1. Always start with strategy. There is no room in today’s healthcare marketplace for marketers who shoot from the hip. Smart strategy is key – and long-term strategy is essential. Every decision should be data-driven and well-aligned with your company’s strategic imperatives, mission and brand promise. The right strategies will also be nimble, meaning they’re ready to evolve and scale for future growth, market trends, new entrants and disruptors, and more.
2. Refresh your recruitment strategy. For many organizations, particularly consumer-centric organizations that are operating with negative margins right now, having a brand-driven recruitment strategy will be a high priority – and certainly critical to achieving strategic priorities. To attract and keep top talent, (A) consider shifting some marketing dollars for strong recruitment advertising, and (B) create a new, brand-first approach that appeals to the workforce of today. When executed masterfully, the brand-first approach will connect your recruitment initiatives to your purpose and passion, which can simultaneously elevate brand awareness and preference in market.
3. Adopt a consumer mindset. Patients now approach healthcare from a consumer lens, having greater ability than ever before to compare their options and choose the best fit among you and your competitors. As a result, healthcare organizations must recognize their expectations and cater to their needs – or they will simply go elsewhere. The same applies to all organizations, not just providers. No matter who your consumer is, think like them – which means diving into data to understand what drives them, and what position you can reasonably “own” in their hearts and minds.
4. Make it personal. Wherever you can, personalize your approach. Today’s marketing automation platforms paired with programmatic media buying lets you target people and populations with personalized messaging most likely to resonate. Of course, this rule applies to operations as well as marketing. Whether you’re a health plan, a provider organization or even a B2B partner organization, personalized communications support a brand experience that gets attention, piques interest and prompts action.
5. Invest in a strong online presence – and personality. Boosting website and provider/professional search rankings. Adding richer media (videos, podcasts, webinars, etc.) and thought leadership to your content planning and execution. Making sure your brand stands out in all the right ways on the social and streaming platforms where your consumers live, work and play. Across these areas and more, you have opportunities to reach and even emotionally connect with people – so seize this new year to strengthen your online personality in new and exciting ways.

For healthcare marketing that encompasses these areas and many more, look for a partner that knows how to approach everything with strategy first – like we do at Dobies Health Marketing. Our ever-growing team has created healthier brands across the industry for nearly 31 years… and counting. Contact us to learn more.

Learn more about soviews+, the only interactive competitive media market profile designed exclusively for hospitals:

The most often overlooked aspect of marketing your practice online is the process of building a real brand for yourself and your practice.  Winning on the internet is not about websites, SEO, social media, or anything else. It’s about who truly brands themselves in the most meaningful way.  Maybe I should repeat that one more time: “It’s about who truly brands themselves in the most meaningful way.” I really hope that resonates with you.   It’s about the doctor who creates the brand that resonates emotionally with your target patient type.  Once you do that you will be on your way to truly winning online.

 How To Build A Brand – Know Your Ideal Patient

To build a brand for your plastic surgery or aesthetic practice you must first figure out who your ideal patient type is. Sure, you do many different procedures and those procedures are aimed at different types of people, but your brand, your identity, should be focused on the one patient type you really want to focus on.   You can still service other patient types, but your main goal should be to get the affluent patient focused on a particular section of his or her body. Whether that is body or face, you must isolate that and create a brand promise that speaks specifically to this patient.

Your brand promise should immediately communicate to them at ZMOT  (zero moment of truth) and FMOT  (first moment of truth).  You do this by taking what I said a few sentences ago and creating patient profiles or patient personas that map out all of the concerns and search terms they would potentially search for online.  For example, if you’re focusing on the affluent female patient who is in her early to mid 50’s and is generally thin but concerned about facial features (bags under her eyes, wrinkles, and the desire to look younger, etc.), she would probably Google things like:

• how to get rid of bags under eyes [geography]
• reduce wrinkles in forehead [geography]
• facelift surgery to look younger [geography]
• eyelid surgery [geography]
• etc, etc..

