After restructuring your hospital’s site design to capture patients’ attention and meet their needs, it’s time to focus on the content. Keeping content simple and straightforward will enable patients to take action and engage with your site.
Four Content “To-Dos” for Better Community Hospital Websites
- Remember “Who,” “Why” and “What.”
- Who are you?
- Key service lines
- Staff
- Hours of operation
- Role in the community
- Long-term goals for your community hospital
- Why are you different? Highlight what sets your hospital apart.
- Specialties and accreditation
- Procedures and surgeries
- Courses and resources
- Award-winning staff
- What do you want site visitors to do?
- Engage with your hospital
- Sign up for a community seminar or lecture
- Find a doctor or specialist
- Each content page should have a clear “call to action”
- Who are you?
- Make sure your content is relevant and actionable.
- Give visitors information they want and need, and eliminate superfluous information. Though the hospital’s history or a page of staff headshots may be interesting internally, such content does not benefit a potential patient. Give less prominence to irrelevant information.
- Give visitors something to do. Use the web as an opportunity for visitors to engage with your hospital — to sign up for a newsletter, contact a nurse or download a PDF resource.
- Provide real value.
- Determine how your community hospital can be a health resource for the community. What are your community’s needs? For example, are there a lot of new mothers and parents? Provide parenting tips and children’s health resources on your website. Is diabetes rampant in your community? Offer health tips and prevention tips on your site.
- Determine what service lines are important to the organization and capitalize on them — promote them on your website.
- Create interactive tools that allow patients to take quizzes and health screenings online. Become a reputable and trusted online health resource for your patients.
- Generate patient-friendly content.
- Writing effective website copy can be challenging, especially when the subject matter is as complex as explaining medical conditions and the latest procedures. America’s health literacy rates are alarmingly low. Don’t alienate your site visitors by using complex words and descriptions they can’t understand.
- Avoid acronyms, jargon and other industry-specific language as much as possible. Scan every page to make sure the copy isn’t too technical.
General Tips for Writing Online Content
The attention span of online readers is significantly less than that of book or magazine readers. Keep your content concise.
Format your content for easy skimming:
- Use headings and subheadings
- Provide summary text
- Use bullet points and lists
- Keep paragraphs short
- Use callout boxes and links
The biggest advantage to online writing is the ability to get readers to take action. Describe your services, classes and procedures, and then allow patients to call about your services, sign up for a class or watch a video on a new procedure. Make your community hospital website an engaging experience.
Check out these other tips for writing content online >>
Websites can easily become cluttered, cumbersome and difficult to navigate. Is your site providing information or confusion? Thoughtful design and intentional structure will organize your hospital’s content to meet your patients’ needs.
Research from Chao Liu and colleagues from Microsoft Research shows that the first 10 seconds of a page visit are critical for users’ decisions to stay or leave. If you can convince the user to stay for half a minute, he will likely stay much longer.
Likewise, a hospital’s first impression can either win over a skeptical patient or turn him away. Your community hospital website may provide that first impression, so in discussing the website redesign, continually ask:
- What information is important/relevant to the patient?
- What will ensure a good user experience for the patient? Is the layout intuitive?
- What do I want my patient to do? (Sign up for a newsletter? Download a PDF? Make a phone call?)
Essential Elements
With only 10 seconds to create a positive user experience, make the following elements easily accessible from the home page to encourage your patients to stay on the site:
- Contact information: The hospital address and phone number should be easy to find — keep the phone number prominent at the top and bottom of the site in case of emergency.
- Search area: Help patients find the site’s resourceful information by providing a search bar or search area.
- Physician finder: Offer a database of your physicians and their qualifications. This will give patients the opportunity to familiarize themselves with your staff and their specialties.
- Quick links: Provide quick links to frequently-requested sections such as women’s health, pediatrics or healthy living.
- Testimonials area: Calm potential patients’ nerves through patient testimonials. Try incorporating multimedia — pictures, audio or video — to make the testimonials more personable and relatable.
