hospital marketing

The Transformative Power of Hospital Marketing

In the modern era of rapidly evolving healthcare systems, hospital marketing emerges not merely as a choice, but a necessity. The rise of informed patients and increased competition has propelled the importance of hospital marketing to a new pinnacle. This blog delves into the essential role of hospital marketing in shaping the healthcare landscape in India, highlighting its critical facets and the implications for the future.

Understanding the Spectrum of Hospital Marketing

Hospital marketing is no longer confined within the boundaries of merely advertising the services offered. It encompasses a myriad of elements such as building a strong brand image, fostering a sustainable relationship with patients, implementing patient-centric approaches, and ultimately, paving the way to increased patient footfall and a healthy bottom line. It’s a strategic process of outreach, engagement, and relationship building that cultivates trust and reinforces your hospital’s reputation in a competitive marketplace.

Navigating the Competitive Healthcare Landscape Through Marketing

India’s healthcare sector is witnessing an influx of multi-speciality hospitals, corporate medical centres, and specialised clinics. This increased competition necessitates that hospitals not only provide exceptional services but also implement innovative marketing strategies to stand out. Hospital marketing provides the critical competitive edge, enabling healthcare providers to retain their existing patient base and attract new ones, thereby driving growth.

Strengthening Brand Image

Brand image is a significant factor in a patient’s choice of healthcare provider. In an era of information overflow and numerous options, having a trusted and respected brand image is crucial. Effective hospital marketing strategies help shape the public perception of a hospital, showcasing its commitment to patient care, its range of services, and its professional expertise. A well-articulated brand image can instil trust and reliability in the hearts of current and prospective patients.

Promoting Accessibility and Reach

The Indian healthcare sector still faces a notable urban-rural divide. With a significant portion of the population residing in rural areas, making healthcare services accessible to all is an essential goal. Hospital marketing, particularly digital strategies, can play a vital role in bridging this gap. Effective online marketing can disseminate information about healthcare services to the farthest corners of the country, ensuring healthcare accessibility is not confined to urban areas.

The Indian Healthcare Sector: A Peek into the Future

The future of India’s healthcare sector appears promising, with significant advancements and growth projected for the coming years. Here are some insights:

Digital Surge: By 2025, it is estimated that nearly 75% of India’s urban internet users, or approximately 500 million people, will use online health services, according to a recent BCG report. This statistic accentuates the need for hospitals to establish a strong online presence to reach this vast digital audience.

Exponential Growth: The Indian healthcare market is poised for robust growth, with a projection to reach an estimated $500 billion by 2025, as per IBEF reports. This growth trajectory necessitates hospitals to adopt advanced marketing strategies to keep pace with the industry’s evolution.

Medical Tourism: India is fast emerging as a global healthcare destination, with medical tourism expected to reach $9 billion by 2023-24, according to the Ministry of Tourism. Hospital marketing strategies can help tap into this thriving sector, attracting international patients through quality healthcare services and specialised care packages.

The Future Belongs to Those Who Innovate

Hospital marketing is a dynamic and continuous process. In the rapidly transforming healthcare sector of India, hospitals need to adapt, innovate, and evolve their marketing strategies to stay ahead. Regular audits of marketing campaigns, strategic use of healthcare IT, maintaining an updated and SEO-friendly website, and creating engaging online content are just some of the ways hospitals can stay on top of their marketing game.

To conclude, marketing is not just about making sales; it’s about creating value, building relationships, and making a difference in people’s lives. And nowhere is this more pertinent than in the field of healthcare, where the ultimate goal is the well-being of patients. Remember, a well-marketed hospital is not just a flourishing business, but a beacon of hope and trust for the community it serves.

Author 

Akhil Dave

Founder & Principal Consultant, Trizone Healthcare Consultants

Founder Chairman , AHMP India Foundation

https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/akhildave/episodes/THE-TRANSFORMATIVE-POWER-OF-HOSPITAL-MARKETING-e26rsm6

Personal Branding & Hospital Marketing

Importance of Doctor’s Personal Branding In Hospital Marketing

Personal branding is an important aspect of marketing for any professional, including doctors. In the healthcare industry, personal branding can play a significant role in the success of a hospital or healthcare organization. A doctor’s personal brand can influence patient satisfaction, trust, and loyalty, and can impact the overall reputation of the hospital.

A doctor’s personal brand can also help build trust with patients. Patients are more likely to choose a doctor they trust and feel comfortable with. A doctor’s personal brand can convey their expertise, experience, and personality, which can help build a strong relationship with patients. Patients are more likely to trust a doctor who has a well-established personal brand, which can lead to higher patient satisfaction rates and positive reviews.

