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  1. Now more than ever, people need to take care of their health. Are healthcare providers sending the right messages to them?

    Communicating that it is safe to get preventative care such as mammograms is essential to getting healthcare kick-started. With the advent of consumerism and the preponderance of healthcare information, we now have an “army” of informed healthcare consumers in our country. Where have they been during this pandemic? What happened to preventative medicine or annual […]

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  2. The Importance of Market Research in Times of Uncertainty

    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 […]

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  3. Telemedicine Is Here to Stay

    It’s in the news every day. This pandemic is crippling some hospitals’ resources, while others are ready and waiting. But all hospitals have stopped elective procedures and are experiencing that impact on their revenue. Some have even been forced to furlough employees and staff. But what can we as marketers do to help? Many of […]

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  4. Free thank-you ads from AB&C

    We’ve heard a lot about the importance of thanking essential workers during this pandemic. At AB&C, we’d like to make this a little easier for you. We have designed a series of posters/ads that we will customize for you to use as a print ad or as a poster displayed in your hospitals. We will […]

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  5. A Brand Promise Isn’t Just for the Good Times: Living Your Brand Promise While Facing a Crisis

    Healthcare organizations have become pretty marketing savvy over the past several years. They tend to excel in having a strong brand promise, backed up by people-focused missions, visions and values. People entering the industry—especially those in direct clinical care roles—tend to be extremely mission-driven. They want to help and serve others. And that’s what they […]

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  6. Seven things healthcare marketers need to be doing right now.

    Healthcare SEM in the midst of a pandemic. One thing that we can depend on is change. It’s a constant. But the massive change we’ve experienced over the past two weeks has been unsettling. Marketers are beginning to second-guess all their marketing strategies. Many are fielding nervous questions from executive teams and wondering if they […]

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  7. Digital Marketing: So Many Lessons Learned

    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. Just […]

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  8. Dashboards: More than Keeping Score

    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? In this […]

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  9. Marketing that Made a Difference

    Every once in a while, a campaign comes along, and you know that it’s special. Maybe it’s a cause that you strongly believe in, a story that needs to be told or the creative is just really unique. I guess that’s how I felt from the very beginning about MedStar Georgetown Transplant Institute’s “Living Donor” […]

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  10. Dashboards: If You Can Move It, You Can Measure It

    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. Here are some examples of how leading organizations […]

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  11. Marketing Medical Groups: Your Front Door for Patients

    Most health systems/hospitals have an affiliated and/or employed medical group. The exception is California, where the corporate practice of medicine prohibits employment of physicians by systems or hospitals. Some medical groups are faculty models, while others are the result of groups that have merged under one umbrella, and can have primary care and specialty services […]

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  12. Does My Hospital Need a Newsletter?

    Every healthcare marketing and communications (MarCom) leader has heard this question from a service line or physician leader. Somehow, a newsletter is going to put their program on the map, drive volume, attract new referring physicians and make them profitable. But isn’t this the same fantasy thinking that supports billboards as business drivers? At AB&C, we […]

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  13. Does my Hospital Need a Blog?

    The short answer is yes. According to an article in Social Media Today: 72% of Internet users look for health information online. 77% of Internet users read blogs. 81% of U.S. consumers trust advice and information from blogs. Companies that blog have 97% more inbound links. OK, you say, this makes sense for a larger […]

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  14. The persistence of myth

    Once again, a study has confirmed that there are significantly more risks associated with not vaccinating children than there are with vaccinating them. The study — published on September 30 in Pediatrics — looked at rates of pertussis (whooping cough) in California, and compared them to rates in areas where parents withheld vaccines from their […]

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  15. Tackling healthcare marketing challenges

    We’re proud to be partnering with our friends from MedStar Health and Scripps Health to present an Idea Workshop at SHSMD’s Annual Conference. Our workshop will tackle seven of the most common healthcare marketing challenges faced by our colleagues around the country. We identified these challenges through a brainstorming session with MedStar and Scripps, a poll of […]

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  16. Bringing home the gold!

    Ecstatic, thrilled and maybe even a little overwhelmed — that pretty much sums up how people are feeling here at AB&C after learning that we won Best in Show, 11 gold, two silvers, one bronze and four merit award at the 30th Annual Healthcare Advertising Awards. Those numbers alone are pretty impressive, but what’s even […]

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  17. Quick tip on how to get staff to wash their hands

    In a recent article on FierceHealthcare, the editors compiled four videos from health care providers that encourage staff—everyone from custodians to physicians—to wash their hands. These videos had been posted on YouTube, and one of the points of the article is that hospitals and other institutions are turning to social media to cut down on hospital-acquired infections. […]

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  18. Some caviar with your cardiogram, sir?

