ASC Marketing 101 – Branding for Your Center - SCA Health

Welcome back to ASC Marketing 101 by SCA Health. This series focuses on aspects of marketing that you or your center can enact to improve public perception and patient satisfaction.

Healthcare is a crowded space, with thousands of providers, hospitals, and centers competing to be the location of choice for patients to receive care. One way to differentiate your center is through your branding and approach to crucial messaging, such as mission statements and values. These choices can help you define and showcase your personality, not only of your center but also of the staff and physicians who work within it.

What is Branding?

As consumers, we interact with branding every day. From items in the grocery store, business on the road, and regular items such as paper and pens. The science behind branding is deeply and thoroughly researched, as particular choices can bring about conscious or subconscious effects and ideas. Here are five interesting facts about general branding that you may not have realized:

Over half (55%) of a brand’s first impressions are visual.
Color increases brand recognition by up to 80%.
2 in 5 Fortune 500 Brands use the color blue in their logos.
On average, it takes 10 seconds for a consumer to make an opinion of a brand.
Of the world’s Top 100 brands, 95% use only one or two colors in their logo.

So, what can we learn from the above facts? For starters, creating a memorable logo can be highly significant in the eyes of potential patients. A memorable logo can go a long way in creating a positive first impression. Additionally, highly successful brands keep it simple with color schemes, with blue being a popular choice due to its impact on the human brain.

Mental Health America backs up this claim, noting that blue, the opposite of red, brings a calming sensation as opposed to feelings of anger and frustration. No wonder major brands are quick to work blue into their color palettes.

It’s also important to note that the word “consumers” is being used to describe patients. While we typically think of consumers as shoppers or purchasing an item, the context of “shopping” for where to receive care helps us apply the concepts to ASCs and best understand a patient’s thought process.

Your ASC Logo

Your center’s logo is the first visual representation of your location that patients will see. Whether your ASC is independent, in partnership with a management organization like SCA Health, or owned by a hospital, your logo can be unique and tailored to you.

While your center may already have a logo, it’s not uncommon for locations to undergo rebranding efforts. If your ASC is considering a rebrand, keep these tips in mind from Wix.com as you piece together your new identity:

Be thoughtful about the font selection in your logo.
Ensure your logo looks good in various mediums (emails, print collaterals, social media, etc.)
Tell a story using relevant imagery in your logo.
Avoid current fads to keep your logo in style for years to come.

Designing a logo can be challenging yet rewarding, especially for independent ASCs with free reign over their design. A collaborative environment where staff can participate in the creative process can create a positive “team” atmosphere and buy-in.

Creating Your Mission Statement

Mission statements represent the top priorities of your center. This phrasing is often confused with vision statements.

Mission statements define an organization’s goals and why they exist.

Vision statements help show the perfect future and the organization’s aspirations.

Your ASC’s vision and mission statements provide patients and employees with a clear line of sight to the future and what you will do to reach that goal. It is important to note that vision and mission statements do not need to be long. They can be as short as one sentence if you prefer. The importance of this messaging is its impact and the mark it leaves on readers to best understand your center’s goals and hopes for the future.

Mission Statements

Hubspot.com recognizes that a strong mission statement “combines physical, emotional, and logical elements into one exceptional customer (in this case patient) and employee experience that you value as much as they do,” the site reads. “A good mission statement will explain your brand’s purpose and foster connection with customers.”

They add that there are three parts to a mission statement:

Purpose: What service do you offer (or plan to provide), and for whom?

Values: What does your ASC stand for?

Goals: What does your ASC accomplish for others? Why should they visit your location?

For example, SCA Health’s mission statement reads:

“To care for patients, serve physicians, and improve health care in America.”

When you break down our mission statement using the above pieces, you can see that our purpose is to provide care to our patients and serve our physician partners. Our values are represented in the words “care,” “serve,” and “improve.” Lastly, our goal is to “improve health care in America.”

Researching mission statements from other healthcare entities can help you narrow your scope and design your messaging to create an impact with patients, staff, and physicians alike.

Vision Statement

As mentioned above, vision statements represent the future and how your center will help us get there. Chron.com notes that vision statements often begin with phrases such as “We hope to..”, “We envision..” or “To be known as…”. This phrasing showcases a look ahead and the impact of the high-quality care you provide.

SCA Health’s vision statement reads:

“To be the partner of choice for surgical care.”

When creating your vision statement, Chron recommends keeping it short and sweet.

“Your vision statement may be read by potential staff members, investors, and patients, to name just a few,” Chron says. “All are very different audiences with a wide variety of backgrounds. What your audiences have in common is an eighth grader’s attention span and reading level.

Sure, many have far higher levels of education, but they’re busy, they’re tired, maybe they’re worried, and your vision statement isn’t their main focus. So, make it easy for them. Make your statement concise, clear, and easy to understand at a glance.”

SCA Health’s vision statement is only nine words long, which meets the recommendation. It inspires our teammates to provide the highest-quality support for our physician partners and is easily understood by a broad audience.

Conclusion

In today’s edition of ASC Marketing 101, we dissected the importance of creating memorable logos and messaging. Some key takeaways from the above include: