News Flash: SARS-CoV-2 has Changed Everything. Hospital Marketing Needs to Change Too.

As we begin to emerge from the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has overwhelmed hospitals and society worldwide, a new reality exists in the marketplace. That reality change for those who understand means that the hospital marketing messages of the pre-pandemic world won't work in the mid to post-pandemic healthcare marketplace for the hospital. It doesn't take a ton of market research to know that either. Just look at your own experience.

What's changed?

In a nutshell, everything has changed.

The patient care experience becomes more complex from the pandemic, as if it wasn't already complex enough, with that complexity translating into how the hospital reenters the marketplace with its inpatient and outpatient services, satellite ambulatory centers reopening.

Now, the great temptation is just to use the messaging, creative, and content while picking up and executing on your pre-pandemic marketing plan. Consider the impact of COVID-19 on actions, communication, and engagement on the part of the hospital to patients and the community.

Individuals have been bombarded daily with news, information, and advice, real and fake, on what to do or what to expect coming to the hospital or physician's office. This overflow of continuous information has been constant in patients' lives for weeks.

One would think that hospital senor leadership and marketing leadership would be sensitive to these new market dynamics and would adjust accordingly. I say that disappointingly as I see hospitals advertising using the pre-pandemic messaging and calls to action. Yes, it is expedient given the revenue shortfalls from shutting done all non-COVID-19 clinical services, but at the same time, it is tone-deaf and bad optics in the community for the hospital or health system.

After shutting down and implementing enhanced patient screening protocols that changed the experience, the hospital is essentially reopening. The message the hospital and health system is sending to the market is incongruous with the current knowledge of the patient and what will happen going forward. You're setting up expectations and an outcome that will be badly missed.

It is not business as usual.

And that is that what the old marketing messages and call-to-action represent. Once the individual acts on the message and experiences firsthand that it is not back, "old normal" problems ensue.

The challenge now is to develop new content messaging, call-to-actions with new production values that tie together your current state in the pandemic and how you are reopening shuttered clinical services for patients, physicians, and employees with their safety in mind. It is framing the new experience, not the old.

I understand that marketing and PR staff were laid off or furloughed, and budgets cut. CFOs had to do what they did because marketing and PR cuts flow directly to the bottom line. Resources are stretched and non-existent in some cases.

Hospital marketing teams and leaders will need to be creative in quickly developing the new messaging and find ways to get it out. But the bottom line is, you just can't pull stuff out of the can and expect it to work anymore.

That ship has sailed and hospital care and how the patient and market view and experience hospital care- inpatient, outpatient, and ambulatory care will never go back to the way it was.

Michael is a healthcare business, marketing, communications strategist, and thought leader. As an internationally followed healthcare strategy blogger, his blog, Healthcare Marketing Matters, is read in 52 countries and is listed on the 100 Top Healthcare Marketing Blogs & Websites ranked at No. 3 on the list by Feedspot.com. Michael is a Life Fellow, American College of Healthcare Executives. An expert in healthcare marketing strategy, digital marketing, and social media, Michael is in the top 10 percent of social media experts nationwide and is considered an established influencer. For inquiries regarding strategic consulting engagements, email me at michael@themichaeljgroup.com. Connect with me on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. Opinions expressed are my own.

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