Hospital Advertising Needs a Shot in the Arm. STAT!

by Jon Headlee So much of hospital marketing is the same old...stuff. Boring. Expected. Physician-driven. Trite. We get it — you're close to home. Convenient. You have the most advanced technology. A robot. 95 doctors, who, amazingly, can all fit on one billboard. We've heard it before. You’ve heard it before. Who cares? Okay, maybe we're being harsh. But sometimes the truth hurts. And we’re here to take a stand — because, as hospital marketers, we're better than that. If we can’t clearly express what makes a brand different — and why that matters — then we’ll never grow out of the status quo. Communicating a brand isn’t about reciting a tagline — it’s about building something that lives and breathes the brand — through every interaction your hospital has with its people.   Selling The Expected? Don't Expect to Seal the Deal. Believe it or not, patients can actually choose where they want to go for care. So, to get people in the door, your hospital has to be seen as more than a high-quality (ugh — another ambiguous phrase) healthcare facility. Yes, patients want to be treated with brilliant minds and brilliant technology. And, yes, as marketers, we should make those points clear. But those points should only play a supporting role. Because the Oscar goes to the message that can wrap your patients in a warm blanket of confidence in your brand. After all, your competition is offering a lot of the same stuff. (And, sometimes, they're doing a better job.) So, put faces on your people. (Just please, don't squeeze all those faces on a single billboard.) Show off your softer side (but be transparent + believable). Give your audience a feeling about your brand — not just information about your brand.   Relatability + Credibility Builds Trust. So how do we do this? We think like our customer. We establish a common ground with them — before they need us. We get on their level. We are empathetic — and in the healthcare industry, it’s something we should all be pretty good at. When we do that — when we market the ‘why’ and not the ‘what’ — we are saying “I understand what you need and why you need it, so choose me.” We become a partner. We become a trusted resource. So, here’s the tough question for today — where does your hospital marketing stand? Soul search for a bit — if all that soul-searching produces feelings of sheepish anxiety or even a yawn or two, know this — no worries. So, you’ve got some work to do. But, the good news is, once you figure out the secret sauce of your hospital, you’re on the path to a great recipe that will out taste-test all the other bland hospital advertising we’ve been choking down all these years. And, remember, if you ever need help in the kitchen, we know some pretty good chefs.