Your goal is to map out all potential searches and concerns that a patient meeting this profile or persona would be interested in.  Take the time to think through what this type of person is interested in other than surgery and the things you offer.  Go deep – brainstorm things like common careers, family concerns, food choices, hobbies, etc.  You need to really learn about all aspects of your ideal patient type. Think about commonalities that these types of patients share with each other and establish a general persona for this patient type.  Once you’ve done this, you are in a much better position to truly understand how they speak and how they might best be influenced. Your next job is to build your brand around being the ideal solution for their concerns.  Easier said than done.

Once You Understand The Patient, Be The Content Solution

Only after you have mapped out all of your ideal patient’s concerns, possible Google searches, inner thoughts, etc., begin to create content that specifically speaks to those concerns and answers those questions (Google searches).  Plan a content strategy that leads the potential patient through a journey of discovery. Speak to them as this person; don’t speak to them in general terms.  Be their solution.  Make them have a “moment” while experiencing your website.  Ensure all of your visuals (logo, color scheme, photos, etc.) will make an impact on this type of person.  It takes some thought; more than just describing your surgery’s and procedures that you offer. It’s crucial to really understand who they are as a whole person rather than just someone interested in surgery.  Base your brand promise around matching their personality and their interests.  When you do this, you’ll be the only possible choice for them (and remember this is your ideal patient type, so you are the only choice for the best type of patient)!

Hopefully this gives you a glimpse into the general process of building a brand online, but obviously there is much more that goes into it.  It’s not just “building a website” or “doing SEO” – it’s much more involved if you want to do it right.  I emphasize “if you want to do it right” because not everyone does.  It takes some work but the rewards are tremendous, and building a brand is the only way to truly dominate your geography.

We are always excited to discuss this with those who do want to do this the right way … those who don’t just want to build a website but, rather, build a brand and dominate their local markets.  If that’s you, give us a call or email, as we’d love to continue the conversation. View our plastic surgery website design portfolio.

Our team at Aesthetic Brand Marketing knows the investment you made in your education, skills, and training can make a huge difference in many people’s lives, and we want to help connect you with the people who need help making that emotional decision. That starts with establishing and promoting your brand. A well-established brand helps tell the story you want to tell and sends the reassuring signals you need to get patients to choose your practice for their plastic surgery procedures.

This post is all about video marketing, which is one of our favorite plastic surgery marketing tools. It’s a powerful way for you to deliver your brand promise to patients and meet them at the right place in their emotional journey to the perfect look.

First, let’s talk about why video marketing is such a powerful storytelling platform and why that’s so important to your business.

Video Marketing Helps You Show off What Your Patients Love about You

At ABM, we know people love a good story. It’s why we people all over the world use them to teach lessons, share news, and relate to each other. As a business owner, there are few things more important than telling your unique story. It’s one of the biggest reasons people will pick you out of a crowd of other highly-skilled plastic surgeons. Thankfully, we’ve also learned over the years that video marketing can be one of the best ways to get your story out there.

According to HubSpot, a leading company that designs marketing software, 90% of customers say a video would help them make a purchasing decision. Additionally, the company’s research indicates a video in your marketing emails may boost clickthrough rates, which is the number of times people actually click on and open your email, by as much as 300%.

Our clients usually tell us they have great reviews and their patients love them, but they can’t figure out how to let others know about their great customer care. Video marketing works so well for this, and it’s a great way to offer potential patients reassurance and trust by really showing off your personality and expertise in a way good writing and even flashy web pages can’t.

Leverage Video Marketing to Get More Traffic from Search Engines

Plastic surgeons get in touch with us because they want to stand out from their peers in search engine results. A well-optimized site with an ongoing search engine optimization (SEO) strategy works wonders for steering all that organic traffic your way, and investing in video content marketing is a good addition to any SEO plan.

First, high-quality video gets in front of your potential patients no matter how they’re finding you online. It doesn’t matter if they’re browsing on their mobile phone, tablet, or desktop computer; a great video will look good and be impactful on any device. In addition to capitalizing on technology to deliver your story in a beautiful format, video content is also more likely to be shared, which helps your practice and brand be seen in more places on the web.

