Frequently Asked Questions

Question:
What is the difference between a "marketing strategy" and "marketing plan?"
Answer:
A "marketing strategy" is a blueprint for success. It defines, in broad strokes, where you are now and where you want to be in the future. A "marketing plan" is more specific. It tells you how to go about achieving your "marketing strategy". It specifies what marketing materials are needed, what media and medium choices are best suited to achieve your goals. It also tells you cost, scope and frequency needed for your campaign to succeed and how to leverage initial success for long term success.

Question:
What’s the difference between Marketing and Advertising?
Answer:
Marketing simply means "being in the marketplace". It means that there is information about your practice in the public domain-- in the marketplace. Once there, advertising takes over and tells potential patients or the referral community what you do, why they should contact your office, and why your practice is “better” than the competition. To achieve this we recommend working with a professional, experienced ad agency.

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Question:
Can I use testimonials in my ads?
Answer:
Third party certification about your degree of excellence is permitted and is used effectively by some of the biggest, most prestigious medical institutions. However, it is not permissible for an advertisement for your practice to say specifically that your service is “better” than that of some other physician, medical group, institution, etc. You can, however, point to improved outcomes for your patients as certified by independent third parties.

Question:
Should office brochures be in color?
Answer:Yes. Research shows that color gets a 54% percent higher rate of response then black and white. It costs more to print in color but it’s worth it. Additionally it's a good idea to use photos in an office brochure. Patients are more responsive and comfortable with medical brochures that contain an appropriate ratio of pictures to text. Pictures can, to quote an old axiom, be worth a thousand words.

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Medical Marketing Brings In More Patients– The Proof Is In The Numbers

As medical marketing increases so does patient visits. Surveys indicate that last year the number of patient visits to primary care physicians for routine physical examinations rose by more that 13 percent to over 15.2 million visits. The survey also showed that office visits for Hypertension continued to be the number one reason why patients saw a primary care doctor last year. It accounted for more than 62.3 million office visits.

The data shows that the increases in office visits go hand in hand with the increases in both direct to consumer medical marketing by practitioners and by direct to consumer marketing of prescription medicine by drug companies. The conclusion reached by the data is that increases in the amount of medical marketing drives practice growth. Consumer response grows when awareness is fueled by marketing information which in turn prompts them to visit their doctor more often.

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These survey results support the reports we at DocGrow get from individual practitioners and institutions telling us that their advertising efforts have proven to be an effective and acceptable way to increase patient flow.

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How Does A Marketing Plan Help A Practice?

A well focused marketing plan helps a practice answer questions about where it is now and where it wants to be in the future. It also identifies what steps are needed to get there. A marketing plan is the key that unlocks the full power of the marketing process itself.

Think of your marketing plan as if it were a treatment plan for a patient. With a treatment plan you know, from the start, what results you would like to achieve. You know from experience that good results are more likely to happen after an in-depth evaluation is made of conditions presented. A marketing plan is similar. It presents conditions that exist in the marketplace and evaluates ways to best resolve them in order to achieve the outcome you want.
A marketing plan is much more than a statement about you or your practice such as “quality care is our top priority” or an announcement of services to the patient or referral community.

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A marketing plan is:

• A blueprint for progress.
• A road map to reach your goals.
• An assessment of the number, scope, and marketability of various aspects of your practice.
• A review of budgets, media options, demographics, and competition.
• A decision making instrument that shows how to start a marketing campaign, how to enter the marketplace, what to do now, and what to do latter.
• It clarifies whether its better to promote multiple services in a single ad or single services in multiple ads.
• A guide to making your practice the one patients choose over the others.
  

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Radio - TV’s Step Child: Unglamorous - yes, but it gets the job done.

It’s true, radio is often viewed as the step child of broadcast marketing. It takes a second seat next to TV. However it’s also true that radio gets results and is much cheaper to produce and air than TV. Radio commercials can substantially stretch a practitioner’s ad budget, and when produced right, put extra mileage in his message. We recommend a three point strategy to use radio; plan well, spend wisely, get results. And a three step creative process to insure success.

Step #1 - The script, service, and audience.
Focus on a specific service or procedure and take extra time to carefully write a positive script about it. For example a urologist may wish to promote services or surgery for incontinence. This otherwise hush-hush subject is best served with a script that targets a core audience of adult women.

Step #2 - Who talks to the audience - and how.
To record a radio commercial targeting women needing relief from incontinent problems it is intelligent - in fact a no-brainer - to hire a woman to be the voice behind the script. A female voice with the right sound and tone can add a measure comfort and credibility to the script’s content making it particularly meaningful to a female listener. In addition to quality of vocal presentation it is also very important to included ample address and phone information so a listener can easily reach the office. Remember radio spots are only one minute long - no a lot of time to cover a lot of ground.

