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  Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay Email I can see your eyes glaze over.   Done correctly, the hospital has an underutilized, efficient, and effective tool at its disposal to engage and manage patient expectations. Email also offers a cost-effective way to implement an ongoing engagement strategy when combined with social media. Email can provide relevant medical information, health and wellness tips, and practices to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic to maintain continuous engagement. Email is one of the few mechanisms that hospitals can control. It's a marketing tool to build brand loyalty, enhance the experience, and engage. Better than outbound interruptive marketing, where your general messaging reaches the broadest possible audience hoping that someone will respond, email is direct messaging to the patient, and should be a part of your inbound marketing program. But it just not a mail merge program to put a name at the top . And it's not buying an email list.  ...

  Image by Tumisu from Pixabay  One of the lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic are that patient experience, how it's managed and communicated, how expectations are set and experienced by patients are the new normal.     Hospitals have been required to communicate efficiently and effectively what the patient experience is in light of COVID-19 restrictions, revised procedures, and general interactions.  I have to say, the answer to the headline is yes and no. I have seen major health systems change their marketing to reflect the new normal in the patient's experience, mask-wearing, telemedicine, alternative site care, etc. From the website to messaging and communications, the "new normal," positive experience and expectations are being established.  I'd also have to say no, as many community-independent and unaffiliated hospitals are still heavily invested in the features approach to marketing and communicating to patients. Telling the "all about us" story ...

Over the last couple of weeks in the Lessons from the Field series, we looked at the ten deadly sins that midsized healthcare vendors make daily that stall growth. ( In case you missed parts one and two, here are the links "Lessons from the Field - 10 Deadly Sins Stopping Midsized Healthcare Vendor Growth Part 1" http://bit.ly/300vgUS and "Lessons from the Field - 10 Deadly Sins Stopping  Midsized Healthcare Vendor Growth- Part 2" http://bit.ly/2N3aP7a .) Image by Peter Linforth from Pixabay This week we're going to take a look at essential leadership characteristics needed to drive growth. There is no way around the fact that leadership and company growth are highly intertwined.   It makes not a bit of difference if you're a start-up, small or midsized healthcare vendor, or a large multinational company whose revenue counts in the billions of U.S. Dollars or Euros. Leadership determines whether you're growing or stalling growth. Leadership? I'm a...

  Image by Tumisu from Pixabay Part two of a two-part series. In part one of “Lessons from the Field - 10 Deadly Sins Stopping Midsized Healthcare Vendor Growth”   http://bit.ly/300vgUS , we examined the first five reasons why midsized healthcare vendors are not growing organically. To recap, the first five reasons were:  1.        The person or group who started the company or came in and grew it to a certain level is still there.  2.        The entire focus of the management team is making money.  3.        A comprehensive business vision and strategy is lacking.  4.        Internal communication is limited and focused on a transactional basis.  5.        There is no organizational culture, or the culture is broken .   In part two, we continue our journey with reasons six to ten. Reasons six to ...

  Image by Tumisu from Pixabay Part one of a two-part series. I have had the privilege of working for some great healthcare providers and vendors over my career, from the midsized regional and national companies to the multi-billion-dollar national and international healthcare providers and vendors. While there are many different growth strategies, there are several commonalities on why the vendor has trouble growing organically. It is not usually a defective product or service sold in the healthcare provider market. Vendor product updates or enhancements may be late in responding to innovation in the market, but in most cases can be overcome. The factors are more related to the organization and how it is managed. Being beat in the market by competitors is one thing.  Beating yourself is far more deadly than competitors. From these experiences, I have identified the ten deadly sins being made that inhibit organic growth. In part one, we’ll look at deadly sins inhibiting grow...

  Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay I see a trend among various healthcare vendors reviving the outdated and misused Center of Excellence moniker that became popular with hospitals in the 1990s. What is old is new, I guess. Remember those hospitals' "Centers of Excellence"? Some hospitals still use that term today to differentiate themselves from competing hospitals. The idea is good, but like in the 90s, the claim of having a Center of Excellence or program within a "center" is meaningless without benchmarks and proof points that provide validity and substance to the claim. To coin a past popular phrase, "Where's the beef?" Are you trying to find a differentiating answer in a highly competitive market, or just throwing stuff up against the wall to see what sticks to feed your ego? In a day and age when data is readily available and undocumented claims are easily refuted in the market, are your prospects doing an eye roll and chuckling at the m...

  Image by Dimitris Vetsikas from Pixabay If the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic taught us in 2020, hospital marketers need to be agile and pivot on a dime. How have you allocated the hospital marketing spend for 2021? Can the hospital quickly change tactical direction by moving dollars to where they are needed?   Can one change messaging quickly to leverage a new opportunity brought about by the unknown? Now, I am not making light of a bad situation with the pandemic, as there is an opportunity to be leveraged. The leverage is not driving revenue, but as your community's source leader with credible, reliable information and care in combating the viral community spread. The influence is also being able to engage your patients on a meaningful level so that when the pandemic eventually comes under some measure of control, the patient would return to you because the hospital established trust. Enter 2021 Much of the allocations assigned to the strategies and tactics in the marketing plan ...