by Steven R. Jolly | Nov 14, 2019 | Rural Healthcare Marketing Tips
National Diabetes Month happens to share the month of November with the most famous feast celebration in the US, Thanksgiving. For people with diabetes, it can be a real challenge to navigate the holidays while keeping insulin levels in check.
Connecting your marketing efforts with what is on people’s minds is important for building trust. Speaking to the challenge of diabetes during this time can create a strong connection with your community.
Speak to the concerns
Let your marketing give voice to what is on people’s minds. You can start with a headline like this.
Is diabetes raining on your holiday parade?
Then describe the kinds of challenges facing people with diabetes during the holidays. For those with Diabetes, holiday feasts can be a source of anxiety. It can create hard choices between participation and risking their health. They may worry that their disease gets in the way of their family’s fun.
Offering solutions
After showing that you understand the difficulty people face, offer helpful advice and practical solutions. There are many articles on the subject you can pull advice from or which you could share if using social media. Just be sure to vet them as you only want to offer the best advice. Here are a few simple examples.
Spread out the feast
Instead of fasting and gorging, make thanksgiving an all-day affair. Provide many courses over a long afternoon and evening to avoid spiking or crashing blood sugar levels.
Choose savory over sweet
Focus on dishes with savory flavors. Dishes that are rich in protein or fiber help buffer the carbohydrates and sugars. Pair each course with a sweet option to a savory or high fiber option alongside it.
Lower carbohydrate recipes
There are tons of diabetic-friendly recipes for every holiday classic dish. Do some research and practice them ahead of the holidays. You are sure to find some that meet or beat your old recipes.
Remember to make sure that if you share a recipe directly that you have permission to do so. The list of ingredients isn’t covered by copyright but everything else in a recipe is including descriptions, images, and instructions.
by Steven R. Jolly | Nov 7, 2019 | Marketing Tips for Success
There is never enough time
In a typical American rural hospital, there is never enough time. There is always more that needs to be done than there are time and resources to do it. Patient-care is always at the top. Paying the bills is generally next on the list, and it goes on and on. Where is marketing on your list?
We must find the time for marketing
If we want to keep rural healthcare in America strong and vibrant, we really MUST be marketing our services.
If you are out of sight, you are out of mind. Patients will continue to head for larger urban hospitals even when you have those same quality services closer to home. Too many rural hospitals are shutting their doors. You must lookout for the long-term health of your hospital.
What can you do?
Your first step is to choose a strategy to put your
marketing on track and keep it there
- Divide and conquer the work
- Dedicate the time and money to hire someone
- Seek
outside, professional help
Divide and Conquer
Many hands make light work. Everyone at your Hospital is
busy. No one has the time to handle all the work needed. By creating an
internal marketing task force and dividing up the work, you have a fighting
chance. It will take teamwork, good time management, and good communication but
it can be done.
Find the people in your organization with the right skills,
assign them tasks connected to those skills and you can get the work done.
Hire a Marketer and give them a budget
This may well be the most expensive option on this list, but it has advantages. With someone dedicated to the task, you know it will get the attention and focus it needs. As your organization grows, you have built the foundations of a marketing team that can grow with you. Perhaps most importantly, they will intimately understand your community and your hospital.
Outsource your marketing
If you have more money than time, you can hire an outside firm to handle your marketing. You can also combine outside help with other strategies. Use the marketing firm to handle what your staff finds most challenging. You will want someone who understands and has long experience with the unique market challenges facing rural hospitals. These folks can be hard to find, but if you are reading this, they just a phone call or email away.
by Steven R. Jolly | Nov 7, 2019 | Rural Healthcare Marketing Tips
It feels like there is never enough time
When faced with an overwhelming list of things to be done, good time management is essential. Marketing your business is essential for its long term health, but there is always a long list of immediate and pressing tasks when running a rural hospital. All too often if it isn’t at the top of the list, it doesn’t happen.
Strategies for time management
What you need is a strategy for time management. There are many proven methods to ensure that low-priority doesn’t become no-priority.
- Block time at regular intervals
- Set deadlines for low priority tasks
- Invest in optimization
Blocking time
This strategy is to make a deliberate decision about what
amount of time is right for your organization to focus on marketing. Make a
commitment that you will spend per month. Then, schedule that time on your
team’s calendar.
With experience, you can adjust the time allotted up or down to meet your needs, but always make a deliberate decision, don’t just react to the events of the moment.
Setting deadlines
Deadlines are the go-to means for getting something done. Deadlines for lower priority work should allow more time than you would for higher priority tasks. This offers the flexibility to react to other, more critical tasks while keeping your marketing efforts on track. That said, treat these deadlines with the same seriousness off any other in your organization or this strategy won’t work.
Investing in optimization
Like any task, Marketing can be done efficiently, and it can be done inefficiently. If you spend time upfront investing in streamlining your process, you will get great returns down the line by getting more done in less time. Make process improvement a goal, not just a desire.
And if you can’t invest the time, then consider investing a little money. SRJEasyHealthcare.com is designed to make the most of your staff’s time by doing as much of the time-consuming work for you as possible.
