The New Year means the chance to embrace change, and to grow. Here are our resolutions for the healthcare marketing community, which we are grateful to be part of. We wish you a bright and prosperous New Year.Resolution No. 1: We will do less and accomplish more.We will say no to those activities that do not solve our organization's business challenges. As Lisa McCluskey, VP of Marketing Communications at Memorial Health Care System says, Read more »

Word-of-mouth marketing is often easy to discount because it is intangible and the rewards are difficult to track. But its affect on the bottom line should not be overlooked, as it can be a powerful vessel for conveying brand.What’s not so easy to discount is the incredible amount of information being exchanged online. Whether it's Facebook, blogs, Twitter or forums, long gone are the days of fence-chatters like Wilson W. Wilson Jr. of Home Read more »

Never underestimate the power of narrative in healthcare marketing and branding. No matter the medium, storytelling is still one of the best ways to meaningfully connect with audiences.  People love stories.  It’s how we’ve communicated with each other for thousands of years.What is your organization’s story?  Do your associates know it?  Does your CEO tell the story in a compelling way?At SHSMD 2012, the Mayo Clinic’s Amy Read more »

In healthcare marketing, we have to balance the accuracy of clinical terms with the need to use language our health audiences – most of whom try to spend as little time in a hospital as possible – will understand. We also want to use words that evoke positive associations. The Council of Accountable Physician Practices(CAPP) conducted focus groups around the country to test commonly used language surrounding ACOs. Toyomi Igus, the Communications Read more »

It’s been a power-packed day and a half for healthcare planning and marketing “phanatics” at the Society for Healthcare Strategy and Market Development (SHSMD) conference in Philadelphia.Given the upcoming election, political satire group The Capitol Steps and former Press Secretary Ari Fleischer kicked things off, followed by roundtable discussions and on-point learning workshops.If you couldn’t make SHSMD 2012 (or all the concurrent Read more »

         What drives us? was the question that two of SHSMD's 2011 keynote speakers, Lance Secretan and Dan Pink, tackled in Phoenix this past week. Both men shared their insights on how to get peak performance from ourselves and others in our organizations.Beyond topic, though, Secretan and Pink had virtually nothing else in common.Secretan, a former Fortune 500 CEO and leadership consultant, applied a very "Zen"-like tone Read more »

If you couldn’t make SHSMD 2011 in Phoenix (or all the breakouts you wanted to), our team highlights five of the best sessions on Days 2 and 3.ThursdayMeasuring Social Media in Healthcare (Wes Williams, Valley Health System and Dean Browell, Feedback)Marketers still silo social media — treating it independently of other marketing efforts — but the public doesn’t think about brands in silos, as in "Wow, this brand is great in Read more »

When you’re facing a challenge, do you ask others in similar situations for advice? The Society for Healthcare Strategy and Market Development’s By The Numbers report did – 193 of your peers to be exact — to help answer key questions about healthcare marketing departments.How does your marketing budget compare? Are others allocating funds differently? Is your department smaller or bigger than it should be? Which measurement Read more »

Hiring a marketing agency-of-record can be a lengthy, time-intensive process. Healthcare systems are notoriously consensus-driven, which often translates into a lot of planning, meetings and committee voting, especially when the decision is to hire an agency-of-record. Read more »