When the marketing team is brainstorming about how to promote hospital service lines, a key component of that is to load up on patient stories.  Even though people get online to do research, what they really want after any diagnosis is to know they are not alone.   That is why the successful patient testimonial is so powerful.

Obviously, hospitals don’t want to violate HIPAA laws by disclosing information while patients are being treated.  But people can tell their own health care story anytime (in fact, they already do).  In other words, the story comes from the patient, not the hospital.  But these experiences – with permission, of course — can be highlighted on the hospital’s social media sites, and patient testimonials (formal or less so) should be a prominent feature of any hospital’s online presence.

For example, with more oncology practices becoming part of the hospital clinic, a logical way to highlight the skills of oncologists is to relate the ever-growing number of stories of triumphs over cancer, large and small.  This also provides a benefit to the clinicians who don’t have the resources to market their services.  Consider these cases: the woman who beats back a recurrence of cervical cancer (http://bit.ly/13YVIKs); or, the retired man who has overcome prostate cancer (http://bit.ly/11j2H3P).  These stories inspire others, improve collaborative relations with physicians, and build your hospital’s brand.

Speaking of personal stories, I’ve just passed my own 2-year mark of receiving the dreaded diagnosis of breast cancer.  Karen originally wrote about this in Oct. 2011 (http://bit.ly/148vRzW), and I wrote a follow up about the self-directed health consumer here: http://bit.ly/10Tlam0.  Since it’s such a widely-known side effect of chemotherapy, I thought I would share a photo history of my hair (!) which I lost during treatment, and is now back and as unruly as it’s ever been.  One small triumph illustrating the body’s ability to heal – that’s a compelling patient story, yes?

Photos, L to R:

1) My hairstyle before chemotherapy; 2) I’m “over the hump” with infusions, but note the loss of eyelashes and eyebrows (they come back quickly!); 3) I dressed as Sinead O’Connor for Halloween (2 months after last infusion); 4) our holiday card and 5) my current hairstyle.   I’m patiently trying to grow it out, although curls are a new hair challenge for me!

How to Attract, Engage, and Retain Patients with Content
Tuesday, May 21, 2013 11:30AM – 1:00PM (CDT)

With so many communication channels available to consumers today, the rules for marketers have changed. The focus now is on content marketing: creating and sustaining great conversations with the people who visit your websites and social media channels.

Hear how Sentara Healthcare leveraged the power of healthcare content marketing during its 28 Days of Heart campaign. Using combined techniques to pull content, a healthcare tool, and reconfigured information architecture, they were able to show clear results metrics in changing its approach to content.

Join Jessica Carlson, Digital Media Advisor, Sentara Healthcare, Ahava Leibtag, President, Aha Media Group LLC, and me on May 21, and learn how to:

• Create a content strategy around a campaign
• Set up a social media editorial calendar
• Engage and nurture your audience with content
• Analyze your data to improve campaign performance

Click here for more information and to register online.  The price for Forum members is $89 ($119 for non-members).

Karen

Someone once asked me about the difference between ‘focusing’ and ‘prioritizing’ – focusing is knowing what to do; prioritizing is knowing what to do first.  These are decision points faced by marketers every day. Especially when planning for a new fiscal year.

Every budget planning cycle, chief marketing officers find themselves hunkered down with their marketing teams, plans and spreadsheets, magically trying to conjure up ways to achieve more with less.  All too often, they end up trying to spread scarce dollars over too many projects, which jeopardizes ROI.  In other words, when dollars are spread too thin, spending on any given initiative may not be at the level required to produce a return.

When stuck between a rock (the health system’s need for profitable growth) and a hard place (the drive to cut costs), how do marketers prioritize marketing investments and gain organizational commitment to those investment decisions?

First, stop doing things that have marginal or no return.  Use this opportunity to take a stand and stop funding activities that have no or minimal impact on strategic growth, customer acquisition, customer retention and financial performance.  Specifically look at non-marketing activities that sap resources, and work with your colleagues across the health system to eliminate or move those deeds elsewhere.  Make sure your team is performing at its best; while it’s always difficult to move people out, when you are being asked to do more with fewer FTEs, each has to be a stellar performer.

Second, use a data-driven marketing resource allocation methodology to prioritize limited marketing resources (dollars and FTEs) to growth initiatives that have the best potential for improving business performance and positioning the organization for long-term success.

Three Key Decision Points

In prioritizing marketing investments, there are three basic decision points:

1. What businesses, clinical programs or market expansion initiatives offer the best opportunity for growth and profitability?
2. Within priority programs and service lines, what strategies and tactical initiatives will best achieve marketing goals?
3. What infrastructure investments will be required to support effective growth and marketing management?

In other words, what will you choose to invest in to drive growth and improve profitability, and what activities and support systems will contribute most to those objectives?

Focus.  Focus.  Focus.

