5 Steps to Forge Deeper Connections with Patients and Improve Health Outcomes

Denise Aube, Executive Vice President and Healthcare Practice Leader at Crosby Marketing Communications

Want to connect with your target audience on a more powerful level and motivate behavior change?

Denise Aube, Executive Vice President and Healthcare Practice Leader at Crosby Marketing Communications, suggests turning to the principles of behavioral science to make your efforts more effective.

“The challenge is how do we engage patients and motivate healthy behavior. It’s more than building awareness or increasing knowledge. It’s about finding ways to actually engage patients, encourage them, and motivate them to act in healthy ways,” she says.

Aube offers five examples of behavioral science theory that could help enhance your communications programs:

1. Chunking: People are more likely to proceed on a difficult path if you deliver the steps in bite-sized pieces. By making the information easily digestible in ads, brochures, or other marketing material, you can increase people’s knowledge and understanding of health information and, even more important, their likelihood of acting on that information. For example, studies have shown the power of providing patients with easy-to-understand discharge instructions “chunked” into simple categories versus the traditional long list of highly complex tasks.

2. Reciprocity: “People are much more likely to give something if they receive something first,” Aube says. For example, many companies have employee wellness programs that offer people a discount on their insurance premiums or co-pays if they fill out a health assessment survey, and yet many people never take advantage of this opportunity to reduce costs. She suggests that offering people an incentive first may make them more likely to take this important step in monitoring personal health and well-being, since they feel more obligated to give back in exchange for what they have already received.

For Aube’s other three examples of behavioral science theory that can help boost the effectiveness of your marketing efforts, and drive real lifestyle changes, read the full article now: 5 Steps Your Organization Can Take to Better Connect with Patients.

Best regards,
Matt Humphrey
President