Building your Brand from Within

As seen in Western PA Hospital News

It’s rare to turn on the TV, read the newspaper or open any local magazine and not see an ad for a hospital or provider within a few minutes.  Healthcare providers like other industries understand that targeting consumers is vital to the growth of their organizations.  While many regional providers are doing a great job of marketing to the public to build awareness it’s not unusual for them to neglect their most loyal group – employees.

If you ask the typical hospital employee to tell you about some of their main service lines or key physicians, chances are you will get a shoulder shrug.  I’ve seen hospitals advertise services offered that their own employees were unaware that they provided.   While these examples sound extreme there is always more that can be done to target employees.  The last thing any health system would want is for one of their employees or their family members to go elsewhere for care that can be offered by them.  However, when this data is available, it is not uncommon to discover an outmigration of your own staff to other facilities.

Internal marketing provides an important link to the community as the hospital is often the biggest employer in its own primary service area.  “Word of mouth” advertising through employees, family members and friends can exponentially grow hospital volume and improve public perception.  Building the brand from within is an underestimated component of the overall marketing plan and can be achieved through regular communications, internal promotion and progress updates for the system.  Share all of your achievements and let staff know what they are and how they were attained. Do people really understand the significance of Joint Commission certification, Magnet status or a Five-Star HealthGrades designation?  If they do not, then the average consumer certainly does not.

This level of communication should flow to all levels of the organization from volunteers to sr. leadership.  It should also incorporate strategies to include other personnel who are actively engaged with the hospital such as the physician network, physician office staff, vendors and suppliers.   Anyone who walks into the door of the hospital is a potential utilizer of services or knows someone that might.

The audience most often neglected in this process is the volunteer.  They are expected to help everyone coming into the hospital, yet little is typically done to educate them regarding what the hospital offers.  This is unfortunate since they are often the most vocal members on staff and they are typically involved with multiple other groups throughout the community.  You can be sure if something is getting positive feedback they are going to tell others and the reverse is true as well.   Paying special attention to this group though planning dedicated programs and events can go a long way to promote the hospital’s services to this key demographic of healthcare users.

Fortunately for those not actively targeting staff, an internal campaign can be far more cost effective as compared to the other traditional forms of media advertising.   Adding education about the services provided during new employee orientation can establish this message early, but it must also be an ongoing effort.  Take in inventory of the resources your organization has to communicate to staff and use these regularly to disseminate information.  Common vehicles to accomplish this include:

    * Internal newsletters
    * E-mail
    * Closed circuit video
    * Staff memo and paycheck stuffers
    * Intranet or social media pages
    * Staff briefings and town hall forums
    * Bulletin boards/signage in the cafeteria, lounges and other common areas

Does the hospital have annual events that can also serve as a springboard to educate employee on specific services?  Most places now celebrate Hospital Week, Nurse Appreciation or other themed events.  There is no reason these cannot serve multiple functions to educate as well as recognize staff for the work they have done.

A well conceived internal campaign will make employees at all levels feel included and take greater satisfaction in the services they provide to the community.  Being creative in your approach, sharing your successes and using all available outlets will not only pay dividends by increasing overall awareness with consumers, but give employees a greater sense of pride.

Loyalty programs are everywhere...why not healthcare?

We see organizations in every industry employ tactics to build customer loyalty through “membership programs”.  This strategy has its skeptics, but there is data to support that its popularity is increasing.  Accenture’s 2010 annual global consumer survey stated over 52% of respondents said they opted in to loyalty programs in 2010, compared with 45% in 2009. And the percentage of consumers who stayed with their loyalty program climbed to 54% from 49% among retail consumer programs.

