Health care marketing, like marketing for any organization,
demands that you understand the needs and wants of a target
market. The concept seems easy enough, but when you start
to dissect it, you discover layers of complexity.
To simplify the subject, it’s helpful to think of marketing
in terms of external activities and internal activities. External
marketing activities are the things you do to reach out to
potential patients. These are tasks such as placing an ad
in a newspaper, sending a direct mail piece or distributing
a flyer. Internal marketing activities are the efforts of
doctors and staff members to add value to the patient’s
visit. The purpose is to nurture the patient relationship
and, hopefully, obtain referrals from satisfied patients.
Following are some ideas for organizing your healthcare organization’s
external and internal marketing strategies around the needs
and wants of patients and potential patients. The goal is
to increase the return on investment (ROI) of your marketing
dollars.
Before you spend a penny on advertising, you need to spend
some time and money identifying your target market. A thorough
market analysis will reveal your core patients and describe
their lifestyles as well as their medical needs and purchasing
habits. For instance, a psychographic profile of your clinic’s
market could reveal a large number of active, retired people
in a middle-to-upper income range. Your market research company
should pinpoint the exact addresses of the people who belong
to this group in your market area.
Once you understand the types of people who make up your high-margin
patient group, you need to make sure that the services you
offer meet these people’s wants and needs. The clinic
in the previous example would determine what kinds of medical
care the people in this market segment desire and then would
make sure that these services are offered.
Once you have defined your target market and have ensured
that your services meet their wants and needs, you can target
your marketing approach to appeal to them. Don’t make
the mistake of using a “shotgun” approach to attempt
to attract all available people in the marketplace as patients.
Just as retailers do, target your marketing efforts to the
high-margin groups you identified in your marketing research.
Using the previous example, the clinic’s marketing director
would devise a strategy to target the active, retired people
in the market segment. A succinct, directed marketing campaign
aimed at core patients will provide a greater ROI than a campaign
that attempts to reach out to all demographic and psychographic
groups.
Some of the least expensive and most effective marketing efforts
are the internal ones that enhance your facility’s professional
image and improve the patient’s experience with your
services. Keep these ideas in mind for internally marketing
your organization.
Usually a patients’ first contact with your office is
by telephone. Make sure that the people who answer the phones
are professional and friendly. If you use a call routing system,
make sure that patients can quickly reach the appropriate
person without having to sort through complicated phone menus.
Make sure that the health history paperwork you ask patients
to fill out is professionally designed and printed. It can
damage the credibility of the organization to give a patient
a poorly designed, photocopied form. .
Continue
your contact with patients by sending a “Welcome Letter”
after a first visit. A short note explaining that you value
their patronage can have a lasting, positive effect on the medical
provider/patient relationship. When patients refer other patients,
be sure to send the original patient a thank you note for the
referral. Again, it’s a simple, yet effective, way to
strengthen the relationship. Healthcare marketing is often
a matter of common sense. Once you know your core patients,
and you know where they live, you can reach out to them in
a way that appeals to their wants and needs.
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Market to Patients' Wants and Needs - (continued) 