Both top-down and bottom-up approaches to marketing resource allocation are necessary; top down for strategic marketing planning across a health system’s portfolio of service lines and market initiatives – and bottom up to develop specific marketing plans and budgets within each priority program.  Most important, perhaps, is to use a data-informed approach to gain organizational commitment to investment decisions and staying on strategy.

Gaining consensus is critical to keeping the organization focused on the marketing plan and investment decisions.  Not every bright shiny object can or should be ignored – some may very well offer significant opportunities – but distractions can be minimized.  The keys to effective marketing management are focused execution, ability to discern when course corrections should be made, and capacity to seize new on-strategy opportunities.

In upcoming posts, I’ll dig more deeply into methods for arriving at these decisions.

• Accountability in Marketing: Develop a Culture of Measurement, Optimization & Impact with Suzanne Sawyer, CMO for Penn Medicine, and Jeff McDonald of eVariant.
• Three-Dimensional Marketing with James Blazer, chief strategy officer, and Barry Stein, MD and VP of Radiology, for Hartford Healthcare.
• Uniting Multiple Physician Practice Groups Under One Bigger, Better Brand with Noreen Biehl, VP for Community Relations at Wentworth-Douglass Hospital, and Sean Tracey, creative strategist with Sean Tracey Associates.
• Improve Community Health and Grown Revenue with Pamela Maas, CMO for Gundersen Lutheran Health System, Stacy Mowery, director of brand services for Banner Health, and Joel Cessna, VP of sales for Medicom Health Interactive.
• Social Media ROI:  Mastering the Metrics with Chris Boyer, AVP for digital strategy at Northshore/LIJ Health System.

Don’t forget to stop by the Corrigan Partners booth in the Exhibit Hall.  Enjoy your day!

Karen

• Content Marketing:  A Primer for Healthcare Marketers with Edward Bennett, director of web and communications technology for University of Maryland Medical Center, Scott Linsbarger, director of digital marketing for Cleveland Clinic, and Shel Hotz, principal of Holtz Communication & Technology (talk about start power!).
• Internal Branding:  From Team Building to Business Building with Paul Szablowski, vice president of marketing for Dignity Health Arizona, and Rob Rosenburg, president of Springboard Brand and Creative Strategy.
• The Critical Value of Brand in a Changing Industry with Susan Soloman, VP of marketing for St. Joseph Health System in Orange, CA, and Chris Bevelo, principal of Interval.
• Using Technology to Enhance the Doctor/Patient Relationship:  The Marketer’s Role by today’s keynoter, Wendy Sue Swanson, MD, pediatrician and well-known physician blogger.

I have to also plug the session I’m moderating from 1:00 pm to 3:45 pm — Marketing Executives:  Transitioning from Volume to Value — with David Feinberg, VP and chief marketing officer for New York-Presbyterian Hospital, Jean Hitchcock, VP for public affairs and marketing for MedStar Health, and Christine Holt, VP for marketing and chief experience officer with Holy Redeemer Health System.  These are three top-notch marketers with great case studies.

Don’t forget to stop by our booth (#31) in the Exhibit Hall.  The opening reception is from 5:15 to 6:45 pm this evening.  See you there!

Every day, people in our communities make health care choices for themselves, their children, and their parents. These can be life-changing decisions, and having health literacy – defined as the degree to which an individual has the capacity to obtain, communicate, process and understand basic health information and services to make appropriate health decisions – is critical to positive health outcomes. However, research clearly shows that most health information today is not developed and presented in a way most adults can use:

• Nearly 9 out of 10 adults have difficulty using the everyday health information that is routinely available in our healthcare facilities, retail outlets, media and communities.
• Without clear information and an understanding of the information’s importance, people are more likely to skip necessary medical tests, end up in the emergency room more often, and have a harder time managing chronic diseases like diabetes or high blood pressure.

The implications for how clinicians deliver care are clear, but Marketing has an equally important role in promoting health literacy. We need to speak and write in a way that patients understand. Part of our brand becomes our promise to communicate in terms that are clear in intent, simple in language and consistent in message. Whether through social media, community education classes, print ads or news spots, the degree to which we successfully provide information to patients is directly correlated to excellent patient outcomes, thereby advancing our brand.

Are you evaluating your marketing initiatives with an eye toward improving health literacy? Does your staff know the tools to use to ensure relevant content, cultural appropriateness and correctly assess literacy levels?

The power and importance of social media cannot be overstated, especially in times of emergency. A well thought out emergency communication plan will be vital. A record of login information can help you save critical time in the unfortunate event that an emergency arises.