From years of experience in online marketing, we’ve also learned that Google, other major search engines, and social media platforms are prioritizing video content for a variety of reasons. Because of this trend, the sooner you invest in video marketing, the easier it will be to keep pushing your video content to the top of search results.

Here’s is an example of Dr. Amy Alderman’s video content:

Ready to Really Launch Your Brand with Video Marketing?

It’s easy to see why video marketing helps answer two of the most frequently asked questions we get at ABM:

• How do I tell my story and let people know I’m a great plastic surgeon?
• How can I get my plastic surgery practice found more in search engine results?

If you’re ready to see what video marketing can do to get you found and start establishing trust with patients, please contact us to talk about what we think it could do for you.

What can your healthcare organization do to create emotionally uplifting connections when face-to-face interaction is challenging and limited? Gift-giving is always meaningful, and with custom merchandise, you can make people smile the moment they see your brand.

Consider the possibilities: Corporate gifts of branded merchandise are a nice way to thank employees for carrying your organization through a challenging year. To reward patients for committing to health or clients for continued loyalty. To give back to local groups and communities for supporting your care teams. To deliver comfort with something that feels good or just makes life a little easier. And each time the promotional item is seen, worn or used, that’s a positive interaction with your brand that bolsters your brand image, even in the absence of face-to-face interaction.

That interaction powers more than awareness. In fact, consumer research indicates that in terms of influencing purchase decisions, branded promotional products have up to five times greater impact than broadcast marketing and mobile messaging/apps; up to seven times greater influence than online communications (website, email and social media); and up to 14 times greater influence than print, including direct mail.

The Right Solution for Every Budget

From increasing brand awareness to building affinity within hearts and minds, some marketers say the only downside to promotional gift-giving is the logistics. To make things easy from start to finish, Dobies Health Marketing offers a custom approach to holiday gifting, tailored to address the unique challenges 2020 has presented.

Leveraging our relationships with some of the country’s largest promotional merchandise distributors, we provide a one-stop source for a broad selection of competitively priced, expertly branded gift items, including custom apparel and much, much more.

From our experience working with clients across the healthcare spectrum, we’ll help you choose the perfect gift, determine the best way to apply your logo/custom artwork, and craft complementary messages that enhance the branded promotional giveaway experience. From there, we’ll oversee distribution of your gifts according to your needs, whether that’s bulk shipping or the more socially distant option of individual delivery. If needed, our team will assist with gathering home addresses, and we can provide no-contact gift solutions.

At a time when people will appreciate it most, let your brand communicate hope and enthusiasm for the new year. For more information about our corporate merchandise program, visit dobies.com/merchandise.

About Dobies Health Marketing

Since 1992, Dobies Health Marketing has offered highly specialized expertise in strategy-first marketing for health companies. The Kansas City-based company serves the marketing and branding needs of the entire health industry, from hospitals, health systems and payers to technology firms, medical device manufacturers, associations and certifying boards. With a promise to always engage strategy first, their mission combines strategic marketing with creative communications to create healthier brands.

Highlights of 2020 award successes include:

ASTER AWARD: GOLD

Client: Vālenz
Category: Brand Identity – Logo Design/Letterhead

Formerly known as United Claim Solutions, this client requested a new brand identity to convey the continuously expanding scope of its enterprise, as well as the firm’s core purpose and brand promise. From renaming the organization (valenz has Latin roots and means strong, vigorous and healthy) to redesigning the logo and executing a comprehensive brand strategy and identity package across all business systems and stakeholders, the Valenz brand is now enjoying tremendous success – very fitting for a company that recently ranked No. 2065 on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing companies in America.

