Becoming healthcare conversant

Feel like you need a compass to navigate your way around the healthcare marketing landscape these days?

To be sure, major change is afoot. For one thing, the old fee-for-service approach to care is pretty much a dead end. Healthcare reform will have untold impact. Increasingly, your organization is tasked with managing the health not simply of individual patients but also of an entire population. It’s all uncharted territory in terms of the way care is conceived, delivered and communicated.

There’s good news, though. As a healthcare marketing professional, you can be a trailblazer. You can create a new roadmap for the way you talk to all your constituencies: patients, physicians, nurses, donors, volunteers and more. This guide is not a how-to, it’s a what-now—a reminder that the future is defined in part by the way we talk about it.

One destination, many pathways.

Now more than ever, it’s about what you say and how you say it. While your brand strategy drives every conversation, it’s important to consistently deliver messaging and visual communication that respond to the distinct needs of your audiences. Joining forces with a marketing partner who speaks the language of the community you serve, as well as your various constituencies, will go a long way toward helping you reach your goals.

PATH 1: Talking with patients

It’s a patient-centric universe. Patients are proactively involved in finding healthcare providers who understand their long-term goals. So, chances are you’ll want to:

• Promote total wellness as opposed to multiple treatments
• Frame capabilities, treatment, technologies or other institutional benefits in the context of patient needs and potential objections
• Nurture trust without “talking down” to patients
• Leverage mobile and social as vigorously as patients do

PATH 2: An ongoing discussing with physicians

With healthcare reform and consolidation, there’s a lot coming at physicians these days. So your mission will likely entail:

• Providing information to help them transition through new payment models and patient expectations
• Encouraging their participation in developing best practices
• Engaging them in broad organizational strategies and goals
• Demonstrating that you are dedicated to helping grow their practices

PATH 3: Conversing with nurses

Who matters? Nurses do. Let them know you think of them as pivotal parts of the healthcare team by:

• Communicating about and engaging them in care improvement goals and best practices
• Keeping them in the loop on front-line care developments
• Positioning them as true partners in ongoing care, not merely on-the-spot caregivers

PATH 4: A word with management

Keeping the channels of communication open with management will pave the way for all your efforts. Often easier said than done! But do try to:

• Engage management in brand strategy development and messaging activities at the ground level
• Consistently reflect their objectives in communications
• Seek feedback at regular intervals

PATH 5: A dialogue with donors

Now more than ever, donors are important and valued partners. So communicate with donors by:

• Highlighting new opportunities to participate in the changing landscape of care
• Engaging them in the process of continuous improvement
• Sending a strong message of community need: “Your support makes a real difference in the place where we all live and work”

Is there a marketing partner in the house?

Well, there are many. And there aren’t many that can speak the language of all your audiences as well as McGuffin Creative Group. We’re an agency that knows how difficult it is for healthcare organizations to stand out, set yourself apart and convey what makes you genuinely special. All while having an authentic, meaningful dialogue with your community, physicians, nurses, patients and donors. We have mastered these conversations.

As long as we’re talking about conversations? Let’s have one ourselves. Please get in touch any time.