Why Video is Such an Important Part of Healthcare Marketing
As Grey Sky Films celebrates its 25th anniversary, we’ve taken a look back on our portfolio of work and celebrated the breadth and depth of the industries, products, and services we’ve created video productions for. Throughout May & June, we revisited our work in the healthcare sector, remembering and recounting projects we’ve done for healthcare organizations like Hunterdon Health and Montefiore Nyack Hospital. There are a few facets that make this space so compelling: its complexity, how dramatically it’s evolved in recent years, and its deepening need for video marketing.
Unlike decades ago, video marketing is a necessity for healthcare organizations, not a nice-to-have. This is as much a reflection of cultural change as it is of world-changing innovation seen over the years. It speaks to the mindset of today’s typical prospective patient: curious, savvy, and with a desire to advocate for their own health and command over their healthcare choices. The pertinence of video in healthcare marketing is also a reflection of today’s competitive environment. We have seemingly endless options when it comes to selecting a healthcare provider or facility. Add to this our modern world of content marketing, and it’s clear why video marketing is a must in the big picture for hospitals, specialty care organizations, diagnostic services, and more.
From the patient perspective, in a time when there are more choices than ever, deciding where to go and for what purposes can feel overwhelming. Making healthcare decisions always carries an emotional component, and this is heightened when there’s an urgent health matter at hand. Between looking at who’s in-network, what facilities are accessible location-wise, reading reviews, and asking for referrals, choosing the right provider can feel like information overload. Add to this those specific situations where someone is in dire need of immediate care, and you have the perfect storm of emotionally-driven decision making with a confusing onslaught of data to triangulate. All the more reason for healthcare organizations to invest in a solid digital and broadcast presence—because if you’re visible, there’s more of a chance you’ll be top-of-mind.
Why the Best Video Work Comes From Partnership
A Video Vendor Takes the Order. A Video Partner Asks Better Questions.
The first conversation with a production company often starts with a familiar question: ‘How much does a video cost?’
It is a fair question. Budget matters. Scope matters. Nobody wants to waste time. But if a production company gives a firm number without asking real questions, that should probably set off an alarm.
Because the cost of a video depends on what the video needs to accomplish.
- What is the goal?
- Who is the audience?
- Where will the video live?
- Is this for a website, paid media, LinkedIn, recruitment, sales, training, or internal communication?
- Who is on camera?
- How many locations are involved?
- Is this a single deliverable or part of a larger campaign?
- What does success actually look like?
Those questions are not a delay tactic. They are the beginning of strategy.
A true video production partner does not just ask what you want made. They ask why it matters, who it needs to reach, and how the final content will be used.
That is where the relationship changes. The client brings expertise about their brand, industry, audience, product, culture, and internal goals. The production team brings expertise in storytelling, production, creative execution, logistics, performance, editing, and content strategy.
When those two areas of expertise work together, the final video gets stronger.
Video in Healthcare Marketing Isn’t Always About the Marketing
Given the broad array of options available to prospective patients, first and foremost among any healthcare organization’s goals is simply letting the world know you exist. But getting the word out isn’t enough. Healthcare topics—whether they’re concerning diagnostics, surgery, specific health conditions, or pharmaceuticals—carry complexities most industries simply lack. So as a marketer in this field, your job is often equally complex. Your marketing content needs to communicate that, yes, you exist; but it needs to do much more. It also needs to describe what your clinicians and other staff do, the technology you use, and other facets that make your facility unique – and it needs to do it without the jargon.
Even beyond this, while some content may be for the more obvious marketing purposes, (for example, a commercial about a new service line), there are many other purposes for creating external (and even internal) content. Outbound marketing content may be needed for a product launch, or maybe there’s an upcoming fundraiser where there’s an opportunity to highlight the value of a new department (like this spot we did for Hunterdon Health). You may have recently added a new lifesaving technology, launched a new method of medication delivery, kicked off a recruiting campaign, revamped your brand, or if you’re in public health, you may need to drive immediate awareness about a current concern. In any of these cases, you need to build something with impact, something that tells the story while staying compliant and balancing the requirements from all your stakeholders. And, chances are, you also want to reach people across socio-economic groups with any level of education or technical knowledge. Accomplishing all this is generally anything but easy and straightforward.
We get it. We understand that while building general brand awareness is the pinnacle of importance for healthcare organizations, education and connection are really the heart. Because, if you’re in healthcare marketing, TRUST is paramount—and it can be harder to gain here than in many other industries. That trust is built through understanding. So, your external content needs to be clear, inviting, relatable, and most importantly: authentic. The storytelling approach has to strike just the right balance: Tell the truth. Communicate how it helps.
