Elevating Healthcare Through Smart Brand Strategy

Gene Warren, Director of Marketing at Conway Medical Center (CMC), leads brand strategy, digital engagement and patient-centered communications. With over seven years at CMC, he has driven a complete rebrand, implemented a paid search–focused media strategy and launched key digital tools like the CMCcare app. His work strengthens community connections and reinforces CMC’s commitment to healthcare excellence.

Recognizing Warren’s expertise in healthcare marketing, this interview explores his approach to brand strategy, digital innovation and building trust through patient-focused communication.

• Culture is the Foundation of Brand – True transformation begins from within. Before brand recovery or strategy, aligning culture around a singular vision is what creates lasting impact.

• You Can’t Outspend the Giants – So Don’t Try – Smaller systems can’t compete dollar-for-dollar with regional healthcare giants. Success comes from playing to your strengths, not mimicking competitors.

• Paid Search is the Unsung Hero – When immediacy drives healthcare decisions, paid search outperforms traditional tactics. It delivers direct value, right when people need care.

• Digital-First Is No Longer Optional – With patients turning first to Google and social media, having a strong digital presence is essential—not just for awareness but for trust.

• Emotion Drives Brand Loyalty in Healthcare – Innovation matters, but how a patient feels in your care matters more. Brand strategies grounded in real patient emotion make the biggest impact.

From Crisis to Clarity: My Journey into Healthcare Marketing

I got my start in healthcare a decade ago with my hometown health system, Singing River Health System. At the time, the organization was in the middle of a storm—facing public backlash over financial mismanagement and pension issues. The marketing department was being retooled and the brand needed a hard reset. It wasn’t the easiest environment to walk into, but it was the most formative.

I was brought on to manage social media and coordinate projects internally and with agency partners. In reality, I touched everything—from commercial production and web design to event planning and content strategy. Mornings were spent helping teammates move past roadblocks and afternoons were for creativity—telling the stories that mattered to our patients and community.

That role gave me a full view of how a healthcare marketing team functions during crisis and growth. More importantly, it showed me how culture and vision, when aligned, can transform not just a brand but an entire organization. In that environment, I built the foundation for how I lead today.

In late 2017, I was recruited by Brian Argo—now CEO of Conway Medical Center—who was CFO at the time. He had come to CMC from Singing River, and when the opportunity to join the marketing team here opened, it felt right. Not long after I started, there was a leadership change in the department and I was asked to take on most of the responsibilities of the outgoing director.

It was one of those moments where you either sink or swim—and I swam. I’ve never been a by-the-book type, so the unconventional path worked for me. I leaned into what I’d learned: how to build trust, how to stay flexible and how to keep the focus on the people we serve. That approach still shapes how I lead at Conway today.

Playing To Win: A Smarter Approach to Digital Marketing

Before 2018, the organization mainly used billboards, print ads in the local paper and TV ads on one station. The digital investment was less than $1,000 per month. There was some activity on social media, but it was limited. Overall, the strategy was very much traditional healthcare marketing.

For an organization like CMC, we can’t play the same game as everyone else. The best analogy I can think of is Moneyball: “If we play like the Yankees in here, we’ll get beat by the Yankees out there.” We don’t have the resources of the much larger systems throughout our region, so we must consistently evaluate everything we do. In addition to that, we are in a heavily regulated space that cannot behave the way other industries do. So we had to ask—where can we be different and better?

We looked at our competitive environment (there are four major systems in our market) and looked to pick the game that fit our strengths and then we built upon that. Yes, there is a traditional sales funnel for healthcare, but by and large, most of us look for healthcare with a sense of immediacy, and a paid search strategy was the best move for us. We then put a lot of resources into social media, SEO, organic traffic and online reputation management. We now have a website with millions of page views per year and close to 1 million active users. We perform incredibly well in SERP, and from a social perspective, we are one of the few hospitals in South Carolina that embrace TikTok. We’ve become the highest-rated clinics and hospitals in our area on Google. And we’re not stopping. AI is clearly on the horizon as the next major shift, and we’re already exploring how it can help us better serve patients. That’s the mindset of our team—always building on what works and always looking forward to it.

