Attractive Minnesota Health Care System Seeks Athletic Young Adults with Broken Legs, Fractured Ribs, Concussions, or Other Traumas. Object: Long-Term Relationships.

Notable Health Care Advertising // By Peter Hochstein // “Duluth, a four-season city with 11,000 acres of green space alongside the great Lake Superior, has miles of trails and over 100 parks, providing a suitable back drop for a multitude of recreation activities.” Wait! Don’t go away! You’re still reading Strategic Health Care Marketing. The Read More

Small Hospital Employs “Guerrilla Marketing” To Great Effect

“You know you’re in rural America when the front page of the local newspaper features a story about one of its delivery truck drivers finding his route blocked by a pair of obstinate moose,” observes Peter Hochstein, veteran copywriter and regular SHCM contributor. “It happened in Gloversville, New York, population 15,315, and once the center of Read More

How Can a Small-Town Hospital Get Big Returns on a Very Small Marketing Budget? It Pays to Be Clever. And Not Just with Advertising Copy.

Notable Health Care Advertising // By Peter Hochstein // You know you’re in rural America when the front page of the local newspaper features a story about one of its delivery truck drivers finding his route blocked by a pair of obstinate moose. It happened in Gloversville, New York, population 15,315, and once the center Read More

How Gen X and Boomers Shop for Health Care

“Much has been written about marketing health care products and services to millennials, and for good reason,” says Ken Robbins, CEO and founder of digital agency Response Mine Interactive. “Since millennials are coming into disposable income and are extremely health-conscious, it makes good sense to understand how to reach them. But marketers cannot afford to Read More

Marketing Science Plus Soul Equals Brand Success for City of Hope

When a young woman named Kommah was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer, she was told she had just a 5 percent chance of surviving. Gus, a firefighter, had to forgo saving others’ lives to focus on his own fight against leukemia. Today, both Kommah and Gus have beaten the odds, thanks to Read More

Personalized Marketing: Tracking City of Hope’s Impact, One Life at a Time

// By Lisa D. Ellis // When a young woman named Kommah was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer, she was told she had just a 5 percent chance of surviving. Gus, a firefighter, had to forgo saving others’ lives to focus on his own fight against leukemia. Today, both Kommah and Gus Read More

Gen X Is All Grown Up: Meet the Patients Driving Health Care Consumerism

// By Ken Robbins // Much has been written about marketing health care products and services to millennials, and for good reason. Since millennials are coming into disposable income and are extremely health-conscious, it makes good sense to understand how to reach them. But marketers cannot afford to overlook other generations. More focus should be Read More

How to Commit Health Care Marketing Heresies for Fun and Profit

Notable Health Care Advertising // By Peter Hochstein // “Health care heresies?” No doubt about it. Since April of this year, a New York advertising agency called Brandfire has been committing the advertising equivalent of heresy on behalf of North Memorial Health, a respected Minneapolis-St. Paul area hospital system with two hospitals, some 650 beds, Read More

A Focus on Wellness, Not Quality, Is Key To One System’s Advertising Success

“If somebody ever produces a list of the best places in America to get sick, Cleveland will have to be high on the list,” notes copywriter and regular SHCM contributor Peter Hochstein. “The 1.2 million people of Cleveland and surrounding Cuyahoga County have a choice of three teaching hospitals. One of them, Cleveland Clinic, has Read More

In a City Loaded with Expertise in Treating Illness, One Teaching Hospital Focuses Its Marketing on Wellness

Notable Health Care Advertising // By Peter Hochstein // If somebody ever produces a list of the best places in America to get sick, Cleveland will have to be high on the list. The 1.2 million people of Cleveland and surrounding Cuyahoga County have a choice of three teaching hospitals. One of them, Cleveland Clinic, Read More

Beyond Testimonials: A Fresh Way To Advertise Your Expertise

“If you’ve been involved with hospital advertising for a while, you’ve probably seen it all,” observes Peter Hochstein, veteran copywriter and SHCM contributor. “Touching testimonials from patients telling what a hospital’s doctors did for them. Doctors explaining how they collaborated on a medical breakthrough. Pictures galore of high-tech tools, people in surgical masks, MRI images Read More

Creative Ways To Engage Consumers and Move Them To Take Action

“Consumer engagement is one of those terms-of-the-moment in marketing to which marketers apply a variety of meanings,” says John Brand, senior director of marketing and public relations at St. Luke’s University Health Network. He says his organization defines “engagement” as “compelling consumers to take action on behalf of our brand, primarily in social spaces.” Brand says Read More

