Digital Campaign Builds Awareness for Fast ER Wait Times

Olmsted Medical Center
Rochester, Minnesota
2 minute read

In the highly competitive market of Rochester, MN, Olmsted Medical Center finds a way to stand out. 

Opportunity

Olmsted Medical Center (OMC) was looking for a creative way to share information about one of their services in the competitive Rochester, MN market they share with Mayo Clinic. One piece of information the medical center wanted to share was around emergency room wait time.

Outcome

OMC turned to Geonetric and our digital marketing team to create a paid advertising campaign to help build awareness for their ER services.

Impact

Over the course of the 3-month campaign, the GIF ad was viewed over 500,000 times on Google’s Display Network and received 3,248 clicks to the website. Facebook ads had over 83,000 impressions, a total of 3,392 post engagements, and 731 clicks to the website. Both beat industry averages.

“It is always a great experience to partner on projects and campaigns with Geonetric. We appreciate the depth of services beyond website design and development that Geonetric offers healthcare organizations. For this campaign, the wealth of knowledge and expertise about digital strategy was evident from the deliverables to the results.  We look forward to discussing future campaign ideas for other service lines.”

Barb Sorensen, Communications and Web Services Manager
Olmsted Medical Center

With Mayo Clinic in their backyard, OMC is interested in finding creative ways to compete in Rochester, MN. They often focus on their differentiators, such as providing exceptional patient care that is focused on caring, quality, safety, and service.  They are known in the region for their convenient, quality personal care. One place the medical center knew they could deliver better awareness was around emergency room (ER) wait time. OMC turned to Geonetric and our digital marketing team to create a digital advertising campaign to help build awareness for their ER services.

Playing to Strengths

It’s widely known in the area that Mayo Clinic’s ER wait time can be quite lengthy. Depending on how busy the ER is, the wait can be anywhere from 4-6 hours or even longer. In fact, people have been known to post on social media about how long the wait times at Mayo Clinic’s ER are.

On the other hand, OMC has impressive wait times –they average just 11 minutes from being admitted to seeing a healthcare provider. OMC has a great working relationship with Mayo Clinic and will send patients to Mayo Clinic when they require a high level of specialized care. Because of this relationship, patients who present to OMC’s ER with certain symptoms can receive the required tests at OMC and get transferred to Mayo Clinic sooner than if the patient went directly to Mayo Clinic!

Developing the Campaign

To build awareness for their emergency room, Geonetric ran a paid advertising campaign with display ads on Google and Facebook that feature an engaging GIF ad promoting OMC’s 11-minute average wait times. The ads targeted granular geographic regions where people in Rochester would be most likely to be using their mobile phone, browsing online, or on Facebook.

Beating Industry Averages

Over the course of the 3-month campaign, the GIF ad was viewed over 500,000 times on Google’s Display Network and received 3,248 clicks to the website. This is a click-through rate of 0.65%, which is above the industry average of 0.59%.

On Facebook, the ads had over 83,000 impressions, a total of 3,392 post engagements, and 731 clicks to the website. This was a click-through rate of 0.87%, slightly above the industry average of 0.83%.

Since this was an awareness campaign, there was not a custom landing page or place to convert. OMC wanted people to go immediately to their ER if they had an emergency, and didn’t focus on getting phone calls, website visits, or other forms of engagement.

Digital Campaign Builds Awareness for Fast ER Wait Times