Employing a Differentiation Strategy

June 16, 2010 | RadBrand Builder

Attracting referrals is more crucial than ever for imaging-center operators who hope to see their facilities survive, and even thrive, in these difficult times. The task of maintaining or increasing market share, however, is complicated by aggressive competitors, each of which wants to be recognized by the... Read More »

New Templates for Recession-resistant Marketing

February 15, 2010 | RadBrand Builder

Marketing radiology services can represent a significant challenge, particularly in an increasingly consumer-driven medical marketplace, where outreach to patients requires reconfiguring a familiar line of messaging. Nancy McNee Newell, vice president of marketing for Diagnostic Health Corp (DHC), Birmingham, Alabama, calls it the softer side of imaging. “You have... Read More »

Building Bridges

December 01, 2009 | Feature

Few would argue that one of the most impressive accomplishments of engineering, throughout history, has been the bridge. From the towering Golden Gate to the simple plank stretched across a stream, bridge design and construction are the essence of problem solving. Bridges exist for no other reason than to... Read More »

Trademarking and Copyrighting: The Beginner’s Guide

July 15, 2009 | RadBrand Builder

An established health care consulting practice had been in business for several years. As part of its growth and development, it had a logo designed by a veteran graphic artist and developed a tagline (a slogan that appeared below its logo). Earlier this year, as part of its routine... Read More »

Emergence of Consumerism in Imaging

July 01, 2009 | Feature

Hurried along by economic hard times, consumerism is making an impact on diagnostic imaging choices, and savvy practices are responding

As Bob Dylan once sang, “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.” Neither does it take an expert to see that... Read More »

Smart Marketing in a Sick Economy

May 01, 2009 | Marketing Mix

A recent statement from Moody’s Investors Service, New York, indicates that the health care sector in the United States— traditionally thought to be among the most recession resistant—is now showing significant effects of the economic downturn. Disturbing news is also emerging of patients responding to family budget... Read More »

The Sales-continuum Approach to Marketing ROI

February 15, 2009 | Radiology Business Journal

In today’s challenging business environment, not many people would buy into the philosophy, in operating an imaging center, that if you build it, they will come. Most accept that marketing the center is required. Even so, the questions of exactly how to market the center and, equally important,... Read More »

In Search of Web-site Optimization

June 15, 2008 | Marketing Mix

In 1998, Jakob Nielsen, PhD, hailed by the New York Times as the guru of Web-page usability, wrote, “The Web is simply not that suited for advertising.”1 He also predicted that content would become self-optimizing. In his defense, it should be noted that Nielsen was right far more often than... Read More »

Game Plan for New Leaders

June 15, 2008 | Priors

IN THE FEBRUARY 2008 ISSUE OF THE Harvard Business Review, Gott fredson et al1 look at the role of the incoming CEO or general manager. From 1999 to 2006, they note, the average tenure of departing CEOs in the United States fell from 10 years to just over eight, and in 2006, around 40% of... Read More »

Creating a Smart—and Grand—Opening

April 15, 2008 | RadBrand Builder

Opening a new imaging center, or planning a grand reopening, involves details far beyond the technology and construction concerns, the most important of which may be the center’s marketing plan.

After all, without patients, there is no business. Even if your marketing consists of just one... Read More »

Determining Your Market’s True Potential

April 15, 2008 | A Better Mousetrap

In imaging today, volume is the name of the game: The only way to maintain your practice’s financial viability is to keep your volume above a certain level. There’s an upside to this highly leveraged business scenario, though. Once you reach a volume that represents... Read More »

Positioning the Practice’s Feet on the Street

March 15, 2008 | Marketing Mix

As the business of radiology assumes a greater role in the evolution of your outpatient imaging center (OIC), it is important to remember that, essentially, yours is a people business.

Investments in technology and in continuing education are extremely important, to be sure. There is, however, an... Read More »

Even When Wrong, the Customer Is Always Right

March 15, 2008 | RadBrand Builder

As marketing assumes a more prominent role in the evolution of imaging centers, perhaps the most important part of the marketing mix is good, old-fashioned customer service. After all, the very nature of the specialty is such that it does not lend itself to radiologist-patient interaction, so these crucial... Read More »

Marketing the OIC: Is It Time to Go Directly to Patients?

February 15, 2008 | RadBrand Builder

Across the nation, outpatient imaging centers (OICs) are looking for ways to protect what they have built and ways to grow. Protection strategies usually involve shoring up relationships with key referrers and ensuring that the practice brand is established and being supported in every department.

Growth presents... Read More »

The Marketing Imperative: It’s Not Your Father’s Radiology

January 15, 2008 | RadBrand Builder

Over time, the forces that make an industry strong and predictable will change. Some of the new developments will help it to prosper, while some will force it to exist and compete in areas that may seem uncomfortable. Often, however, that is only because the uncomfortable is also the... Read More »

Imaging’s Shifting Center of Gravity

November 15, 2007 | The Big Picture

Outpatient imaging as a market is undergoing metamorphosis, and, though unfamiliar to many in its ranks, such change is common in most every market. As any economist would attest, markets are fluid and undergo periods of growth and decline that are referred to as life cycles. It is the... Read More »

Marketing Best Practices for Imaging Centers in the post-DRA Era

September 15, 2007 | Legislative Report

Marketing and branding should always be part of your competitive strategy in medical services. However, in comparatively easy times, many radiology practices were able to do well with little or in some cases even no organized efforts to address marketing issues. However, now the pressures on most practices have... Read More »

Flying Blind

June 12, 2007 | Legislative Report

Many health care providers fall into the trap of spending big dollars on marketing without knowing their customers. A well-structured strategic marketing plan requires a mechanism for identifying the needs and wants of your customers.

Thoroughly understanding the market one operates in is tantamount to the strategic... Read More »

Marketing 201

June 12, 2007 | NONE

In the second article of a series in the Journal of the American College of Radiology, Frank Lexa, MD, and Jonathan Berlin, MD, MBA, warn radiology practices that they can waste marketing dollars if they do not observe what he refers to as the 4 P’s of marketing: product,... Read More »

The Importance of the Marketing-Operations Synergy

January 15, 2007 | NONE

Twenty plus years ago, as imaging gradually began its trek away from hospital environs, outpatient services rarely included a market effort. Today, outpatient imaging marketing is more than a rapid-report cannon fire in the war of what’s new. It boasts brand, distinction, top-of-mind awareness, and positioning. Back then,... Read More »

Keep Your Friends Close and Your Enemies Closer

October 15, 2006 | NONE

With the fierce competition we are confronting in imaging, this advice has never been more applicable. How well do you know your competition? In a previous column, I discussed the importance of efficient operations for survival. However, internal operational efficiency is only half the battle. Growing and maintaining a... Read More »

The Radiology Imperative

July 15, 2006 | NONE

The number of radiology procedures ordered in the United States continues to increase at an unrelenting pace. Studies now suggest that at least one in ten residents currently receives a computed tomography (CT) scan each year and one in twenty undergoes a magnetic resonance scan (MRI). So where is... Read More »