Tell Patient Stories in Your Healthcare Marketing

Storytelling is powerful in any type of marketing and sharing stories in healthcare marketing will strengthen your visibility and reputation. Sharing stories and testimonials from patients* or family members – or friends of patients – can help you connect with your audience in a more meaningful way and at a time when individuals may be making their own healthcare decisions. Reading a story from a patient about their experience with a certain condition, treatment option, or procedure can make a tremendous impact on the reader, who may be in a similar situation.

Types of Patient Stories

Each of your patients have unique stories to tell. The best way to determine which types of stories would be the best to share is to consider which best align with your organizational goals. With that, there are many different angles you can take within each testimonial. Here are just a few examples:

• Promoting a lifesaving screening
• Promoting an outcome
• Spreading awareness on treatment of diseases

Frequency of Content

Patient stories are not always easy to collect (more about that later) or finalize because of the process it takes to collect, interview, write and review, but you should try to share at least one story a month. Additionally, patient stories should be weaved in with other content your organization is posting such as blogs and provider and staff profiles.

Collecting Patients for Storytelling

If your organization decides to tell patient stories in your marketing efforts, you will need to develop a plan to identify and collect the stories and information. Here are several ideas on how you can find your prospects:

• Ask your providers about patient success stories tied to your organizational goals
• Look at your organization’s online reviews to find patients that may be willing to share
• Peruse your social sites to find mentions about great experiences at your organization
• Talk to happy patients about their interest in telling their stories

How to Share

Once you have a great piece of content, you can leverage it and share it across many platforms. Share the patient story on your website, social media platforms, and digital ads, or develop it into a video. You also can shorten snippets from your story to share for briefer form pieces such as brochures, direct mail, or print ads.

Implementing a patient story strategy can build trust between your organization and potential patients. Many of our healthcare clients will tell us about amazing patient stories they would like to share but are too busy to figure out how to make that happen. That’s where Chartwell comes in. If you need help developing a patient story implementation plan, we’re just what the doctor ordered! Learn more about how we can help.

*Written consent from patients is critical, so you should seek internal assistance to ensure you are HIPAA compliant.