By: John Lavey | Hammock President/COO

We’ve observed an interesting nuance in the language used in marketing materials for behavioral health specialists—they refer to their customers as clients, not patients.

It’s a subtle difference, but it implies that the individual being served is involved in ongoing care. The language has evolved to encompass continuing care, not just one-off transactions.

However, in other healthcare categories, marketers still typically use the language of patient and provider, implying that healthcare is a series of transactions and treatments rather than an ongoing journey.

When it comes to building long-term client relationships, I think behavioral healthcare providers have it right. Their language focuses on nurturing an evolving, open-ended customer relationship. Acute care providers, on the other hand, subtly communicate with their language that patients are problems needed to be “fixed,” and that care is not a collaborative process.

What do clients want from healthcare? Research tells us that they want engagement, service, quality and safety more than anything else from their experience. What can you do to nurture a relationship based on engaging clients, providing amazing service, demonstrating quality and assuring safe outcomes?

Accompany your clients on a journey of caring treatment and clear communication—because the best content marketing is relational, not transactional.

About Hammock Healthcare Idea Email | This post is part of Hammock’s award-winning Idea Email series. Idea Emails are sent every other week and share one insightful marketing idea. Idea Email comes in two flavors: Original and Healthcare. To subscribe to the original Idea Email (general marketing ideas), click here . To subscribe to the Healthcare Idea Email (healthcare marketing ideas), click here.