Step #3 - Spend wisely on media.
Spending wisely means choosing the right station with the right programming and the right ad placement within that programming. To get premium placement and therefore better listener attention it’s advisable to purchase single sponsor spots instead of random run of station spots. Sponsored spots may include specific coverage such as the news, weather, education, medical commentary, etc. They cost more but do provide some exclusivity which can result in higher listener recall and therefore a better response to the ad message.

Image Building: It puts muscle in your marketing message.

It’s safe to say that almost all marketing, by design or accident, contains image building content. And since people see your ads before they see you they get an image of your practice from your marketing content along with your actual ad message. Having an image and message working in concert with each other will add power to your marketing efforts and move your practice in the direction you choose.

Examples:
Memorial Sloan Kettering
Ad message
“Cancer, where you are treated first makes a difference.”
Image content
Memorial Sloan Kettering is the best cancer treatment facility.

Impath Inc.
Ad message
“The right cancer diagnosis gets patients the right treatment.”
Image content
Impath Inc. is the best cancer diagnostic specialty lab.

NJ Spine Group
Ad message
“Life is a lot better without back and neck pain.”
Image content
NJ Spine relives orthopedic problems and pain to return patients to more normal lifestyle.

What people perceive is what they believe. How you present your practice, the image you create, is therefore just as important as what you say about your specific services. Correct presentation adds muscle to your marketing program, makes it easier for patients to remember you rather than the competition and drives their business to your office.

Practice Enhancement Through Marketing: Why one campaign works better than another.

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again, and again, and again. One campaign works better than another because of basics.The basics make a difference every time. Understand them, embrace them, use them, apply them, follow them and you will have the inside track to achieving positive and responsive results from your marketing materials. And it doesn’t matter what you’re doing; an office brochure, newspaper or magazine ad, bio card, radio or TV spot, direct mail or anything else. The key to success is the same for each. Follow the basics and win. Know the basics and win. Apply the basics and win. Use the basics and win. It’s easy. The basics themselves are basic. Here they are and here’s what they do.

Headlines
Headlines get 5 times more readers than ad text. So make sure you have a compelling headline that describes “at a glance” the benefits of your practice, procedures or services.

Ad Text
Only about 5% percent of readers actually read the text in an ad. And if you don’t capture a reader in the headline as describe above you will never get them in the text. But since all readers are prospective patients it’s important to make every effort to get them in the headline and hope they will read the text. Text should be factual, easy to follow and newsworthy in order to help generate positive responses.

Layout and Design
Use subheads in your the text portion of an ad. It breaks up long copy which is hard to read. Subheads also are necessary when introducing new ideas or making a changes.

Captions
More readers read captions rather than the text in an ad. Captions, when used in conjunction with photos, function like mini ads and are a superior way to get and hold a readers attention.

Photography or illustrations
The right picture is worth a thousand words. Need we say more.

Color Printing
It costs than black and white more but attracts a higher percentage of readers. It reflects quality and has become a standard element for the intelligent presentation of ad materials. Black and white can be used only if it serves some greater visual or creative purpose. If not then it should be avoided.

How To Market A Practice: Test, consult, diagnose, treat, follow-up

Think of a marketing program as if it were a patient. With patients you take a history, gather information, ask question, run tests, consult with colleagues, make a diagnosis and then proceed to treatment and subsequent follow-ups to achieve healthy outcomes.

The same approach works when planning a marketing program for any practice of any size or specialty. For history look at current marketing initiatives from other practices and within the profession itself. Review what other physicians in your specialty are doing and the level of competition they pose for similar services. Ask yourself how you might best promote your practice and its services in today’s new competitive medical reality. Is your specialty effected by seasonal changes, like allergy and immunology, or does your service remain constant, like surgery. Are your services in or out of the insurance loop? Do they apply to a specific gender or age group, or not? Will you target patients locally or attract from a larger geographic region? Once these types of questions are answered you will have an accurate marketing diagnosis and be better equipped to move forward with treatment; the actual creation and placement of ad materials in the marketplace. Next comes the follow-up. Measure results and change what’s indicated to achieve the best outcomes possible.

Internal Marketing: The secrets of an office brochure

Creating a brochure for a medical practice is more difficult than creating one for a business. Yet each needs to do the same thing, namely promote products and services. Business brochures follow a time tested rule for success. They give the reader information, news, helpful hints, and a description of product benefits. They compare price and performance to show customers that their company’s goods and services are better than the competition. They target their audience as specifically as possible and often include testimonials and demonstrations in support of product claims. They do this to get a competitive edge. And it works.

