Marketing & Positioning Strategy

MAPS: your roadmap to sustainable growth.

Our methodology for defining a hospital or health system's marketing and positioning strategy. Evidence instead of guesswork, and a roadmap you can activate, measure, and build on.

Start with a discovery conversation →
A nurse smiling with an older patient during a consultation, the kind of community care a hospital growth strategy is ultimately about.

Brand is not a logo. Brand is what you do.

Brand is not a logo or a tagline. Brand is what an organization does, and how the community experiences that action over time. MAPS gives marketing investment a strategic foundation so that what an organization does, and what it says about itself, point in the same direction.

Without a data-grounded position, marketing spend gets spread thin across tactics that may or may not move the needle. MAPS focuses investment on the audiences, services, and channels that produce measurable share, loyalty, and volume growth.

What MAPS gives you

Three outcomes

One

Clarity

A defined market position, audience, and value proposition rooted in evidence rather than opinion.

Two

Direction

Strategic imperatives and growth priorities aligned to where the opportunity actually lives.

Three

Action

A tactical plan, timeline, and budget the marketing team can activate with confidence.

Why this matters now

70%+use online search before scheduling an appointment
59%pick a provider because of favorable online reviews
60%use digital scheduling to book appointments
94%would switch providers for more convenient access

The MAPS framework: nine connected elements

How it works

Every engagement follows the same nine-element framework, adapted to the organization and the market. The first five are analysis, the next three are strategy, and the ninth is activation. It is a cycle rather than a line: each element informs the next, and the whole loop repeats as the market moves, so every decision in the strategy traces back to evidence in the analysis.

The MAPS cycle: nine connected elementsThe MAPS cycle has nine connected elements. Elements one to five are analysis: market share analysis, competitive review, market factors, preference analysis, and organizational assessment. Elements six to eight are strategy: market insights, positioning strategy, and imperatives. Element nine is activation: execute the tactical plan. The cycle then repeats, with activation feeding the next round of analysis.MAPSMARKETING & POSITIONING STRATEGYA continuous cycle1ANALYSISMarket share analysisInpatient and outpatient share byservice line, plus in and outmigration.2ANALYSISCompetitive reviewShare of voice and media spend,mapped against competitivepositioning.3ANALYSISMarket factorsDemographics and market growthprojections for your service area.4ANALYSISPreference analysisConsumer awareness, preference,and satisfaction from primaryresearch.5ANALYSISOrganizational assessmentAn honest read on competencies and capacity.6STRATEGYMarket insightsA data-driven SWOT and keyindustry perspectives.7STRATEGYPositioning strategyGoals, differentiators, brandstrategy, imperatives.8STRATEGYImperativesMarketing strategies aligned withorganizational priorities.9ACTIVATIONExecute the tactical planMarketing and sales tactical plan, and theannual calendar.
Analysis feeds strategy, strategy feeds activation, and activation feeds the next round of analysis. Markets do not hold still, so neither does the roadmap.

Four phases, 90 to 120 days

1

Discovery, weeks 1 to 3

Stakeholder input sessions, leadership alignment, a comprehensive brand audit, and a review of the organization's strategic plan.

2

Market analysis, weeks 4 to 8

Demographics and market factors, market share analysis, competitive landscape, a primary consumer survey of the service area, and secondary research.

3

Strategy, weeks 9 to 12

Positioning framework, brand promise and commitment, strategic imperatives, audience segmentation, and service line priorities.

4

Implementation plan, weeks 13 to 15

Tactical plan, annual marketing calendar, budget recommendations, and the measurement framework.

What lands on the table

Inside the MAPS report

A MAPS engagement produces one document your team owns and works from. This is what is in it.

1

Project overview and process

How the engagement ran and how to read what follows.

2

Executive summary

The whole strategy in the few pages a board or executive team will actually read.

3

Market landscape

  • National trends
  • Local trends, nuances, and executive insight
  • Target audience
  • Target geography: primary and secondary service areas, mapped
  • Population and demographic factors
  • Competition comparison
  • Consumer sentiment survey findings
  • Market share analysis
  • Goals and objectives

4

Competitive positioning strategy

  • Points of differentiation
  • Strategic imperatives
  • Positioning statement
  • Promise statement
  • Tag line, where one is wanted
  • Commitment statement

5

Growth opportunities and marketing recommendations

  • Service line opportunities
  • Marketing and advertising approach
  • Programs, positions, and offerings

6

Operational considerations and alignment

The factors that help or hinder a growth strategy in practice: capacity, wait times, location, and access. Marketing that ignores them creates demand the organization cannot serve.

7

Tactical plan, timeline, and budget for activation

The part that turns a strategy into work: what runs, when it runs, what it costs, and how it gets measured.

Why this methodology works

What sets it apart

Fluency

Healthcare specialists, every team member

Everyone on the team works exclusively in healthcare and speaks the language of clinical operations, service lines, payer mix, recruitment realities, and patient experience metrics. Engagement time gets spent on strategy, not on educating an agency about hospital operations.

Rigor

A repeatable methodology, refined over decades

MAPS is not improvised for each engagement. It is a proven framework refined across critical access hospitals, regional health systems, and academic medical centers. The structure is consistent; the findings are unique to each market.

Evidence

Defensible at the board level

Every recommendation traces back to market share data, demographic and economic research, primary survey findings, and competitive analysis. The evidence is in the report, which matters when the strategy has to survive a board meeting.

Partnership

Embedded partner, not external vendor

We work alongside your internal marketing team, with knowledge transfer built in. The final deliverable is a permanent strategic asset owned by your organization, documented well enough that future creative, media, and digital partners can plug straight into it.

How the engagement runs

Weekly working sessions with your marketing leadership team. We embed alongside the internal team rather than operating at a distance, which keeps the work grounded in organizational reality and speeds up decisions.

Engagements are led by our most experienced healthcare strategy team: senior strategists, market researchers, brand specialists, and account leadership.

MAPS is scoped to the specific organization and provided in a detailed proposal. Scope reflects the breadth of primary research required, the size of the service area analyzed, and the depth of strategic deliverables produced.

MAPS questions, answered

What does MAPS stand for?

Marketing and Positioning Strategy. It is our methodology for defining where a hospital or health system stands in its market, where the growth is, and what to do about it.

How long does a MAPS engagement take?

90 to 120 days from kickoff to delivered roadmap, across four phases. The timeline varies with the size of the organization, the breadth of the service area, and the depth of primary research required.

Is MAPS only for large health systems?

No. The framework has been applied across critical access hospitals, regional health systems, and academic medical centers. The structure stays consistent and the depth of research scales to the organization and its service area.

What data does MAPS use?

Market share data covering service area utilization and migration patterns, demographic and economic research, population health factors, competitive and quality benchmarks including CMS ratings and patient experience scores, and primary consumer research fielded to your service area.

Do we own the deliverables?

Yes. The completed MAPS package is a permanent strategic asset owned by your organization, not by us. It is documented well enough that other partners can execute against it.

What happens after the roadmap is delivered?

Most organizations move straight into activation, and we can execute the plan with you or hand it to your existing partners. MAPS is also iterative by design: as markets shift, the analysis is refreshed and the strategy adjusts rather than starting over.

How much does a MAPS engagement cost?

It is scoped per organization and set out in a detailed proposal, because the work varies with service area size and how much primary research is needed. A 60-minute discovery conversation is the right place to start.

Let's build your roadmap.

A 60-minute discovery conversation is the right place to begin. From there we develop a scoped MAPS proposal tailored to your organization's priorities, market, and goals.

Talk to our strategy team →