Download How to Avoid the 19 Advertising Mistakes Hospitals Make Every Day

How to Avoid the 19 Critical
Medical Advertising Mistakes
Hospitals Make Every Day
Prepared by
Healthcare Success Strategies
Copyright 2013, Healthcare Success Strategies. All Rights Reserved.
Over the past 20 years we’ve helped more than 5,000 doctors and executives do a better job of marketing
their hospitals and healthcare organizations.
During that time we’ve discovered that even people with the best intentions, who have been advertising for
years and may be investing thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars on a weekly or monthly basis, tend
to make a variety of common mistakes.
These mistakes can determine whether you’re making money from your efforts or just throwing it down a
deep, dark hole.
In this paper we’ll identify 19 of the most common of these errors and provide surprisingly simple ways to
avoid making them again in the future.
Medical Advertising vs. Medical Marketing
We’ll get started in a moment, but first we want to be clear that we will be talking about “Medical Advertising”
rather than the more general area of “Medical Marketing.”
As we define it, Medical Marketing breaks down into a number of paid and unpaid categories: Internet
Marketing, Doctor Referral Marketing, Patient Referral Marketing, Publicity, Branding, and of course
Paid Advertising.
In this paper we are going to concentrate strictly on advertising, and how to be sure you’re doing it correctly
and successfully.
Again, to be clear, when we talk about advertising we are including a wide variety of advertising media:
• Print (newspapers, magazines, church bulletins, yellow pages and throwaways)
• Broadcast (television and radio)
• Direct mail (letter mailings in envelopes, newsletters, postcards, self-mailers)
• Door hangers (hand-delivered flyers)
• Outdoor advertising (billboards, bus benches, bus cards, taxi tops)
• Online advertising (pay-per-click, banner ads, landing pages, Groupon)
Advertising Mistake #1: Starting an advertising program without a defined plan
In reality, when many hospitals advertise, whether it is a small ad in a neighborhood throwaway or a multimedia campaign, it is often a hit or miss proposition.
When we talk to prospective clients we routinely hear that they run ads in their church bulletin because “it
feels right” or they’re on a particular radio station because the rep gave them free concert tickets (or because it’s
the station they play in the office).
Too often advertising is being done without really considering what the outcome will be. Ultimately this
results in money being spent without a justifiable return. And here’s why.
Approach your advertising like you treat a patient.
Your physicians would never treat a patient without first examining them, making a diagnosis and then creating a
treatment plan. It’s clearly the best way to ensure that you achieve a good outcome for your hospital’s patients.
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Now think of your hospital as a patient, one that you want to see do better. It just makes sense for you to take
the time to create a plan to make that happen. You need a treatment plan – or in this case, a defined
marketing plan.
With a marketing plan you’ve taken the time to clearly think through what you are going to do and why. So
when you actually start your advertising campaign it has a real chance of working for you.
And developing that plan brings us to the next mistake...
I have a defined marketing plan m yes m no
Advertising Mistake #2: Advertising without clear objectives
As we mentioned earlier, too many people start a new advertising initiative almost on a whim. You have a
new service or piece of equipment you want to get the word out about, so you just start throwing ads into the
marketplace. Not the best approach.
With any new initiative you must have objectives.
Are you looking to increase patients? Are you building awareness? Do you want to promote a specific service
or department? What do you hope to achieve? Better still, what do you need to achieve in order for your
advertising to be considered successful?
If you don’t have written goals and objectives, you can’t measure or even understand an ad’s effectiveness.
So before you spend another dollar on advertising, take the time to develop clear objectives. Then you’ll
know exactly what you are doing, why you are doing it and what you expect the outcome to be.
And speaking of spending money...
I have a clear marketing objectives m yes m no
Advertising Mistake #3: Advertising without a budget
Advertising effectively means committing dollars to the project before you start.
Furthermore, don’t expect to be successful without planning what you’re going to be able to realistically
commit to the program on a weekly or monthly basis.
Too often we talk to people at hospitals who entered into an advertising program without taking the time to plan
a budget.
Within a few weeks, they’ve invested all they could afford to put into a campaign and had to stop dead in
their tracks before their advertising had a chance to take hold.