TELLY AWARD: SILVER

Client: The National Board for Respiratory Care
Category: Branded Content – Video, Web and Social

To increase awareness and interest in achieving advanced specialization – which propels careers and elevates the profession – The National Board for Respiratory Care engaged Dobies Health Marketing to create a Specialty Credentials campaign targeting current and future respiratory care practitioners. Through a series of videos and online features showcasing the real-life stories of specialized respiratory therapists, the campaign’s inspirational message resonated with its audience and generated high levels of engagement across all media and platforms. In addition to the silver Telly award, this campaign also received a bronze Aster Award for Total Ad Campaign. View one of the featured video stories below:

EMERALD AWARDS, INCLUDING BEST OF SHOW

Client: LMH Health
Categories: Advertising: Television or Radio, Advertising: Total Campaign

“It was a great plan, great execution and exceptionally effective.” That’s how judges for the Kansas Association of Health Care Communicators described the socially relevant LMH Health Mammography Spot when they named it Best of Show. As the centerpiece of an integrated advertising campaign created and produced by Dobies Health Marketing, the 30-second spot achieved high engagement across all platforms (more than doubling national metrics in some cases) and contributed to a nearly 10 percent increase in mammograms over the previous year. You can view the spot here:

Additionally, LMH Health’s “Runner” brand campaign received an Emerald Award and a national bronze Healthcare Advertising Award for Total Ad Campaign with TV.

“All glory and gratitude go to our clients for having the vision to take these creative strategies and concepts forward, and we are proud to see the talents of our agency team recognized as well,” said Thom Ludtke, Vice President of Creative Services at Dobies Health Marketing.

Carol Dobies, Founder and CEO, agrees, emphasizing that the intrinsic value of awards in healthcare marketing lies in the healthier outcomes they represent. “On behalf of our entire team, I’m proud to say we love putting our talents to work every day, though we do it for the mission, not the recognition,” she explained. “We succeed when our work inspires better, more informed decisions about health, which ultimately improves lives.”

In other words, she says, healthcare marketing awards signal exceptional performance, and exceptional performance translates to healthier companies, healthier brands and healthier people. For more information about the full scope of marketing, branding and advertising services available from the experts at Dobies Health Marketing, visit dobies.com.

About Dobies Health Marketing

Since 1992, Dobies Health Marketing has offered highly specialized expertise in strategy-first marketing for health companies. The Kansas City-based company serves the marketing and branding needs of the entire health industry, from hospitals, health systems and payers to technology firms, medical device manufacturers, associations and certifying boards. With a promise to always engage strategy first, their mission combines strategic marketing with creative communications to create healthier brands.

About the Awards

Aster Awards recognize excellence in healthcare advertising and marketing, as determined by an expert panel of judges who review thousands of entries nationally. The 2020 Aster Award winners received scores that ranked in the top 16 percent of the nation for advertising excellence.

The Telly is the premier award honoring video and television across all screens, receiving more than 12,000 award entries each year. Awards for top entries are awarded by the Telly Awards Judging Council, an industry body of leading video and television experts from highly prestigious companies in advertising, publishing and more.

Through its annual statewide Emerald Awards competition, the Kansas Association of Healthcare Communicators recognizes Kansas hospitals and health systems that excel in internal communications, external communications, special events, advertising and other categories.

Sponsored by Healthcare Marketing Report, the Healthcare Advertising Awards are the oldest and largest healthcare advertising competition. More than 4,200 submissions were submitted this year and reviewed by a national panel of judges for creativity, quality, message effectiveness, consumer appeal, graphic design and overall impact.

We are proud to be among the Top Digital Agencies in Kansas City in 2021 as ranked by DesignRush.

I know what you’re thinking: So many lists but so little time, right? As executives, we love to read, but it can be difficult to find actionable information in a sea of trends and predictions. That’s why I’ve taken time to dive deep into the issue and emerge with what I see as the top five trends to watch in healthcare marketing for 2019:

1. The deliberate and intentional use of data: Using data to drive decisions is a top theme in all aspects of healthcare marketing. It includes the strategic use of predictive data and analytics to identify consumer intent (what they plan to do or buy) and impact the resulting action. Along the same lines is the use of artificial intelligence (AI), which can sort through huge volumes of data to monitor consumer activity and pinpoint trends that marketers can quickly act upon. AI is in position to help transform healthcare in the same way, by perusing data patterns to identify possible health risks ahead of time. This allows for a greater emphasis on prevention, minimizing costs, and better patient outcomes.

