital public relations executives, and […]
A quick survey of 4 communications cornerstones and 24 basic ideas that might belong in your marketing plan. This is a "forest-for-the-trees" kind of thing. Or maybe it's a "nose-on-your-face" deal. In any event, overlooking an obvious opportunity is definitely common, and even somewhat understandable. Hospitals, practices and healthcare organizations are busy places and marketing […]
Patients don't complain, they just quietly fade away. In more ways than one, this is a sad tale...and a lesson learned much too late. In fact, 20 years too late, Following is a true story...
One of the most important skills in medical practice marketing is the ability to ask the right questions. Doctors, physicians, practice administrators and healthcare marketing professionals can easily find themselves caught up in the daily frenzy of “business as usual.” They can overlook the opportunity to use the right questions to diagnose physician-marketing problems or […]
We’ll call this one the tale of the “dead rat ambassador.” It's currently at the top of the list of real-life “horror stories,” in the category of negative hospital public relations and really bad patient experience. (We have photos, so we know it’s true, but who could make up this kind of stuff?) On the […]
One of the grand frustrations about the “world wide web” is that your medical marketing website might be found online by someone who is two hundred miles away and not by a prospective new patient who lives in your neighborhood. The first individual is not a prospect because of the distance. They’ll search again for […]
A few words from master storytellers. The payoff is in more engaging medical marketing, better physician-patient communications, patient satisfaction and more effective healthcare delivery. Stories and storytelling are at the heart of medical marketing, doctor advertising, hospital public relations and physician-patient interaction. Stories can be conversation, advertising and online testimonials, persuasive guidance for patients, news […]
When we compiled a list of reasons why people won’t “follow” someone on Twitter, we nearly ran out of paper. Twitter is an immensely popular social media, and for many hospital social media efforts, it can be a highly useful tool. Ask your followers about what they like and don't like and you're bound to […]
Don’t you just love it when a good plan comes together? As we speak with the principals and executives of hospitals, professional societies, medical groups and other healthcare organizations, a regular challenge is to help shape and execute an effective business and marketing strategy. And it’s gratifying when a good strategy wins the day. Goals […]
It's a tragic and extremely costly story - and unfortunately one that we see all the time. Perhaps it has even happened to you. Every day, hospitals and healthcare organizations across the USA invest hard-earned money into marketing, yet see zero new patients from their efforts.
By Stewart Gandolf I recently asked our team to share some of the worst medical marketing mistakes they’ve ever witnessed out “in the field.” As a word of caution, the incident I am about to share is so egregious that my team was divided as to whether we should publish it, or bury it forever. […]
Here’s a heads-up snapshot of four recent news items. Each of these is likely to be of growing importance on your healthcare, medical or hospital marketing horizon. We’ll be watching and writing more about: Google takes a new swing at Facebook with Google+. This, we predict, will be big…or at least a big battle of […]
Editor's Note: Here's another installment in our continuing series of articles about social media and healthcare marketing. The professional networking site, LinkedIn, is coming of age with over 100 million users. Here are ways to get the most benefit from your LinkedIn pages. It's a low cost, high visibility platform to showcase the personal brand […]
I had a call today with a prospective client that followed a theme I have heard at least one hundred times before. Essentially, he and his colleagues said they have "been burned" with their previous marketing efforts and are now "gun shy." He was understandably very reticent to do anything. He summarized, "I spent a […]
A fundamental guide for hospital, provider and healthcare organization news releases and media relations. The process of "getting ink" —when your news release or story idea finally appears in the media—has always been a challenge. Often it's more of an art than a science, enlivened by a generous splash of good luck. (For simplicity in […]
Here are two distinctly different but well-told stories that are worth sharing. The two storytellers—a photographer based in the Netherlands and an orthopedic surgeon in New York—probably don’t know each other. One story is about social media at work in the hospitality industry. The other is about patient-physician communications. On the surface these topics are […]
It seems that the nation’s hospitals have lifted their patient satisfaction scores, according to a recent survey. Kudos to the hospitals, with the doctors and staff deserving a healthcare marketing salute as well. Data from nearly 3,800 hospitals says that there’s been a 1.6 percent annual increase in the number of positive responses in the […]
How to take a fresh and fast survey of your own backyard. For a whole lot of reasons, nearly all all healthcare organizations, hospitals and practices are doing business differently from what you might think. Especially in marketing terms, the previous 12 months are not a good guide to how your competition will be navigating […]
It's the woman who makes the healthcare decisions in most households. That fact hasn’t changed much over the past few years. Estimates have it that eight out of 10 times, it’s the woman, wife, mother who is the keeper of the family health choices for spouse, children and herself. The the “mom” sector has been […]
Editor's Note: Healthcare Success authored this article as one of a series for ImagingBiz, a unique industry publication that delivers business intelligence for hospitals, imaging centers and radiology practices. The marketing concepts regarding physician liaison, practice representative, physician relations or business development apply to many professional, medical and healthcare marketing situations.
