Health system marketers shouldn’t just prioritize ServingOverSelling by dramatically cutting promotional marketing. They should replace those wasteful and ineffective strategies with The Serving Model, our proposed outline for the new role of the CMO. The Serving Model, which leverages the insightful Living/Thinking/Solving Moments framework, reflects the philosophy that health system brands are built based on what organizations do, not on what they say, and calls for replacing promotional marketing activities with meaningful actions focused on consumers, communities and patients.

Until health systems stop wasting money on unnecessary marketing efforts like sports sponsorships, they will have a hard time defending themselves as the calls for fundamental changes in the U.S. healthcare system continue to grow.

In the final part in our series on overcoming industry inertia, a study of a transformation in French cooking holds the framework for health system marketers who want to embrace the ServingOverSelling movement.

In part two of our series on industry inertia, we explore eight forces that prevent health system marketers from putting ServingOverSelling.

Part one in a series on industry inertia focuses on why it can be so hard for industries to move away from inefficient or ineffective practices, an effort that’s essential to support the ServingOverSelling movement.

There is a pervasive belief that health systems must advertise their services so consumers understand their care options in the community. That argument is as outdated as it is ineffective.

A recent academic study on the effectiveness of hospital advertising shows that there can be an impact on hospital visits from increased advertising spend. That’s not a surprise - I’ve said for years that you can spend tons of money on promotional marketing and likely expect some kind of impact. But at the same time, the findings in the study helps support the contention that health systems should focus on ServingOverSelling.

If we’re truly going to have an impact on helping to address the healthcare affordability crisis through the ServingOverSelling movement, we’re going to have to address some sacred cows in the health system marketing space. Perhaps no cow is more sacred than the belief that financial ROI for marketing activities should be pursued, and that when achieved, it demonstrates the ultimate value of marketing at health systems.

Hospital and health system market share barely moves year over year without a significant event like M&A or the closing of a hospital. But if that’s true, what does it say about the impact of health system marketing?

A recently released academic study on the effectiveness of hospital advertising shows that there can be an impact on hospital visits from increased advertising spend. But that finding helps support the contention that health systems should focus on ServingOverSelling.

After more than 25 years in the health system marketing space, I’ve launched ServingOverSelling, a movement that encourages health systems to reallocate their promotional marketing spend to instead put the resources, energy and focus of our institutions back where they belong: on helping the people we exist to serve.

An ongoing update documenting the growing healthcare affordability crisis and how our system is failing Americans.