Had they taken the time to budget properly, started a little more slowly and allowed their efforts to build over
time they would have had a success rather than a failure.
Don’t do anything without a budget in place.
Determining what your budget is for any marketing or advertising initiative is part of creating your plan.
Additionally, having a budget will allow whoever is developing your plan to allocate funds in a way that
makes your marketing most effective.
It will also help them to decide which media to recommend so you get the results you are looking for.
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For example, it might seem like a good idea to put ads on the radio. But if you can only afford to run radio
spots in the dead of night and your best prospects listen in the morning, then maybe you need to put your
budgeted dollars somewhere that’s more likely to reach your potential patients.
As you consider what your budget should be, keep this in mind...
I have a designated marketing budget m yes m no
Advertising Mistake #4: Looking only at the cost of advertising
You’ve heard it all your life: “You have to spend money to make money.” We like to take it one step further –
“You can’t be afraid to spend money if you want to make money.”
It’s not about the dollars invested...it’s about the revenue produced.
Too often we find hospital administrators looking at the dollars going out for advertising without really
understanding the potential dollars that the right marketing plan can bring into your facility.
When you advertise following a well-crafted plan, using best practices, you can easily generate incoming
revenue that is three to ten times more than the money you have invested.
But the key to all of this is stepping outside of your comfort area and bringing in a marketing specialist to
help you to create and implement your plan. Otherwise, you will be guilty of the next mistake...
I am looking at return-on-investment, not merely costs m yes m no
Advertising Mistake #5: Delegating your advertising to people with little (or no)
relevant experience or training
Over the years we’ve met and worked with numerous hospital marketing departments, and have found
that they come in all shapes and sizes.
At the top end of the scale, one hospital executive quietly confided to us that she had more than two
hundred employees involved in marketing at her hospital. But that is far from the norm.
In most cases, we find that even large hospitals often have small marketing teams that are stretched very
thin, and therefore are forced to become “jacks of all trades.” What’s more, these hard-working people are
often asked to create ads or buy hundreds of thousands of dollars (or more) in media, without having the
specialized experience and training required to do an effective job.
In these instances, it is far better to seek the help of outside professionals.
In the long run, you’ll be far more successful using a professional agency.
By using the right marketing firm, you’ll be dealing with people with a deep understanding of what
marketing and advertising can do – and how to do it effectively from day one.
With the right advice from the beginning, you stand a far better chance of having your advertising
efforts be successful.
In a moment we’ll talk about finding the right professional help, but first we want to discuss one more aspect
of planning.
I have the right people managing my marketing m yes m no
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Advertising Mistake #6: Trying to build your image rather than a patient base
So far we’ve been mostly talking about planning your advertising program. We’ve briefly discussed the need
for a marketing plan, defined objectives and budgets. Now we are going to talk about what you ultimately need
to achieve.
Too many hospital executives believe the goal of advertising is building an image for your hospital. Put
enough things out there with your name on it and patients will beat a path to your door. But it doesn’t really
work that way.
Building an image takes a huge investment.
Sure, you want to build a great image and reputation in your community. But that takes time and generally
deep pockets. McDonald’s can afford to spend a lot of money building and maintaining their image, but the
hamburger joint down the street, on the other hand, needs to get a steady stream of customers in the door just
to stay open.
It’s true for most hospitals too. Before you can spend your dollars maintaining your image, you need to
ensure you have a steady stream of new patients coming in.
The truth is, as you build that patient base – if you do it right – the image and reputation will build itself. But
attracting new patients requires a special type of advertising professional.
My marketing is designed to build our patient base m yes m no
Advertising Mistake #7: Choosing the wrong kind of advertising agency
As we were just alluding to, there are different styles of advertising. The first is sometimes called “image
advertising” or “branding.” It’s often more about being clever and creative than it is about actually selling
something. Its goal is to build an image or a brand for a company.
Building a brand image is what the vast majority of advertising agencies devote their time to.
It’s great for them because to really build a brand image takes a big budget, and that means a lot of money
coming into the agency. It can often take years to show any real results.
