How to Celebrate Heart Month (And All Other Months)

If you’re like most marketers, you know that February is National Heart Month.

You’ve probably got a line-up of tweets, posts and images ready-to-go on all your channels. But hold on a sec. Before you start blasting everybody with heart healthy recipes, heart healthy advice and heart healthy exercise tips — let’s just take a step back and think about one word you should be thinking about this month:

Strategy.

The problem with all these themed months is that people become blind to all this information and tips you’re sharing. Walk for 30 minutes a day! Eat quinoa! Lift weights! While it’s nice you’re sharing tips — that’s all you’re doing.

If you’re really going to commit to doing some kind of awareness campaign, commit to developing a strategy behind it. Commit to getting your followers to take action — whether it’s through making an appointment, coming in for a screening or an informational seminar.

A cute post of someone running with their puppy with the hashtag #GoRed isn’t going to change someone’s life. But coming into your hospital could.

Here are a few examples of strong CTAs that hospitals are asking patients to take:

Come to An Event

PinnacleHealth is offering five lectures and classes this month to showcase healthy heart living. Classes cover a variety of topics: cooking, heart failure management and breakthrough heart treatments. You can sign up for classes here.

Make a Donation

Nationwide Children’s gets right to heart of it: they’re asking for donations. Their Twitter handle, #NCHheart, sends people to stories about patients who’ve survived difficult heart conditions, along with videos and healthy-living toolkits. Take a look at the landing page.

War Memorial Hospital wants to get their community healthy. They alerted their local news media about their free heart screenings. Not only is this a quick, easy PR move — but it gets people inside the hospital to learn more about what they can do to be heart healthy.