// By Lisa D. Ellis // It used to be that if you built a good health system, people would come. But in today’s hectic world, many organizations find it necessary to extend their services to places their patients frequent instead. In fact, these days, organizations providing the highest-quality care are a given, but how that Read More
Peter Hochstein, our crackerjack marketing writer, likes to interview hospital marketing departments and their advertising agencies for his column. “And I often ask them identical questions. I justify this with an analogy concerning two people viewing an elephant from opposite ends,” he notes. “One party tells you the animal’s most notable feature is a skinny tail. Read More
Notable Health Care Advertising // By Peter Hochstein // What’s the most important part of a print ad? The headline? The story it tells? The news it contains? The offer it makes, if it makes one? A unique selling proposition? A few years back, the Little Company of Mary Hospital, a 298-bed institution on the Read More
// By Jill McDonald Halsey, APR; Dan Dunlop; and Jeff Steblea // “City of the Damned.” That’s the magazine headline that greeted Jill McDonald Halsey when she arrived as the new Chief Marketing & Communication Officer for Lawrence General Hospital in Lawrence, Massachusetts. The city of Lawrence had been dealing with a variety of challenges, Read More
Savvy health care marketers recognize that people tend to trust what they know. Therefore, it’s important to remember that new isn’t always better. The reality is that even amid the shifting priorities of the health care field, staying grounded on your past accomplishments and trying to progress from there may get you further than trying Read More
Notable Health Care Advertising // By Peter Hochstein // I usually try to interview hospital marketing departments and their advertising agencies for this column. And I often ask them identical questions. I justify this with an analogy concerning two people viewing an elephant from opposite ends. One party tells you the animal’s most notable feature Read More
6 Ways to Make a Good Thing Even Better // By Lisa D. Ellis // How do you handle the pressures of marketing your health care organization’s products and services in 2016? With the growing emphasis on digital storytelling, social media efforts, inbound marketing, and patient-centered care all competing for your limited attention, you and Read More
How do you get your news today? If the answer is mainly online, you’re certainly not alone. In fact, with fewer people reading printed newspapers and magazines than in past decades, you may be considering following the trend by ditching your health care organization’s printed material to focus your efforts solely on the digital side Read More
Seattle Children’s recently scored a touchdown when it launched a new campaign called “Strong Against Cancer” to raise awareness and support for groundbreaking research that holds the potential to cure childhood cancer. Leading the play is Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson, who has a personal connection to Seattle Children’s and who has used his platform Read More
While Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, Florida is a well-regarded teaching hospital with a Level 1 trauma center, there was a perception that its facilities were outdated—which was particularly problematic for the facility’s maternity services. “When you’re talking about organ transplants, the quality of the room you’re staying in is not one of the top three concerns,” Read More
“Every great brand has a story to tell,” says Mark Shipley. And “an emotional, honest brand story can change the perception of a hospital or health care organization, eliciting consumer engagement, employee alignment, and a unique competitive position,” he adds. Shipley is the CEO and Strategy Director of Smith & Jones, a health care marketing agency Read More
“When a new brand takes hold as intended, one tough job is over—but another has already begun,” note Stacy Beers and Claire Hovis. “How soon is too soon to change gears from brand establishment to a new phase of promotion? Will new messages come across as mixed messages and muddy the clear impression you’ve worked Read More
// By Lisa D. Ellis // How do you get your news today? If the answer is mainly online, you’re certainly not alone. In fact, with fewer people reading printed newspapers and magazines than in past decades, you may be considering following the trend by ditching your health care organization’s printed material to focus your Read More
// By Lisa D. Ellis // Seattle Children’s recently scored a touchdown when it launched a new campaign called “Strong Against Cancer” to raise awareness and support for groundbreaking research that holds the potential to cure childhood cancer. Leading the play is Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson, who has a personal connection to Seattle Children’s Read More
// By Mark Shipley // Every great brand has a story to tell; one that evokes emotion, promises honesty and inspires loyalty. A compelling brand narrative is a powerful tool. It can bring color to a seemingly colorless organization, but it can also accomplish more than that. An emotional, honest brand story can change the Read More
Hospitals present more audio opportunities than do most brands, says Colleen Fahey, the U.S. Managing Director of audio branding agency Sixième Son. But most of the time, this opportunity is wasted: “Walk into the admissions area of a university hospital and you’ll hear the clatter of carts, the chatter of announcements, the buzz of phones Read More
The corporate and health care sectors often talk in different languages and have different ways of doing business. But there are lessons from the business world that can translate well to the health care setting, especially when it comes to building a brand. Perhaps no one knows this better than Lisa Stockmon, the Chief Marketing Read More
For One Florida Hospital, It Was the Smart Way Out of a Marketing Conundrum. Notable Health Care Advertising // By Peter Hochstein // For people trying to market the maternity services at Jackson Memorial Hospital, a huge institution in Miami, Florida, with more than 1,254 beds on its main campus alone, it must have felt Read More
// By Stacy Beers and Claire Hovis // When a new brand takes hold as intended, one tough job is over—but another has already begun. How soon is too soon to change gears from brand establishment to a new phase of promotion? Will new messages come across as mixed messages and muddy the clear impression Read More
St. Francis Hospital and Health Centers in Poughkeepsie, New York, wasn’t the first hospital to find itself drowning in a sea of financial troubles and it probably won’t be the last, notes veteran copywriter Peter Hochstein. Having filed for bankruptcy, “It was accepting bids for full acquisition from other hospitals,” recalls Barbara Kram, Senior Director, Read More
“As a former TV reporter, I have had a unique chance to see multiple organizations and topics competing for media coverage in a crowded market,” says Lisa Arledge Powell, President of MediaSource, a content-focused health care public relations firm. “But in the past few years,” she says, “the growth of new media has opened up Read More
What do you get when you mix science, soul, and miracles? At City of Hope, an independent biomedical research institution and comprehensive cancer center near Los Angeles, these ingredients are the recipe for second chances. And the sum is certainly bigger than the parts. “City of Hope’s mission is to cure cancer, diabetes, and other Read More
// By Colleen Fahey // This second half of a two-part series continues to explore the concept of audio branding and looks at how a tailored audio vocabulary can boost your brand influence more than you might ever expect. In the first section, we focused on social media in the quirky world of hospital marketing Read More
Notable Health Care Advertising // By Peter Hochstein // St. Francis Hospital and Health Centers in Poughkeepsie, New York, wasn’t the first hospital to find itself drowning in a sea of financial troubles and it probably won’t be the last. Having filed for bankruptcy, “It was accepting bids for full acquisition from other hospitals,” recalls Read More
Over the past year, Clay Cutchins of Franklin Street, a health care brand consultancy, worked with his team to help form the messaging and positioning of a new pediatric Accountable Care Organization (ACO) in Texas. This was not his first experience developing ACO marketing strategies. “Previously, we had helped sculpt the brand framework for a Read More