One of the hardest yet most exciting tasks for a marketer is to spread the word about a product or service without making it seem promotional. About a year ago, Social Panga decided to take up this challenging opportunity with Cytecare Cancer Hospitals.
Cancer as a subject is still largely taboo- we don’t speak about it unless we or someone we know is suffering from it. The topic has severe negative connotations attached to it, and by and large, it is considered a death sentence. In a situation like this, promoting the services offered by a Cancer hospital to mass audiences is a task which has to be handled with extreme sensitivity.
Owing to our experience with handling medical clients in the past, as well as a willingness to innovate, we were able to keep Cytecare’s online messaging extremely compassionate, while also making the topic approachable for the general public. Our communication on Social Media was fine-tuned such that instead of scaring patents and their loved ones about the disease, we gave them positive facts about treatment and inspired them to fight with renewed vigour.
Thanks to this positive approach and consistency in digital activities, Cytecare Cancer Hospitals has won Social Samosa’s Best Social Media Brand award 2018 in the healthcare category.
Objective
There is a certain standard, discipline and moral code that is required for effective Cancer treatment. Cytecare’s target audience needed to be made aware of all the values that the hospital imbibed without seeming preachy, and all the information that they wanted their prospects to be made aware about needed to put across in a tactful yet interesting manner. Our aim was to make the subject of Cancer treatment more approachable and establish Cytecare as thought leaders in the industry.
Execution
To get our message across, we chose three platforms- Facebook to target patients, LinkedIn to target doctors, and Twitter for general awareness.
Our communication strategy relies on three prongs:
- Providing verified and relevant information: For a Cancer treatment hospital, providing relevant and accurate information to the right audience really helps with setting the brand tone. To this end, we have established dedicated properties like #CanCycloPedia, #CytecareCancerExperts, #FBLiveWithCytecare #FightingCancerTheRightWay, and #CytecareFacts. All the medical facts that we push out on the page is verified by Cytecare’s doctors, so it is completely reliable. These properties make people aware about common terms related to cancer treatment, and also give them an insight into how the hospital functions.
- Thought Leadership: We have successfully established ourselves as thought leaders in the field through our digital efforts. We were the first hospital to start FB live sessions with our doctors, where they answer questions and discuss the intricacies of their field in real time. These FB Live sessions have strengthened our positioning and have also gotten us a lot of attention- we saw that our competitors have since started replicating the same model. With every live session, we see a tremendous amount of responses, with questions and comments for days after the session.
- Spreading the message of hope: All the communication that we push out online has a very positive tone to it. Instead of simply telling people about the problems associated with their condition, we offer them solutions, all the while iterating that they have the courage and Cytecare has the expertise to get them through it. One of our properties, #FreedomFromCancer has helped in motivating a lot of people to open up about their fight with Cancer, allowing others to connect with their stories. The campaign is a yearly contest where people are asked to share their stories of going through cancer, or that of someone they love. For both years that it was run, we have received an outpour of truly inspirational stories that transform our audience into a huge community.
Result
In just a year we have not only spread awareness about what Cytecare as a brand stands for, but also managed to position them as thought leaders in the field of cancer care. They believe in Fighting Cancer the Right Way & their vision for a cancer-free India is evident in the digital activities. The main agenda behind each campaign is to set a positive tone towards cancer care. Apart from this, doctor branding is also a high priority for the brand, and we have successfully communicated that through our Live sessions an expert videos. Our FB live sessions have reached over 3.5 lakh accounts and garnered 1.7 lakh views!
We are now getting daily enquiries regarding services and consultations. By the end of August 2018, we were able to reach over 4.3 million people digitally, and over 3.6 lakh people have engaged with our communication. These numbers are excellent for a subject that is so niche, and speaks volumes about the relevance and effectiveness of our communication.