Even then, it is difficult to say whether new patients are truly the results of the branding. There could be a
whole slew of other reasons new patents are coming through your door.
The problem with image advertising is there is little or no accountability. And most image-based advertising
agencies like it that way.
Direct response – the evidence-based alternative.
The alternative to image advertising is called direct response advertising. We’re not talking about late-night
infomercials. Instead we’re referring to an advertising methodology that is scientific and evidence-based.
Direct response originated with mail order companies, who needed to make a lot of quick sales to grow their
businesses (and not spend a fortune doing it).
Through testing various approaches they found that a straightforward message, full of real benefits and
emotion, was key to getting customers to take the action they wanted them to, and buy the product.
Most advertising agencies do not understand how to make this work. They’d rather talk to you about pretty
design and colors than about really helping you get new patients.
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Direct response on the other hand uses proven techniques and strategies that actually help people make
a decision. Then it takes the extra step and asks them to take a desired action. (Like calling to make an
appointment, or requesting a special report that gives them even more reasons to choose your services.)
Why you want an agency that specializes in direct response.
When done by a direct response agency, your marketing will be accountable.
You can tell very quickly if it is attracting new patients. If it isn’t, you and your agency can take steps to
improve it until you’re getting the desired results.
At Healthcare Success Strategies we understand the power of using direct response techniques, and use them
to help our clients attract the patients they need.
Better still, we’ve found that when they are used correctly you can even blend them with branding techniques to
give you the best of both worlds.
But even choosing to follow a direct response approach has its limitations.
My marketing firm uses direct response techniques m yes m no
Advertising Mistake #8: Choosing an agency that does not have a deep understanding
of healthcare marketing
Most advertising and marketing agencies – whether they’re image or direct response – are generalists. They
work on any type of account that comes through the door.
But healthcare marketing is a unique area. There are legal issues. There are HIPAA confidentiality issues.
There is technically complex information that has to be made friendly enough for a prospect that typically
reads (if you’re lucky) at an eighth-grade level.
Equally important, your agency should be able to talk credibly with your internal stakeholders and that itself
requires a solid background in healthcare.
Understanding healthcare will help avoid costly missteps.
At Healthcare Success Strategies for example, healthcare marketing and advertising is all we do. As we
mentioned earlier, over the past twenty plus years we’ve worked with thousands of healthcare practices and
hospitals throughout the country and across just about every healthcare specialty.
Additionally we have a deep knowledge of what works in healthcare and what should be avoided.
So whomever you choose, we recommend that you insist on an agency with both a solid understanding of
direct response and how it can be effectively applied to healthcare and your specific organization.
There are still many other things to consider in developing your advertising...
The people developing my marketing specialize in healthcare m yes m no
Advertising Mistake #9: Failing to understand (or worse, underestimating)
your competition
We often ask prospective clients (even ones who have been advertising aggressively for years) who they think
their competition is – and we routinely hear hospital executives tell us that they don’t really have a lot of
competition.
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Or that their competition is another hospital in town. Or (for some departments), their competition is a
specific medical group, but their own hospital is far better with patients. They seem to brush off the idea that
other hospitals are a threat to them.
In today’s marketplace there is far more competition than ever before.
In your community, anyone who offers similar services is your competition – even if they are not a hospital. Competition can include individual doctors, medical groups and free-standing surgicenters. But it goes
beyond that: over-the-counter and holistic remedies are also your competition.
Even then we are only looking at healthcare-related competition. It has been estimated that the average
consumer conservatively sees some 3,000 marketing messages every day. Every one of them is either directly or
indirectly competing with your message getting through to a potential patient.
So it is vitally important that your advertising offers information that is not only beneficial to prospective
patients, but gives them a reason to choose you over all the alternatives.
I have fully evaluated my competition m yes m no
Advertising Mistake #10: Evaluating your advertising message from your point of
view, rather than the target audience’s point of view
This is a very common mistake. As a good marketer you need to take a step back. Whenever you say, “I
wouldn’t respond to that,” look out.
You have to remember that in most cases, you are not your target patient.
