Things You Should Verify Before Endorsing Your Hospital Efficiently?

1. In today's competitive environment, in order to retain and grow your business, it is extremely important to reach your customer. Every organization strives to remain visible and adopts an innovative methodology to market itself. Even social and charitable organizations are not far behind to remain relevant. Even before an organization attempts to promote itself, it is vital to answer following:

2. WHO you are; As an organization, it is important to define your strength, ultimate selling point (USP) and what your core objective is. Hospitals try to spread themselves in all specialties and wide area and fail to make a mark. Why you need to promote your hospital; We all agree that marketing our hospital is now a necessity. Some simple reasons can be oTo be at the forefront of “Brand recoil” of our present and likely customers oGrow and optimize our resources and improve profits WHAT you want to advertise; Be clear on the product or service you wish to focus- as oAny specialty or super specialty oAny specialist doctor or group of doctors oAny superior technology such as top class PET scan / MRI etc. oAny service like 24 hour dialysis facility / round the clock trauma team etc. oContent (message) and its present-ability is significant. This should be accomplished after detail discussion with all stakeholders like doctors, hospital managers, marketing team members and people who drive strategy. WHERE you want to promote; The outcome of any marketing initiative majorly depends on its success in reaching the right audience and leaving a positive impact. oIs our customer Urban or rural or mixed? oPromotion of specialty in nearby areas where incidence is high makes business logic. oPromoting care for joint in the gardens during early hours will attract the right audience. A judicious research on who your right target customer and what is the best means in the most cost effective ways to reach him/ her is “Key” of good marketing strategy. WHEN you should do marketing activity: Timing is extremely important. Some examples are oRadio marketing: Its penetration and impact is much better if the promotion is during peak time (Morning 8 to 11 AM or Evening 5 to 7 PM) as people travel in their vehicle / public transport.

3. oEvery hospital launches similar health checkup plan say on Heart day has a very limited impact and entire effort may yield much better results if done when other hospitals are silent. oHospitals are not ready and they promote a program. This has a negative impact as you launch a campaign to promote an angiogram and your cardiologist is not available during the promotional period. For Whom; We need to have clarity on who is our customer oFor Chronic disease like heart/diabetes, our target is the elderly population oCataract/prostate surgery again, it is elderly people oDelivery promotion is for young population oPremium product in the non affording audience may not give you desired result, e.g. promoting high cost cosmetic procedure in urban slums oAt times adult children decide; Say son/ daughter may decide for heart surgery for their patients. In WHICH Way; We can promote hospital through an endless list of tools and mediums, as: oPrint / TV / Radio advertisement oFliers/ Paper insert oHoardings oMass e-mailers / SMS campaign oPromotion through Twitter / Facebook / Website Promotion / Keyword – Search Engine Optimization / Search Engine Advertisement oHealth screening Camps: both at the hospital and at the community level. oForming support groups with community participation such as a cancer self help group and a group for parents of children suffering from Thalassemia. oWeekly Doctor Clinic in big corporate offices / Industry etc. oAmbulance service at key points on the highway. oEmpanelling corporate companies either directly or through insurance companies. oMaking nearby population part of your outreach medical program with a regular visit by doctors / giving special privileges. oPromoting our doctors in “target audience’’. This could be people / Nearby IMAs and other medical forums.

4. We can promote our hospital in 100 more ways. However, each activity should be of quality, innovative, target to the right audience and must give good returns on investment either in the form of increase in volume or brand enhancement. It is equally important to study impact of each activity prior to implementation. The things which give results must be repeated and improved upon. Recurrent failure through particular activity should be discontinued or improvised. For more please visit to my Blog at - http://www.drvikramsinghraghuvanshi.in/category/blog/ Dr. Vikram Singh Raghuvanshi is leading Hospital Planner. He has also worked in the area of Strategy & Hospital Operations for over 25 years. He has designed and managed some prestigious hospitals in India. He is also visiting faculty @ leading management Institutions. Connect with Dr. Vikram Raghuvanshi on Facebook, Twitter & Google Plus for regular updates.