2. Personalized experience: As stated by Ad Age, “People still crave meaning and connection more than ever.” Consumers respond to relevant, relatable, authentic content that feels as if it were created just for them. This is another way data can drive our thinking, our communication and our creative content, so we are executing targeted marketing strategies that offer a better user experience. And we are seeing new ways to customize through voice search, web applications, chatbots and video – all high-performing trends for more personal communication.

3. Brand culture: Healthcare employees are joining consumers in searching for an authentic brand culture – a company’s core values, practices and behaviors – that they can align with and support. Such a culture promotes a human focus, offers a positive experience, and conveys overall health and wellness. It also provides innovative services that are convenient (e.g., outpatient expansion and retail locations) and accessible (e.g., telehealth and virtual care). A branded culture is engaging and meaningful, and it provides a purpose-driven connection, not just a bottom line.

4. Attainable well-being: The focal point here is on keeping people healthy versus simply treating illness. We call this the lifecare model. Lifecare is about inspiring and supporting decisions that encourage healthy lives, which involves putting the consumer at the center and collaborating with community partners to encourage and deliver better health beyond traditional methods. We see this in the rise of population health management, value-based care, consumerism, preventive health through wearables, fitness, nutrition, and the emphasis on strategic partnerships that expand access to health across communities. Our efforts should concentrate on making health a lifetime consumer goal, while still addressing acute and chronic healthcare issues where needed.

5. Agile marketing: Agile marketing is data-validated, customer-focused, highly collaborative and quickly adaptive to continuous change. “Agile” is a term that has traditionally been associated with software development, but it’s building momentum in all industries for achieving higher productivity, innovation and alignment with multiple teams. According to AgileSherpas’ State of Agile Marketing Report, nearly two-thirds (61%) of traditional marketing teams report plans to start an Agile implementation within the next 12 months.

[bctt tweet=”Top 5 Healthcare Marketing Trends for Executives to Watch in 2019 ” username=”DobiesGroup”]

The link among all these trends is the strategic intent on which they are based. All themes are deliberate, authentic, thoughtful and targeted. Mass communication will not deliver the same results. As consumers become savvier and start to demand relationships over transactions, our healthcare marketing efforts should follow suit.

At Dobies Health Marketing, a strategy-first healthcare marketing firm, strategy is part of our company ethos. It is a practice embedded in everything we do, the way we think and the actions we take. As the framework for making better business decisions for ourselves and our clients, it is a deliberate, data-driven process by which we jointly define business goals and develop the road map for achieving them.

For more information on strategy-first marketing for healthcare, contact Dobies Health Marketing.

Reader Tip: To read more current industry trends, I recommend downloading “Healthcare Trends 2019.” This Healthcare Leadership Intelligence Report from B.E. Smith presents key findings on influential trends from a survey of hundreds of healthcare executives. Survey topics included Industry Directions, Career Factors, Talent Management and Leadership.

About the Author

Julie Amor, MHA, President and Chief Strategy Officer for Dobies Health Marketing, has 30 years of experience elevating healthcare brands. Share your thoughts with her by tweeting @DobiesGroup, connecting with us on LinkedIn, or by commenting on our Facebook page.

As president of a healthcare marketing, branding and advertising firm, I often hear the terms “brand identity” and “brand image” used interchangeably. While these two paths do intersect and build on one another, they are really quite different in what they will achieve for your company.

Your brand identity is tangible, an identifiable representation of your company’s name and overall “look.” It’s how you present in market – your company name, logo and tagline, your corporate color palette, and how your customers refer to you. Your brand identity typically substantiates your current market position. It is what people call you and how they recognize you visually. Identity is most closely correlated with the logo.

