Hospitals are now relying on newsletters to educate special interest groups like seniors and donors, according to a recent survey by Priority Publications.
The Minneapolis-based publisher of custom magazines and newsletters found that 92% of the 180 healthcare providers it surveyed use newsletters to strengthen community awareness, with the average organization using 2.2 newsletters targeted to specific constituencies. Twenty percent use an average of 4.5 newsletters annually.
"Hospitals have become much more aggressive in the last five years with using newsletters for target marketing and to become more competitive in the community," says Jim Larranaga, VP of Priority.
The average newsletter has a circulation of 35,900 quarterly but the top 20% of healthcare organizations surveyed boast print runs of 125,000. And, the larger the print run the greater the likelihood that the in-house staff will use an outside vendor, according to the survey Close to one-third of healthcare providers with press runs over 22,000 use an outside vendor such as a publisher, advertising agency, freelancer or design studio. Hospitals printing 30,000 copies spend about a dollar for each newsletter. This does not include postage, Larranaga estimates.
Getting Customized, Interactive
The next newsletter wave for hospitals will be an effort to heighten reader engagement through customization and content-based techniques.
Although preventive health is the hottest area of editorial coverage, hospitals have not fully tapped into opportunities that:
- support "star" physicians with profiles;
- challenge readers with educational but fun features like crossword puzzles and quizzes; and
- drive traffic to hospital Web sites.
But customization does not have to mean spending more on publishing projects, says Beth Nystrom, manager of marketing and PR at Holy Family Medical Center in Des Plaines, Ill.
For 12 years, the center used a series of canned articles for its quarterly newsletters and spent about $120,000 annually for the projects. This cookie-cutter method was too constraining both editorially and graphically, says Nystrom. After interviewing 12 vendors, Nystrom selected Priority to customize the center's community newsletter and expects to save $40,000 this year.
The newsletter's new customized format and design provides stronger branding for the center's advertising and promotional programs. The eight-page issues now feature the center's new logo and uses the off-size of 10"x12" for greater recognition. Nystrom's department advises Priority on topic areas and layout, while priority produces most of the content.
The 100,000-circulation newsletter will provide heightened coverage of the hospital's services, physician referral lines, as well as community programs and support groups.
Given the cost-savings and increased flexibility for niche marketing, Nystrom says she is looking to produce a separate newsletter for the center's women's health services. (Priority Publications, Jim Larranaga, 612/920-9943; Holy Family Medical Center, Beth Nystrom, 847/297-1800, ext. 1177)
Hospitals Exceed Financial Industry in Publishing
Compared with the financial services industry -which arguably has a stronger obligation to keep its customers abreast of investment trends and services - healthcare organizations are more aggressive users of newsletters by a margin of 27%, according to Minneapolis-based Priority Publishing. Ninety-two percent of healthcare providers consider newsletters a vehicle of choice for reaching the overall community and special market segments, according to the publisher's survey of 180 providers released earlier this month. Other findings include:
- The surrounding community is the primary newsletter target at 53%, followed by seniors at 10% and women at 6%;
- The average newsletter is six to eight pages long; and
- Quarterly newsletters are most common at 67%, followed by monthly publications at 15%.
Source: Priority Publications