Internal alignment

Marketing to staff to deliver a better patient experience

You’ve probably experienced empty promises in the marketplace. It’s when marketing messages tout a completely different experience than you, the consumer, encounters. The same thing happens in healthcare. A television ad may promise short wait times or a print ad may promise friendly staff, when in reality, you’re faced with a full waiting room run by a grumpy receptionist. This happens when hospitals and physician practices fail to communicate and align internal audiences to their brand promise.

It’s a mistake to take a shortcut with marketing messages by overlooking your most important primary audiences: physicians and staff. When a brand position is communicated to external audiences and the staff isn’t trained on it, the brand promise can’t be delivered consistently. This results in unhappy patients.

At Smith & Jones, we know that gaining brand buy-in with internal audiences is an important step, which is why it’s included in our brand development and standardization process. Here are four important ways to introduce, reinforce and test your new brand identity with internal audiences:

  • Communicate the brand language within the organization and how it applies to daily tasks and practices of physicians and staff members.
  • Explain to physicians and staff how they fit into the brand identity through success stories and owned media.
  • Incorporate into every internal meeting evidence-based stories that demonstrate how people within the organization are delivering the brand promise and patient experience you expect.
  • Make marketing messages consistent with the brand including look, personality, and voice.
  • Test the brand messaging in a variety of forms to ensure it’s cohesive, for example: name, logo, marketing, and advertising materials and interior design.

Internal alignment is an important stepping stone that bridges the expectation gap. Communicating how everyone fits into the new brand and their role in execution helps to engage employees and weed out who doesn’t belong. Mind the gap, and if you need help, we can walk you through it.