Integrated Marketing: Measuring Results at the Medical University of South Carolina

by Kris Rusch

With four hospitals and 120 off-campus care settings located throughout South Carolina, the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) relies heavily on integrated marketing, according to Jane E. Kelley, MUSC’s interactive marketing manager. Integrated marketing is defined in numerous ways, but the term generally refers to deploying a strategic blend of traditional and digital media to achieve marketing goals.

Kelley credits the integration of digi- tal media for drastically improving patient participation in MUSC’s celebration of National Doctor’s Day (March 30). Kelley says, “One year, we sent postcards asking people to go to a community blog to submit a story.” That approach, when combined with a newspaper ad, generated “maybe 20” stories, she says.

In contrast, for Doctor’s Day this year, MUSC marketing launched a Twitter campaign and also promoted a paid Facebook campaign in which they asked readers to share stories about their MUSC physicians, invited people to share stories in the comments section, and promised to forward the comments to the physicians named. That strategy exceeded expectations, Kelley says, drawing praises for MUSC physicians from more than a hundred unique users, which Kelley can now nurture as brand ambassadors.

Integrated efforts are clearly valued by marketing professionals, who can mine such results for future campaigns. But can they be measured in terms of their contributions to revenue and justified on financial grounds? Kelley and her colleague Mark Samber, manager of digital strategy at MUSC, say yes.

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