All aspects of this landscape taken together make it obvious why video in particular is such an incredibly necessary, and powerful, tool in healthcare marketing. Despite its cliché, “a picture is worth a 1000 words” holds true. Chief among all reasons to leverage video, especially in this sector, is that imperative of building trust. Whether it’s featured on your organization’s website, social media, at community events, or in paid advertising, video provides unparalleled potential for creating transparency and conveying complex information with speed and clarity. A hospital may have excellent written content describing their departments, facilities, technologies, and staff; but the addition of a video of the building itself and the faces of its employees can enhance the strength and effectiveness of that information many times over. Whether your organization’s goal is to improve public healthcare literacy or promote a service line, video content is uniquely positioned to bridge even the largest gaps.
Grey Sky Films’ Work in Healthcare
Filming for the healthcare industry requires the highest levels of contextual awareness & on-set vigilance—not only because it’s a highly-regulated industry, but because of the emotional element. For example, filming in an active hospital carries risk for everyone involved (privacy, safety, compliance), but it’s risk that can be aptly managed if all collaborators are experienced, well-informed, and always communicating. This is the type of knowledge that gets built over time, through a lot of observation, conversation, and hours on the job.
Grey Sky Films’ work in healthcare has run the gamut. We’ve made videos in the explainer, disease prevention, community events, recruitment, internal communications, and advertising categories for a wide array of clients and audiences. Through our work on many projects, we’ve learned the ins and outs of what it means to collaborate successfully within a highly-regulated industry. The expertise we’ve built has brought us the honor of being the preferred video production partner for organizations like Montefiore Nyack Hospital, among others.
Some of the skills and knowledge we’ve employed when working in healthcare is very specific to the sector itself. Some, though, are things we always bring to the table. At Grey Sky Films, regardless of which industry a project is for, we’re not simply making videos. We’re creating an artifact for a particular purpose, with a set of business goals and specific audiences in mind. We’re creating content that maps to all of this, as well as the platform or channel through which that content will be delivered. This means that, agnostic of the industry, there’s a lot to dig into before anyone calls out, “Action!” Our approach combines insight into various industries, deep filmmaking processes, and creative direction that provides clients with meaningful storytelling that realizes their vision while meeting business needs.
Our diligence is partly inspired by who we are and how much we care about what we do. It’s also inspired by our desire to do more than just fill up our project calendar. We love what we do, but we enjoy it even more when we build relationships that create forever clients. One of the ways we’ve become the go-to agency for clients across industries is this: starting all of our projects with the often overlooked Needs Assessment. Basically, ask questions, ask questions, ask more questions. Uncover the potential delta between what someone’s describing and what they’re truly asking for. And outside of client conversations, we explore the relevant landscape and build as much context as possible. This enables us to figure out what we’re designing, be optimally creative, and to pivot more easily when challenges pop up. At times it can seem as though we’re reaching for more information than we need to get going on a project, but when clients are open to getting into the details with us, everything goes more smoothly and everyone ends up happier with the results.
In the realm of healthcare, we’re able to do one of the things we love most: tell relatable stories and humanize an industry. One of the ways we do this is through patient stories, using our documentarian approach to capturing and sharing real situations. This is so important when it comes to healthcare, because it’s an authentic, powerful way to help prospective patients and their families understand health conditions, available treatments, and how an organization can provide those. An example we’re deeply proud of is this video spot sharing Mickey Coleman’s story of surviving a “widowmaker” heart attack.
Another way we’ve helped illustrate the capabilities of healthcare organizations is by showcasing its facilities and staff members, as we’ve done for Montefiore Nyack Hospital. From a filmmaking perspective, this is where things can become truly complicated. We’ve recently shared an inside look at our work with this client, with whom we’ve been collaborating for 9 years (and made the Mickey Coleman video for). Our relationship with Montefiore Nyack began with an event-related project, and led to much more complex productions that took place within the hospital itself.
Grey Sky Films’ Work with Montefiore Nyack Hospital
Our projects involving filming onsite at Montefiore Nyack Hospital represent some of the most challenging and fulfilling work we’ve done—not only because of the work itself, but the wonderful client/agency partnership we’ve built over the years. For on-location hospital shoots, there’s a lot to coordinate in advance and even more to be on top of when filming. We’re fortunate to have a team with expert-level skills in managing myriad moving pieces and ensuring nothing falls through the cracks. We’re even more fortunate to have the kind strong, collaborative relationship with our client that creates space for us to do our best work.
Years ago, Grey Sky filmed facility overview videos of Montefiore Nyack Hospital after the completion of their monumental transformation project, when this community hospital conducted a dramatic expansion of their existing departments and added new ones. And more recently, we had the honor of creating a commercial unveiling Montefiore Nyack’s first-ever tagline, “Your health. Our Mission,” reflecting the hospital’s culture of community and consideration for all. The client came to us with their general idea, and we provided creative direction to build the script, cast, and all details of the production.
