2008 Roundtable: Return on Investment Success
Winning HealthLeaders Media Marketing Award campaigns must have more than eye-catching advertisements-they need to prove that marketers set high goals at the start of the campaign and then delivered solid return on investment.
One representative from each of the four most notable ROI-achieving winners participated in a 60-minute roundtable discussion to explain how they set, reached, and sometimes exceeded their investment goals.
Alicia Argiz-Lyons, corporate director of public relations at Shriners International Headquarters in Tampa, FL, spoke about the organization’s Platinum award-winning children’s hospital campaign that was created to stress the hospital’s unique care offerings.
“We were hoping after the campaign Shriners wouldn’t be the best kept secret anymore,” she said. And it worked. The campaign generated $8,000 in donations after 11 weeks, averaging $65 per donation. Its television commercial generated 1,768 calls after five weeks.
The Mayo Clinic, which won a Best in Show award for a campaign promoting the opening of a new fitness center to employees, was represented by public affairs consultant Sara Lee. The campaign resulted in a 40% increase in new members. After five months, 4,645 employees, spouses, retirees, and volunteers had joined.
Jane Fielding Ellis, vice president of marketing, public relations, and community health at Holy Name Hospital in Teaneck, NJ, described the hospital’s multimedia campaign promoting its new medical technology, which took home a Platinum award in the Best Marketing Quality category. As a result of the campaign, the oncology department saw 86 new referrals, women’s health had 200 new visits, and the hospital performed 286 new MRIs.
Lastly, Gayle Sweitzer, director of marketing, acute care, and service lines for Community Health Network in Indianapolis, which won a Platinum award in the Best Branding category, said the health system decided to create a branding campaign for its new campus because “we realized there was a real vanilla feel within the community among those who never used us, so we wanted to create intrigue for individuals who had never checked us out.”
The Community Health marketing team set a goal of attracting 2,000 attendees to the new campus’ opening event; more than 7,000 showed up. Sweitzer said that although the health system spent $1.4 million on the campaign, it generated $2.8 million.
–Marianne Aiello