The importance of a doctor’s personal brand in hospital marketing lies in its ability to differentiate the hospital from its competitors. A doctor’s personal brand can help create a unique identity for the hospital and its services, and can set it apart from other healthcare organizations in the market. By establishing a strong personal brand, a doctor can attract new patients and retain existing ones, which can ultimately lead to increased revenue for the hospital.

In addition to building trust, a doctor’s personal brand can also enhance their reputation as a healthcare professional. A doctor with a strong personal brand can establish themselves as a thought leader in their field and be seen as an authority on certain medical topics. This can lead to increased referrals from other healthcare professionals and can help the hospital attract top talent in the industry.

A doctor’s personal brand can also have a positive impact on the hospital’s overall marketing strategy. By leveraging a doctor’s personal brand in marketing materials and campaigns, the hospital can create a more personalized approach to its marketing efforts. This can help the hospital connect with patients on a more personal level and can lead to increased engagement and response rates.

Personal branding is the process of creating a unique identity for yourself that showcases your expertise, experience, personality, and values. Here are some effective ways to do personal branding:

  1. Define your personal brand: Before you start building your personal brand, you need to define what you want to be known for. Think about your unique skills, experiences, and values that you can leverage to create a personal brand that sets you apart from others.
  2. Create a professional online presence: Establishing a professional online presence is essential for personal branding. Create a website, blog or social media profiles that showcase your expertise, interests, and accomplishments.
  3. Develop a consistent message: Your personal brand message should be consistent across all channels. It should clearly communicate who you are, what you do, and why you are different.
  4. Share your knowledge: Share your knowledge and expertise with others by writing blog posts, speaking at events, or creating online courses. This will help establish you as an authority in your field.
  5. Network with others: Networking is a crucial aspect of personal branding. Attend events, join professional associations, and connect with others in your industry to build relationships and expand your network.
  6. Be authentic: Your personal brand should reflect your true personality and values. Be authentic and genuine in all your interactions and communications.
  7. Engage with your audience: Engage with your audience by responding to comments, asking for feedback, and creating opportunities for discussion. This will help build a community around your personal brand.
  8. Continuously evaluate and adapt: Personal branding is an ongoing process, and it’s essential to evaluate and adapt your strategy regularly. Monitor your online presence, track your progress, and adjust your approach as needed.

In conclusion, personal branding is a powerful tool that can help you establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry, build your reputation, and advance your career. By following these effective ways to do personal branding, you can create a strong personal brand that sets you apart from others and helps you achieve your goals.

A doctor’s personal brand is an important aspect of hospital marketing. It can help differentiate the hospital from its competitors, build trust with patients, enhance the doctor’s reputation, and improve the overall effectiveness of the hospital’s marketing efforts. As such, hospitals should invest in building and promoting their doctors’ personal brands as part of their overall marketing strategy.

Important Reasons For Hospital Branding
Hospital Branding

There is a huge gap between availability of hospital beds and population required healthcare. At the same time there is a large portion of population in need of hospital or you can say your hospital but they are not aware of your hospital`s existence or not aware about services you provide. To run hospital in profitable manner healthcare business has to live around with more a stronger brand identity that ever. Branding is exactly that process which builds your identity with more values. Branding really convey your vision and mission of healthcare businesses.


Here are 7 Important reasons for Hospital Branding

Defines your brand personality

With the help of effective branding exercise, you can project your brand personality in the most appealing way possible. Branding is capable of creating a wholesome picture of your services and facilities. Branding is capable enough of broadening a common man`s perception towards your Hospital. A well though process to build your Hospital brand can make people relate to you and remember forever that will have resulted in to prompt remembrance in case of medical emergency.

Stand out from the rest


In current an era of competition, everything is competing with everything. It is very important for hospital brand to stand out in the market and make some noise. By building thoughtful strategy hospital brand with your unique brand personality kept as the base makes your presence stand out from the market. When more and more noise you make and individually herd, the retention is more. Resulting in to more brand engagement.

Target Accurately

As a hospital business owner you have thought of investing or invested in healthcare business already means you know the need of the society. When you know your target market segment it is easy to catch their attention towards you. A brand which is planned and built on deep understanding of your organization`s geographic and socio-ecomonic through appropriate ground work will reach your target cohort more swiftly.


Short-term and long term benefits

Branding is a well thought process of intensifying your presence within a defined target group of audience. Branding helps to establish yourself in a defined market segment and then evolves in to an indispensable asset for your current and future business prospects. Thoughtful planned branding strategy can increase trust level towards your hospital. Customized modules with long term marketing goals will etch your brand in people’s memories.

