Traditional Healthcare Media

Media Mix 2020, Part 2: Is Direct Mail Dead?

Are television ads, direct mail, and digital display ads worth the investment? Marketing Your Hospital explored where hospital marketers should spend their marketing dollars in 2020. We’ll share what we found in this three-part series. In this second part, we take a closer look at direct mail. And be sure to check out Part 1: Is TV advertising dead?

In our first Media Mix 2020 post, we discussed the value of television advertising, even in the wake of digital recording and online streaming. But what about direct mail? Like TV advertising, direct mail is costly, while email blasts are cheap. Is direct mail worth the paper it’s printed on? Yes, yes, yes.

direct mail and letters piled high in a mailbox
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Media Mix 2020, Part 1: Is TV Advertising Dead?

Are television ads, direct mail, and digital display ads still worth the investment? Marketing Your Hospital explored where hospital marketers should spend their marketing dollars in 2020. We’ll share what we found in this three-part series. First up is TV advertising.

When was the last time you watched a commercial on television? If you can’t remember, you’re probably not inclined to spend a dime of your 2020 hospital marketing budget on TV advertising. No one will see them! Well, it turns out, that’s far from true.

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media buying strategy

Hospital Marketing: Media Buying Negotiations

As any hospital marketing director knows, media buying is essential to the success of a marketing campaign. But one overlooked skill in buying media is negotiation.

Negotiating is key because ad budgets are limited, and the better the rates you can get for your placements, the more reach you can effectively generate. Also, advertising space is not unlimited, which creates a need for negotiating and being selective when choosing channels.

Here are tips for negotiating during your media buying process to get the best deals from your vendors.

Negotiating Radio and Broadcast

Generally, rates for radio are negotiable because there is a fixed amount of inventory. Competition drives prices for these rates up; a lack of competition pushes them down. Fortunately, there is usually a wealth of radio outlets in a given market (if it’s large enough), which means you will more than likely have several chances to reach your target audience. This helps you because you can play one station against another and get lower rates.

For broadcast, that same principle applies. Another principle is timing. Since many broadcast outlets publish their fall schedules in May, buying at that time can give you special deals and packages in an effort to convince you to pay early in the year.

Negotiating with Print

Print is a different animal than broadcast and radio because there are few opportunities to negotiate on rate. Rather, what you’re negotiating for is what comes with your buy i.e., other services they can include, such as additional ads, special positioning, reader response cards, free color, and so on.

Since many print outlets are now also digital outlets, there are even package deals with their online properties and ad networks that can be negotiated for. (Often this works in reverse, too; if you are placing ads digitally with them, they often offer special incentives to place ads in the print edition as well.)

Hiring a Hospital Marketing Agency

The best all-around negotiating advice is to leave it to the professionals who negotiate regularly with media buying representatives at outlets. Agencies are advantageous for hospitals because they not only have experience, but also have established relationships with outlets over the years that can be used to your advantage.

Managing media and ad buying is not easy. Hire an experienced hospital marketing agency to help you develop your marketing network and manage your media purchases. Learn how with Jimmy Warren at TotalCom Marketing today!

radio marketing

Listen To This! Radio is Still Effective for Hospital Marketing


Like most traditional media, radio marketing has certainly faced increased competition. New media options like Pandora, Spotify, Sirius XM, iTunes Radio and a host of others continue to chip away at radio’s once-exclusive domain.  But traditional radio is still a good media choice for marketing your hospital.

Radio is available at home, in the car, at the office and on the go. Even with all of the new audio options, it still dominates in-car listening. And most important to healthcare marketers, the radio listening habits of Baby Boomers has changed the least of any demographic group.

 

Other benefits of including traditional radio in your hospital marketing mix:

 

Targetable

  • Diversity of station formats allow advertisers to target specific audiences. For example, Top 40 typically has a young female audience and provides a vehicle for promoting your hospital’s OB/GYN services. The Oldies format, which attracts listeners over the age of 60, can be effective for reaching prospective attendees of your upcoming Health Fair. News Talk and Sports programming offer opportunities to reach an audience for Sports Medicine and Spine.
  • Radio allows you to reach key marketing areas. Use audience delivery data to determine the stations with the most listenership in your hospital service area by zip code, city, county, or groups of counties.

 

Reminder Medium

  • For brands that are known, radio is effective as a “reminder” medium.
  • When part of a multi-media mix, radio commercials increase recall of your hospital’s television, newspaper and Internet ads.
  • Radio is a good driver to your hospital’s website or social media channel.

