“Decoding Healthcare Branding: Strategies for Success”

Healthcare branding has gained tremendous significance in today’s time and age because competition is increasing day by day. Moreover, patients can access information at their fingertips and hence can find scores of healthcare options in a second. With such a plethora of information available, just a click away, patients are no longer restrained by distance or reference alone and explore various healthcare options before zeroing in on their choice.

All these factors have made investment in healthcare branding quintessential. It is mandatory that you should have a thoughtfully-curated branding endeavour that will keep your healthcare facility’s name, image and persona at the top of the mind remembrance of your current and potential clients.

What is Healthcare branding?

Healthcare branding is the process of creating a recognizable and unique identity for your healthcare facility.

When there are so many hospitals and clinics mushrooming in every street, why should a patient pick you? Is it because you have a panel of experts who have performed myriad complicated surgeries successfully or is it because you provide a lavish spa-like recovery experience or is it because you have state-of-the-art advanced diagnostic equipment? You should brainstorm with your employees, your partners and your consultants and find out what this special feature is and then sculpt your healthcare facility’s branding exercise around it. You must put a lot of time and efforts into this as branding is a sustainable exercise and cannot be changed on whim and fancy.

In fact, to optimize your hospital’s branding effect and efficiency, you should call in the professionals …i.e., you should avail of the services of qualified healthcare consulting firm to help you in this initiative and benefit from their expertise to get the best possible outcomes in terms of identity creation and patient volumes.

Healthcare Branding Tips

1. Analyse and Assess

A successful branding exercise requires tremendous self-introspection and market overview. You have amalgamated information on patients’ views, competitor campaigns and offerings, market trends and other qualitative and quantitative data. Only after all this, a strong branding message that will make your healthcare facility recognizable, unique and resonate with your vision and values can emerge.

2. Differentiate Yourself

With the escalating competition, you have to create a unique spot for your healthcare facility in your potential customers’ minds. You have to flaunt that you are different from others or you will get lost in the crowd. A healthcare branding exercise can put the spotlight on what is special about your healthcare facility. It can incite interest and trigger remembrance among your potential customers so that they choose your healthcare facility over your competitors every time.

3. Live your Brand

Your team…that is your panel of physicians, your skilled workforce, your caregivers, your partners…namely all your internal stakeholders are a part of your branding endeavour. See that your brand story is communicated to them and they too are on the same page as you. They must be involved and eager to be the real expression of the Healthcare branding you have created.

Why is Healthcare Branding important?

1. Evolves customer connect

Healthcare is a sensitive matter for people. They have to be assured that the well-being of their loved ones is in the hands they trust…namely that your healthcare facility will provide exemplary care and excellent services. They also need the assurance that they are getting the best value for their money. They need to know that their healthcare provider has a compassionate, humane and trustworthy identity.

Good healthcare branding can build a legacy of trust with your patients and their loved ones. It can create a reliable and reassuring brand persona for your healthcare facility. Your healthcare branding campaign can give your potential customers better insights into the services you provide, your level of expertise, your post-care services and much more.

2. Helps you gain Patient understanding

Healthcare social media is constantly evolving. If you have to stay successful, you have to constantly keep tabs on what your Digi-savvy patient believes in. To assess this, it has become imperative to know your patient base closely and have an in-depth insight into their likes, dislikes, beliefs, mindsets and market trends. When you know them well…you can catch them better. This deep knowledge of your current and prospective customers can equip you to generate better marketing modules and strategies to attain your goals.

3. Improves your Healthcare facility’s perception

Branding can give expression to your organization’s personality i.e.; it is way of portraying what your healthcare facility stands for. Hence, it is a very important perception-enhancing tool.

In the current scenario, it is all about “experience”. The patient experience starts right from the time he/ she starts browsing on the web in search of a healthcare facility till the time he/ she checks out after satisfactory treatment. You have to make sure that each step of this journey is a pleasant and hassle-free one for him/ her if you want to create a long-standing relationship and curate a good brand equity. This patient experience can be conveyed through your healthcare facility’s branding exercise in a relatable and appealing manner through Facebook posts, Instagram stories etc. Moreover,

every branding input of your hospital branding campaign …from logos, to website, to advertising campaigns, to flyers and leave behinds should be designed to create deep-rooted remembrance.

4. Increases Profitability

Even though you are in an altruistic field like healthcare, the bottom line is important for healthcare facilities just like any other business venture. Healthcare branding curates a premium image and attracts more patient footfall in your healthcare facility as patient volumes increase, profitability margins grow too.

5. Cultivates Loyalty

An appealing and touching branding exercise has the power to attract customers and retain them too if the services match the perception. A well-planned branding exercise can assure that your healthcare facility and services have a long-term impact and establish a legacy of trust for years to come.

To summarize, healthcare branding is not just a flamboyant or flashy display of logos but a well-strategized endeavour to optimize the perception of your Healthcare facility and sculpt an appealing and long-lasting image in your prospective client’s mind.

If you need any help in conducting a branding exercise for your hospital, be sure to contact Hospertz, a leading specialist in this field for more than two decades.