You come from a different background. You probably have more education and are looking for very different
things when it comes to your own healthcare.
If you have taken the step to choose a marketing company with a proven success history in bringing in new
patients, you need to look beyond how you think a patient should behave, and trust your agency and their experience.
At Healthcare Success we are also able to draw on the experiences of past clients. We often make use of
techniques that have proven successful in the past so our current clients don’t have to “reinvent the wheel.”
In a related vein...
My marketing is geared to my prospective patients m yes m no
Advertising Mistake #11: Not knowing how to evaluate your creative materials
(or trying to do it by “vote”)
Again, if you are working with a company that understands healthcare marketing and attracting new
patients, you need to trust what they’re suggesting.
Likewise, we would never suggest that a procedure you recommend for a patient is the wrong one. We don’t
have the expertise to evaluate what will work best.
But that is not to suggest that you should not have an opinion.
In evaluating creative materials you should always ask questions. If you have the right agency they’ll be able
to provide solid reasons and rationale for why they’re recommending you take a specific approach.
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There are often scientific reasons why; for instance, an ad is laid out in a specific manner. Often it is done
to encourage your prospect to read though your ad in a certain way, so that they are actually led to take the
desired action.
Be careful about advertising by committee.
Doing so is similar to the old story about the committee that set out to design a horse and ended up with a camel.
In our own company we recently tried an experiment. We asked a group of people to help us select a new headline
for a tradeshow booth. Each of the choices had been tested and shown to be strong at attracting response.
We thought our committee would just select their favorite out of several winners. Instead the group went round
and round rewriting the headlines until they had weakened the messages so much that none of them were usable.
In your advertising you want to present the strongest message possible.
Your message needs to talk directly to the patient in a way that lets them identify that the message is for
them. It should also give them solid reasons to take action. If the ad does these things, it has an excellent chance
of doing well for you – whether or not you personally love it.
My marketing has been evaluated objectively m yes m no
Advertising Mistake #12: Using the wrong advertising channels
Today there are more ways to reach prospective patients than ever before.
Among your potential arsenal are traditional advertising media – newspapers, direct mail, radio,
television, billboards, Yellow pages, postcards, and newsletters to name a few.
But there are also the ever-expanding electronic channels – email, the Internet, smart phones, Facebook,
Twitter, pay-per-click, and whatever hits the news tomorrow.
Each has its purpose and each has the potential to bring you more patients, if you use it correctly on its own
or in combination with others.
Too often, if you work on your own you’ll choose the wrong channels, or choose the right ones but for the
wrong reasons... It’s new. My kids love Twitter. It would be cool to be on TV. Everybody else is using it.
Most of the time you end up throwing your money away...
Or worse, maybe you tried something in the past and it didn’t work for you immediately. So you stopped
using it before it had a chance to take hold.
With the help of an experienced marketing agency, you can find the right advertising channels that fit nicely
into the budget you’ve established.
Your choice of advertising media should be based on a number of things. On your budget. On the
demographics of your target patient. On media that have been shown to work well for attracting patients.
Of course there will always be some trial and error, but with professional guidance you’re more likely to
quickly establish which media will work best for you.
But a key to making your marketing work exponentially is understanding how to make all of your marketing
approaches work together.
I fully evaluate media before committing to it m yes m no
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Advertising Mistake #13: Using an agency that does not know how to integrate old
media with new
When you do use a variety of old and new media, it is important to understand that today marketing
campaigns need to be integrated.
They need to work synergistically. If you are using print media for example, those pieces should work with
what you are doing online.
It is important that the left hand knows what the right hand is doing.
Unfortunately there are many advertising agencies that still treat traditional media as separate from online.
Or they stay away from online altogether.
And yet your patients are likely to check you out online before they call for an appointment. So you need to
be sure that the message they are seeing in your traditional advertising works with the one you are presenting
on your website.
So you also want to be wary of having old media pieces created by one agency and new media by another.
The pieces, if created properly, will build off of one another.
In other words, we would recommend that you look for a single agency that can help you create and produce
all of your marketing materials...and where needed, help you with the implementation.
