“The more things change, the more they stay the same.” We’ve all heard the expression, and it’s still true—even in the ever-changing world of marketing, even in our age of smartphones, marketing automation and social media.

Some of the most effective marketing tools at your disposal were around long before Al Gore invented the Internet. Perhaps the most powerful of those time-tested tools is the custom magazine.

“Print is dead.” If you’ve heard it once, you’ve heard it a thousand times.

These days it’s impossible to go very long without reading or hearing about how smartphones and tablets are replacing printed materials. But while it’s 100% true in many respects, there’s one medium where print still reigns: magazines.

There’s a common belief that only older people read magazines. Even if you’ve read about how custom magazines drive online sales and web traffic, you may be hesitant to spend time planning and launching a custom publication for your organization for fear of a slow and steady decline as the Baby Boomers get older.

Chances are you’ve been told to prioritize the growth of one of your hospital’s service lines, or maybe even more than one. But when every hospital is trying to do the same thing, how can you set yours apart from the rest?

Today’s marketing landscape offers a hundred different ways to promote your services, with everything from email to blogging to paid ads on search engines and social media. All of those tools rightfully have prominent positions in your marketing plan, but if you want to stand out, print is still one of your best bets.

Hospital marketing may not have been much like rocket science twenty years ago, but with new technologies, stricter regulations, and evolving corporate structures rocking the industry, it probably feels like you’re alone in NASA Mission Control trying to get a rocket off the ground all by yourself.

If you’re looking to continue your success and set your hospital apart from its competition, you’ve got to make the most of your time and use the most efficient tools possible.

Even in this age of email, blogs, and social networks, some of the best marketing tools around are still the ones you have to send off to a professional printer when you’re done with them instead of publishing with a single click of your mouse. Sure, print costs more—but it also drives real results.

One of those print marketing tools is a service line piece, a mini magazine that can fuel your hospital’s growth long after liftoff. With a much tighter focus than a full-size magazine, a service line piece—or a series of them—offers flexibility in an easily accessible format. Here are five ways such a piece or series can fuel service line growth at your hospital.

There are many ways to publish content these days, many ways to share your hospital’s message with the masses. The trick is to decide which of those options is the most reliable, the most likely to give you a return on your investment and cause people to respond to your calls to action or walk through your doors.

Executed properly, almost any method can help you meet your marketing goals. But if you’re looking for a medium that’s more trusted than any other, that’s read by people of all ages, and that drives online traffic and sales, look no further than the print staple, the custom magazine.

What exactly is a custom magazine, though? Just how custom is it? Keep reading to find out what makes this marketing tool so special and how it can help your hospital’s brand grow by leaps and bounds.