Advancing the vision, strategy and leadership of healthcare marketing around the world.
Saturday, October 25, 2014
How does a hospital or health system recover from a devastating reputation hit?
Saturday, October 18, 2014
Is story telling the new healthcare marketing?
An interesting question, isn’t it? The marketing department is going from the
tried and true traditional hospital and health system advertisements and pithy
messages to stories that market the hospital or health system brand.
As an industry, we need to move more fully into developing compelling
content to engage and frame the experience of the healthcare consumer or
patient. And that means storytelling assumes greater importance.
After all, when one looks at the hospital and health system
advertising, it’s still the shiny new building, panoramic views from the rooftop
terrace of lounge, smiling doctors, award logos, or trophies and modern
equipment. But does that meet the needs
of the healthcare consumer or patient?
Those kinds of activities do not lend themselves to online or social
media very much, where people are 41 percent of the time looking for information
on the healthcare provider. And with TiVo, cable online, and all the myriad
choices for viewing nowadays, does anyone see them or surf through?
If that is the case and healthcare organizations, for
whatever reason, are unwilling to build points of differentiation for the brand
based on outcomes and price transparency, then why not tell a story?
Stories can provide rich content. Stories can engage. Stories
can frame the experience. Stories can
allow one to impart critical information that a healthcare consumer or patient
can use to choose.
This isn’t the story of “us” or the development of the
hospital as in “one hundred years ago, a visionary physician” well, you get the
idea. It would seem that given the lack
of differentiation in the market place between hospitals and health systems
that compelling storytelling can be the difference.
In a society that begs for compelling and meaningful content,
who better than the hospital or health system to frame what they do, how they
do it, and the outcomes achieved around stories? It does not mean that the traditional product,
a place, price, and promotion aspect of marketing goes away. It is just that those four Ps are told in a
story.
Storytelling has a beginning, a middle, and an end.
For your consideration, I submit, what works better, a story
of the development of a new outpatient center that is the future of healthcare,
a full-page four-color advertisement of a new building that says this is the
future of outpatient cares? A picture of a glass and steel building multistory
building? It looks pretty cold and sterile.
And I have no idea what is inside, what the hospital does, how it’s done, or
what it will cost me.
Now tell me a story about the experience. Engage me with the
story of the levels of treatment and what is done. Thrill me with the levels of
care. I was hoping you could give me the reasons why this healthcare brand
matters at this location at this time in my life. Tell me a compelling story of why.
Its healthcare.
Hospitals and health systems do good. There are millions of stories that can be
woven into compelling content optimized for social media and mobile that makes a
difference. Not all the cold, dry
explanations a healthcare consumer sees today. Use storytelling to create the reasons
why one should choose the hospital, doctor, or whatever one is trying to sell.
Individuals are now paying one-third of the total cost of
care. They are gaining sophistication
regarding making healthcare choices with outcomes and price data. What they don’t have is the frame of
reference to understand what it all means.
In an age where compelling content matters more than any time
in the past, it’s time to change the paradigm for healthcare marketing, and
time for creative storytelling based on the traditional four Ps of marketing.
Once upon a time……