Hospital Marketing: Healing is Both Science and Art

October 12, 2009

Art can speed a patient’s healing process    Palette.

Hospitals spend millions on the latest technology to help heal patients. Great emphasis is placed on best practices to improve outcomes, and rightfully so. Hospitals should provide the best technology possible and strictly allow best practice guidelines to help patients get well as soon as possible.

But recent research shows that the right art on hospital walls can speed up the healing process. Upali Nanda, who has a doctorate in architecture with a specialization in healthcare systems states, “Scientific studies show that art can aid in the recovery of patients, shorten hospital staffs, and help manage pain.” 

Nanda conducted a study at Houston’s St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital using two types of art. They compared images, which had been proven to calm patients, including green landscapes, water scenes, architecture, and emotionally expressive pictures of people. In the second group, abstract art was used. The results showed that art depicting familiar, calming scenes were effective helping patients, but abstract art was not nearly as effective.

Nanda says, “One theory is that abstract art allows patients to project their own anxieties onto the image, and thus pictures that clearly portray pleasant images are more soothing.”

Based on these findings, hospitals should take great care in using art on the hospital wall and in hospital rooms.  And they should take care determining the type of art displayed. . Rather than modern or abstract art, realistic, familiar and appealing art scenes should be used because they help the healing process.

Healing is a science, but now we know it is also art.


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1 Comment | Hospital Advertising, Marketing Ideas, Patient Experience, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Jimmy Warren

Hospital Marketing: Facebook Wins The Engagement Battle.

October 12, 2009

facebook logo 2Facebook users spend more time on the site than other social media site.

Since the inception of internet advertising, the key measurement for advertising effectiveness has been the number of unique visitors to a site. The more unique visitors, obviously the more people reached.

But recently advertisers have been considering time spent on the site. Engagement is the concept that is gaining attraction. If a person is on a site for longer periods of time, there is more opportunity for the consumer to see the ads on that site.

Radio has been using this concept for years. They have emphasized, “time spent listening” as a way of selling the level of loyalty the station has among its listeners. The more the consumer is engaged with the site, the more influence the site has on the consumer.

And one of the chief winners of site engagement is Facebook. Facebook is already the fourth largest site in terms of unique visitors with almost 97 million unique monthly visitors trailing only Google, Yahoo, and MSN. But additionally,according to Nielsen Media Research, the average Facebook user spent 5 hours and 46 minutes on the site in August. Yahoo is just over three hours and AOL about two and a half hours. (See chart below).  As an indicative of Facebook’s growth in popularity, the 5 hours per month spent on the site, is up from an hour and 30 minutes a year ago. The more time a consumer spends on the site the longer they have to be exposed to the advertising that appears on the site.

This is a distinct advantage over sites like Google whose goal is to provide the information requested as quickly as possible.

So as you consider web advertising, one factor to consider is the time spent on the website. The more time spent on the site increases the opportunity for the consumer to actually see the ad, and it provides a favorable environment for the ad because the visitor is more committed to the site. Engagement adds value as an advertising option for advertisers.

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1 Comment | Hospital Advertising, Internet, Social Media | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Jimmy Warren

Healthcare Marketing: It’s All About Trust

October 11, 2009

Marketing is about building relationships… not selling a productbird on the hand

As marketers, we spend a tremendous amount of time fashioning and developing a brand. We work on clever ads, analyze the placement of media, diligently work every PR angle, plan super events, build a product website, and always look for new innovative ways to present our message to the consumer. And by doing all of this we think we can affect the brand, and we can. But all of this marketing activity is secondary to building positive relationships with the consumer. And positive relationships are based on trust. Do you have a brand that is trusted?

There is much talk currently about social media and how it is indicative of “pull marketing”. Social media requires authenticity and transparency and credibility. But this should be true about all of our marketing efforts, traditional and nontraditional. It’s true about developing and maintaining a strong brand.

Consumers are skeptical these days. They don’t want to be “sold”. They want a relationship with a brand. They want to trust the brand. Believe in it.

So do we earn their trust? Trust is earned by being sincere and truthful, by doing what is right, by truly earning the consumer, and by being consistent. When we deliver on those items, marketing is much easier. Marketing won’t be about shouting and screaming with shameless promotions.

Branding is about trust, being honest, delivering what we say and always keeping the well being of the customers as the top priority. When we do that we connect, we build relationships.

Marketing is essentially about building relationships. And relationships are built on trust. When we are successful building relationships, the rewards will be great.

 

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Leave a Comment » | Branding, Hospital Advertising, Hospital Marketing, Patient Experience | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Jimmy Warren

Healthcare Marketing: Let’s Go To The Movies!

September 8, 2009

film rollsMovie attendance increased 21% in the first two months of 2009 and year-to-date box office revenues are up 6.6%.  While other media is experiencing no growth and even declines, cinema advertising is a bright spot. 

More and more people are going to the movies.  Despite an economic recession, box office receipts have increased.  Instead of traveling or spending money on expensive items, people are enjoying the movies as a lower cost pleasure.  In addition, movies provide an escape from the hazards many people face at work or at home.

As more people head to the theaters, cinema advertising becomes a viable media option for healthcare marketers.  And it’s generally a younger audience than other mediums deliver – an audience that is sometimes difficult to reach.  It is true; this audience is not the biggest users of healthcare.  But it’s an audience marketers want to reach to start establishing an identity or a brand.

Because of the younger demographics, cinema advertising can especially be effective for recruitment efforts.  The promotion of healthcare career opportunities can be an excellent tactic by HR departments.

In the early years of cinema advertising the cost was high and the ramp up time was slow.  Technology has improved lead-time and a new aggressive sales effort has led to lower costs. 