Your brand image, on the other hand, is intangible. It’s a reflection of the outward personality, character and authenticity of your company, which comes from the inside out. Your brand image is how your customers perceive you based on how you relate and connect with them, and it embodies the market position you want to own. It is who you are and what you stand for – the intended meaning of your brand in the minds of consumers, including the expectations they have of you. Image is most closely correlated to organizational culture.

[bctt tweet=”Creating Healthier Brands – The Difference Between Brand Identity & Brand Image:” username=”DobiesGroup”]

Defining and Communicating Brand Identity/Brand Image

Below, I’ve outlined 10-step core processes for defining and communicating your brand identity or brand image. Together, these processes can be combined into a larger, data-driven brand strategy that ensures a strong brand position, one that is sustainable, well aligned with internal vision, and highly embraceable by consumers.

Redefining your brand’s identity (appearance):

1. Know your objective: If you’re changing the company name, what is your end goal? Define specifically what you plan to accomplish with a new name.
2. Know your market position: What is your brand’s current market position, and how does the name change add to or detract from that market position?
3. Formulate a competitive profile: How does your current brand identity look relative to your competition? It is important to differentiate from your competitors to alleviate brand confusion.
4. Take a corporate inventory: Locate all current assets that will need to be updated with the new brand identity. Create a corporate identity checklist to ensure nothing slips through the cracks of your rebranding effort.
5. Get creative and tactical: Build and review designs of the new name and logo, trademark production, image asset development, etc.
6. Embrace market feedback: At a minimum, conduct basic research and market testing to be sure your new brand identity resonates with your target audiences, potential and existing partners, and other key audiences.
7. Develop brand standards: To ensure consistency and integrity of the brand, provide your employees with specific guidelines on showcasing the new brand identity, including detailed specifications on logo usage, corporate color palette and fonts. Provide templates for documents, presentations, brochures, ads and other key assets.
8. Prepare your new creative: Deploy your new brand identity into layout per the guidelines, and integrate into all other affected corporate assets as you prepare for launch.
9. Execute externally: Launch your new visual brand identity into market, using a multimedia approach to reach all audiences. Include promotional items in the mix, as studies have shown that branded giveaways get people excited and aid in brand recall.
10. Communicate the story of your new identity: Have a thoughtful communication plan in place to tell your story. Ensure your story is meaningful – focused on the outcome rather than the internal drivers – and connects your new brand identity to your future vision. Your customers must understand how this change benefits them.

Redefining your brand’s image (personality):

1. Conduct a brand audit: Start with key stakeholder interviews to understand and define the brand image you have today, and the brand image you want for the future. Then, survey customers to understand brand awareness and perceptions.
2. Define your brand differentiation: Outline your core brand differentiators – those attributes that set you apart from your competition and define only your company. Points of differentiation tend to come from within and are closely aligned with culture.
3. Ensure leadership adoption: Host leadership discussions to garner buy-in and ensure the brand image you want aligns with leadership expectations.
4. Build your brand strategy: Analyze data and integrate insights to create a brand strategy that outlines the brand vision, market position, differentiating attributes, value proposition and brand promise. Then, synthesize the strategy into a single-page summary, so the core tenets stand out in ways that are easy for your employees (internal audience) to understand and embrace.
5. Map all brand touch points: Work with key department leaders to help them define and communicate the actions their teams must take to deliver on the brand promise.
6. Appoint brand champions: Determine and assign internal brand ambassadors to propagate the brand throughout the organization.
7. Develop a marketing strategy: Create a marketing strategy and tactical plan that communicates the brand promise to the public.
8. Build a creative strategy: Establish a creative strategy that promotes the brand promise visually.
9. Execute externally: Develop and deploy integrated, multimedia creative campaigns to bring the brand to life. As with brand identity initiatives, include corporate merchandise as promotional items to foster excitement and brand affinity (both internally and externally).
10. Monitor progress toward your end goal: Evaluate change in perception and key market indicators to continuously monitor and ensure brand adoption, both internally and externally.

