In past years, hospital marketing strategies relied mostly on television and print advertising for their main source of marketing. Word of mouth was also a huge part of any hospital marketing strategy. Word of mouth, indeed, is still one of the best ways when it comes to marketing a hospital. But there are new, more effective ways to spread word of mouth referrals. And there are more ways than ever to increase patient loyalty through personalized marketing and communication campaigns.
Use Social Media Marketing Strategy to its Full Advantage
Social media is the new way to promote word of mouth referrals. Through your social media pages, you can reach thousands of new potential patients. Ask patients who have had good experiences at your hospital to post referrals on your Facebook and Twitter pages. Social media is all about interaction, so the more you can focus on your patients, the better.
Other popular stories on social media include touching family stories about former patients. Stories about patients who have recovered from serious illnesses, stories of new parents with their children, and stories about volunteers helping to brighten the hospital stays of young patients are all very engaging to share on your hospital's social media pages. Ensure that you gain permission from all patients before posting any personal stories or pictures. These stories show your hospital's commitment to excellent care and your focus on personal connection.
Social media posting is a time-consuming process but it is easily automated. Create a series of posts and schedule them to go out over time. This way, you don't have to update your pages every day and waste your staff's valuable time.
Use Personalized Hospital Communication
Providing personalized patient care is one of the aspects that larger hospitals often struggle with in terms of hospital marketing. Yet it is arguably the most important part of keeping patients loyal and satisfied. New technology enables you to provide a personalized communication plan for each patient based on their own individual history and needs. This may include medication reminders, appointment date notifications, seasonal health information, allergy advice and much more.
You already have all patient information stored in each patient's personal profile. An automated solution sends messages based on each patient's information and based on your specifications. It will only send out messages that you have approved and will not have access to any personal information that you do not permit. You can set specific permissions for each staff member who is working on communication campaigns. This enables you to have full control over who can do what tasks and see what information.
Using an automated solution enables you to provide an even higher level of personalized patient care than other hospitals. Without adding to your daily workload, you can keep patients on time for appointments, help them remember their medication plans and provide suggestions to keep them healthy as well as loyal to your hospital.
Follow Through on Your Hospital Marketing Strategy
Having a solid strategy for your hospital marketing is essential. Without knowing what you are trying to achieve, you will not know if your marketing campaigns are successful. Create clear metrics and goals and create a plan to achieve these. Do your research and find out what types of campaigns have been successful when marketing a hospital.
Track the data from your campaigns. All good automated marketing solutions will provide you with detailed reports which show you how people are interacting with your messages. Track open rates, clickthroughs, comments and likes on social media and more. By reviewing this data you will learn what your patients and potential patients respond to. This enables you to continually optimize your campaigns.
Test different subject lines, content, landing pages, social media posts and so on when marketing a hospital. The ones that have higher interaction rates among people are generally the most effective. If something is not working, don't keep spending your budget to push that. Try changing specific aspects to see if that gains more interaction to help boost your hospital marketing strategy.
Try Automated Hospital Marketing for Free
If you have not used automated marketing before, it is essential to try before you buy. You should ideally test many different potential solutions so you can see what works best for your needs. SimplyCast 360 is one hospital marketing solution that provides over 15 communication tools in one as well as powerful automation capabilities for highly personalized messaging.
First of all, check out an interactive demo given by our friendly customer care experts. Once you have had a chance to learn how the solution works and ask questions specific to your own needs and uses, sign up for a free 14 day trial. Try the solution for yourself to improve patient communication, reach new potential patients and save time and money.