- Community engagement: Include a forum, blog or feedback section. Encourage community members to post comments or offer input regarding healthcare topics or hospital issues. Devote time each day to respond to feedback — create a dialog with potential patients.
- Call to action: This is the most essential of all the elements! Each section or page should have a clear call to action to engage the patient. Use a button or a different text style to highlight a phone number, address, video gallery or appointment scheduler.
- Examples:
- Call the heart center!
- Schedule a mammogram.
- Check out our virtual hospital tour.
- Examples:
Site Organization
Many websites include all of the above elements, but cumbersome site navigation prevents visitors from finding anything.
- Multilevel menu: Use a multilevel menu with top menu items and submenu items.
- Try to limit your top menu to five to 10 items, and then provide access to as many sections as possible in the submenus.
- For tips on different types of menu navigation and their advantages and disadvantages, click here.
- Layout:
- Keep your site clean and uncluttered. Utilize white space and don’t overwhelm visitors with unnecessary pictures or overly-stylized text.
- Choose a consistent text and color scheme so that the design doesn’t detract from visitors’ ability to obtain information. Select fonts and colors that are easy to read. Remember — the priority is the patient experience!
Keep it Editable
- Consider using a content management system — which allows a site administrator to easily add and edit content without affecting the site’s design — to facilitate frequent content updates.
- Update regularly. Patients should be able to rely on your site to have the most current information about hospital hours, classes and programs, specialties, staff and more.
- Updating your content regularly will also help with search engine optimization, or how “visible” your site is to the top search engines.
Resources and Successful Sites
Below are a few examples of successful hospital websites. They offer a good virtual patient experience by providing useful information in an easily accessible way:
- Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta
- Lexington Medical Center
- Read about St. Helena (CA) Hospital’s site redesign as it learned to put patients’ needs first.
- Read more about medical website design trends.
Take a closer look at Facebook’s image-driven format. Learn about the new “mission control” Timeline appearance and how to make the most of your updated community hospital fan page.
1. The Face of Your Brand ““ The Huge Cover Photo
We know that people are drawn to photos. With the huge cover photo layout and the larger photo wall posting, it’s likely that images will pack the punch of your community Facebook page. Check out these innovative ideas for formatting your cover photo.
Tip: Make your hospital logo your profile picture, and then find a large cover photo for a more creative representation of your hospital or a photo that drives a message to a hospital campaign. Use the two images to create a cohesive brand.
New Rules:
- No sales ““ The cover photo can’t offer information on discounts and prices.
- No calls to action ““ The cover photo can’t tell people to “like” or share your page.
- No contact information ““ The cover photo can’t include any contact information, such as website address, mailing address or phone number.
2. Top of the Page ““ No Default Landing Pages, Updated Tabs
The photo strip at the top of the page has been replaced by a more condensed overview of your photos, videos and applications. We loved making landing pages to boost “likes” for hospitals, but now those pages aren’t a possibility. Tabs are now displayed in these application “blocks” located just below your cover photo; you will no longer be able to set a tab as the default landing page.
- “About” is prominent: The “about” section now sits just below your profile image. This should be a one to two sentence blurb offering a quick overview of your hospital’s identity. This is one of the first items a visitor will see, so keep your “about” section up-to-date and engaging.
- Be intentional about tabs: The first four application blocks (your old tab bars) will display by default, but you can keep up to 12 visible to the public. Be intentional about prioritizing your content ““ keep your engaging photos, video applications or hospital resources visible at the top.
Tip: Be creative. What type of content will you share to introduce your page to new users? Is there a promotional contest you can run to grab “likes” and engage with new users? Can you think of interesting ways to cross-promote your Facebook page, such as on your blog, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest or your hospital website?
3. The Facebook Timeline – A Visual Story
Yes! I love this feature. “Stories” or posts will feed into the two-column timeline, alternating across either side of your page to fill the space. Photos are the focus ““ they really drive this new format.
See the tips below to learn how to highlight important stories in your Timeline. These “stories” humanize your hospital by showing your achievements and allowing your community to celebrate with you.
