13 Hospital Advertisement Ideas to Elevate Your Marketing

Although healthcare doesn’t risk becoming an irrelevant industry, that doesn’t mean hospitals can simply toss aside marketing and advertising.

The American Hospital Association, in a 2022 survey, reported that the United States alone has 6,093 hospitals.

What makes a person choose one hospital over another? It’s not simply down to a matter of one’s health insurance, although that surely factors in.

It’s other elements, such as proximity and level of care, elements that a person can only be made aware of through advertising and digital marketing.

So, here are 13 excellent hospital advertisement ideas to help your facility stand out.

Table of Contents

Hospital Advertisement Ideas That Work

photo of a doctor and patient inside a hospital — *Pexels*

1. Start a referral network

When patients have high-level care at a medical facility, they’re usually more willing to talk about it to their friends, family, and colleagues.

According to software resource TrueList, 82% of upper management believes that the top leads come from word of mouth.

This makes a lot of sense. These leads have already heard good things about your healthcare company. They’re aware of who you are and the services you offer, although there’s still usually room to educate them further.

They’re warmer leads who enter the sales funnel deeper than a completely cold lead. Their knowledge and the positive word of mouth they received from your patient also increase the likelihood of this lead successfully converting.

So how do you acquire more referrals? Providing excellent service is always the most reliable method.

You can also start a healthcare referral network, whereby a patient who recommends someone else to you receives some reward for their time and effort, whether that’s discounted services or top priority for a medical service.

2. Publish authority resources

Branding is a pillar of healthcare marketing and advertising. While we’ll talk later about ways you can humanize your brand, for now, let’s discuss how you can build trust.

Salesforce’s State of the Connected Customer report–which involved 29 countries, over 3,900 business buyers, and more than 13,000 consumers–found that 88 percent of survey respondents prioritize company trust, especially during periods of change.

While your hospital can build trust in a myriad of ways, one of the simplest ways to get it is by establishing your brand as an authoritative source.

You can do that by publishing high-end, educational, informative content like infographics, whitepapers, eBooks, case studies, and in-depth reports.

You must heavily research these reports and use facts and data to back up every point you make. Triple-check for inconsistencies and errors and have several fact-checkers and editors review the content before you publish it.

Then post the content on your website and social media. It should begin making the rounds and could even go viral. When people see such well-researched content with your name attached to it, it builds up credibility for your brand.

That, in turn, makes your healthcare brand more trustworthy.

3. Go digital as much as you can

Digital advertising is a must for growing your hospital’s patient base. Let’s go over the types of digital advertising you might utilize.

Social media advertising: Each social media platform has its own paid advertising channels. You’d create native ads that appear on the social media channel of your choosing. You can design the look of the ad, select who sees the ad, and review metrics in real-time, all from the social media platform.
Audio advertising: Podcasts are big business these days, as is streaming media like music. You can purchase audio ad space to play before this content starts, in the middle, or after.
Streaming media advertising: Over-the-top ads are exclusive to streaming media such as video. The ad appears when the customer views streaming media.
Online video advertising: A more classic form of digital advertising, online video ads come in two types. In-stream video ads are the aforementioned advertisements, while out-stream video ads can appear on mobile devices, apps, and websites. They’re a display ad.
Display advertising: Speaking of display ads, they’re next. These visual advertisements can include animation, images, and text. They appear on a website or an app.
Search advertising: Search ads are a component of search engine marketing. The ads appear in search engine results pages as text ads that blend into the rest of the page. The paid ads float to the top of the results pages with organic search results.

4. Don’t give up on traditional media

Although we live in a wholly digital age, you can still use traditional media as part of your healthcare marketing strategy. Let’s go over your options.

Billboards: Out-of-home media like billboards are a common way to advertise medical services. You’d select a prominent spot in your city or town, pay to rent the billboard for a predetermined period, and wait to see if it drives more leads.
Print advertisements: You can pay for a print advertisement in your local newspaper, a healthcare publication, or a magazine. The greater the readership, the more eyes will see your ad.
Satellite and cable advertisements: You might also be interested in television commercials that air in between programs. The goal of the ad is to grab the viewer’s attention and motivate them to call or visit your hospital’s website.
Radio advertisements: Radio is another option to consider. You’d record a short radio ad that can appear between broadcasts on traditional, satellite, or streaming radio.
Catalogs and brochures: The last traditional media option is printing catalogs and/or brochures and mailing them to residents around town. The hope is they’ll remember your hospital the next time they need healthcare services.

