Marketers from Three Leading Organizations Weigh In on Patient Acquisition and Retention and What It Takes to Succeed
Times have changed. Your health care organization is no longer the star of your advertising and marketing. The consumer is — or should be.
// By John Marzano //
The history of service-line promotion dates back to the early 1980s when marketers built brand awareness of their organizations’ high-end specialty care using visual and emotional imagery to display the prowess of their services, physicians, and organizations. Marketing terminology referenced centers of excellence, and promoted an organization’s distinction as the largest, highest quality, best, or first program in almost all health care marketing and advertising.
Today, service-line marketing focuses on patients as the lead in advertising vs. highlighting the organization. The addition of data science and digital channels to deliver targeted messages offers effective new ways to engage, track, acquire, measure, and drive measurable results and return on service-line marketing spend.
“The C-suite’s charge today to every health care marketer is: How do we best engage with patients?” says Tom Hileman, CEO of Hileman Group, a leading data-driven marketing solutions agency.
At the Society for Health Care Strategy & Market Development’s (SHSMD) annual conference in September in Washington, D.C., Hileman led a discussion with leaders from three prominent health systems on the current state of service-line strategy and execution. The panelists included Dara Krueger, executive director of international marketing and marketing account services at Cleveland Clinic; Lynn Purdy, director of marketing development at Vanderbilt University Medical Center – Vanderbilt Health; and Ashleigh Killian, vice president of marketing operations at Baylor, Scott & White Health.
Here, they share their top recommendations for acquiring and retaining patients and consumers.