- Friend activity will now be featured in the top of the right column, customizing to each visitor to show his or her friends’ “likes” and interactions with your page.
Tips:Â
- Starring: Highlight notable stories by starring them. This will make the story span the full, two-column width of the Timeline.
- Pinning: Pin important stories. When you “pin” a post, Facebook adds an orange flag to it and pulls it to the top of your Timeline for seven days. Showcase important events and information.
- Setting Milestones: Define key moments using Milestones. Facebook allows you to set key events or dates within your Timeline that mark history in the life of your hospital. Further your hospital’s story by setting milestones for changes in leadership, openings of various wards or developments in procedures and research.
For a more detailed breakdown of Facebook Timeline, check out Beth McCabe’s Facebook Timeline for brands.
4. Private Messages Between Brands and Users
Your hospital will now be able to send and receive private messages from visitors to your Facebook page. Use this as an opportunity to potentially move conversations and customer service complaints off your public wall. Do not ignore your messages.
Tip: Reserve time to check and respond to both positive and negative messages from your patients! I know from my seat, this is going to be a huge shift in how we interact with our Facebook community.
Keep your community hospital Facebook page ahead of the social media curve. Be intentional about your branding. Set your cover photo, update your “about” section and determine your featured tabs/applications.
Download Facebook’s short pages overview to see a quick breakdown of the updates.
CHPRMS – Take Your Community Hospital to a New Altitude
October 21, 2011
Despite poet John Donne’s insistence that no man is an island, the healthcare marketing world can seem pretty isolated.
Reconnect, recharge and get inspired with fellow healthcare marketers at the Carolinas Healthcare Public Relations and Marketing Society (CHPRMS) Fall 2011 Conference.
Working off the theme “Changes in Altitude,” this year’s fall CHPRMS conference offers a galvanizing gathering of industry leaders and newcomers alike, set amid the inspiring heights of the mountains surrounding Asheville’s historic Grove Park Inn.
Scheduled for Dec. 7-9, the conference agenda is sure to offer something for everyone with topics that range from the reality of political correctness and planning innovation to how to deftly navigate CEO issues or capitalize on marketing with micro campaigns. Click here for the full conference agenda.
The fall CHPRMS conference is a joint meeting with the Carolinas Society for Healthcare Strategy and Market Development. So, in a word, it offers more bang for your buck with an even larger knowledge base and expanded networking opportunities within the industry.
We’ll be at the conference and connecting with all of you along the way to share the educational excitement. Join us! Click here to register >>
Next week we’ll post an exclusive podcast with CHPRMS President Margaret Gregory, senior director of marketing and public relations at Piedmont Medical Center. She’ll address the inspiration behind this year’s fall conference, what attendees can look forward to and why such a gathering is so critical to the industry today.
Don’t miss out! Register today and subscribe to Creative Triage for conference updates!
Branding Your Community Hospital’s Campaigns
October 14, 2011
Branding a campaign means more than just creating a logo. “Branding” encompasses the overall personality, look and attributes associated with your campaign. Learn about one community hospital’s branding successes that increased its neighbors’ awareness for quality healthcare right in their own “backyard.”
In today’s ever-developing, busy and media-rich world, it’s easy to get lost to consumers, especially when you’re up against a large neighboring hospital. But with a little extra effort, you can create a brand for your community hospital’s campaign to bring it more legitimacy and recognition.
Rowan Regional Medical Center (RRMC) of Salisbury, NC, recently launched two campaigns with distinctive and effective branding efforts. I was proud of my firm for helping RRMC establish recognizable faces for its campaigns.
Maternity Campaign:
To market its modern facilities and maternity center, RRMC launched a maternity campaign, complete with a branded style that was implemented on both the web and in print:
- ABZ Design developed a microsite for the Family Maternity Center. The site features videos of physicians, nurses and patients raving about the Center’s personable care.
- The site also acts as a resource for potential mothers and patients, providing information about maternity classes and pregnancy.
- The maternity branding was also utilized in print brochures and ads.
- Check out the videos and the campaign images!
