Too often, healthcare marketing campaigns fail to focus on what patients care about most.
Coca-Cola doesn’t brag in its ads about being the world’s largest soft drink company, or list the alma maters of its top executives. Charmin doesn’t make vague, self-congratulatory claims about how it’s the company that “cares,” or the one making “amazing things” happen. And Geico doesn’t spend money running commercials about how it expertly handled some highly unusual insurance claim.
It’s taken for granted in the commercial space that advertising should be aimed at customers—delivering messages about how products and services can improve their lives. But in healthcare, we often get this backwards. In their ads, hospitals often puff out their chests about how elite their doctors are, or how they were the first in the world to perform a rare procedure. But the people who care most about these things are physicians and hospital administrators.
The truth is, these factors aren’t what differentiates one hospital from another—at least not in the eyes of patients. Most people don’t care all that much about the number of organ transplants a hospital performed last year or a groundbreaking new gene therapy (unless they themselves have a failing liver or a genetic disorder). Sure, they want to receive the best care possible, but because they often lack the ability to truly evaluate the quality of a provider, they sometimes see healthcare as a commodity. This means that hospitals need to find other ways to set themselves apart.
Give Marketers a Seat at the Table
Most patients aren’t looking for Ivy League degrees and first-of-their-kind clinical trials. They just want someone to pick up the phone when they call to make an appointment.
In fact, most marketers already know this. But there isn’t a hospital in the world where the chief marketing officer outranks the top administrative and medical executives, and so marketers are left giving their bosses what they want—in effect, aiming marketing messages back at the hospital’s top brass, rather than at existing and prospective patients.
I would argue that healthcare leaders should not only listen to their marketing executives about how to differentiate their organizations from competitors, but also empower those marketers to conduct the sort of consumer research that will yield better insights into what patients really want. Often, these differentiators won’t be the sorts of things that healthcare executives expect—because, again, healthcare leaders tend to have a tough time seeing their organizations through the lens of frustrated patients who can’t figure out where they’re supposed to park, let alone how to get an appointment with a specialist.
Take the Patient’s Perspective
So, what do people actually care about? Some of this will depend on the patient population, and can only be learned through effective market studies. But in our own research, we’ve found that certain answers rise time and again to the top of patients’ wish lists.
One of these is access. Patients are frustrated with long wait times and confusing hospital websites. They want the ability to easily see options for same-day care, search for appointments by availability, and manage their care through intuitive apps and patient portals. Often, a patient will call their doctor and be told there aren’t any openings for three weeks, when in reality the health system has a number of open appointments for video visits, urgent care, and cancelations at other clinics. A hospital that can eliminate this pain point—and then effectively communicate that fact—is going to get far more traction with patients than one that emphasizes a world-class research initiative.
Financial transparency is also critically important to patients, and yet it is almost always overlooked by healthcare marketing departments, who seem to view the topic as taboo. Many patients struggle with understanding costs, insurance coverage, and payment options, and hospital systems can address these concerns head-on by proactively explaining their billing practices and financial aid offerings. Many healthcare executives would be shocked by the high patient demand for simple commitments like surprise bills and error protections.
Finally, patients also crave relevant medical content. We’ve seen healthcare systems try their hand at this marketing strategy, but many focus on “wellness” articles—offering healthy recipes and generic exercise tips that are ubiquitous online rather than leveraging the medical expertise of their physicians. A robust Q&A platform, where the system’s doctors address real patient questions about seasonal allergies or when to have a mole checked, will resonate with patients more than a recipe for a low-carb burrito bowl.
As healthcare systems grapple with increasing competition, the role of marketing must evolve. Bluntly: We can’t keep talking to ourselves. By transforming the marketing department from a megaphone for internal achievements into a catalyst for patient-focused innovation, hospitals can not only attract and retain more patients. They can also improve the patient experience.
About Aasim Saeed
Dr. Aasim Saeed is the Founder and CEO of Amenities — the industry’s first Digital Membership Platform for health systems. Prior to Amenities, Aasim led the Digital Health Office at Baylor Scott & White Health as the VP of Digital Health. There he oversaw the development of the industry-leading MyBSWHealth app, which helped over half a million new patients get care at BSWH since 2020 (equal to half of all new patients at BSWH during that time period). Prior to joining BSWH, Aasim was a leader in McKinsey’s Health System practice, advising multiple top US health systems on strategy, operations and technology. Aasim received his MD and MPA from Duke and Harvard Universities respectively. He is a Presidential Leadership Scholar and volunteers with the Texas Boys State program.