Are Your Employees Engaged? An Employee Engagement Video Can Do Double Duty For Your Healthcare Organization

April 2, 2012 Leave a comment

By: Mike Milligan, President Legato Marketing & Communications

What is the weirdest question you’ve ever asked your doctor?

This is the backbone of the “Everything Matters. Everyone Counts.” video we helped create for Southwest Health Center (SHC) in Platteville, Wisc.

The video debuted in March at the Chamber of Commerce’s “Business After Hours” event. It shows patients –played mostly by Southwest employees –asking the doctor some very strange questions like “Why can’t I see my feet anymore?”

The point? To let the community know that no question is too silly when it comes to your health. We used this humorous approach to share a serious message about the importance of your annual physical and feeling comfortable discussing anything with your doctor.

This video was possible because of the employee participation. And it lets them be actively involved in SHC’s marketing efforts.

That’s the first benefit of an employee engagement video – it serves as a great marketing tool.

In the case of SHC, it allows the employees to be ambassadors of the SHC brand. They are part of the message, so now it’s personal to them. Employee involvement also provides a connecting point for other members in the community who may know a hospital employee.

And this video serves as the perfect complement to traditional advertising too. Place the url on your print, radio and direct mail pieces and there’s your call-to-action.

SHC’s video is also an effective way to harness the power of the internet. YouTube and Facebook are free to use and once the video is on these sites, the sharing opportunities are endless. Employees can post it on their personal pages and easily forward it to friends and family.

Double Duty

We’ve discussed the first role an employee video plays, but what’s the second?

It’s employee engagement.

What I mean is having your employees fully involved in and enthusiastic about their work and the company they work for.

What’s in it for employers?

Well… higher productivity, safer employees, more customer-focused employees and decreased absenteeism are a few of the benefits. In terms of hospitals, this can mean more efficient care and higher quality care.

Effective engagement can also help cut turnover costs. Show your employees that you genuinely care about them and in turn they will feel more loyal to their jobs and less apt to leave.

How to get engaged?

There are so many different ways to engage healthcare employees. Celebrating things like nurse’s week, birthdays and work-related anniversaries, as well as setting up recognition programs to acknowledge exceptional work are some traditional methods.

But today we live in a much more social world, which is why a video like SHC’s is an influential tool.

Proven examples

The following two cases demonstrate the engagement and marketing power of an employee video.

Created in 2010, St. Mary’s of Michigan’s “We are St. Mary’s” dance video used 2,000 of the health system’s employees.

It launched at the annual associates picnic, which prompted several thousand employees and their families to attend –a huge sign of engagement. The hospital also saw a 13 percent increase in their associate survey participation between 2009 and 2010.

But hospital employee videos probably got their biggest break with Providence St. Vincent Medical Center’s “Pink Glove” video.

Employees, all wearing pink gloves, danced around the hospital to boost breast cancer awareness. This video went viral and now has over 1.3 million views on YouTube. It’s also been the inspiration for many pink glove sequels.

Your call-to-act

Just think – 1.3 million views means that many people are seeing what a great place your organization is to work at and work with. And it was free to market to all of them via YouTube and Facebook.

So pick a cause that your employees can rally behind like SHC’s “Everything Matters. Everyone Counts.” or pick a service/department in the hospital that you want to promote. Either way, your video is serving double duty. It’s getting your employees involved and it’s getting your message out.

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Are You Marketing Your Strongest Asset?

March 13, 2012 Leave a comment

 By: Mike Milligan, President Legato Marketing & Communications

What is your hospital’s strongest asset?

While a few may beg to differ, most would say their physicians top the list. If you agree, you should be marketing your docs to the nth degree. Are you?

Keep in mind that it’s just as important to market a physician’s ‘human’ side as it is to highlight the high points of a doctor’s experience. That means putting consumers in touch with your physicians and vice versa. We all know that docs don’t have the time (not to mention the desire) to get out and press the flesh, so what’s a marketing professional to do?  Think ‘personally’ – ‘virtually.’

