The topic of whether or not to market hospital ERs is about as controversial to healthcare marketers as the value of promoting third-party accreditations.

Those opposed to marketing ERs (including whether or not to offer wait time promise) often say:

• Consumers don’t choose their ER
• Advertising wait times is misleading
• Advertising wait time promises is misleading
• We’re dumbing down consumer who should be thinking instead which is the best ER, not the fastest

Those who support marketing ERs say, simply, it works.

And in our experience, having marketed over a dozen hospital emergency department campaigns in the last decade, marketing ERs can be a very effective tool for driving insured patient volume. (Emphasis on insured.)

Keep in mind:

• People only think of ERs when they need them – ensure your brand is top of mind
• Be present when people are headed to the ER – billboard and radio are good media
• ERs are one of the few services that consumers elect without a physician referral – leverage to your advantage
• Consumers are skeptical, so if you tell someone to trust their life with your brand, give them meaningful reasons why

Following are samples of a recent campaign we did with Forsyth Medical Center in Winston-Salem, NC and its sister hospital in Kernersville.( If you need emergency care in that area, head to Forsyth or Kernersville. Great care, great people.)

Forsyth is garnering a lot of attention for this campaign – read up on it here!

 Have you ran an ER campaign recently? If so, how did you go about executing it? Did you see results?

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