I love it when the underdog prevails. In our business, one of my favorite roles involves helping small hospitals and underfunded healthcare organizations do big-time marketing. Big time doesn’t mean expensive. In fact, my team works to develop marketing programs that can realistically be executed by the healthcare organization given their human and financial resources. One of my mantras is that marketing plans are of no value if they are never acted upon.
Last week my team learned that our client St. Joseph Healthcare in Bangor, Maine, won eight national 2021 Healthcare Advertising Awards. St. Joe’s is a small but mighty organization grounded in the most amazing set of values. They put their community first in all that they do. It makes sense to me that they won gold awards for the community health blog (BeHealthyMaine.com) and their recent COVID-19 health information campaign (The Safe Way Forward). The credit for their success goes to the team at St. Joe’s.
I’ve written about St. Joe’s in the past, sharing the story of their efforts to take on the social and economic determinants of health and health disparities in their region of Maine. It is no small task to take on the opioid epidemic, homelessness, food insecurity, human trafficking, and more. Yet St. Joe’s is doing it by reaching beyond the walls of the hospital to form powerful partnerships with any number of community organizations. It is so rewarding to see that the marketing program that supports St. Joseph Hospital’s work to address health disparities won a silver Healthcare Advertising Award. As we say in the campaign, St. Joe’s is leading with its values!
The team and leadership at St. Joe’s are incredibly humble. They aren’t the type to pat themselves on the back. They want to do great work that will improve the health of their community, not win awards. But from my perspective, the awards are recognition and validation that St. Joe’s is doing high quality marketing and communications that directly support its mission. I offer them my congratulations and appreciation for the opportunity to partner with them on this important work. It has been an honor.
In closing, I’m proud to say I work at Jennings Health where our slogan is “Marketing for Better Health.” We strive to live that every day. We take pride in helping small hospitals and understaffed marketing departments do big things.
The Healthcare Marketer 
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