Leverage your website to:

  • Build trust in your physicians by promoting their professional experience and their passion for their careers. How? One idea is to stream videos of doctors in action to emphasize their capabilities and their love of their profession.
  • Let consumers get to know your docs as ‘people’ — not just professionals. Feature a doctor of the week by including a personalized human interest story. For example, if a doc enjoys kayaking, capture his or her love of the outdoors with a photo essay.  Introduce a doctor’s spouse and children, a family pet, a favorite recipe … Give consumers a glimpse into the ‘softer side’ of your physicians and you’ll create a greater level of comfort and confidence in your docs.
  • Schedule live web chats that allow consumers to ask doctors questions – and get responses – in real-time. The ability to have two-way conversations like these can shoot your consumer trust and loyalty scores through the roof.
  • Give patients the ability to email appointment requests. The more convenient the appointment process is, the more likely consumers are to use your clinic.

Today, patient trust and loyalty is critical to the success of every hospital. But in rural communities, the stakes may be even higher. Here, ‘Neighbors caring for neighbors’ isn’t just a cliché, it’s a way of life. It’s also an expectation – of your clinic, your hospital – and your doctors.

If you’re not marketing your biggest asset, the time has come. Do it well, and step up your market share, increase volume and build ever-important patient loyalty.

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Leverage your Intranet And Net The Benefits

March 7, 2012 Leave a comment

By: Mike Milligan, President Legato Marketing & Communications

How many of you view your hospital’s intranet as a communications tool?

No surprise there.

OK. Let’s take it one step further … How many of you use your intranet as a powerful marketing tool? If you do, are you squeezing every ounce of marketing opportunity out of it? You should, you know. Here’s why.

Your intranet is a top-down/bottom-up, horizontal/two-way, multi-faceted marketing vehicle. It can be powerful. Economical. And it can put you on the fast track to increasing employee satisfaction, improving efficiencies and building brand — if you leverage all of its strengths. I’ll give you a few examples to state my case.

Employee satisfaction: Your intranet allows management to get timely information to employees. But don’t make it a one-way street. Internal employee blogs, feedback forms and user-specific dashboards give you the opportunity to hear what’s on employees’ minds so you can respond. Open communication plays a big role in employee satisfaction. And your timely response to staff’s suggestions, concerns and questions ups the ‘satisfaction’ ante.

Improved service: Employees throughout the organization (and in multiple locations) can use the intranet to exchange information and best practices with one another. That can improve customer service by helping employees fulfill your organization’s brand promise.

Brand ambassadors: Your intranet can provide employees with updates they need and information they want, as well as other ‘perks.’ Examples:

  • Employee benefit information about insurance options, open enrollment – even free flu shots, health screenings and more.
  • Fitness and nutrition tips that promote a healthy lifestyle. (Healthier employees translate into a healthier organization all the way around.)
  • Local events, family activities and volunteer opportunities that connect employees to the communities you serve.

In other words, don’t just talk about life/work balance, promote it. Encourage it. Show your employees you care about them both professionally and personally, and your staff is more likely to speak positively about your organization and make referrals to family and friends.

The intranet is a powerful tool that is often taken for granted. Don’t overlook the obvious or underestimate its marketing potential. Log in now and see what opportunities are staring you straight in the eye. And one more word of advice: Before you jump in too deep, be sure you have an intranet governance model in place. You’ll want to have enough flexibility to allow individual departments to use the tool but not at the expense of your brand.

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Does Radio Still Have a Role in Healthcare Marketing?

March 5, 2012 Leave a comment

By: Mike Milligan, President Legato Marketing & Communications

With the advent of iPods and the Internet, who listens to radio anymore?

I do. I’m willing to wager, you do, too. Whether it’s at work, at home, in the car or inadvertently hearing an ad in-between errands, radio is still a part of our lives.  And that’s why it should still be considered when you’re developing your marketing strategy.

If radio has fallen off your radar screen in your rush to get ‘social,’ take another look. It can be an effective option—in certain situations.

Radio may be a good option if you have multiple offices or facilities. You can get more bang for your buck because your advertising cost is spread over a number of locations.

Rates for airtime in secondary markets are generally more attractive than those for larger markets, which is a plus for rural healthcare organizations. This can allow you to increase frequency of your ads and buy 60-second spots vs. 30s. Even though shorter spots may cost less, 60-second spots are more effective for healthcare organizations and private practices.

When it comes to producing your radio ad, a station may offer its production services for ‘free.’ While it may be tempting to go this route, heed the adage, “You get what you pay for.”  (At least in most cases.)

