The Importance of Knowing Your Patients

By Michelle Matura Hentzell

Consumers have many choices for health care providers or health care related services. So how do you make yourself stand out above your competitors? What makes you different? You want to show to the consumer why you are different and why that it is better. As you think through a direct-to -consumer campaign, there are several things you will want to think about:

1. What is your value to potential patients? Simply stated, you want to clearly define how you provide value. For example, if you have a medical spa, share why your results are better, “Our X treatment decreases cellulite by X% over X months.”

2. Who are or could be your patients? Defining your target market is very important. For example, if you are a physician practice that is doing peripheral vascular disease screenings (PVD), you do not want to promote these screenings to a 20-year-old young woman. An older demographic would be more appropriate.

3. How do you reach these potential patients? There are many communication options to choose from like advertising, articles or speaking engagements to name a few. For example, if you are promoting DEXA screening, you are not going to want to advertise in Maxim Magazine.

There is tremendous marketing and communications power when you know to whom you should be communicating. Finding this information may be simple. Some are as simple as guidelines. You know that colon cancer screening should be occurring at the age of 50 so you know not to communicate to a 20 year-old. Another great place to find patient demographics or segmentation is looking at the make-up of your practice or business. Focusing on the right targets will help you yield positive results.

The Value of Doing Research Before Developing Your Marketing Strategy

By Michelle Matura Hentzell

With any business, including health care related businesses, it is important to do some research before developing your marketing strategy to maximize your return-on-investment. Here are some steps to follow:

1. What is the goal of your research? Do you want to increase revenue or do you need to improve your customer service? Or, are you looking to market a new product or service?

2. Find out the buying habits of the customers in your target market. You can find this information through trade publications, marketing magazines, government reports or your local chamber of commerce. There are also companies where you can purchase data.

3. Conduct a survey. You can do a random mail or telephone survey to test your ideas.

4. Learn as much as you can from your current customers. You can do personal interviews, surveys or focus groups about the products or services you provide.

5. Observe…observe…observe. You can learn valuable information by watching the different points of customer contact in your business, including reception, sales or even customer service.

6. Know your best customers. You can find this information but reviewing your sales records. You can then identify your most profitable products or services so you know where to focus your marketing efforts.

7. Develop your marketing strategy. Once you have collected your data, you can build or re-evaluate your marketing strategy with the appropriate focus.