I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but health care providers are fiercely competing for business. From billboards and radio campaigns to totes and stress balls, this is a fight to the finish. Not only are health care providers battling to provide the community with outstanding patient care, they’re also promoting employee relations, professional development and fighting to recruit the best health care provider talent out there. With so many marketing needs, this niche is one where promotional products can shine.
Here, two top-notch distributors and their end-buyer partners share their shining health care market case studies. Grab your notebook and a pen, because you’re sure to get some ideas.
Barker Specialty & Celebration Health Assessment
Orlando is no longer just a vacation destination—it’s also a hub for the latest in health and wellness. Helping to support this lifestyle is the Celebration Health Assessment, located at Florida Hospital’s Celebration Health campus.
Celebration Health Assessment (CHA) is an extensive, personalized health care experience meant to help clients maintain overall health by promoting wellness and healthy living through physical assessments, early detection and lifestyle modification, with an emphasis on heart disease, cancer and stroke prevention. CHA deals with a wide range of people, including Fortune 500 executives, professional athletes, and the general public.
To achieve its marketing goals for CHA, the Healthy 100 Institute marketing team reached out to Barker Specialty of Orlando. In search for both executive-level gifts and table giveaways, Barker was able to meet and exceed CHA’s requirements.
In just a single day, executives who visited CHA received a detailed evaluation and consultation with results interpreted by experts available same-day. To represent this high level of service, CHA provided each executive a leather padfolio and executive level pen, all embossed with the CHA logo.
“Barker Specialty’s customer service was superb,” said Debra McCandless, CHA account executive. “One phone call to them and I have never called anyone since. The selection and ease of ordering helped us tremendously.”
A few months later, CHA was in need of giveaways for a professional crowd at the highly attended World Robotics Symposium. This time Barker Specialty provided stress balls shaped like fruit with the logo and an “Eat Healthier. Live Longer.” tagline, artfully displayed in a cascading fruit bowl and basket. The bright colors drew people to CHA’s table nonstop throughout the day.
At last year’s town health fair, CHA provided pedometers to residents as well as the stress fruit to promote nutrition, fitness, and relaxation.
CHA has seen a dramatic increase in its bookings in part due to the use of promotional products. In fact, CHA is on course this year to almost double the amount of appointments booked. CHA’s marketing plans for 2012 continue to utilize promotional items for both influential executives as well as the average health-conscious consumer.
Moisant Promotional Products & the Midwest Regional Medical Center
When Midwest Regional Medical Center, Midwest City, Okla., was asked to be the signature sponsor for Operation Homefront: Oklahoma’s Great Expectations Baby Shower, a statewide baby shower for military moms, the answer was an automatic “yes.”
Midwest City is home to Tinker Air Force Base, which is a big part of the city and its culture. The baby shower, slated to be a large-scale and well-attended event, included lunch, activities and a panel of medical professionals. It was estimated that over $40,000 in baby products and supplies were to be given to the expectant military moms.
During the initial planning phase, Marilyn Flinchum, Midwest Regional Medical Center’s marketing manager, contacted local promotional products consultant Teresa Moisant, owner of Moisant Promotional Products, Oklahoma City. She expressed a desire to do something for the event useful for new moms as well as patriotic and otherwise reflective of the attendees’ core values.
Matching the customer needs and desires to products is a challenge Moisant always enjoys. Searching the industry’s products under the theme of “patriotic,” she decided a large tote bag would be perfect. Moisant reasoned that new moms can use bags in so many ways, from diapers and changes of clothes to bottles and other feeding items, it’s a product that would never outlive its usefulness (plus, babies don’t outgrow bags). To keep in in theme with the patriotic end-users, she chose a red, white and blue stars-and-stripes design.
With Moisant’s help, Midwest City Regional Hospital combined their logo with the Operation Home Front logo on the bag. The bags were distributed to each mom upon arrival at the event and were an instant hit.
“We want people in our community to know we support the Tinker Air Force family. Seeing the bags around town is a sign of that support,” said Flinchum.
Flinchum stated phone calls asking the question, “Where can I get one of the stars and stripes bag?” continue to come in. “Getting those calls let us know our promotional dollars were well spent,” she said.
