Healthcare consumerism has drastically changed the way healthcare professionals need to market and deliver their services. Today’s consumers expect a healthcare experience as innovative and digitally advanced as any other industry. Hospitals, health systems, and medical practices must evolve to meet these changing needs to remain competitive or risk falling behind. As more healthcare professionals provide accessible online […]
Our team at Healthcare Success is currently advising clients about how they should adjust their marketing efforts in response to the COVID-19 national emergency, and I thought I would share some of our thinking with readers like you as well. These are fast-changing and confusing times. Remember, SXSW was canceled on March 6. By March 9, […]
Should You Invest In Healthcare Marketing Expertise? Our work brings us in daily contact with healthcare professionals around the nation. To a person, these operating executives, healthcare administrators, managers, and doctors are justifiably proud of their professional achievements. But, there are times when their marketing simply isn’t working…when the stakes are high…or when competition seems […]
Over the years, we’ve alerted our Healthcare clients and industry colleagues to a few major updates that could affect their healthcare SEO (search engine optimization) rankings. Google makes updates to its search algorithms all the time—but only a few stand out as having the potential for a major impact on your presence in the search […]
Love it or hate it, voice technology is here to stay. For those who love it, voice-commanding Siri or Alexa to report on the weather or play a song is kind of a power trip, not to mention ultra convenient. For those who loathe it, the complaints range from difficulty with Alexa's comprehension to fears […]
This year, we're likely to see some dramatic changes in the world of healthcare. With private equity acquisitions on the rise, retailization in high demand, and some fierce competition, it's time to start treating your healthcare organization like the business it is. Make 2019 the year you find what works for your medical marketing. These […]
The only constant is change, and that's never been truer in the world of Healthcare Marketing. This year brought major acquisitions, new consumer priorities, and competitive trends that will only heighten in the New Year. Hospitals, medical practices, and healthcare organizations will have to stay one step ahead to keep up with both competitors and […]
Sometimes, a marketing campaign doesn’t work out. It happens, and it stinks. But just because one marketing effort doesn’t work, that doesn’t mean marketing doesn’t work in healthcare. When you begin trying new marketing campaigns, you might be dismayed to find the results aren’t quite what you hoped for or expected. However, that doesn’t mean […]
Marketing your hospital or practice means learning some complex terms and sorting through a lot of jargon. You may have heard that, in healthcare, SEO can help you increase your search engine rankings. But what does that really mean for your bottom line? Will you see new patients? And is it worth the effort? Related: SEO […]
Would a doctor prescribe medicine without knowing it works? Of course not. So why continue your marketing campaigns without any data to back up their value? If you're doing any marketing at all, it’s vital that you have a system for measuring marketing effectiveness. Data-driven marketing helps to fine-tune your efforts for the best ROI—so […]
Originally published May 2018 Last updated January 2026 Over the years, I’ve worked with hospitals, health systems, multi-location medical groups, telehealth organizations and healthcare technology companies across the country. One question comes up consistently—often early in the relationship and sometimes after a few false starts: Should we build our marketing team in-house, or should we […]
Mobile is taking over the world. There’s no way around it. When you have a personal assistant in your pocket every day, why would you perform searches primarily on a desktop computer? As user behavior changes, the future of mobile advertising is changing as well. Hospitals and practices must keep up if they want to […]
Today, any successful hospital or practice should maintain a website so patients can find your location and learn a little bit about your services. You might think that a great looking site is just a bonus...but from a website marketing perspective, this is far from the truth. You cannot expect to simply put up a […]
Multicultural marketing is too often overlooked. You hope that your marketing message is reaching people of all cultures and ethnicities, but this assumption can lead you to miss out on a huge potential patient base. As the experience of cultures in this country changes and evolves, so too should your marketing message. The state of […]
Budgeting for advertising at a hospital or practice is a lot like appraising real estate. When real estate investors value a home, they look at it in 3 ways: the sales comparison approach (finding the market value of comparable properties), the cost approach (what it would cost to replace the building with a similar one), […]
From a five-mile-high perspective, there are two kinds of relationships between a client and a healthcare advertising agency. Let’s label the first type a “vendor” relationship. In this arrangement, the client—a medical practice or hospital, for example—intends to buy specific ad agency services much as they might order and restock surgical masks. Passive. Detached. Truly […]
You know Vine. It’s the micro-video-sharing service that hospitals and medical marketing folks can use for visual spice in social networks including Twitter and Facebook. When Vine first emerged many people wondered if there was a useful marketing purpose when confined to creating little looping video clips of less than six seconds. It’s probably the […]
[Article Series: An excerpt from a forthcoming book by Mark Tager, MD, and Stewart Gandolf, MBA, for private practice physicians and healthcare administrators about reaching, recruiting and retaining private pay and elective care patients. Refer to our previous article on this topic titled: How to Grow Your Private Pay and Elective Care Business.] Launching an […]
There’s a famous line in the movie Jaws that you might recall. When Police Chief Brody (Roy Scheider) first comes face-to-face with the killer shark they’re hunting, he realizes: “You’re going to need a bigger boat.” It’s much like that in the real world when we hear about all the problems that doctors and hospitals […]