Is There a Fresh Way Left to Advertise That Your Hospital Is in the Front Lines of Medical Science? Here’s a Surprisingly Engaging One from Galveston, Texas

Notable Health Care Advertising // By Peter Hochstein // If you’ve been involved with hospital advertising for a while, you’ve probably seen it all. Touching testimonials from patients telling what a hospital’s doctors did for them. Doctors explaining how they collaborated on a medical breakthrough. Pictures galore of high-tech tools, people in surgical masks, MRI Read More

Lessons Learned from the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, and How St. Luke’s Applies Them to Move Patients and Employees to Action

// By John Brand // Consumer engagement is one of those terms-of-the-moment in marketing to which marketers apply a variety of meanings. At St. Luke’s University Health Network, a seven-hospital health system spread across northeastern Pennsylvania and northwestern New Jersey, we define it as compelling consumers to take action on behalf of our brand, primarily Read More

Cook Up an Effective Marketing Strategy with these 8 Key Ingredients

“Your health system or hospital story doesn’t matter—until it does,” says Eric Brody. “What matters is simply how your story fits into the lives of your audience.” Brody is president of Trajectory, a national branding and marketing agency. He notes that while this simple concept is tough to deliver on, it’s also critical to your success Read More

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Health Care Marketing: Try This Recipe for Cooking Up Fresh and Relevant Results

// By Eric Brody // Your health system or hospital story doesn’t matter—until it does. What matters is simply how your story fits into the lives of your audience. This simple concept is tough to deliver on, but it’s also critical to your success as a health care marketer. It really comes down to the Read More

How Do You Get a Rough, Tough “Man’s Man” to Overcome His Angst and Get a Colorectal Screening? Maybe with Direct Response Advertising

Notable Healthcare Advertising // By Peter Hochstein // In the Champlain Valley of upstate New York, where the nearest big city is Plattsburgh, population just short of 20,000, and the prevailing ethos is blue collar, 300-bed Champlain Valley Physicians Hospital had a problem. “ When you think of the kind of male who lives in Read More

Children’s Hospital Finds Success with Humorous Campaign

Veteran copywriter and SHCM contributor Peter Hochstein boils down one hospital’s advertising campaign down to one word: wisecracks. The little girl getting wheeled into surgery is about 11 years old—and not at all like any other little girl you’ve seen in TV spots about surgery. She’s a quick-thinking, fast-talking, smart mouth. But then, so is Read More

Word of Mouth Remains a Health Care Marketing Imperative

“Here’s important context for health care marketing in 2017: Attention and trust continue to decline across the country,” says Ryan Hanser, APR, who leads Hanser & Associates, a full-service PR firm based in Des Moines, Iowa. “Sure, we still have knowledgeable specialists—doctors, for starters. The trouble is that people increasingly reject the authority of expertise. Read More

Kids and Docs Engage in Jocular Banter. Result: Stony Brook Children’s Hospital Builds Awareness and Preference for Its Serious Approach to Medicine

Notable Health Care Advertising // By Peter Hochstein // The little girl getting wheeled into surgery is about 11 years old—and not at all like any other little girl you’ve seen in TV spots about surgery. She’s a quick-thinking, fast-talking, smart mouth. But then, so is the pediatric surgeon who accompanies her. The girl asks, Read More

Augusta University Health Gets Strategic To Improve Payer Mix

Augusta University Health System is no stranger to change. Over the past five years, it has undergone several rebranding campaigns and two consolidations. Yet through all of these fluctuations, one thing has remained the same: the need to find new and more efficient ways to improve its reputation and continue to grow market share. The Read More

Augusta University Health System Launches a Strategic Campaign to Grow Neuroscience Service Line and Build Its Reputation

// By Lisa D. Ellis // Augusta University Health System is no stranger to change. Over the past five years, it has undergone several rebranding campaigns and two consolidations. Yet through all of these fluctuations, one thing has remained the same: the need to find new and more efficient ways to improve its reputation and Read More

Word of Mouth: Harness the Voice of Patients and Staff for Powerful Results

// By Ryan Hanser // Here’s important context for health care marketing in 2017: Attention and trust continue to decline across the country. Year over year, America appears to be witnessing the collapse of expertise and institutional trust. Sure, we still have knowledgeable specialists—doctors, for starters. The trouble is that people increasingly reject the authority Read More

Micro-Targeted Marketing Pays Off for Tanner Health System

When its market share began dwindling recently, Tanner Health System turned to micro-targeted data to step up its marketing efforts. Until recently, the system’s main sources of information were limited to the basics such as electronic medical records, census bureau results, and general facts about the service area. “We also had data from the Georgia Read More