My marketing integrates old and new media m yes m no
Advertising Mistake #14: Not understanding how media buying works (and spending
more than you have to)
Whether you want to place an ad in a newspaper, a magazine, radio or TV, it seems like it should be a pretty
simple process. Pick up the phone and place your order.
But like a lot of other things, there is a science to buying media.
It’s not just picking a radio station or a magazine.
You need experience to pick the right radio stations or publications that will most likely reach your target
patients. You also need to know where in the publication your ad should be, or when during the day is the best
time to play your radio spot.
These little things make a big difference when it comes to getting a response.
Negotiate. Negotiate. Negotiate.
Then there is the price you’ll pay. And we can pretty much guarantee you that if you’ve been buying your
own media, or having someone in the office do it, you are paying far too much for what you’re getting.
Professional media buyers know how to negotiate the best prices for their clients. Having someone advocating for
you can save you thousands, tens of thousands or more in media costs over the course of a campaign.
Better still, having your agency handle your media placement generally will not affect your marketing budget
as they traditionally receive their compensation in the form of a commission from the publication or station.
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But be careful. Just hiring an agency may not be any better than buying your own media. We were recently
talking with a major hospital. They told us about an agency that had pitched them. They were shown some
very creative ideas for a radio campaign. And then the agency asked the hospital people,“Which radio stations
do you want to be on?”
NOT the right agency for you.
Do not make this mistake either...
An agency that understands media buying will come to you with recommendations – and again they will have
detailed demographic information and response data to back up why they are making their recommendations.
So if your agency is asking for your advice, you need to keep looking.
But even if you start with great creative materials and you’ve picked the right media, don’t make this next error...
I am getting the most I can for my media dollars m yes m no
Advertising Mistake #15: Failing to test
As we alluded to before, too many people in your situation make the mistake of doing a little bit of advertising
and when they don’t get the results they want immediately, they decide advertising is not for them.
As experienced marketers, we know that not everything we try will work. So we’ve learned the importance of
testing an advertising program – especially if you have a limited budget.
Testing can take many forms. It may be running the same ad in two publications. If one publication brings
in more response than the other, it helps us to decide if we should run less in the loser and more aggressively in
the winner. Pretty simple idea.
We also know that something that works can be made to work even better (and that even a great ad will
eventually become diminished and will need to be replaced).
So we’ll take an ad that’s a winner and test a second version. Often it is as simple as changing the headline. Then we
step back and see which one gets a better response. This way we are always learning and improving on results.
Today testing has become easier than ever.
In our own marketing we will often test new ideas and approaches using pay-per-click ads on the Internet.
It’s an inexpensive way to test new ideas.
We might rotate three or four different ads at a time and within in a few days we know which of the concepts
attracted the most prospects. Then we can use that winning concept in other media – already armed with the
knowledge that people will be likely to respond.
But testing only works if you know how to capture the data...
I regularly test my marketing m yes m no
Advertising Mistake #16: Not understanding the need to track... or how to track
One of the first questions we ask a prospective new client is this: “How have past advertising initiatives
worked for you?”
The answer we get is generally vague at best.
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Why? Because even some of the most aggressive marketers we talk to do not understand the importance of
tracking – in other words keeping track of exactly where every new patient has come from. Even those that do
track, often do it poorly.
In fact, it is not just clients who don’t understand the power of tracking. Most advertising agencies don’t
understand how important tracking is – or they avoid it because if they tracked, they would have to be
accountable for their work.
Tracking your marketing is the key to knowing what’s working and what isn’t
It is as simple as that. At Healthcare Success Strategies we can’t stress the importance of tracking enough.
With the data tracking provides, you can tell exactly how successful any part of your marketing is – so you
know what to do more of and what to kill. Without it, results are anyone’s guess.
That’s why we push our clients to do it. Tracking is one way we help make sure a client’s advertising program
is successful.
But there is even more to it. And the next series of mistakes we are going talk about are ones that can sink
even the best of advertising programs.
I track all of my marketing efficiently m yes m no
Advertising Mistake #17: Launching an advertising campaign without training the staff
that answers your phones
Have you ever made a special trip to a store to buy a specific item you saw in their advertising, only to find that
the store’s employees don’t even know they carry the product? Or they’ve never heard of the item you want?
