The Healthcare industry is an evolving one and contemporary trends, practices and new ways of communication are continuously being introduced to ensure patient attention, recall and loyalty.

Hospital branding is one such endeavour which strikes the bullseye in appealing to, engaging and retaining patients. Establishing and erecting a strong brand equity for your hospital or healthcare unit is necessary if you wish to be successful as a healthcare entrepreneur.

Gone are the days when patients made doctor selections based on locality or accessibility because today’s tech-savvy person has access to hundreds of hospitals at a click and makes choices based on web reviews and doctor feedback from previous patients. If your healthcare facility or hospital is unable to tell and sell success stories, nurture a legacy of trust, and forge a lasting relationship with your existing and potential customers, you will be left miles behind in the race.

The biggest benefit of branding is that it gives a face and a personality to your hospital or healthcare unit and helps you connect with your patients.

Don’t you wish that your hospital has a persona that your patients can understand, relate with, connect to and trust to fulfil their healthcare needs? Branding can assure just all this.

Some benefits of branding

1. Enumerates reasons for your patients to choose you over others.
2. Shares your values, vision, and mission with your client base.
3. Gives a “one-of-a-kind” feeling to your services.
4. Conveys how your healthcare brand is unique and a class apart from other competitors
5. Gives you a competitive edge to increase footfall.
6. Gives you an opportunity to talk about your success stories, your CSR work, and your expertise.

Branding builds a sustainable and strong bridge between you and sure success.

Here are three tips about successful Healthcare branding

1. Position and Personalize

Each brand has to have its own persona and its unique identity that differentiates it from the rest. You can build your hospital’s brand identity through messaging {tone, word choice} and visual impact {logos, fonts, colours, shades, pictures}. This should be in tandem with your objectives and your ethos. Keep this consistent in every communication with your customer. Positioning is how your patients perceive your hospital. It can convey what your hospital or healthcare facility stands for and has to offer and its value propositions with clarity, credibility, and confidence.

E.g., If your hospital is a multi-specialty hospital, you can promote the idea of every service under a single roof.

Each patient is different and his/her needs, expectations and aspirations are unique too. Address these individual wants and needs and create a top of the mind remembrance spot for your services in the minds of your potential patients. To do this branding exercise, you will have to make a varied survey of your core customer base and an in-depth study of your competitors and your market. Make healthcare personal. Use hospital marketing in such a way that it serves an individual specifically.

E.g., More than the facilities and services that you offer or the conditions, you should focus your brand story on the patient who has benefitted.

If you have a paediatric hospital, your brand story should revolve around healthy children and happy parents to stride a chord with your potential clients.

2. Highlight your strengths

Your hospital or healthcare facility will be having a core inner quality that can be highlighted and conveyed in such a way that it will make you stand a class apart from all the other competition. To find this core attribute, you will have to brainstorm with your workforce, your marketing specialists and deep-delve into your vision and values. Be sure to talk to people in a large cross-section of society like doctors, administrators, patients, family members and competitors.

Heaps of qualitative and quantitative data will have to be assessed before you narrow down to your branding idea and curate a strong messaging and positioning that will reverberate with your inner vision and external ambition. Shout and scream to convey your brand message and make your potential patients notice you. Healthcare marketing in India is highly competitive, hence you have to make an early start in this initiative.

For example, if your hospital has invested in the latest technology diagnostic devices, build a complete brand story around it.

Or if your panel has a surgeon who is an expert in a particular field, advertise it so that you reap the maximum benefits.

3. Use every channel available

Earlier, hospitals and physicians had to rely only on word-of-mouth publicity. Today, online, and offline channels are available to you to strengthen your branding. Leverage every channel to connect with your potential customers and build lasting bonds. Make your website appealing and interactive to get your patient interested in you. Use patient portals, online support groups and interactive camps to touch base with your core audience. Use social media to cover your success stories, your CSR activities, your client reviews and reach out to your clients.

Summarize, Healthcare Branding is the new mantra to success and almost all healthcare entrepreneurs have realized its importance in gaining a foothold in this dynamic market.  If you wish to jump on this bandwagon but have truly little idea of how to go about it, consult Hospertz, a leading Healthcare Marketing Consultancy firm in Mumbai.

Blog has been written by Dr. Vishal Jadhav, a veteran in the field of hospital consultancy with a rich experience of more than 20 years and founder of the Healthcare Consultancy Firm, Hospertz.

Dr. Vishal Jadhav, Director
hospertz@gmail.com
+91 9867712705/ 9820833149