Hospital Branding

Creating a winning digital strategy takes the right combination of ‘earned,’ ‘owned’ and ‘paid’ media. Understanding what those are, and how to leverage them to create a successful plan can be confusing. A great way to tackle this is by thinking of earned, owned and paid media as a triumvirate. Each is an important part of your organization’s strategy, and combined, they can contribute to a successful digital marketing plan. For the purposes of this blog, we are going to focus on owned media.  Owned Media  is any communication channel or platform that belongs to your brand that you create and have control over. This can include your website, any content you publish, your social media channels, and the content you distribute on those channels. The cornerstone for any digital owned media strategy is a good website. For many, building a website can be an overwhelming prospect. But building one doesn’t have to be such a monumental task. It’s important to remember tha...

If you aren’t already using testimonials in your healthcare marketing plans, I hope that this inspires you to do so. Testimonials are a powerful tool that can persuade potential customers to buy or use your services. In fact, testimonials could be one of the most powerful marketing tools you have! People feel more confident engaging in a relationship when they know there are other satisfied customers. Through testimonials, you can give potential patients a reason to believe and a trusted opinion from a third party. Testimonials are effective because they: Build trust . Your customers share the positive experiences they’ve had with your organization’s services. Provide feedback . Asking for testimonials is a great psychological spur to encourage companies to continually strive for their best performances—and allows quick corrections if they begin to drift off course. Aren’t “salesy.”  Because they aren’t written in your corporate voice, they stand out as unbiased and auth...

In this evolving, technology-driven world we live in, phone books and directories are a thing of the past.  When it comes to finding the best restaurant, electronic store, bowling alley or even hospital, you must exist online. However, having just a website alone won’t do much good if no one can find you on the web.  In today’s competitive market, you need to have an effective website that is paired with search engine optimization, or SEO, to help visitors find your site. In short, SEO helps search engines, like Google, figure out what your website is about and how it may be useful for visitors. The best practices of SEO will ultimately improve user experience and ensure visibility on search engines, and if you don’t know how to deal with SEO, don’t worry, because there are professionals like the ones from  http://cultivateexpress.com/  that will be willing to help you at all times, and don’t forget that  at SEO Elements  you will also find some of th...

I just had a birthday!  My company did, that is.  Springboard Brand & Creative Strategy recently turned 15 and since only one third of new businesses last past their first decade, I feel pretty good about this accomplishment.  As I reflect over the past decade and a half, there are certain thoughts and ideas that surfaced that I wanted to share.   I hope some will educate, inspire, amuse, or just be a head nod to those who read them. The power of a big idea still surges.  From the “Mad Men” era until today, and I’m certain into the future, the advertising business still thrives on big ideas.  Sure, there are all sorts of new technologies to communicate and ways to “hide” behind production value, but strip it all away and – if there’s not a big idea that touches the heart and soul of your customer – you have nothing.  You know you have one when, years later, people still recall pieces of a campaign.  I’m proud to say there have been...

This week’s Modern Healthcare magazine, long a leading industry publication for healthcare and hospital executives, recapped the number of “mega-mergers” taking place in the industry during the first quarter of 2017.   The article cites four such mergers between eight $1 billion healthcare organizations.   According to a managing director of a larger international financial advisory firm in the healthcare industry, this is a trend that is likely to accelerate as hospital companies want “regional, if not national, reach to be more attractive to patients and insurers.” Additionally, the article cites that many academic medical centers are operating at near capacity and are seeking community hospital partners to take patients requiring less intensive cases.   This is opposite of a few years ago, when these same large academic providers were partnering with community hospitals to generate more referrals for their highly specialized programs that require volume to ...

Do you have headlines, copy, banner ads or other tactical elements that seem to be bouncing back and forth between you and your advertising agency?  Are you frustrated that your communication blends into the marketplace and doesn’t allow your organization to stand apart in a meaningful way?  Do internal stakeholders seem nonchalant over your new “branding” campaign or communication initiative? If you answered “yes” to any or all of the above, it might be time to rethink your strategy versus yet another redo to an existing concept or strategy that is either off course or has run that way. Too often, agencies and clients go round and round on creative executions and can’t quite pinpoint what it is that isn’t working.  Worse, yet, is the old “I’ll know it when I see it” conversation, that agencies seem to be hearing more and more these days. Keep this in mind:  If at three it’s not in sync, it’s time to rethink.  After a third revision, it’s not the execu...