Keep in mind that effective radio spots need to cut through the clutter. That means your message has to be creatively compelling to get listeners to take action. But even the best creative won’t get consumers to pick up the phone, check out your website or walk through your doors if you haven’t bought the right stations and timeslots. That’s where your marketing firm comes in.

Things like GRPs (Gross Rating Points) and DMAs (Dominant Market Area) are BAU (Business As Usual—I’m trying out my texting shorthand here) for marketing firms’ media buyers. So leverage their expertise to negotiate rates and develop a placement strategy to hit your target demographic. You just might find that radio still has a place in healthcare marketing. Our clients can attest to that.

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Marketing and Healthcare Reform: Proactive Beats Reactive Every Time

March 1, 2012 2 Comments

By: Mike Milligan, President Legato Marketing & Communications

Although many questions remain about healthcare reform legislation, one thing is certain: Healthcare reform—in some shape or form—is here to stay. And it’s going to affect every hospital, in every community, and their relationships with patients, physicians and payers.

That gives marketing professionals two choices: a) Wait for all of the legislative i’s to be dotted and t’s to be crossed—and react to the changes, or b) Take the lead in turning healthcare’s competitive and economic challenges into opportunities—starting now.

I’ll go out on a limb and assume you chose ‘b.’ Smart decision. This is an opportune time to examine what you can do to help prepare your organization for the transition. Start by looking at critical areas like these:

Brand development: One of the desired outcomes of healthcare reform is increased access to care. What role will your brand play in attracting new markets? How will you make yourself more accessible to all consumers? This may be the time to invest in research or conduct an audit to help you determine how well you’re delivering on your brand promise. You can then take steps to strengthen your brand and differentiate your organization from the competition.

Organizational structure: Virtually every level of your organization will be affected by reform. How will you communicate the changes to your employees? Put a system in place now to ensure all employees receive timely information and updates.

Patient communication: Reform looks at tying a hospital’s compensation to quality and satisfaction scores. That means building trusted patient relationships will be more important than ever. How are you communicating with your patients? Just as important, how easy is it for patients to communicate with you?

Now is the time to evaluate your database to find out how well you know your patients. Do you track their visits and the services they use? This type of information can help you target your marketing efforts and strengthen patient relationships.

Service line strategy: Healthcare reform focuses on significant changes in the way many healthcare organizations currently are structured and paid for their services. When was the last time you assessed performance and capabilities to determine each service line’s strengths and weaknesses? Market those strengths effectively and you become the expert in that field. Translation: Patients choose your hospital or clinic over the competition.

Social channels: While concerns about HIPAA regulations are legitimate, hospitals and clinics can’t afford to ignore social media. As the topic of healthcare reform continues to heat up, consumers are going to have questions. A lot of questions. Take steps now to position your organization as the ‘go to’ source for reliable and timely information.

Hospital/Physician alignment: Changing reimbursement models and other factors will create new challenges in this arena. Are your PCP relationships as strong as they should be? Do physicians want to practice or refer to your hospital? Start strengthening those relationships now and your marketing efforts will pay off—regardless of where healthcare reform leads us.

These are just some of the areas that deserve your marketing attention sooner rather than later. Even though many questions remain, it’s clear that healthcare as we know it is undergoing a huge shift. That poses a question that only you can answer: Will your healthcare organization be proactive or reactive?

As a 20-year veteran in healthcare marketing, I can tell you one thing for certain: Proactive beats reactive—every time.

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Are Your Social Skills Fully Developed?

February 27, 2012 Leave a comment

By: Mike Milligan, President Legato Marketing & Communications

With all the buzz about incorporating social media into the marketing mix, many organizations believe they have left no stone unturned or Twitter un-tweeted. But take a closer look and you’ll find that many haven’t fully developed their ‘social skills’.

While most hospitals and clinics have developed a functional website and have dabbled in social networking, many have overlooked other ways to tap into the social web to reach business goals. Take training for example.

Including social media in healthcare training initiatives can provide:

  • Participants a forum to ask questions and engage in discussion before and after training.
  • Allow presenters to receive immediate feedback from participants (e.g., do trainees fully understand a subject or is more information needed?).
  • The opportunity to complement marketing efforts by sharing presentations or video from training sessions on Flickr and other social sites.