A message presented through animation captures attention, explains with clarity and often entertains. For certain situations, healthcare and hospital marketing can employ this unique creative approach to effective engagement and communications online. Guest Post by Dr. Manroop Takhar Let’s face it, communicating in the science-based world of medical marketing can sometimes be dry, clinical and […]
Editor’s Note: Communications, such as appointment reminders, are often guided by HIPAA privacy rules, organizational policies and other regulations. Ideas presented in our Guest Post may vary in application according to the professional situation and circumstances. More information about Health Information Privacy under HIPAA is available at the US Department of Health & Human Services […]
Social proof is a principle of influence and persuasion that can be highly effective in healthcare marketing. People want validation that they are making the right choice or proper decision and the actions of others like themselves is compelling guidance. Here's how it works and ways to use it. There was an interesting item about […]
It’s amazing how often we encounter real life examples of opportunity lost, simply because someone was afraid to ask. More about that in a minute. Here’s a personal note that brought this to mind for me again recently. At the time of this writing, my mother, 95, is gravely disabled and in a skilled nursing […]
We’ve been working on redesigning and refreshing our marketing information newsletter. And since the subject of newsletter content and construction was top of mind for us, we wanted to share a few how-to tips about the process. Not long ago we conducted a Reader Survey that was open to our 15,000+ subscribers. The responses helped […]
There’s something a bit institutional or simply conventional about how healthcare usually connects with patients. Hospitals and providers build many of their marketing and communications efforts around engaging slices of their target audience. While there’s nothing wrong with convention, creative and successful medical marketing lessons can be found in unconventional sources. Objectives include communicating a […]
Intellectually, a myth is understood to be a fable or false notion. But emotionally, a myth has great appeal. It is something that people collectively want to believe. Human nature tends to dismiss reality in favor of an alluring idea. What’s more, a myth gains traction and believability when it is often told or heard […]
It’s no April Fools’ Day joke. Your Medicare revenue cut begins on the first of next month. Healthcare providers, pinched between limited resources and rising overhead, will see Medicare payments reduced by two percent. This adds up to a projected $11 billion less for doctors, hospitals and other providers in 2013. Sequestration will automatically trim […]
Although some risk is inherent in healthcare marketing and advertising, smart planning and creative execution can minimize problems and maximize return. But while risks are manageable, money-wasting mistakes are a different animal. Over the years, we’ve encountered all kinds of mistakes; more than we have space to list here. But, if there’s a silver lining […]
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. […]
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 […]
There aren’t many healthcare providers who are unaffected or unaware of challenges all around them. The parade includes reform requirements, the “soft economy” with rising costs and shrinking margins, shifting medical marketing goals and demographics…and the overarching stretch of resources to maintain and improve quality of patient care. “Innovation is the ability to see change […]
Here’s a real-world marketing case study about…using clinical case studies. Cindy Gall sends us this medical practice marketing success story about how the Central Texas Spine Institute (Austin) is effectively using physician-to-physician clinical case examples. Cindy writes, “I attended a Healthcare Success seminar in September of 2010. Lonnie Hirsch recommended using case studies as a […]
Some health care advertising agencies would have you believe that trendy and award-winning creative materials, intricate and expensive media plans, and enormous medical advertising budgets are what it takes to win the hearts and minds of new patients. In fact there's more science and psychology at work in the business of influencing human behavior than […]
This year promises to be healthcare marketing's Year of the Video. Once an emerging trend, online video has already reached mainstream status. And as we look ahead, medical practices, dental offices, hospitals and other healthcare providers will be deploying new and creative uses of video. (We've included some exceptional examples below as new ideas you […]
At its unveiling in April 2010, Apple predicted that the use of the iPad by medical professionals would change the face of healthcare, ultimately providing multiple ways to promote hospital marketing and public relations. The latest count by Apple shows over 25 million tablets have been sold (first 14 months); more than 15 million iPad 2's […]
From a hospital wedding to rockin’ oncologists to disco-beat CPR, here’s a quick roundup of noteworthy medical marketing and PR ideas that promote a healthy message of awareness. First, the “nobody wants to miss the wedding” department… Pediatric neurosurgeon Taryn Bragg wanted to share her wedding with friends, family and patients at American Family Children’s […]
17 Things Savvy Healthcare Providers Can Do To Keep Their Organizations Healthy Despite A Very Sick Economy There's no doubt that the nation's economic news is serious and troubling. Your own experience tells you that people—pretty much all of us—are justifiably concerned, from Wall Street to Main Street. While everyone's situation is different, you've likely […]
Keeping the roof over your head when it looks like the sky is falling. A solid plan for healthcare marketing is a fundamental business tool for coping and succeeding in the face of healthcare reform and other changes. Competition has increased ...the roll-up trend created more groups...and economic pressures push down on reimbursement and elective […]
What your most successful competitors don't want you to know Various sectors of the American economic picture have been described lately as "soft," "bumpy," or according to Pundit Mr. C. Little, "the sky is falling!" The truth is that everyone's situation is different, and we can't guide you about broad economic affairs in the nation. […]
Editors note: This article is the second of a two-part series. If you haven't chosen your new practice location yet, we recommend you also read, Medical Office Space: How to Choose a Great Location.Congratulations! You have signed the contract for your new office space, and your staff is on top of all the administrative details […]
