How To Get the Marketing Dollars You Need in 2021

Tanya Andreadis, chief marketing officer, UCLA Health

The American Hospital Association estimates that hospitals and health systems across the country have lost more than $200 billion as a result of the pandemic, and total losses may top more than $320 billion by the end of 2020.

With COVID-19 cases still surging, how will health systems address the healthcare needs of their communities and ensure financial sustainability?

And how can marketers and digital strategists make the case to leadership that their marketing and advertising budgets should be preserved — and even increased — when revenues have dropped so dramatically?

“It’s been a trying time, but we’re fortunate to have returned to pre-COVID patient volumes in our flagship hospital,” says Tanya Andreadis, chief marketing officer at UCLA Health.

“There’s still a decrease in emergency and preventive care. And like many other institutions, we’ve really exploded in terms of our telehealth capabilities and our video visits. That was not a big part of our portfolio prior to the pandemic, and now I would say about 25 percent of the visits are telehealth visits.”

“We’re actively working to get people back into our clinics,” says Don Stanziano, chief marketing and communications officer at Geisinger, headquartered in Pennsylvania. “The first challenge was making our patients feel safe, so we focused our messaging on all the steps we were taking to promote safety. The one thing that hasn’t come back fully, that I’ve been hearing from others around the country, too, is ER volume.”

Clearly, systems are going to need to work hard to facilitate a rebound in 2021. Read our full story now and get more strategies from industry experts on how to maintain, or even boost, your marketing budget for next year:

Strategies from Top Marketers to Preserve and Grow Marketing Budgets and Recapture Customers in 2021

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