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For other articles and previous issues click here. July 19, 2004 Marketing’s
Ever-Growing Role at Hospitals Beyond Radiology Healthcare’s once-upon-a-time days are gone. Simply being the nearby hospital doesn’t automatically stake your organization’s financial claim. So, in an increasingly competitive industry, what is the ideal way to market a hospital or healthcare service to consumers—who are often no longer just patients? Sadly, there is no magic answer. Marketing personnel and campaigns cost money that is hard to come by as shrinking budgets come under scrutiny. However, those facilities that make marketing a priority may recoup their investment—and then some. Just like in other industries, marketing a hospital or healthcare system comes down to brand awareness. If your hospital’s name is well-regarded within the community and by potential patients, you have a distinct advantage over competitors. Branding, like the word marketing, is an overused term with a vague definition. Perhaps the best definition given of corporate branding is from Kristin Zhivago, former columnist for Business Marketing (now known as B to B Marketing). Changed slightly to apply to the healthcare field, the definition reads: “A brand is not an icon, a slogan, or a mission statement. It is a promise—a promise you can keep… This is the promise you make and keep in every marketing activity, service we provide, every corporate decision, and every patient interaction.” Tactic Toolbox The way to target these areas varies. A breakdown of four different areas attempts to shed light on the strategy. 1. Direct Marketing. Frequent contacts are more important than contacting everyone in the market at the same time. Therefore, repetitive direct marketing often works. According to marketing consulting firm The Business World, it is better to mail 12 times to the same 2,000 qualified prospects than once or twice to 20,000 or 25,000 prospects. In addition, it is more productive to use 12 postcards per year that drive patients to your hospital’s Web site than to have them call you for more information. “The more you can reduce the time required of a contact to learn more about your hospital, the better off you are,” says Mark Dziurman, owner of marketing consultant Dziurman Dzign, which specializes in direct mail campaigns. “People are much more likely to head to a Web site than request information over the phone because it is less intrusive on their lives, plus it relieves hospital personnel from having to spend time on the phones.” Postcards are a low-cost way to direct mail multiple times per year. Liz Diedrich, president and CEO of Creative Marketing Consultants, a full-service marketing and advertising firm in Minneapolis, says her company has received a good response (up to 10%) from highly targeted direct mail campaigns in which qualitative and quantitative research was undertaken before the mailing. The average response rate for the direct mail industry is generally between 1% and 2%. “We’ve found that if the message is tailored, direct mail is very successful in this industry because consumers really consider their healthcare to be an important topic,” says Diedrich. The Business World suggests creating an information-rich Web site that can be marketed in all direct mail pieces. It should have links to electronic versions of any informational newsletters that may have been direct mailed to local residents. In addition, contact information and physician names, offices, and locations should be clearly visible. One of the keys to a successful direct mail campaign is targeting your audience. That means buying good lists so you are mailing to patients who are more likely to be insured (higher-income areas) and more likely to require the services you provide or are trying to promote. “Buying lists can be a tricky business because there are many list brokers out there, and they all claim to do the same thing,” says Dziurman. “You should ask a lot of questions and ask to see sample lists before making a decision.” When available, direct mail campaigns should be supplemented by telemarketing efforts that follow a mailing. 2. Advertising. Advertising is the most costly way to market your services, but it is largely expected by patients as a way to help build brand awareness. Along with advertising in consumer newspapers and magazines, many hospitals today may sponsor sporting events. Michelle Brennan, director of marketing communications for the University of Pennsylvania Health System in Philadelphia, says they use television and radio advertising to target consumers in three specific specialty areas: cancer, cardiology, and women’s health. Brennan feels this mass advertising requires a targeted message rather than a broad one. “We’ll have separate advertising campaigns for each specialty, although as soon as you see the ad, you know it’s about our health system,” says Brennan. Diedrich has implemented an advertisement in local newspapers and magazines that could be used as a “fax-back” sheet for one of her clients. This approach has been very successful. “It’s amazing how many of these circulars have been faxed back,” she says. “It’s a convenient way for them to respond to us that isn’t time-consuming.” Many marketing experts point out that advertising should not be used exclusively as a marketing tool. In reality, advertising and marketing are completely separate entities, according to Anthony Putman, author of Marketing Your Services: A Step-By-Step Guide for Small Businesses and Professionals, which details how service industries can best market themselves to prospective clients or patients. In the first chapter of Marketing Your Services, Putman writes that marketing is not advertising. “Advertising is only one of many marketing functions. It is the most visible and perhaps the most notorious, but there is a great deal more of marketing than advertising.” Putman goes on to say that advertising should be considered a part of an overall marketing campaign and an additional way to build brand awareness. However, he warns that advertising by itself is a waste of money. “You can be successful without advertising,” Putman writes. “You have very little chance of being successful without marketing. Advertising, though, can be useful and important if used correctly.” 