Healthcare Strategic Growth Blog

Become Your Own Best Advocate with Trackable, Data-Based Reporting

By Jennifer Keller

As with any area in business, marketers and strategic planners must be able to prove the value of their work to leadership. Yet with their reputation as a cost center, these teams feel more pressure to demonstrate positive financial impact. Essentially, marketers and planners must be adept at marketing their own achievements if they want to gain approval for new initiatives and see their budgets grow year over year. This is particularly true in healthcare, where budgets are tightening and facing closer scrutiny.

In this post, we’ll discuss tools and strategies that healthcare marketers and planners can employ to show they are valuable contributors to growth. We’ll also cover some real-world examples of teams facing common challenges finding success, proving their worth, and driving growth. Let’s dig into two key ways to make your team indispensable.

Cultivate Experiences that Inspire Loyalty and Trust

By Carly Farlow

Stratasan team members have been busy attending conferences these last few weeks. In particular, Inbound and SHSMD. A recurring theme at both conferences was an emphasis on creating memorable experiences for current and potential customers through human-to-human (H2H) marketing. Inc. describes H2H marketing in this way:

“Machine learning is giving marketers more insights into what people are doing and searching. Yet, despite the proliferation of software tools, there's a shift back to the good old days of personalization at a 1:1 level. At the end of the day, regardless of whether you're in marketing for a business-to-business (B2B) or business-to-consumer (B2C) organization, it's about creating human-to-human (H2H) connections.” Sangram Vajre, Inc.

Customer success and traditional marketing are blending to create a new category of marketing—one that’s focused on the person on the receiving end of your brand experience. No amount of data, demographics, or psychographics can replace the value of tailored, personable communications.

We hope it’s been an incredible year of growth and learning through Stratasan's Strategic Growth blog series. We’ve learned how to apply the principles of “good strategy” to our annual planning, outlined how to achieve organizational alignment, and discussed how to thrive as an independent hospital in challenging healthcare times.

As we close out the year, we thought it would be helpful to share the 5 most popular blog posts from 2018. These posts received the most hits and seemed to provide the most helpful growth guidance to you, our readers. If you’re traveling over the holidays or just enjoying some downtime before the new year begins, this is a great way to review helpful blog posts that you may have missed or revisit your favorites for fresh insight.

Optimize UX and Marketing Automation for Improved Patient Engagement

By Carly Farlow and Jennifer Keller

Today’s digital savvy healthcare patients know how to do their research when it comes to finding the right care. They are combing the internet for everything from all-natural cold remedies to patient reviews on their local hospital. They are looking for providers and hospitals who can address their unique needs and are willing to commute longer distances, if they must, to get the best care available.

In order to attract the right patients though an optimized online experience, healthcare marketing must continually evolve alongside patients and keep pace with the latest digital marketing trends. A digital marketing strategy can be the key to reaching new prospects in a way that will convert them to satisfied patients. The strategy we use here at Stratasan, and one we highly recommend, is the methodology known as inbound marketing.

Measure Effectiveness and Communicate Value to Your Organization

By Brian Dailey

One of the great things about attending the Society of Healthcare Strategy & Market Development (SHSMD) annual conference is talking directly with our customers. If one were to build a Venn diagram of SHSMD attendees and Stratasan clientele, the circles would very nearly overlap.

A common thread I've heard in these conversations is that proving the value of planning and marketing to the rest of the business can be very difficult. Businesses want to see a very clear return on investment, and it's on marketing and planning departments to not only do their jobs, but also communicate the value of their jobs to the rest of the organization. This is especially true as the industry continues to do more with less (as has been very succinctly described in SHSMD's "Bridging Worlds.")

Online Marketing Strategies that Connect with Today’s Patient Needs

By Carly Farlow and Jennifer Keller

Today’s healthcare patients are searching the internet to understand medical symptoms, research diagnoses, and find trustworthy health information. They are also looking for providers and hospitals who can meet and address their unique needs and concerns. Rather than simply using the doctor down the street, today’s patient wants customized care over convenience, even if that means a longer commute to their provider of choice.

Healthcare marketing must continually evolve alongside patient needs, attracting patients by providing an online experience that is fresh, relevant, and reliable. A digital marketing strategy can be the key to reaching new prospects in a way that will convert them to satisfied patients. The strategy we use here at Stratasan, and one we highly recommend, is the methodology known as inbound marketing.

How Tanner Health Has Found Success Through Advanced Market Segmentation

By Kelly Meigs and Drake Jarman

Stratasan's Drake Jarman and Kelly Meigs of Tanner Health System led a breakfast session on “How to Create Planning and Marketing Initiatives Based on Real-Time Intelligence” at this year's GSHMPR Annual Conference. Attendees learned how, by geocoding internal patient data to the block group level, Tanner Health System can assess growth plans in real-time and pivot execution strategies as needed.

Download the slides from their presentation, here.

We hope it’s been a wonderful year of growth and learning through Stratasan's Strategic Growth blog series. As we close out the year, we thought it would be helpful to share the 5 most popular blog posts from 2017. These posts received the most hits and seemed to provide the most helpful strategic growth guidance to you, our readers.

If you’re traveling over the holidays, this is a great way to review helpful blog posts that you may have missed or revisit your favorites for fresh insight.

Find Inspiration from these Forward-Thinking Marketing Teams

By Jennifer Keller

With so many avenues to interact with patients and prospective patients online, hospitals and health systems are finding new and creative ways to connect every day. In this post, find inspiration from four health systems making impressive and forward-thinking strides in their marketing programs. Each hospital has employed notable marketing, and particularly social media, strategies in an effort to engage their community.

Why the Right Referral Software is Necessary to Ensure Goals Are Being Met

By Jackie DeGroat and Sean Conway

Hospitals depend heavily on their referring physicians for patient volume and revenue, which is why developing and maintaining relationships with these physicians is so important. Physician Liaisons are the face, voice, eyes, and ears of this demanding effort. Physicians have a lot of options for referrals and this competition puts even more pressure on physician relations teams to effectively manage provider relationships.

Physician relations teams are responsible for strengthening relationships between physicians and their hospital or health system, with the goal of driving more referrals in-network. There are many components that make up a quality physician relations program, such as a strategic sales plan, effective encounters, and meaningful conversations. But to ensure program goals are being met, physician relations teams must track and measure their initiatives so they can successfully identify opportunities for improvement.