The Elliance higher education marketing practice has grown enrollment, endowment and reputation for over 100 colleges and universities including 10 medical schools and healthcare institutions in all 4 major medical traditions o western medicine.
Included below are a few samples of our agency work we have enjoyed delivering for each medical tradition:
O S T E O P A T H I C M E D I C I N E
Transforming Lives. Transforming Generations.
University of the Incarnate Word (UIW), a leading Hispanic-serving institution, owes its existence to the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word, a congregation from France that responded to urgent public health and education needs in South Texas following the U.S. Civil War.
San Antonio and South Texas face severe shortages of culturally competent health professionals — primary care doctors, optometrists, pharmacists, physical therapists and nurses. That shortage, along with entrenched socioeconomic disadvantages, combine to produce a 20-year life span discrepancy between wealthy and poor San Antonio zip codes. UIW seeks to fill the talent gaps through its five health professions schools, and to draw national and global financial support to further education and clinical outreach.
With a new president at the helm and an energized cabinet, UIW wanted to transition from a decade-long expansion agenda to a deeper set of commitments — to students, partners and the communities it served, in the United States and across the border in Mexico.
UIW partnered with Elliance to rebrand and reposition the institution. One-on-one interviews with core faculty revealed a strong but largely unfulfilled desire to return to core mission principles — particularly the celebration and defense of human dignity. First, we developed a new brand, brand position and voice that united disparate audiences and reconnected them to their 150-year-old mission. Next, we developed a coherent design system to redesign the institutional and five new health profession school websites. These sites help UIW recruit prospective students, galvanize alumni and major gift donors, and serve patients through a variety of clinics and community outreach programs.
This is how Elliance summed up UIW’s reason for being: The University of the Incarnate Word is preparing a new generation of health professionals. Beyond state-of-the-art training and facilities for osteopathic medicine, optometry, pharmacy, physical therapy and nursing, they offer a different kind of invitation and welcome. For only when students learn to speak the kind word, and be fully present in the communities they serve, can they manifest the gift of healing for those in need.
After the website launch, all health profession schools are enjoying a healthy growth. The fiercely competitive School of Osteopathic Medicine enrollment is growing by 20% with incoming students with ever higher MCAT scores and science GPA scores. The rebranding and website efforts facilitated securing the largest academic gift in UIW’s history.
A L L O P A T H I C M E D I C I N E
Person to Person (P2P)
Our work with the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine aimed to improve second-look yield, especially among older, non-traditional prospects open to the call to be part of a “different school of medicine.”
New digital and print collateral underscored the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine’s commitment — to be unwavering in attention and care to the healing of patients and the development of medical students.
While research and technology remained a vital part of the story, the remarkable advances in modern medical science did not erase a larger truth — we’ve really only just begun to understand the human body and the human person within.
After the launch of the P2P initiative, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine began shaping the incoming classes with game-changing cohorts of integrative, human-centered and community-minded medical students.
Sometimes it really is brain surgery
Our work for the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center department of minimally invasive neurosurgery recognizes the pioneering advances that offer hope to patients with complex brain and spine disorders, without overlooking the lives involved.
Equalizing this emotional-rational dynamic when communicating to patients and families in a heightened state of urgency requires a nuanced touch.
At the brand level, Elliance balanced the gravitas of the UPMC institutional brand identity/authority, with the personality-driven character of the surgical team.
At the design level, the balance required merging visually dominant animation sequences, with complementary candid photography. At the content level, we struck a balance between the medical data and emotional patient profiles.
Within the first month after launch, Google page one rankings, site traffic, and physician referrals increased significantly — powered by SEO tagging of 200+ conditions and surgical approaches. UPMC officials have described the site as “setting a new standard” for one of the nation’s premier academic medical centers.
C H I R O P R A C T I C M E D I C I N E
Winning prospects and patients together
Our work for New York Chiropractic College, recently renamed to Northeast College of Health Sciences, sought to elevate both a non-invasive, non-pharmaceutical response to a national pain crisis, and attract a high-quality and more mature group of prospects for a three-year professional degree.
Elliance established a brand position, Pursue Perfect Form, that spoke simultaneously — with some inflection — to patients, prospective students and the larger profession.
Pursue Perfect Form, as a brand line, set out to inspire prospective chiropractors and also affirm the care needs and primacy of the patient. It challenges chiropractors to come down from any assumed authority and meet patients on their terms — restoring trust and agency as the bedrock of conservative care.
Far more than chasing ideals, Pursue Perfect Form reminds chiropractors that they treat people across ages and stages, and address a whole life, not a binary (perfect/imperfect) body.
The rebranding and website redesign efforts led to breaking the college’s historic enrollment ceiling by 40%.
N A T U R O P A T H I C M E D I C I N E
Reclaiming agency
Our work for Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine & Health Sciences (SCNM), recently renamed to Sonoran University of Health Sciences, brought a new level of science and evidence to the case for preventative natural medicine, and began to anticipate a future where NDs, MDs, and ODs find complementary roles that always benefit the patient.
When SCNM talks about patients taking responsibility for their own health, about nutrition and lifestyle as medicine, about doctors as facilitators and about the body’s own potential for self-healing, they’re suggesting a return of agency to the individual patient.
In a health care world of persistent uncertainty about costs, insurance and access to care, SCNM recognizes that individual doctors — of all kinds — are also asking how they regain a sense of agency and preserve their own professional well-being.
To speak of this reclamation of agency plainly and simply, SCNM tries to guide naturopathic medicine into the full light of examination, transparency and acceptance. The potential of each medical relationship — across a spectrum of care — should lead to the best possible patient outcomes.
And those patients and stories are simply inspiring. They heal with adoption of whole food plant based diet, regular exercise and breathing exercise regimen. They heal with acupuncture. They heal with homeopathic medicine. They heal with pharmacotherapies. They heal with varieties of naturopathic therapeutics.
If you are seeking a strategic planning agency, higher education marketing agency, or a branding agency for your medical school, view our capabilities and consider partnering with us.
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