While this is a quick review of the core processes for defining and communicating corporate identity versus your brand’s personality, it is important to understand the outcome of each. Identity is graphical; image is strategy. It is common for organizations to modify both at the same time (and those seeking expert guidance through this process should consider the value of brand scout+). Whichever path you choose, never lose sight of the fact that brand is not a logo. Your brand is what resonates in the hearts and minds of your customers, the sum of their experiences when they interact with your company.

Reader Tip: At Dobies Health Marketing, we create healthier brands across the healthcare industry – and we view branding as the foundation of deep market planning. Our approach to branding aligns with the Kellogg School of Management. For more information from Kellogg, I recommend reading, “Kellogg on Branding: The Marketing Faculty of The Kellogg School of Management.”

About the Author

Julie Amor, MHA, President and Chief Strategy Officer for Dobies Health Marketing, has 30 years of experience elevating healthcare brands. Share your thoughts with her by tweeting @DobiesGroup, connecting with us on LinkedIn, or by commenting on our Facebook page.

Do you dismiss them as tchotchkes?

Or do you recognize promotional merchandise as a tangible manifestation of your brand that offers meaningful and valuable engagement with your customer base? You should.

As president of a healthcare marketing firm, clients often ask me if consumers value promotional items. The data suggest branded merchandise aids in overall brand affinity. When integrated into your overall marketing strategy, promotional merchandise complements your marketing message with a palpable brand experience that leaves a lasting impression. According to this growing body of consumer research, custom merchandise and apparel enhance your brand’s reach, recall and resonance:

• Roughly 90 percent of consumers say promotional items aid in brand recall, and nearly 80 percent say it has led them to research a brand.
• The average consumer keeps promotional merchandise for eight months, and 63 percent pass the items on to someone else when they are finished with it.
• Branded merchandise played a role in positively changing impressions of a brand among 80 percent of consumers, and 83 percent of consumers say they are more likely to do business with brands that provide promotional products.

[bctt tweet=”The power of corporate merchandise – what the right promotional items can do for your healthcare brand:” username=”DobiesGroup”]

Creating a Corporate Merchandise Strategy

As with all effective marketing, your plan for promotional merchandise should begin with a data-driven strategy:

• Identify your objective. Do you want your branded items to spur and/or nurture lead development? Improve customer satisfaction? Improve employee satisfaction? Boost event traffic and engagement? Clearly establish and communicate your primary goal at the outset.
• Define your target audience. In considering who will receive your branded merchandise, demographic data will illuminate behaviors and values to drive more personal engagement that happens at the right place and time. This type of insight will support your efforts to choose promotional merchandise that allows your brand to create a remarkable impression.
• Develop a distribution plan. The means of distribution is as critical of a consideration as the merchandise itself. For instance, market research indicates that mailing a promotional item in advance can generate more traffic at trade shows than handing out the items to passersby onsite.

Defining your Marketing Message

Influential promotional merchandise involves more than placing a logo on an item. It is essential to protect your corporate identity by ensuring adherence to clearly established logo and brand guidelines – but that’s really just the bare minimum requirement in terms of the message you want to send.

Beyond being merely recognizable, the promotional merchandise should express the campaign theme, evoke your brand ideals and deliver a brand experience you can be proud of. That includes marketing content that supports your promotional gift. Gifts to consumers will spark curiosity and drive them to learn more, so make sure you have a strong call to action and a well-defined customer journey to meet their interest.

Choosing the Right Promotional Items

The promotional item you choose should do more than reflect your brand – it should also provide value. If your custom merchandise solves a recurring need, its repeated use generates added exposure and fosters a stronger connection with your brand.

Aim for something that will be used at least ten times. To provoke frequent use, your merchandise must be both useful and of high quality. This doesn’t mean that the merchandise needs to be expensive, just thoughtfully executed with the utmost consideration of your target audience.

As the consumer survey data noted above indicates, well-executed promotional merchandise can be among the most cost-effective marketing tactics, delivering healthy returns in brand awareness and authentic growth.

Brand building is a continuous journey, and promotional merchandise is just one of many steps along the way – but it takes thoughtfulness to do it well and do it right. To invigorate your brand with promotional giveaways that reinforce your brand identity, take a moment to discover the value of our strategic Corporate Merchandise Program, a service provided by our team of experts in healthcare branding. For more information, call 816.595.6723.