So why would a healthcare provider want to start a loyalty program?  The competition now for services in healthcare has reached the level of many other consumer products and similar strategies are required to maintain and build market share.  Some of the reasons for this include:

• Increased use of Health Savings Accounts giving consumers increased control and outlets for healthcare spending
• Increased competition from other hospitals and now private interests (i.e. urgent care, free standing care centers, physician owned specialty hospitals, commercial providers)
• Greater level of consumerism giving individuals more control over decisions and affecting their health care.
• Increased transparency enabling consumers to compare the quality and price of health care services
• More government regulated focus on customer service measurement
• Consumers willing to travel for perceived higher level of care

Many of the more robust programs that require sophisticated IT systems to track usage patterns are often too cost prohibitive to integrate into a hospitals current (often antiquated) system.  There are exceptions like the “My Healthy rewards” programs that some hospitals have implemented.  These however are largely retail focused and apply to gift store and other in-hospital purchases. 

Short of a long term IT investment there are still ways that a healthcare organization can begin to build loyal patients through membership programs.  Building a loyalty program can start with providing access to exclusive “members only” programs.  These would require some type of sign-up that can be actively tracked. Examples I’ve seen include:

• Exclusive admittance to classes, wellness fairs, screenings, seminars, interactive clinics
• Invites to annual or other special events
• Preferred access to special parking, set aside appointment times, exclusive phone numbers, or concierge services while at hospital
• Discounts on “out of pocket” services or at strategic partners throughout the community (gyms, specialty stores, etc.)
• Newsletters, give-aways or other chachkies

There are obviously many more, but all of them would be dependent on having some type of registration process requiring the participant to give out some personal information in change for services they wouldn’t normally received.  The key is to provide a sustained benefit to make it worthwhile for consumer/patients to keep coming back.  Over time the program can become more sophisticated to track points or rewards, but there is no need to run before you can walk.

Build Your Brand via Community Outreach and Programming

Many hospital marketers have asked me “We have a very limited budget.  If there is only one area where we can focus, what should it be?”  While this if often market specific, my typical response to them is to focus on grassroots community based programs.  These are initiatives that a hospital or physician group of any size can execute for reasonably low cost and can cast a very wide or narrow net depending on the audience that the hospital is trying to attract. 

These mechanisms can vary from very simple lecture based seminars to large scale multi-station, multidisciplinary events.  They can focus on a single service the hospital provides or can take a cross service line approach to promote several areas. An event can be conducted right on campus or be taken to a strategically targeted pocket of the community.

Key benefits of this type of promotion include:
•    High touch – Low cost
•    Targets very specific populations
•    Encourages physicians and hospitals to collaborate with one another
•    Provides the public direct interaction with hospital staff and physicians
•    Highlights existing services and facilities offered by your providers
•    Promotes quality and knowledge of clinical staff and physicians
•    Gives something value-added back to consumer
•    Demonstrate the variety of care access points to the community

Identifying strategic partnerships is an effective method to leverage your community outreach effort. Types of partners on your community may include local sports teams, colleges, heath clubs, charitable organizations, vendors, etc.  These partners can help to promote, provide credibility and lend resources or facilities for programs.  These too can vary in scale from a simple co-sponsored lecture to a full scale, monetary strategic partnership.

As with any marketing initiative, measuring success is an important element. Establishing a database to capture and track participants can be valuable tool for future events and to measure marketing effectiveness.  While tracking this is not an exact science since you cannot measure the word of mouth impact, you should expect that there be a greater benefit than what is actually tracked.

Bottom line is these types of initiatives are relatively easy to plan, but make sure you do PLAN.  Give yourself enough preparation time and identify speakers that are engaging.  Advertise on your website and in outlets that directly appeal to the demographic you're targeting.  A full page newspaper ad is not likely to be very cost effective or produce the results you want for say a diabetes awareness class or sports related clinic.  Regardless of the topics, a plan to address various groups in the community on a continual basis should result in increased awareness for the organization and provide a wellness benefit to the consumer.

A blog is born

At last count I read there are over 150 million blogs on the web.  I am pleased to announce blog number 150,000,001.  As a special celebration of this milestone I also wanted to share the official announcement announcing the formation of Creative Health Advisors. 
Click here for more

I promise to add more useful information pertaining to healthcare marketing and related topics very soon.  I am very passionate about the subject and am anxious to share my experiences and thoughts.  Please feel free to view the website at www.creativehealthadvisors.com or drop me an email with topics you'd be interested to learn more about.

Phil