Another example: Using social media channels to get coverage from mainstream media and industry publications.

One way to do this is to share success stories from innovative treatments, surgeries or medical research via forums, blogs and microblogs. Roughly 70 percent of journalists say they use social networks to assist them when reporting. Take advantage of this fact.

Another example … While it may not happen often, a natural disaster such as flooding or a tornado can take its toll on a community within minutes. And hospitals are often at the center of it all. Healthcare providers can leverage social media networks to provide real-time updates both for those directly affected by the crisis and those watching from afar.

Long story short … Social media has many applications. Don’t get stuck in a web of doing what everyone else is doing. Constantly refine your social skills. Your efforts can pay off in many forms—from building trust and improving patient care—to gaining media coverage, and attracting new patients and staff.

Filed under Leadership, Management, Marketing, Organizational, PR/Social Media, Strategy, Uncategorized Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , ,

Hitting Your Target Market Takes More Than Advertising

February 16, 2012 Leave a comment

By: Mike Milligan, President Legato Marketing and Communications

Marketing and advertising. It’s six of one, half-a-dozen of the other—or so many mistakenly think.

No matter how often the two terms are inadvertently interchanged, marketing is not the same as advertising. Advertising is, however, part of marketing—but only one part.

Sure, you can take a shot in the dark with your advertising and play a game of hit (barely) or miss (big time), but without marketing, you won’t even have a target to shoot at. Why?

Because marketing encompasses everything from identifying and understanding your target market to how you’ll reach those consumers (which is where advertising comes in) and how you’ll differentiate yourself from the competition to get consumers to use your services.

In addition to advertising, marketing includes other important elements like market research, media planning, PR, product and service pricing and distribution, brand development, community involvement … It encompasses every touch point; every experience consumers and prospects have with your organization.

That’s why it not only makes sense to have a solid marketing plan in place before you advertise, it’s also critical to your success. A comprehensive marketing plan can help you:

  • Identify new/potential consumers
  • Identify your strengths and areas for improvement
  • Identify consumers’ needs and wants
  • Determine the demand for specific services
  • Identify areas for growth
  • Keep your budget and initiatives on track
  • Respond to new opportunities
  • Get your entire organization on the same page
  • Evaluate your efforts and make adjustments

The list goes on, but I think you get the picture.

Yes, advertising is an important part of marketing. But it’s not a silver bullet. Before you take aim at developing a ‘great creative campaign,’ make sure you have a comprehensive marketing plan in your sights.

If you think it’s hard to hit a moving target, try hitting one you don’t even know exists!

Filed under Leadership, Management, Marketing, Organizational, PR/Social Media, Strategy, Uncategorized Tagged with , , , , , ,

Ladies and Gentlemen: Start Your SEO Engines!

February 13, 2012 Leave a comment

Have you ever done a web search for “healthcare marketing?” Ever look at how many results come up? I did: About 19,000,000 just today. Or how about “rural healthcare marketing?” Just a measly 11,000.

For both of these terms, I’m pleased to report that Legato consistently ranks in the top 5 of organic Google listing, and often is #1. I say this not to be boastful, but rather, to make the point that these results don’t just happen. They’re part of your marketing strategy, or, at least they should be.

Of course, I’m talking about Search Engine Optimization—or ‘SEO’ in techno-talk.

Put simply, SEO strategies use keywords to maximize the amount of traffic—relevant traffic—to your website. It’s a targeted way of driving people to your site who are specifically looking for the services you provide.

SEO can help you:

  • Get targeted traffic to your site. If consumers or patients have entered your website’s keywords/phrases into a search engine, they’re already interested in what you have to offer.
  • Strengthen your brand. If your site gets a higher ranking than other hospitals, more people see your name and become aware of your services.
  • Stay ahead of your competition. Showing up on a page before your competition can help increase the perceived position of your hospital in the marketplace.
  • Build brand credibility. When consumers find you organically, they’re usually more likely to bookmark your site, spend more time on your site and return to your site and/or use your services.

SEO is a powerful tool. But maximizing search engine rank-and-return positioning can be complex. If you don’t have the internal staff to help you develop an effective SEO campaign, it’s worth the investment to seek some help.

Surveys indicate that up to 85% of Internet users find websites through search engines. However, the majority (some say up to 90%) of Internet users don’t go past the top 30 search engine results—at most. They simply type something else in if they can’t find a relevant site.

