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When Marketing Clinical Technology, It’s All or Nothing

 |  By Marianne@example.com  
   July 14, 2010

Healthcare marketers could go back and forth for days debating the effectiveness of making an appeal to people's emotions versus promoting state-of-the-art clinical technology. And although the majority of campaigns that come across my desk focus on sentiment, most at least mention their organization's technology just to be sure they resonate with that one person who might think, "Sure, you have caring doctors—but do you have the new da Vinci system?"

But if you're going to launch a technology-promoting campaign, the most effective strategy is to go all out. The way Sacred Heart Hospital in Eau Claire, WI, marketed its intraoperative magnetic resonance imaging (iMRI) machine and a Smart Operating Suite (Smart OR) is a valuable example of all-or-nothing tech advertising.

The 344-bed hospital decided to create two coordinated rock video-inspired campaigns in 2008 and 2009 because its largest competitor, a Mayo Health System affiliate, had a reputation as the leader in technology and innovation.

"Several years ago, an in-depth regional health needs analysis led us to begin investing in the technology and talent we needed to transform ourselves from a community hospital into a regional tertiary care center," said Steve Ronstrom, president of Western Wisconsin Division of Hospital Sisters Health System and CEO of Sacred Heart Hospital, in the June issue of Healthcare Marketing Advisor. "As we began revolutionizing the care we offered the people in our region, we found we needed to support our effort with a marketing campaign that was just as revolutionary in order to transform the way people perceived us."

The first leg of the campaign launched in October of 2008 and introduced the community to the Brain & Spine Institute at Sacred Heart's iMRI Smart OR, which was one of only six in the country. The second leg of the campaign launched in November 2009 and announced the opening of a second Smart OR for spine and trauma surgery at the Brain & Spine Institute, this one containing a sophisticated intraoperative computed tomography (iCT) scanner. Having both suites made Sacred Heart the only hospital in the country with both iMRI and iCT neurosurgical technology.

To get an idea of the feeling of the campaign, view the iMRI Smart OR movie trailer. It does elicit feelings—but not the warm and fuzzy kind found in many healthcare ads. The sharp imagery and the up-tempo music convey a sense of urgency, competence, and modernity. You might not be sure if the nurses at Sacred Heart will hold your hand, but you know you'd want to be admitted if you had a serious condition that this machine might help diagnose.

To capitalize on the look and feel of the campaign, marketers developed a tagline projecting the notion that the hospital wasn't only investing in technology—it was investing in technology designed to "Change Your Thinking" about what was possible in medicine.

Preliminary results have proven that this approach worked. Although Swanson says the effects from this type of campaign can take years to show, Sacred Heart's community perception saw an immediate bump after each leg of the campaign and the hospital experienced a halo effect for several other service lines.

"Neuro services is at its max of cases," Swanson says. "Physicians have come from other hospitals to look at the equipment and understand what it does. We've been getting referrals from a much wider area as people understand the capabilities of the OR."

Any marketers know that the most successful strategies highlight their organization's empathy as well as technology, but sometimes promoting both in every effort you put out just winds up watering each down. Sacred Heart's approach proves that consumers appreciate clinical technology as much as a doctor who will take the time to carefully review a prognosis. Besides, word of your staff's kindness has a way of getting around on its own—imaging devices just aren't water-cooler fodder.

Marianne Aiello is a contributing writer at HealthLeaders Media.

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