The highlight of Stephanie Herbst-Lucke’s undergraduate Marketing Strategy course is a capstone project completed with a real company or organization. For the past three years, Herbst-Lucke’s students have collaborated with Piedmont Hospital to address a business problem. The partnership began after Douwe Bergsma, Piedmont’s chief marketing officer, guest lectured in Herbst-Lucke’s class.
“Our first objective is to help students graduate and find a job,” Bergsma said. “The second objective is to get new insights and ideas from students.”
This past spring, Herbst-Lucke’s students were faced with a pretty ambitious challenge: to improve the reputation of Georgia’s healthcare system, ultimately influencing industry leaders’ opinion of the state and making it an appealing location for corporate headquarters. Piedmont named the campaign Quality Georgia.
“Atlanta almost always appears on lists of destination cities for companies, along with places like Dallas and Austin,” Herbst-Lucke said. “These cities have business-friendly policies, a relatively low cost of living, a high level of public amenities, and great airports.”
However, in 2023, WalletHub ranked Georgia #44 in the nation for healthcare. As the largest health system in the state with 23 hospitals, 72 urgent care facilities, and nearly 2,000 physician practices, Piedmont is positioned to change the narrative.
Herbst-Lucke’s students developed a comprehensive marketing plan including messaging, a promotional calendar, performance metrics, and a budget. Key deliverables included social media assets and a website showcasing Piedmont’s community initiatives.
“Our target market included human resources representatives, lawyers, and board members because those are the people who dictate where a company operates,” said Colby Lombard, a marketing major who worked on the project.
Marketing Strategy students presented their recommendations to Piedmont Healthcare's chief marketing officer at the nonprofit's headquarters.
The group further refined the strategy through geotargeting.
“We targeted New York, Los Angeles, and Atlanta,” said Zohair Najam, another marketing major and group member. “Those cities receive a high volume of travelers, especially business executives.”
All of the students who contributed to Quality Georgia graduated from Robinson in May. The project equipped them with real-world experience that will look good on their resumes and kick-start their careers.
“I learned to think outside of myself as a consumer. I have my own biases regarding which healthcare to choose, what network to be in, and where to live,” Najam said. “The project taught me to delete all of that and think like a marketer. I put myself in the consumers’ shoes to best serve their interests and the interests of the party trying to cater to those consumers.”
The students presented their recommendations to Bergsma and other leaders at Piedmont’s headquarters, enabling them to hone their communication skills as well.
“The students have a portfolio of work experience with a well-known healthcare brand name they can reference during job interviews,” Herbst-Lucke said. “They also have established a network of industry professionals.”
Speaking of networking, a student who worked on the Quality Healthcare project recently accepted a position at Piedmont.
“During the next iteration of this partnership, I’m sure he will be sitting on the other side of a hands-on project with Robinson students,” Bergsma said. “It’s come full circle.”