With new leadership in place, there were many changes happening at Lawrence Medical Center in Lawrence County, Alabama. The hospital had never consistently marketed itself within the community and had never developed a consistently used brand. Additionally, the hospital was getting a brand new state-of-the-art MRI and was beginning to make other changes to add to or upgrade its other service lines. With all of the changes, Lawrence Medical Center selected Red Sage as its partner to create a 12-month communications plan that would help develop a strong brand message and increase positive awareness of the hospital ands its services within the community.

Red Sage initiated the planning process by facilitating five different focus group sessions that included SWOT Analysis, and discussed messaging and message delivery to target audiences that included the general public, patients, employees, and physicians. The meetings helped identify strengths and service lines that could be promoted better and public relations activities that had been previously used successfully. One of the major items that came out of the meetings was the need for the hospital to add a marketing person to their staff to handle the increase in marketing and public relations activities, especially with relationship building within the community.

Red Sage developed a comprehensive 12-month communications plan that not only included recommendations for advertising and marketing activities, but also made recommendations for improving patient, physician, and employee communications. The plan was developed to be an actionable workbook that would provide everything the hospital needed to execute the plan, including budgets, schedules, and contacts. Red Sage also developed variations of the plan to create smaller campaigns that could be executed at lower budgets. Additionally, Red Sage developed an exterior signage plan to improve brand visibility at each of its facilities.

In the end, Lawrence Medical Center was given a flexible communications plan that could be revised to fit their staffing and budget needs. If they chose to hire a marketing staff member, the plan would serve as a guide for this person’s job responsibilities. They had also gained valuable insight from the meetings about their internal communications and employees’ perceptions.