Marketing your hospice organization is all about your message. When you target it to the right people using the right channels, you’ll help your hospice organization stand out from your competitors.
Words Matter
What is the strongest true thing you can say about yourself? Make a list of all the words you’d like your patients and their families to say about you. Repeat that exercise for your referral sources and any other audience you regularly encounter. When you figure that out, utilize those words to form the basis of your message.
You can repeat this exercise for all different areas of your organization – whether you’re talking about the care you provide for patients, how you interact with families and loved ones, or how well you perform operationally or financially.
When you create marketing material – whether that’s copy for your website, a marketing brochure, an advertisement, etc., use those words and that messaging. A few freebies to get your list going – compassionate, quality, exceptional, and compliant.
Be Positive
Stay focused on the positive. People’s attention spans are incredibly short. By some measurements, humans are less likely to pay attention than a goldfish. Your audience will likely tune in and out to your message several times within the span of a minute. Therefore, you want the only words you say, or type, or broadcast, to be positive. If your audience tunes in at the wrong time and happens to hear you say a negative word, even to deny it, that hurts your message.
It’s just as easy to say the right thing as it is to say the wrong thing, so get in the habit of asking, “Is that a good word or a bad word?” An easy fix for a common mistake might sound like this: “No, we’re not scared of any upcoming regulatory changes”, should change to “Regulatory changes give us the opportunity to demonstrate our commitment to compliance.” Not only did you get rid of your bad word, “scared”, but you added in three good words, “opportunity,” “commitment” and “compliance.”
Align with Your Content
From a messaging perspective, the best way to get more bang for your buck is to align your messaging. This means that whatever your future clients read on your website should sound very similar to what your marketing executives say to your referral sources. You want to match the message from your marketing material to any in-person conversations people have when talking about your hospice organization.
A sampling of hospice websites calls the care they provide “excellent, dignified, tender, and loving.” These are all great messages. Pay attention to if these words (or the ones you came up with on your own list) are things you hear around the office every day. If not, make a conscious effort to incorporate those words into how you talk about your organization.
These tips will help you start thinking strategically about your marketing messages. To see these examples in action, look at how we market our hospice software, Axxess Hospice.