5. Publish and promote case studies

One of the best hospital advertisement ideas is publishing and promoting case studies that detail how your hospital has made a difference.

For instance, surely, you’ve had a medical supplier or partner that benefited from working with you. Exactly what were you able to do for them?

Detail the entire situation in the case study, including the issue, what your hospital did, and what kinds of results it drew. Include as many numbers and other data in your case study as you can, as this will authenticate it.

The point of a case study is to put others in the shoes of the partner you assisted. Publishing a case study proves the breadth of your services far more efficiently than a bloated “about me” section.

6. Get more reviews from patients

photo of doctor and patient in a hospital — *Pexels*

Consumers almost always read reviews before making a purchasing decision. Even though your hospital deals with patients, they are consumers in that they’re choosing to give their money to your medical facility.

Without reviews, you’re stripping away a consumer’s ability to make an educated purchasing decision. A consumer will view a lack of reviews as sketchy.

When it comes to life-saving services like a hospital, no one wants to associate “sketchy” with anything you offer.

Search Engine Journal reports that most people hold reviews in the same esteem as word-of-mouth recommendations from family members and friends.

So how do you obtain reviews? You need to begin asking your patients.

When you send follow-up correspondence, such as emails and mailed letters after a patient checks out, you can request that they leave a review. To incentivize them, you can offer rewards.

Expect that you’ll accrue both negative and positive reviews. That’s simply the way it works. The same Search Engine Journal piece noted that 96% of consumers search specifically for negative reviews.

They want to see what and where you’re lacking and use that to inspire their decision. Thus, don’t delete negative reviews. That, too, can damage your reputation.

7. Invest in a social media team

What kind of presence does your hospital have on social media?

If the answer is none or only a mild presence, that’s the first thing you must rectify.

Marketing resource SproutSocial reports that the average person spends 151 minutes a day on social media and switches between seven social networks every month.

You need an active presence across all the big networks, or you could miss out on potential patients.

What you post on social media matters. You must post high-value content that grabs your audience and keeps them hooked.

That means doing more than cross-posting content from your blog to your socials. You must engage through your social media posts. When you find fascinating studies and medical data you think your audience would appreciate, you could share that.

You can also share the other top-quality content you’ll produce (more on this later), such as videos, infographics, and original photographs.

Think of why you follow any account on social media. It’s for information, education, or entertainment, sometimes all three. Your hospital must provide content that fits at least one of the above classifications.

8. Work on SEO

Now that you’ve begun marketing and advertising your hospital, you must pay attention to SEO if you weren’t already. Otherwise, your words will fall on deaf ears.

SEO determines where your website ranks when someone searches for terms like “hospitals near me” or “hospitals in Philadelphia.”

You need the top spot, or at least one of the top five spots on a SERP. A 2023 article from MonsterInsights states that a page that ranks first on a SERP gets about 28 percent of all clicks on that page.

If you can get into the top five, you’ll get 70 percent of the total clicks that occur on Google.

Managing your SEO is an ongoing battle, as Google algorithms change all the time. That said, some constants remain, so make sure you’re doing the following:

Keep your site loading speed within two seconds
Consistently publish original, engaging, high-quality content
Internally link
Optimize the images you publish
Include targeted short-tail and long-tail keywords
Write title tags and alt descriptions

9. Bid for PPC ads in the right place

Pay-per-click or PPC ads are a fantastic hospital advertisement option to have in your arsenal.

This form of digital advertising encompasses several types of ads. Let’s go over them.

Amazon ads, including product display ads, headline search ads, and sponsored product ads
Gmail sponsored ads
Paid social media ads
Shopping ads
Video ads
Remarketing ads
Display ads
Search ads

Here’s how PPC advertising works. When an Internet user clicks your ad, you pay for it. Usually, it’s cents or dollars. Although this sounds expensive, if you use PPC ads correctly, it all adds up.

For example, if you make more (attributable) revenue than the cost of running your PPC ads, it is worth it.

Like the other forms of digital advertising we’ve examined in this guide, you can target your audience with PPC ads, dividing them by schedule, location, device, or other criteria.

Be ready to bid for optimal ad placement. You’ll also have to bid for keywords so your ad appears when a user searches for a specific keyword.

To succeed at PPC advertising, you must have a budget your hospital can stick to.

10. Humanize your brand

a photo of doctors in a hospital advertisement — *Photo by RODNAE Productions*

Okay, so we’ve discussed a lot about building trust in your hospital brand, so now let’s switch gears.