Practice brochures can do the same. They can use the same techniques as business brochures to achieve a competitive edge. However, to do this, to be the same but different, they must be changed in content and context from their counterparts in business and, more importantly, also reflect medicine’s ethical standards. Creating them to achieve a competitive edge for your practice will be helped by:

• Substituting successful outcomes and cure rates for product reliability.
• Substituting experience and number of procedures performed for product acceptance.
• Substituting before and after facts for product demonstrations and testimonials.
• Substituting specific, new medical technologies for industry news and information.
• Substituting women, who are responsible for making upwards of 70% percent of all health care decisions as the right demographic for any industry or business specific demographic.
  

Brochures techniques such as these will keep your internal marketing lively, interesting, informative and well focused - and give you the edge you want.

HMO’s and Shrinking Fees: Can advertising make you a better doctor?

Yes it can. It's no secret that shrinking reimbursement schedules cause distress for just about every physician no matter the practice specialty, size, or reputation. Some, however, see the constraints as a signal to take action on the business side of their practice to grow and prosper. It's not uncommon today for doctors, medical administrators and hospitals to turn to marketing as a reliable way to offset the downward pressures on fees and medical delivery decisions. They understand the need to "go after patients" themselves and concentrate on marketing to promote procedures for better returns on services rendered.

Taking action to carefully target patients and better paying procedures does a lot more than offset fee constraints. Successful action often replaces pessimism and frustration with a new found sense of well being and the knowledge that one's future is back in one's own hands instead of in the hands of third party payors. Solvency also has a remarkable way of returning doctors to their original calling, the "challenges of their profession" and helps them be better doctors.

Practice Enhancement Marketing Materials: How they’re created determines results.

One way to stack the deck in your favor when creating marketing materials is to use time tested techniques that have proven to be successful elsewhere - in both medical and non-medical fields. Proven techniques used in practice enhancement marketing programs will help achieve a decided edge over the competition. Here’s a short list of creative techniques that have proven to drive results in any medium - newspaper, magazine, office literature, radio, TV, direct mail, outdoor, transit, the Internet, or other. They can help any practice cut through the sea of marketing clutter that exists and favorably differentiate it from the competition.

• Avoid generalities. Specifics work better.
• Headlines offering benefits get highest rate of recall.
• The right visual (photo or illustration) can, as the saying goes, "can be worth a thousand words."
• Avoid superlatives. They're never believable.
• Don’t promise what you can’t deliver.
• Avoid illegible copy. Text in white letters on a black background is hard to read.
• Color costs more than black and white but it attracts more readers - so spend more to get more.
• Testimonials need special attention.
• Long copy sells better than short but first get the reader’s attention in the headline.
• Trust your instincts but stay flexible.
• Review your ad materials with a critical eye.

Testimonial Advertising: Is there a place for it in medical marketing?

Tread carefully here. Truth in advertising is paramount for any marketing effort, and truth plus believability is even more paramount. Without both the benefits you might expect to get from investing in a testimonial driven marketing program will do more than just fail - it will produce negative results.

However, on the upside of the limitations on testimonial ads is the fact that they can be effective when handled correctly. For example, ads that illustrate real outcomes for real patients meet the truth/believability criteria and work well. They work even better when they are based on third party certification. This is best seen in marketing campaigns by hospitals that use case histories to document actual success rates for particular procedures. Additionally, testimonials work well when they use favorable quotes by one qualified healthcare professional about another physician or practice. This was done exceptionally well by a plastic surgeon in New York City. His marketing materials contained favorable quotes from a book about plastic surgery for women which was written by another doctor. In it, the author documented favorable patient comments about his caring attitude and exceptional surgical outcomes. However a word of caution is advisable if testimonials are being considered for your marketing campaign. Please remember that you cannot - by law- say in a direct manner that you or your services are better than the competition - be it some other physician, medical group, or institution. You can, however, always point to improved outcomes as a valid, and believable indication of your professional expertise and capabilities.

Marketing’s Buzz Words - Strategy, Planning, Marketing, Advertising: What do they mean? How are they different?

Each is often used interchangeably with the others - yet each is different from the others and adds its own particular dynamic to the impact of a practice enhancement marketing program.