75th Anniversary:
To celebrate its 75th anniversary, RRMC sought to involve the community in a big celebration. The ongoing theme of “CommYOUnity” was reiterated through a variety of advertising and merchandise.
- ABZ Design developed an iconic “75th balloon” which was coupled with “CommYOUnity” for the campaign’s branding efforts.
- From web ads and billboards to elevator wraps, light pole banners, T-shirts and stickers, this campaign’s widespread marketing efforts made it recognizable in the community.
- Check out the campaign with its variety of marketing products!
What Can You Do? Some Tips for Branding Your Campaign:
- Focus on three or four identifiable traits. Identify three or four traits that stand out about your brand, or in this case, your campaign, and then build your campaign’s platform around these traits for a more cohesive representation. What differentiates your services or programs from those of competitors? Read more tips about identifying your community hospital’s strengths and weaknesses in this article from Becker’s Hospital Review.
- Appeal to your audience. Tailor the look and feel of your campaign to your audience. Is it a somber cancer campaign? Is it an energetic pediatrics campaign? Is it an elderly services campaign? Every aspect — from the look and feel to your marketing strategies — should align with your intended audience.
- Stay up with the times. In order to maintain a competitive edge, your community hospital needs to be up-to-date with marketing technologies. The rise of Smartphones is rapidly making it essential to promote your campaign in a Smartphone-friendly fashion on the web, while QR codes are adding an interactive element and depth to traditional print design. Read more about hospital branding and technology in this article.
Advantages of CMS Physician Websites for Community Hospitals
October 11, 2011
Content management system (CMS) websites offer your physicians the ideal solution for a branded website with the added ability to manage the site’s content.
What is a CMS? A content management system uses software and a database to manage and organize website content. Sites may be developed from scratch or built from a variety of available templates and then customized. The greatest benefit is the software’s user-friendly interface, which allows content to be easily added and edited without learning HTML or other coding languages.
Why should you use a CMS?
- No technical expertise is required. Individuals with average knowledge of word processing can add content, videos, photos, pages and links directly into the professionally designed CMS template.
- It is ideal for a collaborative environment. Users may simultaneously add or edit content simply by logging in to the “backend” of the website, where the content is stored. A CMS is optimal for a hospital or large practice where multiple people will be assisting in the upload of content.
- Better ranking on SEO. Search engine optimization (SEO) refers to the process of improving your site’s visibility on the web by optimizing it for search engines. Most CMS have plugins or features to assist with SEO. Updating your site frequently with relevant content will also make it more visible to search engines.
- You can make changes immediately. You can effortlessly update your site with no delay. The moment you publish content to your CMS, it appears on your live website. Keep the community up-to-date on your practice’s awards, press releases, classes, announcements and media content.
- It will save lots of money. A well-designed CMS practice website template can help hospital marketers maintain branding by making it easy to share the template design with affiliated practices, creating a cohesive look. This lowers costs, as modifications can be made without the need of outside vendors or web experts.
- Security. The site administrator can manage what content is editable by other users or approved “authors.” This provides your content more protection from many standard website attacks.
- Social media integration. Your website can be easily linked to social media sites such as Twitter or Facebook, which allows practices to reach a broader audience of patients.
When you use an agency to set up and design your CMS template, you benefit by producing and establishing a branded look for your web presence, which can then be applied to affiliated practices. You will save time and money with the ability to easily add and edit your own content.
Examples of sites created using a CMS:
- Ovarian Cancer National Alliance – This organized and content-rich site was built using WordPress as a CMS. Check out this article on using WordPress to build your hospital website.
- Let’s Get Healthy For You! – This fun and clean design was also done using WordPress as a CMS.
- Baron Therapy – This creative and informative therapy services site was built using Joomla! as a CMS.
- Spine Health – Another content-heavy site, this one was built using Drupal as a CMS.
Practice Website Benefits for Community Hospitals
October 11, 2011
Physician practice websites will increase your community hospital practice’s visibility, build its reputation in the community and give your marketing budget the most value for every dollar spent.
The Internet is an absolutely essential tool for physician practices. I am amazed at how many rural practices that I talk to who have virtually no web presence.