Cinema advertising shouldn’t be the lead medium but it can effectively supplement traditional medium and reach an audience that is not so easy to reach.  Hollywood can be a big hit for healthcare marketing.

 

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3 Comments | Hospital Advertising, Marketing Ideas | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Jimmy Warren

Healthcare Marketing: Time Spent on Internet Leveling Off But Hospitals’ Advertising Opportunities Have Increased

September 7, 2009

Time spent on the Internet is leveling off because users are more savvy  and more familiar with it.

The time spent on the Internet was less than 6 hours per week in 2004.  That time has been increasing until this year.  Now the average time spent per week on the Internet is 12 hours but it is leveling off and not increasing according to Forrester’s Annual Survey.makro/nahaufnahme laptop/notebook

Are consumers losing interest? Hardly.  The time spent online is leveling off because they understand the web better and know where they want to go.  Consumers in their early days of usage explored, searched, played and experimented with the web.  As they learn and gain online experience they become more efficient.  Less time is spent just surfing and most of the time online is well defined because the user knows where they want to go or search engines help narrow the search to be more targeted. 

So a hospital’s online strategy is even more important.  The competition on the web increases everyday, but the average amount of time spent online is not increasing.  And with the emergence of Facebook and Twitter, is now consuming a significant amount of a person’s online time. 

The good thing however is because consumers are more focused and their choice of sites visited is much more narrow; the efficiency of web marketing is greatly increasing.  By knowing demographics, social graphics, and psychographics of the target audience, it’s easier to find where those people are on the web.   Web marketing becomes less about mass numbers of people on the web, but more about knowing the target audience well enough to know where specifically to find them on the web. 

Internet users are becoming more efficient with their time spent on the web, which enables marketers to be more efficient as well. 

 

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Posted by Jimmy Warren

Newspapers May Be Dying But Can Still Be Effective for Hospital Advertising

August 2, 2009

roll of newspaperWhile newspapers are rapidly losing readers, a strong community-based newspaper can still deliver strong results. 

The news for newspapers these days is not very rosy. It seems to be dying a slow, or maybe rapid, death. But locally oriented daily or weekly newspapers can still provide an effective vehicle for hospital advertising. And their future may be brighter than it seems.

In the past two years, The Tuscan Citizen, Rocky Mountain News, Baltimore Examiner, Cincinnati Post, Albuquerque Tribune among others have halted their presses. Others, such as the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Detroit News/Detroit Free Press and Ann Arbor News joined a list of newspapers that have gone to online/print or online-only editions. And that does not take into account the many who have filed bankruptcy or who are desperately trying to avoid it.

There are several reasons for the demise of newspapers.

  1. The down economy is certainly a heavy blow to the industry.
  2. The high cost of newspaper advertising has always been an obstacle.
  3. But more than anything else, the rise of the Internet, and especially the adoption of the Internet by younger generations, is the largest factor.

Even though newspapers are having huge struggles, some newspapers are doing quite well and provide an effective medium for hospital advertising. Those newspapers, in medium to small markets that are focused on a heavy dose of local news where there is no other viable source of local news are still very viable. In some markets, there is no local television station for local news reporting and local radio stations have long ago forsaken local newsgathering and reporting. So where does one get the local news? You might say the Internet. But in these medium to small markets, the only source that is posting local news on the Internet are the local newspapers themselves. So in those markets, newspapers still survive and even thrive.

It is argued that younger generations just don’t read newspapers but depend on  the Internet for their news. This is true, but at some point in the years to come, those young people will have families and be more concerned with happenings in their community. Then they will become interested in what happened at the city council meeting or who’s running for the local school board or what’s going on that affects them. Then where will they find that information? Unless Internet news postings somehow become very local, there are nowhere but local newspapers to obtain news and valuable information. Then even non-newspaper readers might become newspaper advocates.

So, it’s not wise to dismiss local newspaper advertising out of hand because of what’s happening nationally and in large markets. For those hospitals interested in reaching the local audience in medium to small markets, newspaper advertising can still be a very good option.

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2 Comments | Hospital Advertising, Hospital Marketing | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Jimmy Warren

Healthcare Advertising: Is Television Dying?

July 19, 2009

Don’t Eulogize Television Yet – It’s Alive and Well

television-is-dead

Everyday you hear more and more about the emergence of social media and the increasing ineffectiveness of traditional media. And you hear that especially about television advertising. The media makes it sound as if everyone is pulling away from TV and putting that money on the web or in social media. But look before you jump off the train.

It is true that viewer-ship of network television is declining. Last year spring, audiences on the four major networks declined by 2.5 million viewers. But does that mean television is dying? Hardly. Nielsen survey from this past February indicates the average person views television over 151 hours per month – an all time high. That’s over five hours per day. And this continues an upward trend established a few years back.

True, audiences may be watching television differently but they are still there. The audience is spread across many networks and not just concentrated on NBC, ABC, CBS, and FOX. And people watch television differently. It’s too easy to DVR (that’s a verb now) the programming they want to watch and view it whenever they want. But the audience is still very strong.

And that’s good news for healthcare marketers because television is generally the most effective medium in building a brand and creating an emotional bond. Sight and sound combined, renders a very strong and effective medium. Nothing communicates and impacts a consumer like television. Stories of successful television campaigns are still being written each day.

Yes, a media buyer has to be more creative, dig deeper, know the target audience and understand how consumers watch television. It’s not as easy as just buying the major networks anymore. Today it is more of a science . . . and an art. But for those who do it well, the rewards are still there.

Five hours a day average time spent watching television – and it’s primarily for entertainment. Don’t make funeral plans yet. There’s a lot of life left in television.

The more curious question is how do people find five hours a day to watch television?           

 

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Posted by Jimmy Warren

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