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Editor's note: The following is an excerpt from The Complete Guide to Hospital Marketing, a new book from healthcare marketing expert Patrick Buckley and HealthLeaders Media. In healthcare marketing, the information you need to draw a composite picture of your service area is much more difficult to come by than it is in other businesses. Even though healthcare is a multibillion-dollar industry, historically, hospitals have operated as a cottage industry. Marketers in industries other than healthcare are used to sharing a significant amount of competitive intelligence, something that is still emerging in healthcare marketing.