Online Healthcare Empowers Consumers. Your practices need websites to acquire patients in an increasingly tech-savvy world.
In order to build a bridge between healthcare providers and patients, a website must also project the right image to your target audience. The appearance of the practice website and the information it presents greatly impact your visitors’ first impressions of your services. Their initial perceptions are completely in your control. How do you want your practice to be seen to the public? As reliable, modern and informed? As friendly, warm and welcoming? Build your site to reflect your practice.
As healthcare marketers, we talk a lot about mobile and social media campaigns, QR codes and email communication. None of these are effective if we have no coherent destination or website to which we can direct patients.
Developing your practice website is the first and most effective form of communication today!
Essential website content:
- A short description of your practice and specialties
- Physician biographies and certifications
- Personalized facilities and staff photos
- Explanations of procedures and services
- Before-and-after case studies showcasing your skills
- Hospital affiliations
- Office hours, office policies and accepted insurance plans
- Directions and maps to the practice
- Patient education articles
Getting ahead of the competition:
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- Social media integration
- EMR patient portal
- Physician videos
- Electronic patient forms
- Interactive maps and driving directions
- Patient education videos
Successful Practice Websites:
- Desert Institute for Spine Care – Physician videos, Patient education videos, Patient forms
- Cardiovascular Longevity’s MyEliteHealth – Patient Portal Integration, Patient forms
- Dr. Cooper-Lall – A dentist who understands the power of social media
As a mom and healthcare shopper, I take charge of my family’s health. Healthcare consumers go online for an increasing variety of healthcare information including looking for their doctors.
A website for your practice is more than just a way to “keep up” with your competition – it’s a way to get ahead.
It’s likely that a vast majority of your employees are already using social media, so why not use social media to promote your brand?!
Encourage your employees to talk about your community hospital and its related issues via social platforms, but be sure to follow some important guidelines.
Assess Who’s Using What
First determine what social media outlets are being used:
- MySpace
- Flickr
- Blogs
Ways to Take Action
Target the particularly active social media participants to lead initiatives:
- Write a blog post related to your community hospital. The topics could range from an explanation of a common procedure to a description of the new hospital wing — anything goes! Your patients will feel more connected to your hospital by having the inside scoop.
- Create a LinkedIn group to bring unity and act as a resource. Employees will be professionally linked to one another, making it easy for patients to skim their profiles and view their qualifications.
- Post on Twitter or Facebook about hospital events and happenings or related medical topics. Encourage interaction from the fellow hospital employees as well as patients.
Promote!
The only way for your community hospital’s voice to be heard through social media is if you promote your efforts!
- Feature an employee’s blog post on your community hospital’s web page.
- “Retweet” and repost employee’s comments and notes on Twitter and Facebook.
- Participate in status updates on LinkedIn, and encourage employees to include a link to the hospital’s website on their profiles.
The Dos
- Create a social media policy to set standards for your employees. For a comprehensive list of good practices, check out this article.
- Act respectfully. Be careful to refrain from making offensive remarks about competitor hospitals. Be politically correct. You don’t want obscenities and insults to be associated with your community hospital!
- Always identify yourself! Employees should not pose as patients in order to boost your hospital’s image. They should ALWAYS identify their affiliation with the hospital. This will keep discussions open and honest.
- Monitor your employees’ social media activity. They are representing YOUR hospital! Designate some “social media police” to ensure employees are protecting your hospital’s interest. And be sure they AREN’T doing any of the following.
The Don’ts
- Don’t violate privacy: In a hospital setting, a lot of specific details about medical cases and issues are confidential. Be sure your employees follow HIPAA and other medical standards when engaging in social media.
- Don’t engage in conflicts of interest: Prohibit employees from identifying or referencing business partners or clients without permission. This could result in serious legal ramifications.
- No “astroturfing” — don’t disguise your efforts! This goes along with always openly identifying your affiliation with the hospital. Warn your employees against having hidden personal agendas as they engage the community through social media.