With statistics like these, there is no doubt that the battle for pole position on the search engine leader board will continue to heat up.

So I ask … “Ladies and gentlemen: Are you ready to start your SEO engines?”

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Is Your Health System Patient-Centered or Patient-Censored?

January 30, 2012 Leave a comment

By: John Corpus, Vice President, Strategy, Legato Marketing & Communications

Yes, everyone talks about developing care models around the patient and his/her family and caregivers.

A friend of mine who is applying for a supervisor position within her company asked me for some advice regarding questions that the hiring team may ask her during the interview. The company is a service organization; therefore, its major consideration is customer service – with a focus on quality. Does exceptional quality however, translate into providing exceptional customer service?

I asked my friend to define customer service: she provided several different examples of “quality measures” that she believes illustrate what customer service is, e.g., number of customers employees can process per hour, number of customers coming through each week/month/year, and number of various permits/licenses processed, but not once did she mention the customer experience.

In her mind, customer service is all about internal processes, assigning responsibilities, and proper internal communication and understanding. This type of planning does not take into consideration the customer experience. In fact, the planning process itself seems to, without intent, censor the customer.

Healthcare is a change environment, simply put. Regulatory changes, financial limitations/reimbursement, a lack of desirable healthcare workers, and advances in technology keep healthcare in a state of flux. Combined, we in healthcare remain more focused on strategy, planning, and getting business done – the bottom line – than we do on creating the ultimate patient experience for each patient.

Many of us say that we are patient-centered, but I believe that the patient-censored philosophy is the norm more than the exception. Large or small, urban or rural, hospitals and health systems still struggle with this concept.

Patient-centered is more than a catch phrase: hospitals and health systems must embrace this philosophy and its core elements in its mission, vision, and values, with a main objective of providing the patient with the best experience possible. Not considering this or aiming for less will result in a successful (but undesirable) patient-censored philosophy and culture.

Remember, for most, quality is a given in healthcare: your brand promise is the patient experience, nothing more and nothing less. The more you can embed this philosophy in the corporate culture and leadership’s actions, the more it will trickle down to department goals, objectives, and individual employee actions. This is not limited to direct patient care staff either; it is for everyone working within the hospital or health system, e.g., housekeeping, billing, marketing, etc. The actions of every employee can and do affect, directly or indirectly, the patient experience.

Filed under Leadership, Management, Marketing, Organizational, PR/Social Media, Strategy, Uncategorized

What’s All The Buzz About Blogging?

January 24, 2012 2 Comments

By: Mike Milligan, President Legato Marketing & Communications

To blog or not to blog, that is the question.

Whether ’tis nobler in the minds of marketers to suffer from the absence of a blog or to take arms against the competition and join in the posting revolution … Now, that’s another question in itself.

I can tell you from personal experience that blogging has it pros and its challenges. For one, it’s time-consuming. It also takes discipline to keep posts current and to provide content that people care about. So what’s the up side?

A blog provides an effective, low-cost alternative to conventional marketing. It can help rural hospitals level the playing field when competing with big-city hospitals with big-city budgets.

Blogs can also help community hospitals strengthen their connection with the community, enhance recruitment efforts, and position their medical professionals as experts in the field. For example:

Want to highlight a patient success story?

Put it on your blog. Localize it. And watch the news spread throughout your community—and beyond.

Looking for a specialist to fill an open position?

Ask one of your on-staff physicians or surgeons to be a guest blogger. He or she can highlight features and benefits of your hospital, and give a personal perspective of why it’s the right career move to join your organization and live in a rural community.

Want to leverage a health topic that’s getting national attention?

Start blogging about it. Have designated physicians, nurses, OTs and other professionals share their expertise. They’ll become recognized as local experts. It’s also a great way for community members to get to know the doctors and nurses on your staff.

So back to the question, “To blog or not to blog?”

While you don’t have to be Shakespeare to write a post, the content must be relevant and current. If you don’t have the time or talent internally to create and maintain a blog, consider outsourcing these services. If that’s not an option, err on the side of caution.

Remember, using a blog as a promotional tool is a great way to keep your website content fresh, and keep people coming back. But your site will only be as current as your last update, which ties back to the amount of time and effort that you invest in it.

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