Are you finding that your campaigns are flat-lining? A change of strategy could be just the thing you need to reconnect with your target audience. A campaign for St. Thomas Hospital in Nashville, TN, increased preference and awareness with a simple strategy and a few paper hearts. And the best part: St. Thomas didn't have to spend a lot to make it happen.
The goal of the campaign was to increase awareness and preference for St. Thomas's cardiac services and to position the hospital as the market leader. Of course, to obtain that goal St. Thomas needed a new strategy, a unique message, and it also needed to identify one point that really differentiated it and its cardiac services from the competition.
"We really like to plan our entire message around that one single point of interest," says Steve Castle, vice president of St. Thomas's agency, D S Tombras in Nashville. Through some market research the team found that St. Thomas was seeing the most heart patients out of any facility in the country. "People in the Nashville area have known I think that St. Thomas was the market leader, but I don't think they knew to what extent. This point really kind of hammered it home."
Using that strong differentiator to their advantage, the team decided to create a campaign that would focus on that message and that would deliver it in a unique and memorable way. "This market is very competitive," says Castle, "to the point where St. Thomas at the time was being out spent 2 to 1 by other hospitals in the market." The spot that was created didn't require a large investment but did manage to break through the clutter.
Featuring a downtown that the people of Nashville could relate to, the TV spot showed thousands of paper hearts raining down over the people of the city. In the background uplifting music plays while the campaign's message is delivered through a voiceover. The spot's tagline: "The hospital with heart," is shown before a shot of St. Thomas's logo and branding.
Creatively the spot is simple, yet the team found it to be remarkably effective. Though St. Thomas was being outspent 2–1, the team found that after the TV spot ran St. Thomas was preferred 2–1 over other hospitals in the region. "By using the strategy we did, we basically were able to flip the results," says Castle. Preference scores went from 50% to 56%. Overall, survey results showed that St. Thomas had a 230% increase in calls to its physician referral line and that top-of-mind awareness increased 64% over the previous year.
Kandace McLaughlin Doyle is an editor with HealthLeaders magazine. Send her Campaign Spotlight ideas at kdoyle@healthleadersmedia.com If you are a marketer submitting a campaign on behalf of your facility or client, please ensure you have permission before doing so.
It's a twist on the old chicken-and-egg question. Which is more important, marketing to physicians or direct-to-consumer marketing? Although there are some who still insist that plenty of patients self-refer, the fact is that—at least for now—patients usually go where their doctors tell them to go, especially for major procedures.
The just-released 2009 HealthLeaders Media Industry Survey of 1,148 healthcare leaders from across seven departments—including finance, quality, and marketing—offers some insight. But will it answer the question once and for all?
Who's your best customer?
Let's face it, the real money is in referrals, argue those who say the physician is king. That's why hospitals are increasingly deploying fleets of salespeople to call on physicians to ask for their business. It's why they're scrutinizing referral patterns and calling docs whose stats have dropped off to ask them what's up. And why they're engaging in two-way conversations with physicians, stepping up those face-to-face visits, and getting the whole hospital involved in the effort to increase referral market share.
Then again, maybe they aren't.
What's your style?
In our survey, we asked marketing leaders about the initiatives that their organizations regularly undertake to increase or maintain physician referrals.
The largest percent, almost 76%, said they engage in information sharing (communicating to physicians about the hospital). A smaller number, 65.5%, say they engage in information-seeking to learn about physicians' concerns. A respectable number conduct in the field, face to face sales calls, but only half said they have in-house programs.
Another discouraging number, only 20.69% say they have a full staff commitment to physician relations. And almost 13% said they have no regular initiatives at all.
Hospitals that aren't taking advantage of all of these methods must live in that elusive, magical place called the competition-free market. It's like hand writing a letter with a quill and ink pen and delivering it by horse-drawn carriage.
At least marketing leaders recognize this.
How aggressive are you?
In our survey, we asked respondents: "How aggressive is your hospital in marketing to physicians?" Aside from the nearly 15% who said they are not aggressive at all, the answers were evenly spread along the spectrum. About 29% said they are highly aggressive, 30% said they were moderately aggressive, and 27% said they are slightly aggressive. Not exactly a bell curve.
So what's going on here?
Have you hugged your CEO today?
One question hints at the answer, suggesting marketers just don't have enough influence over physician relations efforts. Or, more specifically, they don't have enough much influence over the leader who is ultimately responsible for volume: The CEO.
We asked marketing leaders to describe their place in the CEO's inner circle. About 30% said they are a key, valued advisor. A larger number said they can get the ear of the CEO when needed.
Interestingly, about 10% said they have little or no interaction with the CEO. I'm guessing that many who chose that response are the same folks who said they aren't aggressive and have no programs to boost physician referrals.
More bad news on this front: About 27% of marketing leaders rate their organization's marketing as "very strong." The number of CEOs who agreed? Eight percent.
What are you doing?
The fight for market share has become increasingly brutal. And, along with it, so has the fight for referral share. Any hospital or health system or clinic or program that is not doing everything they can to convert those splitters into loyals, any organization that has passive efforts or are making no effort at all should take another look at their strategy.
I spoke to a CEO recently who said that, in his market, which has a mostly affluent and mostly older population, there's enough business and market share to go around. It's a crowded market, but his hospital has a good chunk of the market share.
"Still," I said. "Wouldn't you like to have more?"
Although some physicians who do not accept health insurance could be considered insurance providers, many "boutique" or "concierge" practices can avoid being regulated by state insurance administrators by following market-value guidelines for services they provide and by going over their contracts with the Maryland Insurance Administration, according to findings issued by the agency. The report was prompted by the insurance administration's concerns about some doctors' switching their business models to charge patients an annual, flat fee for services, rather than continue to accept health insurance.
The St. Bernard Parish Council will conduct a special meeting to consider disbanding the five-member hospital board it created more than a year ago and appointing replacements. The measure is the third time since October that the council has proposed a shakeup involving the parish's Hospital Service District Board, tasked by the previous council with building St. Bernard's first post-Hurricane Katrina hospital. Councilman Wayne Landry said the council's proposal comes after a series of problems with the board during the past year, including potential conflicts of interest and issues with properly advertising contracts.
Humana will hire dozens of healthcare professionals to staff its new Humana Cares national operations and service center in St. Petersburg, FL. Humana initially is employing 275 people at the new center, located in the Carillon business park, and plans to expand its on-site staff to more than 325 by the end of this year. Since fall 2008, the program has added about 100 workers and currently is hiring registered nurses, social workers, community health educators and other support staff.
The American Society for Reproductive Medicine said it is going to look into the case of a mother who gave birth to octuplets, and who now has 14 children. The mother, 33-year-old Nadya Suleman, went to a Beverly Hills doctor, whose fertility treatment led to the birth of her octuplets and her six previous children. West Coast IVF Clinic is run by Michael M. Kamrava, MD, who has declined to comment about the case. The California Medical Board previously announced an investigation, and the reproductive medicine society is now following suit.