Consumers value transparency in the companies and brands they fork over their hard-earned money to, perhaps more so now than ever before. Hospitals can come across as faceless environments, which presents the need to humanize yours.

You can do this in so many ways. For instance, you can include monthly spotlights on employees doing good. Don’t just focus on doctors and nurses but the entire hospital staff.

You can make videos offering behind-the-scenes glimpses into what goes on in a hospital from day to day. Don’t include anything gory or disturbing, of course!

Spotlight your community outreach efforts. Glorify your customer service.

Whatever you can do to focus on the people who make your hospital what it is will serve to humanize your brand.

11. Do some guest blogging

Hospital advertising doesn’t always have to cost thousands of dollars. Some avenues at your disposal are free, such as guest blogging.

In a guest blogging arrangement, you produce content for another site, and they write content for your blog. Both posts are promoted as guest content, so no one confuses the posts for your native content.

Who should your hospital seek for guest blogging? You might refrain from partnering with another hospital, as they’re your competition, but perhaps a medical partner or practice within your umbrella.

Guest posts provide different insights and a unique voice that your content doesn’t, which livens up the reading experience for your audience. Tap into generative AI prompts to help you find blog ideas.

When your content gets published on another website, you’re introduced to a whole new set of eyes. If your guest partner is a sister practice especially, you have a much higher chance of those patients converting to your hospital.

12. Rework your website

As part of your healthcare marketing plan, you should also refocus on your website.

How navigable is your website at current? If it’s not very, that’s one major aspect you must rework.

The ideal hospital website is patient-centric in every way. You fill the pages with informative content. You focus on site loading speed and navigability.

Of course, you optimize your website for mobile users, as that’s how the lion’s share of potential patients will find your site.

You keep the design clean and never cluttered. You may use traveling navigation bars. You A/B tested all your CTAs, and you keep your contact information prominent so a potential customer can easily call you or fill out an online form.

13. Produce top-notch content

As promised, let’s discuss your hospital’s current content plan.

High-value content is a must. Yet what makes content high-value? Rather than choose topics at random, you do keyword research to determine what kinds of topics your audience searches for.

You also research what content exists on that topic already and come up with a unique spin so your content brings something different to the table.

You produce content consistently but don’t rush. To make your content more valuable, you include infographics, scientific and medical studies, and original images.

You also post this high level of content consistently to meet the needs of your audience.

Content doesn’t only mean blog posts, by the way. Branch out to videos, podcasts, infographics, studies, eBooks, and whitepapers.

For example, Klinio, a diabetes management platform, showcases the power of content creation in engaging customers and building credibility. They provide informative blog posts, educational content within their app, and valuable insights about type 2 diabetes in their written books.

Crafting quality content can raise your SEO, boost your brand, increase trust, elevate your authority level, attract new leads, and retain customers. It’s worth focusing extensively on!

3 Excellent Examples of Hospital Advertising

To wrap up, we’ve got some great hospital advertising examples to inspire your future campaigns.

1. United Healthcare

United Healthcare advertisement — *Source: Penji*

How do you get patients to take action? Sometimes, it comes down to something as simple as a grade-school-level game, like Truth or Dare.

On its website, United Healthcare posted a series of dares in March. Unlike the traditional truth or dare game, which usually boils down to juvenile activities, these dares were all about improving your health.

If you’re someone who never backs down from a challenge, being “dared” to work on your health could be the impetus you need to do something good for yourself.

2. USC

A hospital advertisement during Covid by USC — *Source: USC News*

USC hospitals in California borrowed the school’s athletic mantra, “fight on,” and used it as the basis of its advertisements to raise awareness about the USC Norris Cancer Hospital and University Hospital.

The billboard shown above is one of several that appeared in the campaign. Although the billboard has a simple design with a lot of white space, the impactful copy still makes this advertisement memorable.

3. Mercy Health

Mercy Health hospital ad — *Source: Behance*

To inspire patients to choose Mercy Health Fairfield Hospital, the facility used an image that hits close to home, especially for parents: a woman holding her newborn daughter.

The implication is that when choosing hospitals, you want an experienced facility that can assist in those life-changing moments like giving birth. The accompanying tagline, “Delivering the most babies in Butler County for 20 years,” further drives the message home.

Conclusion

Hospitals must advertise just as any other business does. With good advertising, you can introduce and define your brand, build trust, increase your authority, and grow your patient base.

If you need help marketing your brand, check out the tools EngageBay has.

Beyond the Basics: 13 Hospital Advertisement Ideas to Elevate Your Marketing