Follow These 4 Hospital Marketing Tips to Become a Preferred Provider
In some ways, hospitals are no different than any other business.Â
Like retail stores or software companies, hospitals aim to increase their profits by attracting and retaining consumers. But there is one key difference: Healthcare consumers (i.e. patients) are rarely eager to buy what the hospital offers. In fact, patients often try to avoid painful circumstances (i.e. injuries and illnesses) that can lead to hospital visits. So what is the hospital for?Â
Â
Although it may seem strange to think that your hospital is competing for business, this is exactly the mindset you need. To grow in today’s rapidly changing healthcare environment, you need to promote your services and build brand awareness. And that means you need a well-organized hospital marketing strategy.Â
Â
When thinking about how to market your hospital for your particular brand, keep these 4 hospital marketing tips, tactics, and considerations in mind. Whether your hospital has a long-term marketing plan or you’re just testing the waters, each of these four tactics will help you increase brand awareness and engage the patient community.
1. Make your website useful.
Given the prevalence of the Internet and its influence on today’s consumer practices, it’s no surprise that your hospital’s website is often a patient’s first point of contact. To maximize your impact, start by optimizing your website in every way possible.Â
Â
For a positive user experience, the website design should be clean, easy to navigate, and responsive. You should also ensure that visitors can quickly find what they need to contact your hospital, request more information, or make a donation. To improve SEO (both traditional and voice), websites should publish helpful and informative content that answers patient questions. A strong marketing website will also demonstrate authority and reflect a safe and trustworthy environment.
2. Use social media to humanize your brand.
For patients, the hospital may feel unattractive with their aseptic practices and formal procedures. Social media is a great way to break this barrier and elevate your brand. Social media sites create real-time connection points with patients and provide another avenue to organically promote your healthcare providers and services. The main social channels used to distribute healthcare content are Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter.Â
Â
You can also take advantage of paid social advertising if you want to do more granular audience targeting based on location, age, etc. More than two billion people around the world regularly use social networks. Therefore, a successful social media strategy can be the key differentiator for your hospital.
3. Engage in community sponsorships.
If you want to promote your health and wellness mission or spotlight your top services, sponsorships are the way to go. Getting involved in the community gives your hospital more visibility and supports location-based marketing. Does your city or town have a sports team you can put your name behind?
Â
Your hospital might also want to sponsor local nonprofit events, such as 5K run/walks, health fairs, or golf tournaments. If you’re serious about including sponsorships in your marketing plan, it’s a good idea to have a landing page that details your sponsorship criteria and allows interested organizations to request event sponsorship.
4. Increase your impact through hosted events.
Hosting your own hospital events is another great way to increase your visibility and impact. Fundraisers and galas help you connect with donors and benefactors and get people excited about your cause. They can also provide the necessary funds to carry out significant services and projects or purchase essential medical equipment.Â
Â
On-site courses and workshops allow you to showcase the services of the hospital and the expertise of your staff. For example, if you provide maternity care at your hospital, you could offer classes in newborn care.Â
Â
Conferences and summits provide you with a platform to share impactful research or treatment breakthroughs that can elevate your hospital into the global healthcare community.
Need help organizing your hospital marketing strategy?
It can be difficult to keep everything organized and on track when pulling together a marketing strategy. If you have problems with your hospital marketing strategy, contact us so that we can help your team achieve major marketing goals.Â