Your Brand Isn’t What You Say – It Is Who You Are.

June 1, 2016Last Updated on by Stewart Gandolf

[Series Installment] When you begin to develop marketing ideas for hospitals and healthcare providers, you bump into some apparent contradictions to be sorted out. There’s the business of consumerism, for example, where traditional patients have become (or are rapidly becoming) informed consumers, newly empowered to make their own health care buying decisions. The medical purchasing […]

How to Find the Differentiating Marketing Heart of Your Hospital Brand

April 9, 2016Last Updated on by Stewart Gandolf

iPad device with text reading "Why You?"

As a student of marketing, I tend to dissect the brand name-logo-tagline combinations that I notice. Professionally and personally, I admire the good ones. But the bad ones in particular grab my attention. Like driving into a pea soup fog bank, there is a sudden disconnect with the highway, landmarks and even reality. When you spot […]

What’s Wrong with Your Hospital Marketing Website?

November 15, 2016Last Updated on by Stewart Gandolf

[Series installment.] Take a fresh and unbiased look at your hospital website. Now compare it, as objectively as possible, with others around the country. About a half-a-zillion would be a generous sample slice, but you will only need a few. If you’re keeping score—and even with a much smaller sampling—the back of your napkin tabulation is […]

The Singularity of Hospital Branding Success

August 1, 2016Last Updated on by Stewart Gandolf

If today’s patient–now an informed consumer–isn’t at the center of your branding universe, you don’t have an effective brand. In the rarified world of physics and mathematics, “singularity” is a point at which a function takes an infinite value. Sci-fi readers find the term applied to “space-time when matter is infinitely dense, as at the […]

Thinking Forward: Taking Your Hospital Brand to the Next Level

November 4, 2015Last Updated on by Stewart Gandolf

A truly excellent crystal ball—with the ability to accurately foretell the future of hospital branding—is practically nonexistent. While hindsight is 20/20, looking beyond the horizon and trend spotting in marketing are clouded by the near-constant change in healthcare. But, motivated by intense competition—and the dynamics of change—many of the best minds in hospital leadership are […]

The Bewildering Business of Branding Decoded

April 12, 2015Last Updated on by Kathy Roy Gaughran

Ask a dozen people for a definition of “brand” or “branding,” and the odds are that they will talk about a logo. Maybe it’s a trick question because the word “brand” can be a noun or a verb, or in the narrow context of marketing, it can have yet another meaning. Compared to the retail and […]

5 Key Concepts to Bolster Your Hospital Brand

November 4, 2015Last Updated on by Kathy Roy Gaughran

It seems as if every hospital in the US needs, wants or has a brand. More than a few have taken a stab at branding, but many facilities are short on experience and budget, and effectiveness suffers. Results are less than anticipated. To be fair, branding is a difficult task, and hospital branding is especially challenging […]

New School Marketing Shifts that Boost Service Line Profitability [Part Two]

January 3, 2015Last Updated on by Stewart Gandolf

Editor Note: [Conclusion of a two-part article] Stewart Gandolf, CEO of Healthcare Success, authored this article for print and online publication by Strategic Health Care Marketing. It is presented here with permission. Part One— New Marketing: Improving Service Line Profitability — is available here. [Part Two] In the constantly changing world of healthcare marketing, success—and […]

41 Splashes of Hospital Dazzle: Amenities Win Well-Insured Patients

October 23, 2014Last Updated on by Stewart Gandolf

For nearly 10 years or so, hospitals have been struggling with how to effectively and profitably reinvent themselves. The direction is to become increasingly consumer-direct. Among the transformational market forces are the informed and empowered public, increasing competitive pressures, and the desire for hospitals to serve women and other demographic groups. Sprinkle into this recipe the overarching goals […]

Why You Need a Five-Year Timeframe to Build a Brand

September 16, 2014Last Updated on by Stewart Gandolf

Until recently, the concept of “brand” or “brand building” has not been too important for physician practices, medical groups or hospitals. Only a few healthcare entities took branding seriously in their marketing plans…and fewer still were able to carry it off effectively. Almost overnight, or so it seems, all that changed. To listen to some people in […]

Topics: Hospital Branding