I was focusing a lot on social media this week when I kept encountering the same frustration by clients and colleagues about thank you’s.  Whenever I hear the same complaint repeated over and over in the same week, it occurs to me that the “Blog Gods” are pushing me to address the complaint.  And being [...]

The numbers speak for themselves!  More hospital marketing endeavors include social media elements.  I could write a bunch more about this data but I think just looking at the numbers lets us know that the world is communicating differently.  This is not an indictment to drop everything and adopt social media channels but rather a [...]

We are changing the way we communicate. We might find information from a Twitter post or have an RSS feed with our favorite bloggers or follow the link on our friend’s Facebook page or we may be avid listeners to NPR’s Morning Report. Consider how you used to obtain information a few years ago compared [...]

For a few years now, we have been hearing about “new” marketing or “Marketing 2.0.”  Job descriptions for marketers require “social media skills” and the marketing world looks different than it did when health care organizations first started using the term “marketing” vs. “outreach.” The guts of marketing still are about garnering attention and reaching [...]

My father passed away with metastatic prostate cancer on March 16th.  He was living in my house for the last four months of his life so that we could assist my mother in caring for him.  We were fortunate to have Hospice guiding us along the difficult and foreign path toward death. He had a [...]

If I had a nickel for every person who groans when mention of a business plan surfaces in a conversation, we could eliminate the federal deficit!  Okay, maybe that is optimistic but still, what is the groaning about?  Business planning and business plans are fundamental in moving a service or practice forward.  Business plans are [...]

Communication can really break down when a patient or family member is worried or not feeling well.  Add the element of age and hearing loss and that communication pathway is further impaired.  On the provider side, you may be running behind or still thinking about your last patient’s care and deliver instructions too fast for [...]

One of the very best things we can do with all of our patients is to have a candid conversation about food.  Seriously!  And I don’t mean, “I’m going to refer you to a nutritionist” kind of conversation but just one that simply outlines very important information about the American diet.  If you are uncomfortable [...]

When you are thinking about your marketing strategy and considering how to reach certain outcomes, take a step back and take a hard look at the service delivery itself.  Yes, I have written about this before but I am not sure, we in health care, have fully reached our service potential.  We do a lot [...]

Health Care Marketing Basics:  Tracking We know the importance of measuring our outreach efforts.  Tracking helps us plan better, aim more carefully and get closer to the results we want. We gain better health care marketing results, i.e. return on our marketing investment. Websites and especially medical practice websites are no different in benefiting from [...]