    I’ve recently become obsessed with where my food comes from. And I don’t think I’m alone. There are farmers’ markets and Whole Foods popping up all over the place. Whole Foods’ labels don’t just give you the “Best Before” date on your New York strip, they tell you where the cow lived, his name and […]

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  19. Only 4 percent of U.S. hospitals have blogs—yikes!

    Everyone blogs—kids, cats, Starbucks, even an accused criminal. But in the world of hospital communications, blogging is not nearly as prevalent. In fact, fewer than four percent of hospitals have them—185 to be exact, according to the Mayo Clinic’s Health Care Social Media List. It’s a little surprising that more hospitals haven’t embraced the blog as a way to […]

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  20. Finding the right doctor for every age

    The days of doctors making house calls may be making a full circle as the new focus for insurance companies is promoting the importance of the primary care physician. In a world where people change doctors like they change their socks, how do marketers make patients “brand” loyal to their PCP? I suggest starting with […]

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  21. Who cares about the Breakfast Club?

    What about the Xers? So much of the healthcare marketing we see now is geared towards the Boomers. Boomer this, Boomer that—Boomers even have their own health conditions named for them, like “Boomeritis.”  How old do the members of the Breakfast Club have to be before they become a target audience for your hospital service […]

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  22. Is it time to bust some new moves in hospital advertising?

    In all communications with consumers, whether it’s online, in print or over the airwaves, it’s easy to forget that we’re just talking to people. Usually that’s because there’s a laundry list of information that “needs” to go into each ad. In fact, in healthcare advertising there’s a well-known dance: Step 1: Mention skilled doctors, latest […]

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  23. Hospitals Jumping on the Social Media Bandwagon

    Some hospitals are early adopters; others are still waiting on the sidelines. Some are high-tech, while others are high-touch. I’m not talking about whether or not a hospital has the latest robot or a brand personality, I’m talking about a social media presence. At AB&C, our healthcare clients range all across the social media spectrum. […]

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  24. Hospital media relations Part 1: Go for the gold

    You’re a hospital public relations professional and you want to get on the evening news. And you will — because you have Dr. McDreamy saving lives in your OR and Elmo visiting patients in your cancer ward. And yet, at the end of every news-crew-coordinating day, your executives demand a completely different level of recognition. […]

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  25. Unexpected. Relatable. Unforgettable.

    What commercials stick out the most in your memory? Maybe it’s “Keep your hands off my Doritos!” Maybe it’s the Geico cavemen spots. What makes them memorable? That’s easy — they’re funny. Now, when’s the last time you told a friend, “Oh, man, you should see this hospital commercial!” Exactly. Healthcare-related ads are typically very […]

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  26. Complaints foster compliance

    If your communications department has been enlisted to shore up compliance with hand hygiene requirements (pre- and post-patient contact), take a lesson from Denver Health. As reported in the February 2009 issue of the Journal of Communication in Healthcare, Colorado’s primary “safety net” institution tried humor, incentives, prizes — but nothing worked until they got […]

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  27. Hospitals That Don’t Want Your Head in Their Bed

    Ten years ago a hospital system in New York City opened several public diabetes clinics to help people better manage their disease. From insulin injection assistance to nutrition education, diabetic consumers could gain the knowledge they needed to change their behaviors. Within seven years, these clinics closed. Did the public need the clinics? Of course. […]

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  28. Everyone needs an advocate.

    Imagine getting a blood test and never hearing from the doctor about the results so you assume everything is OK. Now fast-forward eight months — you’re paler and more bruised than usual so you go get more blood work. Then you wake up on your birthday and get a call from your doctor telling you […]

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  29. AB&C on TLC

    A recent episode of TLC’s The Cake Boss (“Bi-Plane, Bridezilla & Busting Buddy”) featured our client, St. Joseph’s Children’s Hospital. The reality show follows Buddy Valastro, the master baker of Carlo’s City Hall Bake Shop in Hoboken, NJ, as he and his team create amazing cakes and pastries. During this episode, Buddy created a completely […]

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