There are a couple things to keep in mind when you prepare your actual communication:

1. In the event of a natural or manmade disaster, people may be without power but still able to use their smart phone for communicating and gathering information. Remember that battery power may be precious. Keep your communications succinct and avoid too many images or videos that can use up battery life.
2. Text messages use less power and bandwidth and travel more easily than phone calls through crowded cell circuits. Consider using text messages if needed for internal team communication and be certain to have your team members’ cell numbers saved in your phone.
3. Communicate. Keep the information freely flowing so that interested parties feel informed. Remember that people from outside your area will likely visit your sites for information if family and friends are affected by the emergency you’re reporting. During an emergency, the use of tools that allow you to post on multiple platforms at once could be useful. Remember to search for Google Person Finder and see if they’ve created a search/find for your event. If so, you’ll want to share that with your community
4.  Assign a lead and a backup. You want to be certain that a succinct, accurate message is being delivered.
5. Keep a log of what you post. Your exact post will remain in cyberspace and can be collected at a later time if needed, but do keep track of when you posted and to what platform(s).

If your organization has used social media during a crisis, we’d love to hear what worked and didn’t work for you. If you’d like to have a copy of the fillable login form, just email me at kari@corriganpartners.com and I’ll send it to you.

Peace.

So you think one bad customer experience doesn’t have impact on your brand or potential customers?

54% of respondents who had shared a bad experience said they shared it more than 5 times, compared to 33% of those who had shared a good interaction.

Check out the info on this study from Dimensional Research.

On Monday, April 15, we will join chief marketing officers from leading U.S. health systems, at Chicago’s Catalyst Ranch for a two-day deep dive into healthcare reform and the implications for healthcare marketing. Corrigan Partners launched the CMO Project last year to establish a unique forum where healthcare marketing executives work together to create, discover and adapt ideas that advance the discipline and practice of marketing in healthcare.

Marketing through the healthcare reform transition is the topic of next week’s CMO Project Design Studio.  With passage of the Patient Protection and Accountable Care Act, new payment models, insurance mandates and reporting requirements are forcing fundamental changes in operations, clinical processes, use of information technologies, physician relationships and care coordination. Competition is intensifying as providers move to create the critical mass, economies of scale and geographic coverage to improve market leverage.

Changing economics are front and center.  For marketers, this means it’s no longer business as usual.  And, with more explicit mandates for return on marketing investments, CMOs are expected to develop growth strategies that that proactively address the changing basis for competition, and bridge ‘pay for volume’ and ‘pay for value’ revenue models.

During the two-day working session, we’ll explore:

• Pre and post reform competitive dynamics
• Marketing strategies to bridge “volume vs. value” economics
• The marketer’s role in ACOs, population health and patient engagement
• Innovations in primary care delivery
• What marketing executives need to do NOW to drive success

We’ll post more about the CMO Project Design Studio work next week, including insights and ideas from our brand excursion to Walgreens Well Experience concept store.  You can also follow the session on our Facebook page or Twitter #CMOproject.

Want to know more about the CMO Project? Give me a call @ 757.288.2480 or send an email to karen@corriganpartners.com.

Karen Corrigan

As I have been consulting with health systems and non-profit groups the trend seems the same. Your marketing dollars need to be spent on building volumes and customer engagement with investments in strategic marketing activities – so you need to limit the investment spent on “goodwill” sponsorships and yet remain community present. Here are three tips to consider which maximize your sponsorship dollars.

• Develop a sponsorship policy and review process – Develop an organizational policy on sponsorships. This can help to defend certain decisions – like requiring sponsorships have a health message/benefit, and a metric for success which the sponsoring group is willing to measure. For instance the policy I established at the hospital was that groups may generate only one ask per year and they must come through the marketing office – this limited the “surfing” throughout the hospital for support from different departments, and required the requesting group to think about with their ask for the year would be rather than coming to us 3 -4 times a year to ask for sponsorships of multiple events.

• Establish an annual budget – Carve out the dollars dedicated to sponsorships during the budgeting process. Set the budget for those contractual sponsorship commitments, and a discretionary annual amount. Seek agreement within the administrative team that this bucket is allocated and defined. In your process set a threshold amount (i.e. $25,000); request less can have direct approval via the marketing sponsorship officer – greater should be taken back through an administrative team for approval.

If other substantial opportunities appear during the year (those should do’s or have to’s) then request administrative approval or incremental dollars if outside the scope. This would be perhaps if the local football team qualifies for the Super Bowl and you have some incredible sponsorship offering that comes along that you just can’t pass up!

• Use a scoring tool to help make the process objective – Build in a scoring tool that takes into consideration your strategic efforts. An objective tool like this can assist in setting thresholds and help all understand why some sponsorships get approved and other not. A tool developed that looks at and weights your strategic priorities can be adjusted annually. This can also assist in defending why you did something last year, but decide not to sponsor this year.  Here’s an example of how you could score…

Every organization wishes to be a good community member and should be an active community sponsor. Just be a smart one – use tools to standardize processes, build your brand, support your strategies, and bring agreement to sponsorship participation so that your decisions are objective and defendable.

Good luck!