Truth #2: Healthcare marketing needs a serious shake-up
The Truths We Hold Self-Evident: Second in a Series
Recently, we worked on an initiative with a small clinical group, and we were discussing the need to be very clear about our target audience. The group was building a specialized program aimed at a tiny subsegment of cardiac patients, and to emphasize the point, I joked: “At least we don’t have to worry about billboards this time.” Laughs all around. Until the next meeting, when one of the cardiologists spoke up: “I know we were joking about billboards last time, but maybe there’s an intersection in town where the traffic patterns might make a billboard a smart option.” Sigh.
The “billboards will solve everything” suggestion would be funnier if it didn’t happen so universally, so often. Not that we have anything against billboards – we’ve created dozens, believe me. They obviously have a place in the universe of potential marketing tactics. But the clarion call of “let’s put up a billboard” is one of the more obvious signs that hospital and health system marketing needs to shed its rudimentary, tired approaches and join other industries in embracing sophisticated and innovative marketing strategies.
Old School Thinking
Hospitals and health systems are burdened by old-school thinking that permeates their approach to marketing and branding. How so?
- The use of traditional media channels for communication – such as television, print, and yes, outdoor – still dominates the typical marketing plan, despite the erosion of viewers, readers and effectiveness.
- The same tired approaches are used over and over and over again, from straightforward patient testimonials – “Snowflake Hospital really cared for me” – to the use of supplier photography to promote new technology investments – “Popeye Clinics now offers the BS4000 triple-scan microfritter.”
- Broad-based consumer advertising is used when business is so often driven through referring physician channels. How many of you have been pushed to promote general surgery services with an advertising campaign? I can see the billboard now: “The next time you need your gall bladder removed, come to Periwinkle Health System.”
- Many marketing messages forget the marketing 101 mantra of showing the audience “what’s in it for me,” instead delivering communications that are self-promotional or feature-oriented. A great example of this is the staid tradition of running an ad in the local paper announcing the hiring of a new primary care physician. That’s great for you (clinic or hospital), but unless I’m one of the very few who happens to be looking for a new doc at that time, it’s meaningless. (A recent study from the Center for Studying Health System Change reported that in 2007, only 11 percent of American adults looked for a new primary care physician.)
Why is healthcare marketing stuck in a rut?
Hospitals and health systems have only recently had to leverage marketing and branding. Up until the 1980’s, the need for competitive strategies – and thus marketing – wasn’t often required. That means the industry as a whole is still low on the learning curve when it comes to these disciplines.
The result is a class of leadership that is, in general, behind when it comes to marketing.
In so many cases, marketing and branding are simply not understood – or worse, not valued – by those who lead our organizations. No matter how smart or creative the marketing department is, how sophisticated the strategy, how clever the campaign, if the CEO or the head surgeon doesn’t get it, it won’t fly. In their defense, many of these leaders don’t have formal marketing education or experience. But in its absence, instead of trusting their marketing leaders, they fall back on what they’ve seen before or what they see out in the healthcare market. Because both of these sources typically reflect bad or “old school” marketing, the cycle repeats itself. There’s also political pressure internally to “make the physicians happy,” which ostensibly means giving in to the demand for wrong-headed marketing tactics like promoting a lung cancer program using billboards and newspaper advertising. So often we hear from our clients, “Yes, we know it’s not effective, but do it anyway. It will make them happy.”
How can we move the ball forward?
Despite the challenges built into the system, we must all work harder to advance healthcare marketing and branding. For one, there are an increasing number of new entrants into the provider market that understand these disciplines, which gives them an advantage over traditional healthcare providers. Second, the world of media is changing all around us, from the rapid growth of social networking to the death of newspapers. Like all industries, we need to learn to adapt. But perhaps most importantly, our customers are changing. The rise of more clinical alternatives, the breadth of the Internet as a resource, the growing number of outside influencers on care decisions, and the rise in consumers spending more of their own money on healthcare – all of these lead to a more empowered healthcare consumer. And that demands more sophisticated and innovative marketing strategies.
So what can you do as a healthcare marketing leader?
- Embrace innovation – don’t rely on the tired-old strategies of the past. Question the same-old same-old and constantly look for new and better approaches.
- Always find ways to measure the results of your efforts, to help demonstrate the value of marketing to your organization.