Frustrating, right?
It happens because the marketing department forgot to tell the stores what’s going on.
Hospitals make the same mistake all the time, especially when they begin advertising for “consumer-direct”
service lines.
This creates a whole new type of person calling your hospital
In the past your phone personnel have had merely an administrative chore, i.e., to route people who already
had an appointment or admit date, and were looking for specifics about their upcoming hospital visits.
When you advertise for specific service lines, you’ll be getting an altogether different type of caller. Shoppers.
They will want to get to the right department quickly and find people on the other end that can answer myriad
questions about care, physician and surgeon expertise and even pricing.
Most likely your staff – the people who have to deal with the new inquiries coming in – have little or no
experience in how to handle an influx of shopper calls. Furthermore this is just one concern. Worse still is
finding that your staff is actually sabotaging your advertising efforts.
We have found that many staff members are pretty happy with the status quo. When they hear you are going
to be advertising, they are likely to see it as more work for themselves, and may even subtly work against you
when dealing with new patients.
Proper call-handling techniques can make all the difference
So both the initial phone operator, as well as the specific departmental staffs need to know not only about
the new advertising, but also how to handle this type of caller to avoid losing them as potential patients.
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This requires training, by someone with real-world experience. If you don’t have someone in-house who
has these skills and can teach them to others, we would recommend that you out-source this to a professional
trainer.
These programs are designed to get staff members on board with your advertising plans and turn them into
advocates – even before you run a single ad.
A good program will also include training on how to track incoming calls, so you have accurate information on
how people are responding to your ads, as well as how well your phone staff is converting calls to appointments.
Plus you need to establish proper follow-up protocols to ensure both that appointments are kept and that
the patient follows through with care.
Consider taking your current phone staff out of the equation
Another way to temper these problems is to remove your current telephone staff from the process. Instead,
your best solution may be to use special phone numbers for advertising campaigns that route the calls directly
to phone personnel specifically trained to handle shopper calls.
This is a staff that understands their objective is to get the patient in, not merely answer questions; because
once your ads start running, you need a staff who is ready and willing to handle the phone calls.
Believe us, you will find that the cost of providing call-handling training for your staff or even adding special
staff just to handle shopper calls will seem minimal as compared to losing even one or two prospective patients.
To give you an example from our files, we had a client who did not listen to our advice. The first day their new
ad campaign began running, the regular (untrained) phone staff so angered a prospective spine surgery patient
that she called the hospital CEO – and at least $50,000 to $100,000 in revenue went to another hospital.
My staff is trained to enhance our marketing efforts m yes m no
Advertising Mistake #18: Not knowing what is really happening on your phones
Have you ever really paid attention to what happens on your phones after your receptionist says hello? Even
if you don’t market, how your phones are answered is crucial to whether or not a prospective patient actually
makes an appointment.
It has little to do with whether the person answering your phones is a “people person.” Studies have shown that
67% of new patient calls fail to result in an appointment. The reason? The person answering the calls has never been
trained in the proper way to control the call so your prospective patient actually makes an appointment.
And that takes us to the final mistake...
I am confident that my staff is setting as many appointments as possible m yes m no
Advertising Mistake #19: Failing to “mystery shop” before you launch a campaign and
not training to it
As we just noted, you may already be losing two-thirds of your potential new patients because of the way
your staff handles phone calls. But it can get even worse if you’re an aggressive advertiser.
You see, people responding to your advertisements are a different type of caller than those calling from a
referral or because they have chosen you from an insurance plan.
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That’s not because they are “bad patients,” or that they think less of you because you advertise. Rather,
because there is no preceding relationship (as in a referral), your staff needs to earn a little more trust at first.
Ad responders are more likely to be shoppers.
They will ask far more questions. They are more likely to go away if they don’t get the answers they’re looking for.
That’s why we recommend that before you launch any new marketing initiative, that you “mystery shop”
your staff. Doing so allows you to find out how they respond to the specific questions that might come from
your advertising.
