The life cycle of a healthcare brand

A healthcare organization’s brand is not a static thing. Whether you’re a large hospital network or a single hospital, your brand is always changing over time. Some of those changes are of your making (for both good and bad) and some of them are external, like new competitors in your area or shifting demographics in the audience you serve. 

The word ‘brand’ has a murky meaning, even among experienced marketers. Here’s how we define it in the healthcare space: Your brand is your organization’s character, reputation, and potential. It’s the feeling the community has when they think about who you are and what you stand for. 

Creating a new brand or rebranding an organization is a significant undertaking. But it’s not finished once it’s launched. To gain the biggest return on investment, your team needs to nurture the brand over time so it stays relevant, responds to changes within your organization, and continues to build trust with your audience. While there’s no hard and fast rule, rebrands typically happen in the 5- to 8-year realm. Here’s a rough estimate of a healthcare brand’s life span and some things you can watch out for and do to avoid becoming stale.

Brand Launch—Year 2

When a brand is born or renovated, for the first 1 to 2 years you will focus on bringing it fully to life and creating your organization’s unique identity. This will involve market research to understand your competitors and target audience, brand positioning where you will decide your unique value proposition, and then name change, perhaps, a logo and visual identity. It will also include a brand launch and, perhaps, further brand awareness campaigns.

Your team will get comfortable using the new brand guidelines, which include direction on visual elements like logo usage, color palette, typography, and a photo library, as well as standards for copy and content. You’ll also apply the new brand across your entire integrated marketing system so that every touchpoint is consistent: social media looks like billboards, which mirror in-office patient communication and email marketing. 

Years 3—4

The following 3 to 4 years will be focused on growth, increasing your audience, allowing time for your brand to become recognizable, and building the number of people you actively serve. During this phase, there will be a heavy importance on content marketing, social media engagement, and partnerships. 

 You’ll continue to do awareness campaigns that aim to remind people of who you are and how you can help them, but marketing efforts will be more targeted to initiatives like promoting new practice areas, health initiatives and other strategic messaging.. It’s also key to do an annual checkup on your website to make sure messaging is consistent and the user experience is seamless. A periodic competitive review will alert your team to moves other providers are making so you can respond.

Years 5—7

Around Years 5 and 6, the brand is hitting its maturity phase. At this point you ideally have a well-established brand that performs well and earns the trust of your audience. 

 This is also the time to really pay attention to the brand’s execution and performance. A brand audit can review how your brand is being received and dive into customer feedback to see what you can do better. It can also point to inconsistencies in the way the marketing team and others in the organization are using the brand. Over time, as there’s turnover of staff and marketers get distracted, it’s common for some of those brand standards to fall by the wayside, templates are ignored, and a lack of diligence sets in. 

When you hit that 7-year mark, you may want to start thinking about a brand “facelift.” This may be a period where organizational values, goals, and objectives have changed, external perceptions have shifted, positioning has evolved, or the brand otherwise starts to lose relevance. This is when you may want to do a reassessment of your brand to understand internal shifts and external perceptions. Doing some targeted brand awareness campaigns can be a great start to plan for your rebrand. And maybe it’s time to do another deep dive into your competitors.

Rebranding

At the end of year 7, you’ll shift focus on evaluating the brand’s strategic foundation and assess the internal and external changes that are in play. If the existing brand no longer aligns with or represents the organization’s mission and vision, you’ll see flashing red lights, including:

• Campaigns don’t deliver expected results because messaging doesn’t connect with your audience
• Different parts of the organization create their own campaigns that don’t coordinate with one another
• The way internal staff talks about the organization is inconsistent, and doesn’t match what your audience says about you
• Data is a signal: website metrics show reduced traffic and high bounce rates; new patient numbers are declining; recruitment is lagging

That’s when you know it’s time for a rebrand. 

But throughout the brand’s roughly 7-year life span, you should still make sure to be doing things to keep your brand fresh. This will help keep you relevant and also make a rebrand a bit easier if you have been doing smaller updates along the way. 

• Refreshing content regularly
• Listening to customer feedback
• Staying educated in your field
• Innovating new ways to communicate
• Tracking data and making decisions based on it 

We partner with healthcare marketing teams in every phase of the brand life cycle. As you think about where your brand is along this path, let’s have a conversation. We can help your team do it the right way. 

Tenth Crow Creative is a brand marketing agency that creates, aligns, and promotes messaging for health and wellness organizations. Through insightful branding, engaging design and compelling marketing campaigns, we help these essential organizations find their identities and effectively communicate with their stakeholders so they can fulfill their missions.