As if the advertising industry didn't have enough problems, now the industry needs to show more and more demonstrable results, writes advertising columnist Dan Goldgeier on TalentZoo.com. But the not-so-well-kept secret is that no one knows if advertising works, he writes.
In this economy, how you choose to communicate your message is just as important as the message itself. With shrinking budgets at the forefront of decision making, there are many effective ways to get the word out without breaking the bank.
Miami (OH) Valley Hospital wanted to promote a recent high HealthGrades ranking for its cardiology services and also wanted to raise awareness for Premier Heart Works, a cardiology wellness and risk assessment program geared at educating the community about heart health while also potentially bringing in at-risk patients and downstream revenue for the facility.
Working with its agency, SPM Marketing & Communications in La Grange, IL, Miami Valley Hospital created a campaign that strategically combined traditional marketing mediums with a few new, creative, and cost-effective efforts.
The team decided to keep the message simple, keeping a consistent call-to-action pushing potential patients to the Premier Heart Works program. "Our goal was really to have more of a consumer appeal," says Rick Conrad, creative director for SPM Marketing & Communications.
The overall creative strategy featured a torso wearing a red t-shirt on all of the creative elements; which was used to carry the campaign message and to grab the viewer's attention. "Visually from a design standpoint, the red in the creative was a bit of a departure for us," says Mark Feighery, director of marketing for Miami Valley Hospital. "We launched a new visual identity two years ago and everything is blue, blue, blue. So this really stands out for us." Another tactic to get attention: Unusual ad placements in local newspapers—in the middle of an editorial page, for example.
Though the creative included traditional efforts like print ads and posters, it also employed a few interesting and cost-effective tactics, such as video postings on YouTube, t-shirts with campaign messages, and direct mail-like door hangers. The door hangers, in particular, were a cost effective technique that brought the campaign message directly to its target audience's door.
"We needed to make a small budget go as far as we could," says Anne Bassett, VP and account director at SPM. "So the door hangers were a great way of being very focused and very targeted on the audience we wanted to reach."
Playing off of the timing of national heart month and a special reduced rate for the Premier Heart Works program, the campaign is scheduled to run until the end of February.
What stood out most about this campaign for the team involved was its impact and resourcefulness. "For me, this campaign showed that with some creativity you can do a lot with a little," says Conrad. Thus far, reports have shown an increase in Premier Heart Works volumes since running the campaign.
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 an economic double-whammy: The recession is forcing some hospitals and health systems to cut back on recruitment campaigns—at the same time that demand for hard-to-fill positions such as nursing is growing. But there's a simple and inexpensive way to make your hospital or health system more attractive to candidates—and I'm amazed that more hospitals aren't taking advantage of it.
I knew that I wanted to write about hospital recruitment campaigns this week, so I took a tour of career Web pages at hospitals and health systems around the country. I looked at small community hospitals and large academic centers. Faith-based organizations, non-profits, and for-profits. Hospitals in big crowded markets, and hospitals in small communities. The variety of messages—some effective but many others quite off-putting—was amazing.
Your Web site's recruitment page is one of the first places prospective candidates will see when they're checking you out and deciding if they want to work for you. How can you make sure that your site is sending candidates the right message?
Make it easy. One home page I looked at had a miniscule and easy-to-miss link to the careers page. I had to look at the page from top to bottom three times before I found it. Another had a broken careers link. Think redundancy. There's no reason not to have more than one link to the careers page. You should have a link in the left-hand column, which is where most people look first and at the bottom of the page, another common place to find "about us" and "careers" links.
Make it welcoming. Another site I visited had scant information about what it's like to work at the organization—except for long and detailed "standards of performance" document with stern warnings about proper phone etiquette, attitude, and appearance. Not exactly a warm and welcoming first impression.
Make it personal. Another listed seven reasons to work for the hospital—all but one of which were written from the point of view of the hospital and why it's so great. Yes, you should tell candidates what your hospital is like. But like other forms of marketing, you must communicate the benefits to the customer and not just talk all about you.
Make it representative. Including pictures of employees on recruitment pages is a good idea. It breaks up text and shows some personality. Here's how to make that tactic backfire: One Website had pictures on its recruitment page that consisted entirely of older white men. That sends a clear message; one that I hope is not actually reflective of the workforce at that hospital.
