1. Focusing on what you care about, not what the patient cares about. The needs of your audience should come first, Mr. Weinbach says. Flip through your daily newspaper and you’ll see many hospital advertisements that highlight the hospital’s rating or recently purchased surgical robot — but those may not be the qualities that attract patients. “Market research may tell you that in a particular market, the issue is about access to care, and patients may complain they can’t get an appointment fast enough,” he says. “Maybe instead of putting up a billboard advertising your surgical robot, you could put up a billboard advertising same-day appointments.” Conduct market research to figure out the needs of your community, whether they be affordability, accessibility or technology, and base your campaign on those findings.
2. Ignoring your internal audience. It’s easy to associate marketing with selling a product to a consumer — that is, the patient population of a hospital. But if you focus all your resources on your patients, you overlook a substantial and possibly more valuable body of customers: your employees. “Most hospitals have hundreds of employees and those employees represent potential patients and families of potential patients,” Mr. Weinbach says. Since your employees are often on the front lines with patients and physicians and hear complaints and praise about your hospital, they can tell you what referring physicians and patients want. “Everyone from valet parkers to cafeteria workers and the entire clinical staff needs to be included in the strategy,” Mr. Weinbach says. Obviously you can’t bring every hospital employee into the board room, but you can conduct surveys and ask department heads to gather information from their staff members.
3. Filling the physician’s “prescription”. During the creation of a marketing campaign, hospital administrators and marketing staff are frequently asked to address the needs of individual physicians that may not have considered the overall strategic marketing plan. “A doctor will come to you and say, ‘I need a brochure, I need a newsletter, I need an ad,'” Mr. Weinbach says. “It’s important for hospital leadership to turn that dynamic around. When they are asked for prescriptions, instead start by seeking a diagnosis.” Ask the physician, “Why do you need a brochure? What are you trying to accomplish? What are the issues you’re trying to address with a print ad?” You may find the physician has misconceptions about your marketing campaign — or that he or she has some good ideas. Instead of blindly meeting your physicians’ needs, ask questions that will make sure an individual physician’s advertisement is integrated with your overall message.
4. Ignoring your operational deficiencies. When you’re forming a marketing message, focus on your actual strengths rather than the strengths you would like to have. “Don’t ignore your weaknesses or any element that detracts from the patient experience,” Mr. Weinbach says. “If you promote something that is contrary to the promise you’re making to the patient or physician, you’ve violated a sacred trust and done more damage than good.” It might be difficult to look at your areas of weakness, but doing so can help you avoid a dishonest marketing campaign and move toward fixing those problems. You may not even know your hospital has problems — such as dirty bathrooms, unchanged garbage bags or rude receptionists — until you do your research. If you find your customers have a negative opinion of a certain part of your hospital, you need to address the problem both through policy changes and your marketing campaign. If your market research shows customers think you have bad cardiologists, you have two problems to fix: the potential weaknesses in your cardiology program and the public’s conception.
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