This project was unique, exciting, and challenging, especially because the client decided that the best people to showcase the hospital were the ones who powered it. Instead of bringing in actors to play the staff, the actual hospital employees were the stars. This included everyone from clinicians and technicians to maintenance staff, IT and aides. What better way to illustrate the culture, capabilities, and talent this hospital has to offer its community? Because, as our client put it, the hospital’s mission doesn’t only apply to the health of its patients, but also its team members.
Montefiore Nyack’s rebrand campaign called for a full-blown Hollywood-style shoot, and it took place over the course of 4 days. Again, things don’t just magically come together on the day-of; everything has to be thoroughly planned and there must be contingencies for every foreseeable eventuality. So, as always, we visited the site with our client in advance and talked through all the specifics. The team spoke with all the participating staff members so we could understand them and their level of comfort in front of the camera well before the big day, and Mark provided coaching so everyone could feel confident and ready. The production was designed to highlight multiple locations throughout the hospital. We rehearsed various scenarios, considering the large amount of bulky gear we’d be carrying throughout the building, making sure we’d know how to move the team safely through each area as we filmed.
If you’ve read our other recent posts, you may have seen us mention another thing we’re very passionate about: creating a 360o ecosystem. This was part of the overarching plan, as well. So, during pre-production, we also took into account the types of shots we wanted to capture for social media and streaming contexts. We crafted the script and shots so that each cast member from the staff said a line that could be used in content shared through social media & other channels.
Grey Sky Films went all out with this production. There were set designers, hair & makeup, catering, actors portraying patients, wardrobe…the works. As prepared and organized as we were, there was still some real-time pivoting to be done, like adjusting the shoot schedule around unexpected emergencies, and having to film social media shots in front of a green screen. Because we’d done this sort of shoot (and so many others!) before, our team knew what to do. And given how unique a hospital is as a filming location, there was a lot to do.
Here are some things video production teams need to think about when filming in an active hospital:
- Privacy, privacy, privacy. And regulatory matters. What’s hanging on the walls? What imagery is on that computer monitor? Did you make sure none of the patients ended up on camera or audio (unless they gave express permission!)?
- What time does each department open, and did you plan your shoot so that you’re filming in as many as possible before they open?
- What gear are you bringing and how well can you maneuver it through each area of the building? Can you get out of the way very quickly when you need to?
- A hospital is an intense place. There are patients and their families there, all of whom may be in dire situations or at least in heightened emotional states. And an emergency can happen at any time. We experienced this firsthand, for example when we were filming in the Cardiac Lab and an emergency patient was brought in during an interview with a clinician, and we had to become virtually invisible with immediacy and sensitivity.
- The staff are generally under an immense amount of pressure; sources of stress are everywhere. The last thing you want is to add to that, so the human component is just as important as any other factor of your shoot. Before anyone starts giving “orders” to the cast, you have to put yourself in their shoes and practice sensitivity, kindness, and patience.
We’re very proud of the way the Montefiore Nyack Hospital rebrand videos came out, and we continue to be honored by the trust our client has in us, and eternally grateful to our profoundly skilled crew members. Since the inception of our working relationship with Montefiore Nyack, we’ve had the pleasure of working with Lauren Malone, the organization’s Associate Vice President Public Relations & Marketing. We can’t say enough about how great it always is to collaborate with her and her team, and we feel privileged by what she had to say about working with Grey Sky Films…
The Grey Sky Films crew members are consummate professionals who are very respectful of the hospital environment. When we filmed “Your Health, Our Mission, Mark & Dana seamlessly ran the show, and every detail was preplanned, so they were ready for anything.
The crew had a large amount of gear and had to be mobile & nimble to work successfully in the environment. When filming in an active patient area, they were prepared to leave on a dime if an emergency arose.
As our cast members are hospital employees, Mark took the time to learn about each of them so he could be prepared to coach them and help them feel comfortable on the day of. This dynamic with the staff made for smooth filming, which kept us on schedule and made for a pleasant experience for all involved.
And here’s sort of a sidenote: Montefiore Nyack Hospital is within NYC’s studio zone (a certain radius extending outward from Columbus Circle in Manhattan as defined by film-related unions), so we’ve had the opportunity to serve as the location for some fairly big productions. “The Following,” starring Kevin Bacon, is one example. And I can honestly say: Grey Sky Films operates with the same level of professionalism, process, and quality as these big studio productions.
We’re humbled by these words and looking forward to what’s next for all of us. With that, we’ll leave you with a look at some of the work from this very shoot.