Reader Tip: To find out which products make the best impressions, I encourage you to read this 2016 study by the Advertising Specialty Institute (ASI). While published by the advertising industry, it provides interesting insight to see what customers value most.

About the Author

Julie Amor, MHA, President and Chief Strategy Officer for Dobies Health Marketing, has 30 years of experience elevating healthcare brands. Share your thoughts with her by tweeting @DobiesGroup, connecting with us on LinkedIn, or by commenting on our Facebook page.

The Map suggests you first use your head by asking a practical question, such as “Am I meeting the real need, informing myself of options and thinking it through?” The second is a private question: “Does my decision show I am honest with myself, trust my intuition and deserve better?” Finally, The Map suggests after listening to yourself and others, you have the information to make and act on a better decision.

At the time, I didn’t think about the fact that the writer was a doctor because the storyline had nothing to do with healthcare. But, leading a healthcare marketing strategy firm with a mission to help inspire better health decisions, I now wonder to what extent Dr. Johnson was inspired by his experiences in healthcare. When he originally wrote the book in 1992, consumerism in healthcare was just taking shape. Did he realize people could use his map to navigate the healthcare system in their quests for personal health decisions? And, taking the concept one step further, did he foresee a way for hospital and health system leaders to use it to better address the needs of their consumers?

Whether or not Dr. Johnson recognized that secondary track 26 years ago, I cannot say – but as someone who has made it my business to understand healthcare and healthcare strategy for the same number of years, I see it clearly now.

Illuminating the path to better health decisions for consumers

As with most of us working in the healthcare industry, I am called on by friends and business colleagues facing serious health conditions to help navigate the health system. It is astounding to me there aren’t better navigation systems in place to lead patients in making better decisions about their health. Fortunately, many individual hospitals and health systems have nurse navigators and processes to help manage care within their own continuum to reduce costs, improve quality and enhance the patient experience. One may ask, is the goal to keep people within their own systems, or is the goal to drive better health for each patient, even if they may achieve better outcomes elsewhere? Forward-thinking health system leaders are likely re-imagining a patient-centric, health system-agnostic navigation process to objectively guide patients as they confront challenging health conditions. And if not, perhaps Dr. Johnson’s Map to a Better Decision can offer insights as we strive for better health.

[bctt tweet=”Opportunity Ahead – Re-Imagining Your Health System’s Approach to Patient Navigation:” username=”DobiesGroup”]

At Dobies Health Marketing, we’ve been sharing insight with our hospital and health system clients  about how consumer knowledge shifts and other market forces are driving substantial change in healthcare delivery. Such change requires greater collaboration among all parties tasked with providing care and access to care (which isn’t always medical). At the core of this shift is the need to keep people healthy throughout their lives, not simply treat them when they are sick – a model we call lifecare. Read more on the lifecare model in this white paper we co-authored  with HealthScape Advisors, as well as  continuing discussions on our blog.

Why is the concept of lifecare relevant? Because what you will see is a shift in mental framework, from traditional pipeline strategy to the more innovative platform strategy. Platform strategy provokes a call for all organizations within a community’s comprehensive care continuum to create an ecosystem where better health is possible. Lifecare is a framework for creating a cohesive network that is prepared to connect each consumer to the products, services, education and additional support needed for optimal individual health. U.S. hospitals and health systems can and should take a more active role in facilitating optimal outcomes across a more unified and connected system. And those who embrace this notion now (e.g., with re-imagined patient navigation) have the greatest opportunity to become innovative leaders who are authentically consumer-centric, catalyzing a movement toward a more meaningful impact on individual and population health.

About the Author

Carol Dobies is the CEO and Founder of Dobies Health Marketing, where she has been bringing healthcare brands to life for 35+ years. Share your thoughts with her by tweeting @DobiesGroup, connecting with us on LinkedIn, or by commenting on our Facebook page.