We advocate the taping of these calls so that you can evaluate calls and then train your staff to do a better job
of converting calls to appointments.
We would also recommend you find someone with a background in sales training, or better still, in appointment setting, to help you with the actual training. With the right phone training you can up your appointment
setting levels to above 90%.
I regularly mystery shop my office to ensure success m yes m no
Let us Mystery Shop your Staff for you...For Free
We’ve found that one of the best ways for us to show you what we can do for
your hospital is to jump right in and offer you something that can help improve
your success from day one.
That’s why we’d like to introduce you to our programs by offering to “shop” your
hospital with a free mystery call. We will call and ask the right questions and see
how your staff does in making sure we make an appointment.
Then we’ll give you a written critique that will include what your staff is
doing right, and where they could use some improvement.
But hurry, due to time involvement we can only offer the Free Mystery Shopper
Call and Critique to a limited number of callers. Remember though, the mystery
call is free and without obligation. It’s our way of introducing you to our very
effective Convert Phone Inquiries into First Visits program. Call (800) 656-0907
now for details.
Advertising Mistake Bonus: Not choosing an agency that brings it all together for you
If there is one thing we hope that you take away from this paper, it’s this: if you are getting ready to expand
your advertising program, don’t go it alone. Get professional help.
But at the same time, choose carefully.
There are a lot of companies out there that can supply some pieces of the puzzle.
You’ll find that most agencies will be there to help create your marketing materials and ads. Some may help
you create a marketing plan (but many will expect you to develop it on your own). Others will help you with
your media planning and buying. But most, if not all, stop there.
Getting your staff ready to deal with the changes that a successful advertising program can make is not
something you are likely to find with any typical advertising or marketing agency. It’s not their problem.
At Healthcare Success Strategies we look at things a little differently.
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For more than 20 years, our founding partners have been working to market healthcare organizations. And
only healthcare organizations.
As a company, we pay close attention to what is working in the area of healthcare marketing and advertising.
We follow new media and adapt them for healthcare.
The things that we recommend to our clients are based on our experience, what we read in our journals, and
more importantly what we see work with our own clients. Then we test.
A long time ago we came to the conclusion that developing great marketing is only half the battle. Some of
the toughest work comes once the new patients start coming through the door.
A three-prong approach. Education. Strategy. Implementation.
That’s why we built our company to encompass all parts of a marketing program.
We often start with educational programs and seminars that can help you personally become a strong
healthcare marketer.
In addition, we offer marketing consulting – where we can help you develop a marketing plan, using best
practices – that will clearly help you reach your objectives.
Next we provide a full-service advertising agency. We’ve built a staff of some of the best healthcare and
direct response writers and artists in the country to help you develop creative materials that will deliver the
new patients you need. And we do online and off.
But we did not stop with the creative element. We are also there to help you implement your plan. We have
an experienced media department and we’ll teach you the secrets of tracking efficiently.
Finally, we have brought together some of the top staff-training professionals anywhere. These are people
who have solid track records of successfully building hospitals from within, who will teach your staff what they
need to know to build better patient relationships, convert new patients to appointments, and even train staff
members to build your professional referrals.
In other words, we offer one-stop shopping for helping you to build your hospital and attract the patients
you want.
So if you have found the information in this paper enlightening, please give us a call at 800-656-0907 or
email us at [email protected] for a free, no-obligation consultation about how we can help you
attract the patients you want.
Find Out How Much Of Your Advertising Budget Is Being Wasted – Let Us Give You
an Advertising “Second Opinion”
If you are worried that you are wasting money on your media buying, or that your message is “off target,”
chances are very high that you are right. In fact, the situation may well be far grimmer than you imagine.
But please, don’t freeze and do nothing. It is better to find out now that you have been wasting money and
fix it, rather than to continue to throw money away month after month, year after year.
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© HSS 09/13
Call Healthcare Success Strategies
now and get an advertising
“Second Opinion.” We can give
you a quick review for free, or
do a “deep dive” and create an
entire marketing plan for a very
affordable price.
Call us today at (800) 656-0907
and find our more.
800-656-0907 • [email protected] • HealthcareSuccess.com
© HSS 09/13