Here’s a roundup of four interesting and informative healthcare and hospital marketing vignettes from the past few weeks. There are insights and observations in each, and we’d like to hear your comments.
This week I want to share with you some fascinating insights I've gleaned from some of America's wealthiest families, but more importantly, give you some new ways of looking at investing in your own business, practice or organization. Due to a prior business relationship, I have come to know a fair number of investors and […]
As a HealthLeaders Media commentary put it recently, “Expecting patients to shop for discount cancer treatments and bargain heart procedures is, of course, a non-starter.” But coupons, discounts and special offers can take many forms in healthcare and hospital marketing. What's more, the search for savings, and being value-conscious, is no longer a middle-income trait. […]
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 […]
Major changes and pivotal events in the growth of a medical practice require a solid marketing program—and a stream of new business—to assure success. Here's when to consider financing for marketing and how we can help. [Series installment.] In the kindest of terms, the current state of healthcare in the United States is "dynamic." Maybe […]
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 […]
There are several important healthcare marketing lessons hidden in the recent Los Angeles Times article titled Dentists turn to marketing after getting brush-off from patients. Although it is primarily about dentists and dental marketing in the economic downturn, the important marketing takeaways also apply to medical practices and hospitals. We'll look past any immediate temptation […]
If you’re a little behind in reading your Federal Register subscription, we see that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is proposing to use “secret shoppers,” perhaps in your office. The HHS wants to sample Primary Care Physicians’ (PCPs) wait times, accessibility and availability. In government talk, the Proposed Project is titled Assessing […]
This is another segment in our continuing series of articles about effective social media and healthcare marketing. Survey information about Facebook user motivations to LIKE a company, brand or association leads to six useful tips in reaching and engaging patients and the public through effective social media.
We’re going to tell this tale mainly by the numbers. To “numbers people,” figures say it all; an Excel spreadsheet tells a story more excitingly and effusive than any Harry Potter novel. If you are not fascinated by columns, rows and formulas, please stick with us for a minute, then pass this along to your administrator, […]
You might be as surprised as we were to learn that there are about eight million people who have elective care financing instantly available--and don't know it. Astoundingly, they simply may not know that they can afford the dentistry, vision correction, hearing care or cosmetic treatments that they want. Here’s the hidden business and marketing […]
The 20 most important tips for working with news media; friendly or otherwise. A one-on-one interview or an elaborate news conference requires preparation and confidence when working with the news media. Although there can be no assurances about the media will do, here are the 20 most important tips for before, during and after a […]
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 […]
What if a medical office were to offer “same day appointments?” It’s an innovative notion, but a “patient driven” appointment just might be popular and become a unique point of differentiation.
A highly successful medical device representative that we know jokingly refers to one of his first jobs in college as being a supermarket “samples lady.” And for physicians, hospitals and healthcare marketing professionals there’s a gem of an idea among the free samples and trials. Once or twice a week our friend would pack up […]
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 […]
Doctors learn Sutton’s Law in medical school, although they may not recall that it was named after bank robber Willie Sutton. Willie’s namesake axiom can teach us something about healthcare marketing and advertising. If you’re not up on your historical “most wanted” trivia, here’s a bit of background. Willie “The Actor” Sutton (1901-1980) was an […]
The most neglected healthcare provider marketing opportunity, and how to break the habit Email is the communications means of choice for many individuals, but it's a surprisingly neglected strategy that never gets off the ground for the simple lack of opt-in email addresses. Here are seven easy ways to build a permission-based contact list and […]
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 […]
This is a brief post about a deceptively simple and highly useful idea to help people find you online. Here's how doctors, hospitals and marketing professionals can quickly create a custom splash page—complete with analytics dashboard—to bolster personal reputation and practice branding, and heighten search engine visibility. The first thing you should know about About.Me […]
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 […]
Live Chat—also called Live Help or Live Support—is getting some traction with healthcare marketing websites. More commonly found on retail sites, Live Support is that extra service feature which allows a business to open a real time text-chat conversation with online visitors for customer service and/or sales support. Some of the early adopters we’ve spotted […]
Internal marketing simply doesn't work without a patient-centered culture that fosters relationships and genuine patient satisfaction. An effective culture evolves by design, from the top down and needs training, practice and teamwork. There's no need for internal marketing tactics without an emotional connection. When we consult with a hospital, an established healthcare practice or even […]
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 […]
