As we continue to look at the elements of successful healthcare marketing campaigns, it’s time to examine a few real-world examples. Each of these campaigns has something to teach about the best ways to reach and move your audience as you craft your next healthcare campaign. Take a look:
In 2013, Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center launched the “You Have Us” campaign to highlight its personalized, emotional approach to cancer treatment. Designed to show how Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center provides customized care based on an individual’s needs (in terms of their health, age and lifestyle) this campaign was named one of the winners of the 2014 Healthcare Marketing IMPACT Awards. The campaign included television and radio commercials as well print and online advertisements. These materials assured people, “Right now, you have cancer. But what your cancer doesn’t know is, you have us.”
What can your marketing learn from them? Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center recognized that people have a hunger for expert knowledge when it comes to healthcare as well as a sensitivity to their individual needs. They based their campaign on market research showing that individuals with cancer worry that they won’t get the individualized treatment they need. By featuring the center’s oncologists and directly addressing patients’ fears, this campaign put the focus exactly where it should be: on the top-notch care those doctors provide.
Pharmaceutical company Merck (which operates as Merck Sharpe & Dohme outside of the U.S.), has an audience of medical professionals spanning the globe. Language and cultural barriers made it difficult to engage this audience as a whole, but Merck identified one thing they had in common: a desire for easy, centralized access to the best medical research and news. To fill this need, Merck created Univadis.
Univadis was created as a central source for medical resources and news from respected journals including The Lancet and The JAMA Network. Merck used email marketing to engage a substantial portion of their audience, offering an invaluable service while also creating close ties with medical professionals around the globe. If you are marketing to healthcare professionals, take this from Univadis: valuable educational materials that fit your audience members’ needs are one of the best options you can offer your audience to increase your thought leadership and garner trust from medical professionals. In return, you’ll see increased engagement and reach.
When Trinity Health decided to bring together seven hospital systems to form one new brand, Mercy Health, they needed a way to establish and differentiate the new brand. Movéo worked with Mercy Health to develop the new brand and create a variety of brand collateral, including print and digital advertising. Equally important were internal branding efforts, which helped employees from across the seven hospital systems to engage with the organization’s new brand.
These efforts were highly successful, and Mercy Health is today a strong presence in Michigan healthcare. What should you take from Mercy Health’s example? No matter the size or scope of your healthcare organization, cohesive branding is possible. Craft a strategy that looks both outward and inward to shape perception of the brand, and leverage the strength of your organization’s areas of expertise to build it up.
For more on how Movéo worked with Mercy Health to create 77 percent brand awareness within a year of the brand’s introduction, and how these efforts led to top ranking in the cardiac specialty, read our blog, “How brand-building made Mercy Health a preferred healthcare provider.”
(Click here to expand)