3. Special Events. Grand openings and other special events help build a hospital’s brand name and image and also garner media attention, which is critical to building recognition and good reputations within the community. One of the best ways to get free media coverage is to hold a benefit or special event that provides a positive message, such as adding a cancer research center, expanding a maternity unit, or x-raying Halloween candy. Special events are one way to differentiate your facility from other hospitals. Make the events truly special. Get speakers, invite community leaders, and provide blood pressure screening services as part of an awareness project. Since healthcare has become such a competitive industry, these types of events will draw immediate attention to that hospital. The more unique the event, the more it can set your facility apart from the competition. For example, a pediatrics unit could host a holiday party in conjunction with a charitable organization (eg, Kiwanis or Lions Clubs) that helps families pay for children’s healthcare. Diedrich says such events go a long way toward building a positive image. Additionally, the events can be used as a marketing tool in newsletters, direct mail, and advertising. “These types of promotions have worked well for us when opening a facility or to promote certain medical specialties,” says Diedrich. 4. Public Relations/Community Outreach. For something to be published in print or broadcast on television or radio, it must be newsworthy. Some newsworthy events just happen. A public figure being hospitalized or an outbreak of a rare disease doesn’t have to be marketed to garner media attention. But physician awards, the aforementioned special events, and other happenings should be pitched to your local media. This requires building relationships and maintaining constant contact with reporters, editors, and producers with area media outlets. Hospital efforts to improve the community, such as providing free educational seminars for local school districts, should always be publicized. Often, these events provide the local media with the sort of “feel-good” stories that are staples of both television and print. Technology is another natural story angle. Hospitals in general—and radiology in particular—offer many options for stories. If your department purchases a new top-of-the-line scanner and 3-D workstation, show it off to the local press. Physicians, including radiologists, participate in a wide range of clinical trials. Pitching that participation to the local media can position your medical staff as experts in clinical areas. To help obtain such coverage, Kim Schatzel, BS, PhD, an assistant professor of marketing at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, recommends that a hospital’s marketing group do anything possible to make a media member’s job easier. Most reporters are working on multiple stories simultaneously and will tend to reuse sources that respond quickly with accurate information. “Go the extra mile in working with the media because few things in marketing are free, and getting media attention is the closest thing,” says Schatzel. Some media outlets will favor healthcare systems and hospitals that advertise in their publication or over the airwaves. But advertising will not guarantee good media attention, nor will lack of advertising prevent it. Most news and advertising departments work autonomously. The hospital public relations staff simply has to get to know the best contacts. Schatzel recommends that hospitals hold at least one media event per year, complete with food and physicians and administrators who are available for comments on the “state of the hospital.” Diedrich says one of the best ways to take advantage of your advertising dollars is to place a print advertisement on the same page as an article about your hospital or healthcare system. “If you can schedule this in advance, you are really capitalizing on your marketing dollar,” he says. Other marketing initiatives include corporate collateral and health information. Designing and maintaining collateral, such as brochures, a Web site, and physician directories, are almost expected by consumers these days. On their own, they do little to differentiate one health system from another. Today, health information can be found virtually anywhere. The wealth of health information portals, such as WebMD, means newsletters and press releases should be targeted at local health information topics, such as a regionally centered breakout of the flu, says Dziurman. Establishing a successful physician referral program is important because patients will trust their primary doctors more than anyone else. If there is a need for a specialty service doctor, such as an orthopedist or obstetrician, that physician referral service will help to keep patients within a system or hospital. One of the more progressive marketing efforts is an online patient scheduling system designed by Diedrich’s team that makes it easier for both consumers and hospital staff to manage appointments. With this system, the only information available to patients is calendar details, ensuring that no personal health information is mistakenly shared. “It saves time and maximizes convenience,” Diedrich says. Brennan helps produce a system-sponsored health show, Penn Vital Signs, that is produced each spring and shown on Philadelphia’s local ABC affiliate. The shows may also be ordered by consumers at no charge from the system’s Web site (www.pennhealth.com/vitalsigns). These public service programs educate consumers on various topics—from breast cancer awareness to complex aortic surgery. “The shows really generate a lot of calls and interest after they are shown,” Brennan notes. “We have a live Web chat with the physicians involved in that show on our Web site.” — Mike Scott is a freelance writer who has contributed to more than 70 magazines, newspapers, and Web sites on numerous topics—from business to healthcare to technology. He lives in Waterford, Mich. |
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