MHA's Executive Briefing

A Brand New World

Down the drain it goes. Recent years have seen big bucks spent - literally hundreds of millions of dollars - by the more than 5,000 provider organizations on marketing and branding initiatives. This profuse spending has resulted in only isolated examples of successful branding efforts with measurable and clear outcomes.

Why all the trouble with such little success?

Conversations about brand and responsibility for its strategic direction have typically rested in the wrong hands within the provider enterprise. Instead of being a marketer's tool, the brand of your organization must be placed squarely atop of the CEO's agenda. All the way to the top: Chief. Executive. Officer.

For the full story, click here.

Learning From Market Leaders: Questions to Ask and Rules to Follow

Successful companies achieve and sustain their dominant position by delivering “extraordinary levels of distinctive value” to carefully selected customer groups every day. Studies conducted by leading authorities on business strategy and corporate transformation, Michael Tracy and Fred Wiersema, highlight the importance of focus when building a market leader. In Discipline of Market Leaders, Tracy and Wiersema write that, to be successful in distinguishing themselves from the competition, organizations must have a precise understanding of the products or services they deliver and a clear definition of the target customer.

These distinct attributes, they say, must be understood at all levels in the organization--not only by executives, but also by frontline employees. The service- and customer-based approach should drive the budget process and investment decisions of the organization, not to mention the day-to-day interactions with customers and suppliers. The resulting clarity and focus, the authors theorize, can help organizations set themselves apart.

For the full story from Edward M. Hindin at HealthLeadersMedia.com, click here.

National Trends in Healthcare Consumerism: the Responsive Healthcare Consumer

Hospital marketers must learn to develop and execute campaigns that will reach people who not only need a particular service but also are likely to take action in response to the marketing effort for that service. Responsive consumers are precisely the segment that marketers want to reach to achieve this goal. This report from Solucient describes who these responsive consumers are and how marketers find and effectively communicate with them. The report provides consumer survey data on physician and hospital selection, success of hospital marketing (such as attending an education class offered by the hospital), the use of physician and hospital ratings, use of preventive services and screenings and price sensitivity about costs.

Download the full report from Solucient (free registration required).

[ via SHSMD's e-Connect ]

Hospitals and Consumer-Driven Healthcare: Five Marketing Moves

Consumer-driven healthcare is a hot topic these days, but there are many misconceptions about what it actually is. To adequately plan for future initiatives, hospital executives need to have a firm understanding of the concept.

Connect the dots: how to tie marketing metrics to financial outcomes

Deciding where to spend your marketing dollars is often difficult, because there is rarely a straight line from the investment to a specific financial result. Much of marketing's impact, the argument goes, cannot be determined directly. Take advertising, for example. Most research indicates that, for the average packaged-goods company, every dollar invested in advertising provides a return of 56 cents over the short run. By the same token, however, we also know that for most brands, a decrease in advertising will cause a decrease in sales over time.

Read the full article from CMO magazine here.

Getting more from call centers

Call centers are an essential part of the marketing and customer care strategy of many companies, but too many executives consider these operations a necessary expense rather than a way to generate new business. Indiscriminately moving customer traffic to a company's Web site or outsourcing call centers haphazardly can make them less rather than more effective. Read the full article in the McKinsey Quarterly (free registration required). (via SHSMD e-Connect)