A 21 Gun Salute to the RBMA Quest Marketing Award Winners

On Monday, March 10, the RBMA Quest Marketing Award winners were announced during the organization’s annual Building Better Radiology marketing Programs in Long Beach. Three winners were selected in each of six categories by a panel of judges that included peers as well as marketing executives from friendly vendor organizations. Three People’s Choice winners were selected on-site by attendees.

Here is our salute to the 21 winners:

Websites

1. vRad® Future of Radiology Microsite

Gold Award: vRad set out to create a microsite to host its findings-based national benchmarking metrics, the RPC^SM (Radiology Patient Care) indices. Their goals were to present the indices through infographics and create a rich environment that would keep visitors on the site exploring; ease of navigation; multiple touch points to encourage response/leads. Compared against statistics on the corporate home site, visitors are up 50%, page views increased 112%, and time on site increased 83%.

2. Charlotte Radiology Vein & Vascular Center Web Site

Silver Award: The website promotes and positions Charlotte Radiology as area experts in minimally invasive varicose vein treatment in a consumer-friendly way that employs rollover links for navigation. In several calls-to-action, the site features a Vein IQ test that enables patients to pre-screen themselves by checking various symptoms, which lead to a prompt for those patients to consider scheduling an appointment.

3. TRA Medical Imaging Web Site Redesign

Bronze Award: In its transition from an outsourced site to bringing web-site maintenance in-house, the Tacoma, WA-based practice implemented a content management system and redesigned the website to improve navigation and reflect the brand and its breadth of services, including teleradiology. Content and text was simplified.

Advertising

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Gold Award: To launch a comprehensive lung-cancer screening program at four of its outpatient clinics, the Charlotte-based practice developed complementary advertisements aimed at consumers and referring physicians that featured a pair of ashtrays in the shape of lungs filled with cigarette butts. Verbiage highlighted relevant findings from the NLST study.

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Bronze Award: The Corpus Christi, TX-based practice already had a television campaign underway promoting its locations and services when it was approached by a local television station with an offer it didn’t refuse. RA called the campaign the “softer side of Radiology Associates,” and featured a series of images of children and adults solicited from employees (no stock photos) with music but no voiceover that humanized the practice’s story.

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Silver Award: The Villages, FL-based practice launched a compelling print campaign to remind patients that despite what they read in their newspapers, an annual mammogram beginning at age 40 is the best way to find early-stage breast cancer, which has a 95% cure rate.

Patient-centered Marketing

7. Gem State Radiology’s IMI Value + Quality Campaign

Gold Award: In order to start the conversation about price for its outpatient imaging centers, Intermountain Medical Imaging (IMI), the practice created a campaign to highlight the pricing differences between outpatient imaging and hospital-based imaging. To overcome misgivings of its affiliated hospital, IMI agreed to concentrate billboards and direct mail efforts in zip codes where it saw few patients. Results: An additional 1,200 web site visits resulted each week that followed a direct mail drop, 200 inquiries on a dedicated phone line, and 70 online price quotes.

8. Riverside Radiology and Interventional Associates’ “No More Pain” Campaign

Silver Award: The Columbus, OH-based practice built a targeted marketing campaign to promote the the practice’s vein center north of Columbus to patients with varicose veins, specifically designed to appeal to the demographic and psychographic profiles of three distinct customer profiles.

9. Carol Milgard Breast Center, c/o TRA, 3D Mammography Campaign

Bronze Award: When the breast center acquired breast tomosynthesis technology, it built a marketing campaign to educate patients about the 3D technology, its benefits, cost (none to patient), and what to expect from the exam. As a result, the breast center was booked two weeks out through end of year.

Physician Marketing

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Gold Award: Using the tagline, “your smart phone just got even smarter,” the marketing team created a smart phone app that supports referring physicians in matching exams ordered to a given indication, whether contrast is indicated, and CPT codes and patient prep for the examination, as well as information on locations and radiologists, generating 450 URL hits since October.

11. UVA Imaging’s What Are You Thankful For? Campaign

Silver Award: University of Virginia Imaging in Charlottesville turned the Thanksgiving season into an opportunity to connect with referrers when it created a Happy Thanksgiving flyer that expressed gratitude for their business—and a quirky collection of other wonderful things in life. A drawing for a $25 grocery store gift certificate encouraged recipients to engage by visiting the Web site and sharing something they were grateful for, generating a 12.8% response and, ultimately, increasing revenue from the targeted referrers by 27%.

