instantly health

As the provider market for the healthcare consumer continues to consolidate through merger, acquisition, liquidation, or disintermediation, there is one clear outcome. Fewer providers mean heightened competition within hospitals or health systems in a bid to stay atop the food chain. With the consumer's growing realization that they need a hospital for only three things, the ER, ICU, and medical care for complex acute medical conditions, they are more in control with their physician of the buying process than providers want to admit. To become part of the consumer's choice for healthcare, successful providers will recognize that understanding the healthcare consumer buyers' journey is the new way of thinking about marketing, how it impacts growth, and can drive the organization in a better direction that is more customer-focused and responsive to their needs.  Customer Buyer Journey In this environment, providers are already losing meaningful differentiation. Marketing camp...

And it’s not a quiz either. I try extremely hard not to call out individual hospitals or health systems for their lack of understanding of the healthcare consumer, their expectations, needs, and for knowing who their patient is. But sometimes the professional healthcare marketer in me gets the best of me when I receive some marketing material from a health system, through different incarnations, I have used for 22 plus years. That’s right 22 plus years.  Oh, and did I mention that my wife, children, and mother-in-law have used them too? PH has no idea after 22 years of utilization from being a patient, using the ER, to outpatient testing, WHO. I. AM. And here is what set me off. And I can guarantee you that many a healthcare consumer, aka former patient, feels the same way. The other day, I received a direct mail piece. It was a very nicely done, four-color, a heavy stock paper mailer that looked expensive with an offer for a chance to win a Fitbit.  But the catch was if and o...

With all the things that hospital leadership and healthcare marketing executives have on their plates and keeping them up at night, here’s a new one.  And unfortunately, it’s out of one's control, and no exceptions are allowed. With the economic shift from a product and service economy to an experience economy, providers are at a clear disadvantage by continuing to market like it is the 1990s.  Now that being said, it’s not all providers, but the vast majority.   Being paid for the production of care in the fee-for-service model is a product and service approach to healthcare.  Though the payment mechanism is changing, little has changed in provider marketing.   A vast majority of healthcare providers still taking the product marketing features approach. Notice that I did not say features and benefits marketing. Providers only go halfway choosing features or warm fuzzy improbable benefits but not both in their marketing.  I have yet to see a provider o...

Do you know who your patient hospital brand, evangelists are? I ask this question for a critical reason.  In an age of little provider differentiation in the actual retail medical marketplace with me-too messaging, how is a healthcare consumer to make a choice? Now that being said, I realize that many health care leaders will dispute the above statement.  But the fact is is that there is little if any messaging differentiation.  I knew as I was there too but made a conscious effort to move away from the “me too” messaging. And that was in the early 2000s. So where am I going with this? Consumers are demanding price and quality transparency.  Maybe in reality what they want is more cost certainty and knowing what the value is they are receiving for the dollar paid?  But few in hospitals or health systems are listening to the needs and demands of the healthcare consumer. Then they howl loudly than a third party releases data that is publically available on the hos...

Email I can see your eyes glaze over.  And I can hear the chorus of but…but…HIPAA says we can’t do that, which is just nonsense. If understood correctly, a hospital can manage the marketing of clinical services with cost efficiency and effectiveness and handle the engagement or experience for the provider. It’s cost-effective and efficient with an ROI that is over 4,200 percent. From providing useful and relevant information, wellness programs like webinars and marketing hospital outpatient as well as inpatient clinical services, it’s one of the few mechanisms that hospitals can control in the market.  It’s a marketing tool to build brand loyalty, enhance the experience, and engage while driving growth and revenue. For example, a clueless hospital system. The hospital system that is the network in my insurance plan has never once engaged me in an email, social media, or any other inbound tactic to engage and manage the healthcare consumer or patient experience. Even though I h...

I am not going to pile on United, though they have had a bad few weeks with two full-blown public relations crises in social media in the last three weeks.  But it does make one wonder if United has any capacity to learn from their mistakes given the flow of events and missteps of the past few days. Are you paying attention? If companies are not paying attention, especially hospital and health systems, on how the public is the paparazzi, then they can expect sooner rather than later,  that they will experience a meltdown of the provider brand and reputation through their carelessness and folly. What happens when the social media channel turns bad on the hospital or health system? Conventional wisdom used to say that a public relations crisis was a three-day story. Ten years ago that was the case.  Today, however, it’s a different story with social media, Facebook Live, and any of the other distribution channels now available.  Before, a PR crisis could be contained ...

Influencer marketing is generating a lot of attention.  Unfortunately, there seems to be a lot of activity but the little strategy behind the marketing. Oh, and let me be clear before going much further,  that I do not mean hiring celebrities to be the spokesperson for the provider's B2C marketing. Hiring a celebrity to be the spokesperson for the hospital or health system can be an expensive and risky proposition. Not everyone in the entertainment segment or sport they represent may have a large enough following in your market. What is influencer marketing? Simply put, a person of influence can affect action.  Fans, friends, and followers are meaningless; it’s not about going after the most famous person. It’s about finding the influencer who can best move your audience to take action that brings benefit to you and them.  An influencer may be an industry expert. It may be someone internally.  Think of influencer marketing as a relationship that co-creates meani...