Make current employees the stars. One of my favorite sites had video testimonials from real employees about the culture of teamwork and nurse-physician relationships. They had a fairly low production value, to be honest. But that also made them feel more real and unscripted.
Make it sticky. Another great site had an interactive healthcare trivia game with questions about nursing and healthcare history, for example. I played it three times and scored dismally low, proving that no one should ever hire me as a nurse. I spent more time on that site and the game hinted at the organization's personality and culture.
Make it mission-oriented. If you're proud of your faith-based mission or your standards of excellence, of course you should talk about them. But you can do so without talking about them only from your point of view. One site described its mission entirely from the point of view of its employees, explaining how they live those values. The word "you" appeared more frequently than the word "us" or "our." And that's a good thing.
Make it pretty. OK, maybe this isn't the most important recruitment page "do," but the sites that looked nice, that had visual extras like a well-made flash video, were much more pleasant to visit than those that simply had a plain-text page with instructions for submitting a resume. That also sends a message about your organization.
Take a look at your recruitment page. Does it reflect what it's like to work at your organization? Does it sell your hospital to potential recruits? Ask yourself: "If I had little or no information about our organization and had never seen this page before, would I want to work here?"
If you look and decide that yes, you're doing it right, I want to hear from you. Visit our MarketShare blog, where you'll find a post with some links to the great recruitment pages I found and share links to your great pages with us.
President Barack Obama pledged Tuesday to cure Americans from what he called "the crushing cost of health costs," saying the country could not afford to put healthcare reform on hold. Obama pointed to the increasing number of uninsured and rapidly rising healthcare premiums, which he said was one reason small business closed their doors and corporations moved overseas. Obama's prescription for healthcare reform included making "the largest investment ever" in preventive care, rooting out Medicare fraud and investing in electronic health records and new technology in an effort to reduce errors, bring down costs, ensure privacy and save lives.
Tenet Healthcare Corp., the nation's third largest publicly traded hospital system, reported narrower losses and stronger foot traffic through its doors during the fourth quarter. For the fourth quarter that ended Dec. 31, Dallas-based Tenet reported losses of $33 million, or 7 cents per share, compared with losses of $75 million, or 16 cents per share, during the fourth quarter a year ago. For the quarter, Tenet reported revenue of $2.2 billion, up from $2 billion in the previous fourth quarter.
The American Academy of Emergency Medicine is questioning the reorganization plans for the emergency room at the University of Chicago Medical Center. The Academy says the U. of C. is not including its own emergency-room physicians in the planning, and said the U. of C. should "re-evaluate its triage and screening examination policies." The University's initiative is aimed at clearing its ER of patients with non-urgent injuries and illnesses by redirecting them to community hospitals and clinics. The American College of Emergency Physicians has already called for a Congressional investigation into the initiative and whether it violates federal "patient dumping" laws.
Edmond Notebaert, the new leader of Temple University Health System in Phladelphia, has warned of $40 million to $50 million in spending cuts this year, but he was short on details on how those savings would be achieved. Notebaert, who is president and chief executive officer of the health system, told employees that the system needed to make the cuts because it has lost money on operations for five of the last six years.
The Prince George's County (MD) Council has criticized a plan that would allow a panel responsible for the sale of the county's troubled hospital system to sell pieces of it to various buyers. After a briefing by members of the Prince George's County Hospital Authority about proposed state legislation, council member Samuel H. Dean (D-Mitchellville) argued that the plan violates an agreement the county made when it pledged to pay $174 million over five years to the winning bidder.
Physicians at St. Louis Cardiology Consultants have opened a Web portal to a segment of patients, part of a systemwide rollout of electronic medical records across SSM Health Care. Through the portal, cardiology patients can hop online to request prescription refills, check portions of their medical records, or send questions about their conditions. Within a few years, the cardiologists expect to be trading e-mails with patients and possibly holding real-time Web chats.
Construction on Nemours Children's Hospital kicked off on Wednesday with a ceremonial groundbreaking at the hospital's 60-acre site in Florida's Lake Nona. If all goes as planned, Nemours will have the foundation for the seven-story building in place by August, officials said. The first phase of construction, which includes the main hospital, a 900-space parking garage, and other ancillary buildings, should be done in 2012. Nemours faced staunch opposition from Orlando Health and Florida Hospital in 2005 when it first proposed the region's third pediatrics hospital. But the nonprofit reached an agreement with its competitors in 2007 and got final state approval in 2008 to build the new facility.
