Hey everyone, this is Rudy Fernandez from Creative Outhouse. This is Part Two with Sandra Mackey, the Chief Marketing Officer of Bon Secours Mercy Health, a large nonprofit hospital system that’s in seven states. We’re entering a whole new era of hospital business and hospital marketing. And these two episodes address them. In Episode Two, we talked about how hospitals can become the Center for Community Health, what competition from companies like Walmart will mean and how you can use marketing to improve patient experience. And of course, how you do all this while maintaining patient privacy. Anyway, check it out. Welcome to Marketing Upheaval.
Rudy Fernandez 0:51
What do you think are some major changes in terms of how a brand like let’s say Bon Secours Mercy Health brands itself? What’s changed? In terms of how you engage people with that brand,
Sandra Mackey 1:04
So Bon Secours Mercy Health is the parent company of two brands that sit underneath it. One is Bons Secours. The other one is Mercy Health. And so we look at sort of the individual attributes that those two brands bring. And again, we start with research and understanding what drives consumers. What are their current perceptions? And where do we have an opportunity to influence those perceptions of services that are provided by the health system. And so for starting there, and truly unpacking the things that drive consumers, it helps us to market to consumers in a way that is about engagement, rather than what we think they want to hear that will move the needle. And one example of that is I think, in the industry, it’s been a long recognized practice in the industry that there’s promotion of awards, “we’re the best in this”, “we’re the number one in that.” We don’t say one of how many, by the way – it could be one of a thousand..
Rudy Fernandez 2:09
Yes, no, the chest thumpy stuff. Yes.
Sandra Mackey 2:12
Yeah, exactly. In the top three…of three. You know, there’s a lot of self promotion around the health system that has occurred over time that I think consumers have gotten used to, based on research that we’ve done, consumers express fatigue around that type of marketing. Because there are so many of those awards recognitions out there. And I think that consumers start to question what does that really mean? Does that translate to a better experience? You know, who’s taking these surveys? Lots of questions that come up in their mind. And at the end of the day, what we have learned from that type of research is that those awards and recognitions are more about the health system than they are about the consumer. We have a shift in that philosophy. And we have really, you know, taken a completely new direction in the way that we engage with consumers. And what a concept we actually talk about the consumer, not about ourselves. Yeah, we want to be able to demonstrate that we understand what their greatest needs are and where they’re coming from and what they have gone through before they get even come through the door. And so our approach to branding has really taken on more of a consumer voice, I’d say than then we’ve ever done within our health system.
View the complete transcript, images and show notes at:
https://creativeouthouse.com/2019/12/04/sandra-mackey-cmo-of-bon-secours-mercy-health-part-2/