THE EMERGENCE OF HEALTHCARE BRANDING

Patient choice is more important than ever in today’s healthcare. Every day, new direct-to-consumer healthcare businesses emerge, providing patients with an increasing number of options for meeting their healthcare requirements. Healthcare branding is critical for any healthcare provider going to enhance patient acquisition and expand their business in an increasingly saturated industry.

In a nutshell, brands are perceptions. The organization’s brand is how individuals who interact with it perceive it. Healthcare branding assists businesses in ensuring that they are viewed in the manner that they wish to be perceived; as dependable, compassionate, competent, experienced, and so on. There was a period when the market didn’t care as much about healthcare branding. Patients had little option in terms of which healthcare provider they used, which was largely limited to those in their immediate neighborhood. Their provider was decided by insurance, which was determined by the employee’s employer as an employment perks. Those without insurance, if they were lucky enough to receive treatment at all, went to a community clinic. However, as any healthcare provider is aware, times have changed dramatically. It’s impossible to think of a characteristic more important to a healthcare organization’s success than trust. The degree to which a healthcare brand is trusted by people it serves may make or break it. When it comes to branding, everything from visual identity to message communicates trust. A healthcare company’s verbal identity, in addition to its visual brand identity, may go a long way toward establishing it as a trusted, authoritative leader in the healthcare industry. Everything from a confident, comforting tone in its website text to the frequent release of articles and guides aimed to educate people on critical healthcare subjects is a tried and true approach for a healthcare brand to build trust.

So, what can healthcare leaders do to make their brand stand out?

Leading healthcare branding requires the most fundamental strategic effort: positioning the healthcare brand. Competitive brand research is a critical component of positioning. Leaders can only discover possibilities for distinction by understanding the competitive landscape in which their brand operates. This necessitates agreement among key stakeholders on issues such as target audience, competitive advantage, and brand promise. Genuine distinction results from thoughtful responses to these demanding inquiries.

Refreshing the company’s visual design is one of the most apparent methods to set the healthcare brand apart. A visual audit of the healthcare business finds that the organizations have awful visual identities; a few originated from earlier eras, while others were created with little thought or inspiration. It’s critical to keep in mind the impact a strong visual identity may have while updating the visual identity. The identity is the most direct means leaders have of communicating their brand’s uniqueness since it uses symbols to convey positions.

Content is king when it comes to healthcare branding. But not just any article. Content that is compelling, interesting, and, most importantly, useful, in a nutshell, narrative. Fortunately for healthcare businesses, there will never be a shortage of inspirational and informative tales to share. Heart-breaking stories of patients whose lives have been transformed by the brand are an effective approach to engage with customers on a personal level. While it is important to be aware of the ever-changing legal and ethical constraints around healthcare branding, there are also numerous appropriate ways to enlighten customers on important health subjects. This sort of instructional content is relevant and beneficial to a wide range of consumers. Consumers are reassured by storytelling that the company has the correct solution for their requirements. It even raises the website’s search engine ranks, establishing it as a reliable source of information. When it comes to healthcare branding, it’s difficult to exaggerate the relevance and power of storytelling.

Because of patient satisfaction and value-based KPIs, people who are served are the ultimate judges of the brand’s performance. With this in mind, it is critical to ensure that the brand is in sync with the requirements and expectations of the patients. This begins with ensuring that the on-brand experience is consistent and coherent across all touchpoints. In the eyes of the client, consistency translates into dependability. The brand identity should extend from the smiles on the faces of the staff to the ease of use of the website’s interface. Every stakeholder inside the business should be fully aware with the brand’s positioning. A meaningful and inspirational corporate culture motivates workers to act as brand ambassadors and better prepares them to manage consumer problems and complaints. Brand research, on the other hand, is the greatest approach to assess the brand’s success in terms of patient experience. Conducting in-depth interviews and online surveys on a regular basis allows leaders to learn how their patients perceive their brand. The actionable insights that emerge from such research provide important possibilities to guarantee that the brand stands out—and stands out in the correct manner.

As Jeff Bezos said, “your brand is what other people say about you when you are not in the room”.

Faizuddin Yusof
Operations Manager
Kedah Medical Centre