 

Influential

  • Radio personalities are influential.
  • 55% of respondents of a recent study stated that testimonials for healthcare or medical services given by their favorite air personality made the respondents trust that product or service. (Source: Radio Advertising Bureau F.C.T Report on Healthcare, 2014)

 

Engaging and Emotional

  • Radio stars in the theatre of the listener’s mind.
  • Voices, music, and sound effects in a well-written radio commercial can evoke powerful emotions.
  • Emotional events like babies born and lives saved are part of your hospital’s story. Radio can take listeners on your journey.

 

Inexpensive

  • Prospective patients need to be exposed to your message multiple times. The relatively low cost of commercials allows for frequency in your schedule.
  • Affordable production means ads can be tailored to the format’s audience. Your branding commercial on the Hispanic station should not be the same one you air on the Country station.

 

Quick Turnaround

  • Quick production and scheduling means you can adapt to events in your marketplace.
  • If a local emergency creates a need for blood, radio commercials can drive donations.

 

Nationally, radio advertising revenues have declined, but local stations are actually seeing increases in their share of local ad budgets. Radio continues to be an effective advertising medium for many local businesses including hospitals.

If you would like to discuss ways to make radio work for your hospital, contact the radio experts at TotalCom Marketing.

 

ABOUT JIMMY WARREN
Early to bed, early to rise, work like crazy and advertise! Jimmy Warren is president of TotalCom Marketing Communications and has over 30 years experience helping all kinds of businesses build a strong brand. A large portion of that experience has been helping hospitals and healthcare organizations. He loves the ‘weird’, interesting and extremely talented people he gets to work with every day – that includes co-workers and clients. Outside of work he enjoys his grand kids, traveling and any kind of good ole fashion Alabama sports. Roll Tide!

traditional advertising

Marketing Your Hospital with Traditional Media in a Digital Media World

Digital and Social Media are Important for Marketing Your Hospital. But What About Traditional? Is Traditional Media Still Relevant?

There is no doubt that you need to implement a digital marketing strategy for your hospital, but don’t neglect the traditional advertising that is tried and true.

 

Consumers Trust Traditional Advertising

According to a recent Nielsen survey, newspaper ads are still the most trusted form of paid media in North America.

In fact, over half of those who participated in the survey said they trust traditional channels of advertising such as newspaper, TV, radio, magazines and billboards.

On the flip side, over half of the participants said they did not trust the new media platforms, including social media,online searches and videos, and banner ads. While digital advertising is pervasive in our culture, it is not yet considered as trustworthy as traditional advertising methods.

In short, to build trust you need to utilize traditional advertising in conjunction with new digital tactics to effectively market your hospital.

 

Consumers Still Use Traditional Advertising

Most people engage in some sort of traditional media use every day. They listen to the radio on their morning commute, read the billboards they pass as they are stuck in traffic on the drive home, watch TV to relax in the evening and read their favorite magazine while waiting to pick up their child from soccer practice.

Sure, traditional media consumption has declined in recent years, but we are constantly surrounded by, and still consume it. Historically, mass media reach was at such stratospheric levels, that even with the decline experienced over the past few years, there continue to be thousands in our markets who are still watching, listening, and flipping printed pages.

 

Demographic Match

The 50 plus audience remains a heavy consumer of traditional media.  While they are comfortable with and use the internet and social media, Baby Boomers still rely heavily on traditional media channels for news and entertainment.  And it’s no secret that this audience is an important demographic for healthcare marketers.

 

With Traditional Advertising You Are In Good Company

Some sources would (wrongly) have you believe that traditional advertising is dead. If that is so, somebody needs to tell the marketing team over at Apple.

Apple consistently uses traditional media to promote their products. Google also has a track record of relying on traditional advertising to showcase their latest technological offerings.

Perhaps one of the most telling signs that traditional advertising remains significant is that Facebook is now utilizing traditional ads to promote their website! The popular social media site has purchased TV spots and outdoor media in the UK, Canada, and Australia. Facebook is a digital age powerhouse, but still recognizes the need for traditional advertising.

If Facebook needs it, chances are your hospital does too.

Need help getting back to the basics with traditional media marketing? Call Jimmy Warren.

ABOUT JIMMY WARREN
Early to bed, early to rise, work like crazy and advertise! Jimmy Warren is president of TotalCom Marketing Communications and has over 30 years experience helping all kinds of businesses build a strong brand. A large portion of that experience has been helping hospitals and healthcare organizations. He loves the ‘weird’, interesting and extremely talented people he gets to work with every day – that includes co-workers and clients. Outside of work he enjoys his grand kids, traveling and any kind of good ole fashion Alabama sports. Roll Tide!