Expand your market share

Increasing footfall in all aspects is any hospital`s goal, which looks far from their current position when the amount of competition is taken into account. Building your hospital brand from scratch carves a way that your counterparts can seldom cross. This leads to unique brand positioning which indeed takes your brand to markets your services previously left unexplored. The footprints of your brand image will gradually but in significant way increases your market share. To achieve this you may need to build and rebuild your hospital brand.

Develop brand loyalty

As you are creating your brand personality with thoughtful brand strategy, brand personality will leave an impact on the level of trust that your brand has gained. When every step in building a brand is well planned, curated and strategized with high level of understanding of local market or target marketing in mind, it increases the brand loyalty amongst your stakeholders like patients, employees, vendors etc. Increase patient referrals through word of mouth The most important marketing tool which increase footfall in hospital is word of mouth. Yes with thoughtful branding of your hospital you can increase patient referrals through word of mouth. Your past patients, employees, doctors, and their opinion perhaps the biggest sources to spread your brand. There is nothing more powerful in world of healthcare business than a word of mouth.

Branding is not about creatively you decorate your hospital or making it all look flashy rather it is about adoption a well though strategy process of projecting your brand personality & your quality of services in defined market.

To know more about How to Build your Hospital Brand, Consult Trizone Healthcare Consultants http://www.trizonehealthcare.com

MARKETING AUDIT

Healthcare in general and hospital branding & marketing in particular has as greatest of challenges these days in India.

How do you move forward in spite of the competitive environment ?

How do you minimize your advertisement budget, looking at high operational cost and low price line?

How do you shift from “High cost marketing” to “efficient marketing at low cost”?

How can we increase revenue to maintain quality care and service expansion?

How can we improvise on tracking & reporting system?

How to cope up with impact of Covid19 on Healthcare Industry?

The constant change in healthcare scenario sustainability of healthcare business is a Big challenge particularly with the challenges like increase quality maintenance cost, increase man power cost & operational costs, decreased margins over medicines & consumable products, high competition, prize / package war, professional fee sharing etc.

Hospital Branding & Marketing : It’s rarely simple or easy it`s required well planned, well calculated & well thoughtful strategy for short term and long term goal achievement. One need to plan branding & marketing strategies and tactics that increase revenue and profitability.

Solution: Start with Marketing Audit of your organization Irrespective of how well you think you’re doing, a marketing reality check / Audit is a useful tool to start with.

1. Check whether you are using evidence based marketing approach?

Does your branding & marketing planning include proven strategies, a well-designed Marketing Plan, Effective Implementation and evaluation of results? Remember the basics of marketing which start with need identification, service designing, pricing, packaging, branding, communication, advertisement, exchange of value and satisfaction of customer`s need. All these components drive the process. If you’re missing one or more you are not operating at full strength.

2. What’s the timeline of your marketing plan?

Even well planned marketing plan resulted in to failure if there is no timeline mentioned for each process in it.

3. Do you have clear, specific and measurable goals?

Branding and Marketing Plan should have clear, specific and most importantly measurable goals defined. Many of the time organization missed out one of the component while deciding the goals for the plan. One should audit the plan considering goal in mind.

4. Right Marketing Budget

There are various methodology for setting a marketing budget. How did you set your budget? Does it support marketing team to achieve goal? Does your budget sufficient for 360-degree marketing plan?

5. Does your communication clearly convey your USPs ?

In increased competition and various channels of communication you need to be very clear on communication part of your marketing plan. Check does your communication message convey it right or not? Are you communicating your USPs in right wording and thru right channel?

6. Has your marketing plan is made with 360 degree approach of communication ?

In recent ear of marketing, check whether your marketing includes all channels of communication? Does your marketing collobrating / including all stakeholders of the society ? Does your marketing reaches to all corner of the society?

7. What`s your measurement tool to measure ROI & conversion?

Often many organization don`t have a reliable tracking mechanism to track effort or result of marketing plan. Without having results measurement tool marketing cannot be completed. One should have all records such as patient source of reference, demographic details of the patients, source of influence, what make patient to choose your organization for treatment etc.

8. Just one more thing to add…

Branding and Marketing is a continuous process, if you want your organization to become marketing leader you have to continuously do marketing check and on the basis of that audit one should have to change their branding & marketing strategy on right time.

As I always says “Knowing is Knowing and Doing is Doing” so knowing that marketing budgeting, planning, reporting & auditing is very essential part of any businesses and not doing is brings great challenges in any businesses.

So .. Doing is Doing..