- Explore and embrace more sophisticated tools and techniques, from CRM to call center implementation to brand building.
- Forget looking at what everyone else in your market is doing, and do something different or better. As stated by a professor of business administration at Harvard Business School in a recent BusinessWeek article, “A leader is someone who doesn’t do what everyone else does.”
- Try creative new approaches to reaching your customers – don’t be afraid to dance on the edge.
And perhaps most importantly of all, never give up the fight. At times you may feel like Sisyphus, pushing that rock up the hill and watching it roll back down yet again. Look for any victory you can and build on that success. The industry will never move forward unless those of us who understand the true value of marketing and branding push it there, even if it’s kicking and screaming every step of the way.
Chris – great article and I agree. I had a physician in my office the other day complaining about the size of our yellow page advertising!! Within the article, I would have liked to see some concrete examples of what has worked in non-traditional marketing – it’s good to hear some success stories.
Great job!
LeAnn
Hi LeAnn – great to hear from you! How is life up north? Thanks for the feedback. You’re right, examples would have been good. I typically see a few sessions at national conferences like SHSMD and The Forum’s CBM that provide good examples. Or, come to the winter conference at MHSCN in a few weeks – I’ll talk about a few examples in my presentation.
Chris,
As a non-health care marketing professional, I believe these same themes apply to all industries especially in today’s economy. I guess I have work to do tomorrow to rethink our marketing plans.
Yes, very true. Everyone tends to think their own industry is special, right? And I used to work in the financial industry (Tom’s industry), so I know from a marketing perspective, they were always a tad behind the curve when it came to sophisticated marketing and branding (at least 15 years ago they were). But there are many aspects of hospital marketing that truly stand out when it comes to the embrace of more sophisticated measures. For example, a friend of mine who runs one of the top CRM vendors in the healthcare industry told me last year that his generous estimate was that perhaps 10% of hospitals across the country used a CRM tool to help manage their patient/customer marketing. My guess is that is pretty darn low compared with other industries. Business concepts such as ROI, brand strategy and others truly are “new” to many healthcare providers. So see, we actually are special! But we’re getting there…
Bravo!
Marketing needs to speak to the specific needs of the patient. Why do I get the same printed newsletter in my mail as my 80 year old male neighbor with congestive heart failure?
In order to create such personalization AND have feedback about whether its read or not, healthcare needs to take a serious look at customer relationship marketing systems…and save serious money while producing much better, more personalized results.
kdowdall@appatureinc.com
How refreshing to see the plain truth in print,
“…if the CEO or the head surgeon doesn’t get it, it won’t fly… “instead of trusting their marketing leaders, they fall back on what they’ve seen before… There’s also political pressure internally to “make the physicians happy…”
Welcome to my world, Chris. Talking about this prevailing culture is the first step toward evolving it. But it can’t happen from below–the power base itself has to see the benefits before they’ll change. The upcoming generation of providers and leaders is more likely to “get it” than the current residents of the corner offices. That’s reason enough for me to keep striving, learning and building relationships in the organization.
Kara – the lack of adoption of CRM is a great example of how hospitals and health systems are behind the curve. I have a friend who works for a leading healthcare CRM provider, and he bemoans the fact that (by his estimation) only 10-20% of the hospitals across the country are using a CRM system. My experience has shown that usually marketing leadership get it, but convincing administration to invest in that level of “non-clinical” technology is the primary challenge.
Marie – if it makes you feel better, I think that’s the world of most healthcare marketers! But you’ve hit on a perspective we share on changing the healthcare culture regarding marketing and branding. It may very well be what we call a “generational” challenge. We look to examples in society, such as racism or sexism, and how they are so ingrained, it takes generations to move through for these beliefs to drop and eventually (hopefully) go away. The same might be true, as you point out, for the perspective of the current generation of healthcare leaders when it comes to marketing and branding. Most of them – administrators and physicians – came up through the industry when competition wasn’t a life or death prospect, and they don’t understand or value these disciplines in large part because of that. It may take the next generation, who are coming on board in an age of consumerism, increased competition, global forces, etc., to elevate marketing and branding to the appropriate levels. But, as you note, we don’t encourage waiting for that to happen – it’s still worth fighting the good fight!