Whether you are a small healthcare practice or an enormous corporation, building a strong healthcare brand is just as important as having your overall marketing strategy in place. In fact, branding should become the royal flush of your marketing strategy and all of your marketing decisions should be developed in accordance with it.
Did you know that a research on stock exchanges showed that a large proportion of a company’s value is derived from the value of their brand? To blow your mind even more, 70% of the market values of Fortune 500 companies are comprised of intangible assets including brand equity. Impressive, huh?
Yet, many healthcare companies neglect to craft a strong brand. If you’re a part of a company that lacks a strong brand, here is a quick guide concerning how to build and maintain a strong brand for your healthcare business.
What Is Brand Equity In Healthcare?
Simply put, healthcare brand equity is the commercial value your patients generate by healthcare brand perception rather than by the service or product they get. In order to keep up with competitors, you need to teach your patients to associate your business with certain emotions, values, and colors (Yeah, colors are important! I will discuss it later in the blog).
Why Is Having A Strong Brand Important?
You need to understand that your healthcare brand exists in patients’ minds, and your goal is to ensure they absolutely love it. Once users share their thoughts about the brand, they become indirect shareholders as they can influence the success of the brand in both positive and negative ways. In other words, building a strong brand will help to keep patients happy, while keeping them happy will contribute to the strength of your healthcare brand.
So How Do You Build A Strong Healthcare Brand?
1. Conduct Marketing Research
Target Audience: The first piece of a powerful healthcare brand should be your target audience. Who do you want to focus on? To answer this question, you want to figure out the specific behavior and lifestyle of your patients to build the brand around something they care about.
Competitors: Know your direct and indirect competitors - what are their strengths and weaknesses are and what unique advantage do you possess over them? But, don’t be a copycat! Find unique ways to stand out of the crowd and create a sustainable brand identity, which will serve you in a long-run.
2. Define Value Proposition, Personality, And Name Of Your Healthcare Brand
Value Proposition: After you have identified your target market and competitors, it’s time to think about the promise and value you would deliver to your patients through the brand proposition. In other terms, why patients should choose you over all other healthcare practices? It may be outstanding patient care and/or discounted “no insurance” price- whatever works for you!
Healthcare Brand Personality: Treat your brand as a person you want it to be associated with. How does your brand behave, what is important about your brand, and how do you want your patients to describe it? Is it compassionate and caring or fast and efficient? It doesn’t mean these qualities can’t be combined, it just means the personality of your healthcare brand should be precisely defined.
Healthcare Brand Name: The name is not the most important aspect of the brand, as values, personality, and actions mostly shape your overall branding. But the name is still an important indicator, as it will be the title for all emotions and feelings customers associate with the brand itself. Your healthcare brand name should deliver your main message in a clear way. You don’t want your radiology target audience think you sell dental equipment, right?
3. Build Your Healthcare Brand: Design & Message
Design: Your brand’s design should go hand in hand with your healthcare brand name and complement it in a natural way. When thinking about design, always think back to your brand’s personality. What colors and graphics would represent the personality behind your brand at its finest? Additionally, colors should convey the feeling associated with the brand and distinguish you from your closest competitors. For example, a pediatric dentistry wouldn’t be wise to create a black and white logo, as these colors are not associated with kids at all.
Message: The message would include a brand mission, tagline, and a unique hashtag that will hook your target audience. A proper brand mission should include the information your customers agree and associate themselves with. Did you know that 64% of consumers state shared values is the main reason they have a relationship with a brand? That’s why you need to show that you and your patients are together in that boat. Also, a catchy tagline will help to emphasize your healthcare brand values in a concise way, while a hashtag will distinguish you in social media as well as other online mediums.
4. Integrate The Brand In Your Healthcare Company & Be Consistent
Well, it’s kinda obvious - your brand shouldn’t exist separately from your business. After you’ve created your healthcare brand, you need to make sure all aspects of your business follow and represent the brand. All your marketing collateral, social media, websites, and types of communication should follow the brand guidelines for the brand to flourish. And, of course, don't forget about consistency. Always presenting the brand consistently leads to an average revenue increase of 23%.
Something Else to Think About
Okay, so now you know that your healthcare brand should be much more than just a logo with some words or graphics in it. But how can you start the process? How can you obtain and analyze the data about your target audience and competitors, identify if the brand personality will be successful, and how can you tie it all together to make it pretty and catchy? You can technically start browsing the internet, attend different workshops, and read branding books, or simply ask us to help. Specializing in healthcare marketing, our creative marketing team will create and maintain a strong healthcare brand for your business whether you build a new brand or just want to rebrand your existing one.