12. Carol Millard Breast Center/TRA Medical Imaging Strike-out Cancer Open House

Bronze Award: Shortly after taking delivery of its new tomosynthesis technology, the Carol Milgard Breast Center and TRA Medical Imaging held an open house to educate referrers and their staff about tomosynthesis and reinforce TRA’s position as leader in breast imaging. A presentation by the radiologists introduced referrers to the technology and how it worked, followed by food, drink, and prizes that drove home the event’s baseball theme: Rainiers tickets.

Cause-related marketing

13. Riverside Radiology’s Put ‘em Up Against Breast Cancer Campaign

Gold Award: Riverside Radiology & Interventional Associates teamed up with multiple health systems to promote the importance of annual screening exams and engage hospital staff as ambassadors of breast health. Initiated to support one hospital’s “Ladies Night Out” fundraiser, the feisty pink boxing-glove theme grew into a multi-site photo shoot of hospital personnel wearing the boxing gloves to support the tagline: Put ‘em up, breast cancer, you’re going down!

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Silver Award: This Corpus Christi, TX-based practice leveraged Halloween in building excitement as the flagship sponsor of the American Cancer Society’s annual October breast cancer awareness month with the battle cry, “a pink pumpkin on every porch.” The practice formed teams for a Breast Cancer Walk, signed up supporters, and convinced a toy vendor to manufacture 2,000 pink Halloween pumpkins. With an assist from the television station that broadcast from the event, RA sold 2,000 pink pumpkins for $25 to $30, raising more than $38,000 for the cause.

15. Charlotte Radiology’s BelkGives on the Go Mobile Mammography Campaign

Bronze Award: Charlotte Radiology teamed up with Belk department stores for a multi-state charitable breast cancer awareness and screening program. The campaign seeks to educate women about the importance of annual mammography screening, improve access and convenience for Belk customers, and provide free mammograms to uninsured women. The practice developed an in-store poster, flyers, and appointment cards that were distributed by Belk managers. To date, 4,179 women were screened and 16 cancers were diagnosed.

Ideas that Wow

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Gold Award: In response to administration changes at local hospitals and the need to generate awareness with hospital and business c-suite executives, Charlotte Radiology created a slick-looking piece to tell the practice’s story that looked like an annual report but would have a longer shelf life.

17. Imaging Associates’ Relax, Man Campaign

Silver Award: Using a hefty dose of humor, this Providence, AK-based practice clearly had the male demographic in mind when it created an attention-grabbing print and television campaign promoting the practice’s non-invasive MRI examination to detect prostate cancer with this reassuring tagline: Relax, man, no really: We can look and not touch!

18. EFW Radiology’s One Price, One Visit Campaign

Bronze Award: In the province of Calgary, Canada, the wait time for MRI can be up to eight months, or 24 to 48 hours at a private facility where costs are up to $750 per body part. In a user-friendly, cost-sensitive approach, the practice rolled out a program whereby patients paid $600 (plus an additional $250 if contrast was necessary) for as many images as necessary for a single medical problem, via physician CME evenings for referrers, brochures, postcards, and a notice on their website. MRI went from 33% capacity to 93%.

People’s Choice Awards

19. Raleigh Radiology’s Images Anytime, Anywhere Mobile App Campaign

Gold Award: To promote the availability of a new mobile app from FUJIFILM that enables referring physicians to access images and reports from their smart phones, the Raleigh, NC practice created a clever trifold handout on heavy stock in the shape of an iPhone to announce on-the-go access to the practice’s Synapse PACS, including all of the information a physician needs to get started.

20. Radiology Associates, A Pink Pumpkin on Every Porch Campaign

Silver Award: RBMA members agreed with the judges on the cause-related entry from this Corpus Christi, TX practice, with the battle cry “a pink pumpkin on every porch.” The practice formed teams for a Breast Cancer Walk, signed up supporters, and convinced a toy vendor to manufacture 2,000 pink Halloween pumpkins and then discount them. With an assist from a television station, which broadcast from the event, RA sold 2,000 pink pumpkins for  $25 to $30, raising more than $38,000 for prostheses, wigs, transportation and other forms of support for cancer patients.

21. Reno Diagnostic Centers’ Mom, We Gotta Talk Campaign

Bronze Award: RDC’s unique cause-related marketing entry enlisted humor, poignancy and some of the family’s most important health-care stakeholders—kids—to urge Mom to get her annual mammogram in a video.