Research provides insights on attitudes and preferences for future travel.

More than three-quarters (78%) of travelers from Greater Philadelphia are very or somewhat likely to travel in 2022, with 69% stating they are likely to visit a regional destination within 250 miles of their home. This data comes from a travel survey of 200 consumers living within 80 miles of Philadelphia. AB&C conducted the survey in January 2022, using Pollfish, a national quantitative online survey platform.Read full post...

In January 2016, I wrote a blog titled “Four Marketing Resolutions for 2016.” I cited research identifying that “people who write down their specific resolutions are 10 times more likely to attain their goals than people who don’t make specific resolutions.”[1] So I made my marketing resolutions public:
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By David Brond, Elizabeth Cohen and Linda McAleer

Multiple articles have been written about the important role parents play in their child’s college decision. Most higher education marketers and enrollment professionals agree that a parent’s powerful influence in guiding high school students throughout the college application and admission process is often unmatched by any other person.
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Amid the current coronavirus situation, some organizations may be tempted to implement a “wait and see” approach to marcom. However, now is not the time to cut branding or market research efforts. For healthcare organizations there is an obvious need to focus short-term priorities on the Coronavirus pandemic and its day-to-day impact on human and financial resources, operations, patient care and safety. Read full post...

While many healthcare providers have been late adopters of digital marketing (as compared to other industries), it is fair to say that, as of 2018 it is now a cornerstone of most healthcare marketing programs. And that prominence comes from success and lessons learned—some good, some not so good—about both general and digital marketing.

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Marketing dashboards are an essential deliverable for any marketing team. Senior leaders want to know what they are getting for their investment in marketing, and how marketing will advance their strategic plan. And for marketers, it is important to document how effective you were in achieving your stated goals. So, where to begin?

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Inevitably at some point during your healthcare marketing career you will be faced with bringing a new brand to market. As you do, it is critical to stay focused on the strategic and business objectives of your organization, while also protecting the equity of your brand. The following scenarios describe bringing a new brand to a market, assuming you currently have standing or brand value. The goal in both cases is to leverage the equity of all the brands to enhance your brand, differentiate you from competitors and better serve your customers.

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Over the past four-plus decades, AB&C has worked with some of the most premier healthcare systems across this country—large and small—and we greatly value those relationships. But great agency-client relationships just don’t happen; they take true commitment by both parties to be successful. And over the years, we have learned what makes a great working relationship and want to share that knowledge with you, because agencies, while a source of expense, are also an investment, and have a key impact on your organization and your ability to meet patient and provider needs, delivery quality care and build your brand.

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In my experience as a hospital chief marketing officer (CMO) and in working at AB&C with healthcare CMOs, I’ve found a number of attributes that serve a person well in this role. On Innovation Enterprise, which provides leading-edge ideas and information on a variety of key business channels, Rose Johnstone identifies a number of these attributes from the business world that apply to the healthcare industry.

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Healthcare organizations have always struggled with measuring return on marketing investment (ROMI), mostly because of multiple systems of data collection that don’t speak to one another. But with the advent of new “tools,” that challenge is getting easier — if you have the building blocks in place.

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If you followed a systematic approach to build a new brand (or refreshed an existing one), you started with discovery research. You then developed a brand mantra to inform how your brand would be articulated to internal audiences and the outside world. Finally, you created or refined the outward expressions, such as the name, mark and colors.

All of this hard work was done in preparation to share your brand with stakeholders and customers. This is when the rubber hits the road. It’s important to invest as much time, and as many resources, into properly socializing and managing your brand as it is to develop, create and refine it.

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As branding experts, we have developed our own vocabulary for what we do and how we help organizations define and present themselves to consumers. We use terminology like “brand architecture,” “platform,” “positioning,” “promise,” “proof point,” “personality,” “identity” and “tag line” to describe how we create, communicate and control the attributes of a brand. An important but often overlooked step in the process of building or revitalizing a brand is the development of a brand mantra.

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One of the most important drivers of business for any organization — of any size — is referrals from satisfied customers. Meeting or exceeding customers’ expectations creates a long-term relationship and loyalty, which leads to referrals. And loyalty can pay off — loyal customers are worth up to 10 times their initial purchase value.

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