Your repertoire among local physicians greatly dictates your community hospital’s ability to gather a client base. Learn how to tailor your services and marketing campaign to increase your physician referrals.
It may be helpful to dedicate one individual to act as the face of your community hospital when reaching out to other physician practices. A personal relationship is the key to successfully obtaining physician referrals, because physicians will refer to a practice that they trust and respect.
Build A Network
- Assess the physician practices and primary care doctors in your area. Reach out by sending a letter of introduction or inviting the physicians to visit your hospital or attend a seminar.
- Involve your own physicians. Their interest and involvement is crucial to developing a referral strategy. They may have insights into local physicians and practices with whom you can connect.
- Cultivate relationships with existing referrals and potential referrals using the following techniques:
Cost-Effective Marketing
- Establish a presence on the web: Keep your website up-to-date with information for both referring physicians and patients. Ensure your web content is compatible with mobile devices, as recent studies have shown that 80 to 90 percent of doctors have a smartphone.
- Utilize social media: Use sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to keep in frequent contact with patients and physicians. Use “tweets” and “status updates” as a way to briefly but frequently touch base with other physicians. Show your physicians to be both personable with patients and knowledgeable about medicine.
- Email marketing: Send out business-to-business emails systematically and share the latest news about your programs and services.
- Advertising in physician-only networking sites: Register with a physician-only networking site such as Sermo (largest MD-only online community), iMEdExchange or Ozmosis.
- On-site/in-person marketing: Just because almost everything is moving online does not mean you have to abandon traditional marketing techniques. When time permits, have a representative visit local practices and spread the word and reputation of your hospital.
Provide Optimal Customer Service
This post from Rx MD Marketing Solutions suggests how to “make it easy to work with you and your office”:
- Report back quickly to the referring physicians about their patients. Do all that you can to assist them with paperwork or prescriptions related to their patient.
- Refer back to the physicians who have referred you. If you see a patient who needs a primary care doctor or a specialist service that you don’t offer, refer him to a local practice that has referred you.
- Demonstrate good customer service by treating the referring offices with respect. Be prompt with their calls and requests, and consider sending a thank-you note to the physicians who have recommended you.
Community Hospitals: The Importance of Being an Online Resource
February 17, 2011
The Internet has become a primary source for healthcare information. With medical knowledge in such high demand on the Web, community hospitals must promote their brands by being a resource to online consumers.
Recent Findings From The Pew Internet Project
Click here to download the full 2011 report from The Pew Internet & American Life Project.
- 59 percent of the overall U.S. population seeks heath information online.
- Nearly two-thirds of these health seekers were looking for information about a specific disease or medical problem.
- 17 percent of cell phone users have specifically used their phones to look up health or medical information.
- Nearly half of internet users who go online for health information are searching on behalf of someone else.
What This Means for Community Hospital Marketers
- The online public is in need of a credible source for medical information.
- By establishing your hospital as an informed source on the Web, you will gain patient trust.
- The Web will direct a whole new audience of information seekers to your community hospital.
- This online community will only grow, so getting ready now is a must.
Get to Know Your Online Audience
According to The Pew Internet Project, the following demographic groups are more likely to search for healthcare information online:
- Women
- Non-hispanic whites
- Young adults
- Those with higher levels of education
Online Marketing Essentials
- Make sure your hospital’s website is easy to find on search engines, especially Google:
See 5 basic search engine optimization techniques - Send frequent e-mail newsletters of health data and information to your patient lists; include links to more information on the Web.
- If you have lots of health information available in digital form, consider establishing a searchable database for online patients seeking information about medical problems.
Hospitals With a Presence on the Web
- University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinic offers a complete online Health Information Library for online medical seekers. The site features a full index on topics such as symptoms and diseases, surgeries and procedures, nutrition and self care. You can also request an appointment online or browse the hospital staff to find a doctor.
- Presbyterian Healthcare of Charlotte, N.C., also offers an online Health Library with categorized searches for medical animations, interactive health tools and an assortment of health topics in both English and Spanish. Presbyterian also sends out regular e-newsletters on a variety of health topics, which are also available online.