Rooted In Trust, Built For Tomorrow: Crafting a Brand Strategy

When updating our brand strategy, we didn’t begin with flashy taglines or sweeping visuals—we started by listening. We read hundreds of patient comments, looking hard at how people experienced our care. What stood out wasn’t that we had the most advanced technology (even though we invested in that). It was the emotion behind their words—gratitude and trust.

In healthcare, everyone wants to be “high-tech,” “innovative,” or a “leader.” But when everyone says that, those words lose meaning. The goal for us wasn’t to sound impressive but authentic. We realized our brand had to reflect what our community already felt: that we genuinely care when they come to us. We show up. We try our best to help them live healthier, happier lives. And they feel proud to say, “This is my hospital.”

Internally, our leadership’s consistency was just as critical. Every week, we focus on four pillars: patient satisfaction, employee satisfaction, quality and financial sustainability. These aren’t buzzwords—they’re how we operate. When leadership is that clear and steady, it becomes culture. And when culture aligns with the brand, patients feel it.

Marketing makes a promise on behalf of the organization. But it doesn’t matter how clever our campaigns are if the patient experience doesn’t live up to that promise. That’s why our brand isn’t just a message—it’s a mirror. It reflects who we are, what we stand for, and the kind of experience people can count on when they walk through our doors.

Crisis to Connection: How Media and Teamwork Elevated Community Trust

The COVID-19 pandemic was a defining moment for public health and how we, as healthcare communicators, served our communities. We knew early on that we had a responsibility to inform and reassure. Our media relations strategist, Allyson Floyd, became a familiar face and voice in the local news, hosting daily media briefings that kept our region grounded in facts. Meanwhile, our Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Paul Richardson, stepped forward as a trusted clinical voice, consistently showing up to help the public understand what was happening and what they needed to do.

That consistent presence positioned CMC as the authority in our area during a time of fear and uncertainty. When the first COVID-19 vaccines in South Carolina were administered live at our facility, it wasn’t just a media moment—it symbolized the trust we had built. That visibility, that willingness to lead, strengthened our connection to the community in a way that’s hard to put into words. We weren’t just responding to a crisis but guiding people through it.

But building trust externally starts with building it internally. One of the most important lessons I’ve learned is that marketing doesn’t operate in a vacuum—we hover above the organization, yes, but only to connect the dots, not to stay isolated. Collaboration has to be intentional. It’s about building daily relationships, proving your value and showing up as a real partner.

When we launched the CMCcare app or rolled out a new patient portal, it wasn’t just a marketing win—it resulted from years of groundwork. We had to rebuild the department’s reputation, deliver consistently and advocate for ourselves. We started sharing our performance metrics across the organization to demonstrate what we achieved and how it supported broader goals. Over time, that openness created alignment. Now, we’re seen not as a siloed team pushing messages but as a resource that helps everyone meet their mission. When that happens, patient experience improves because the entire organization is rowing in the same direction.

Leading With Transparency: Why Openness and Feedback Matter

Regarding negotiations, I’ve found that being transparent and direct makes all the difference. Whether working with partners, vendors, or internal stakeholders, we always try to ensure a true partnership where both sides benefit. That kind of approach builds trust quickly and creates relationships that are sustainable over time. It’s never about just getting a deal done—it’s about doing it in a way that aligns with our values and mission to serve patients better.

In a dynamic and heavily regulated space like healthcare, staying grounded in patient feedback is essential. My advice for anyone trying to lead through a customer-centric lens is simple: listen. Patients constantly tell us—directly or indirectly—where we’re excelling and falling short. Then, you need to develop a culture that strives for constant improvement and has goals and incentives around patient satisfaction. As marketers, we love bright, shiny, fun, delightful ideas regarding patient/customer experience, but most of the time, getting the basics right makes the most significant difference.