A marketing strategy is a blueprint for success. It defines, in broad strokes where you are now and where you want to be in the future. It’s different than a marketing plan which is more specific about ways to implement the marketing strategy to achieve desired goals. A marketing plan takes the strategy and puts it to work in specific ad materials, media, and mediums. It also specifies the cost, scope and frequency needed for a strategy to succeed and how to leverage that success to achieve long term success.

There is also a difference between the function of the buzz words marketing and advertising. Although they are often used to describe the same function they are, in fact, different. Marketing simply means "being in the marketplace". It means putting information about your practice in the public domain (in the marketplace) by any means whatever. Once there however, the function of advertising is needed to tell potential patients or the referral community specifics why they should choose your practice over the competition.

Allowing strategy, planning, marketing, and advertising to each contribute their own nuance to your practice enhancement efforts can add immeasurably to success rates.

Ancient Greece Meets Medical Marketing– A Compelling Message Gets Results

Admittedly it is a stretch to go from Ancient Greece to medical marketing. However if you suspend skepticism for just a moment you may find, as we did, a connection between the two. The connection is the quality of the message. A compelling message reaps extraordinary benefits. It did so 5,000 years ago for the Ancient Greeks and it does so today for some of the most prestigious medical institutions and practitioners in our country. A quality message can do the same for you, your practice and your bottom line.

5,000 years ago Demosthenes, the head of state in Athens saved Greek civilization from annihilation at the hands of the Persians. He did it with a compelling message that moved the Athenians to take action, rise up, and defeat the Persian army. Today, medicine is faced with its own threat, some even view it as possible annihilation of the profession as we know it. Today’s threat is the HMO and its imposed constraints on medical fees and delivery decisions. In response savvy professionals turn to marketing for relief - and they get it. Like Demosthenes they use compelling ad messages to put threatened autonomy and authority back in their own hands. Look at the record. The most prestigious institutions use marketing. They promote services, physician reputations, success rates and more. Doctors in every specialty do the same. They too use marketing programs with compelling messages to restore practice stability, professional status and revenue.

Healthcare Marketing

Good for patients. Good for doctors.

It’s safe to say that marketing plays an important role in any commerce, healthcare included. It helps business compete for market share by informing consumers of the value they get when they choose one company’s goods, products or services over those of another. It does the same for medicine. It helps compete for market share by informing patients of the value they get when they choose one practice over another - a real plus for any physician in any specialty in today’s competitive medical reality.

A good medical marketing campaign will have, at its heart, a valid promise about the outcome received from the service rendered. This can be anything from prompt relief of symptoms and suffering, better cure rates, improved procedures, faster recovery, less pain, faster return to normal activities, enhanced beauty, better mobility and so on. In addition a good marketing
campaign will be better received when it also reflects a sensitivity to the patient’s feelings about his condition in relation to those services and promised outcomes.

Outcomes promised and sensitivity to patient concerns can add immeasurably to marketing’s success for both the patient and the doctor.

Can A Doctor Afford To Be A Healer? The Loss of Leadership

There is an hidden loss resulting from third party cost cutting measures that is over-shadowed by the more visible reductions in physician fees and medical delivery choices - but equally as detrimental to quality care. What’s lost is the leadership and partnering doctors have with their patients when they are forced into standardized treatment plans to meet third party payer schedules.

Standardized treatment plans put the payer in the physician’s role of care giver. They view patients as statistics rather than people, erode the doctor patient relationship, separate each from the other, creating a gap between the doctor, the patient as an individual person, and, in the end, the healing process itself. Standardization forces doctors out of sync with their training and knowledge, limits the quality and quantity of care they can provide, and stunts the patient’s journey toward wellness.

One recommendation that can help offset reductions on caring and income is to acknowledge the fact that restrictive healthcare policy is the newparadigm in medicine. Once done it will be easier to accept and embrace a new set of business principals aimed at keeping your practice healthy. These include practice enhancement marketing strategies that illustrate exceptional evidence-based scores for specific procedures. This type of marketing strategy is already being used successfully by the largest, most prestigious institutions. It makes them stand out from the competition and get a bigger share of the patient market. It can do the same for any practice of any size or specialty - and it may even put healing back into the doctor patient relationship.

The Medicare Equation In 2007

More is less– it's the law.

The current regulations governing Medicare and Medicaid payments play out like this. When services go up ­ reimbursements go down. As physicians provide more services per patient the spending by Medicare increases faster that the overall economy, and when cumulative spending targets established by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid exceed economic growth, reimbursements to doctors are cut. A 5% percent drop is predicted. Doctors in turn predict that any reduction in services to keep spending down will only result in diminished patient care.

The federal government is probably left with two choices. One, increase reimbursement rates to cover the difference between current service levels and economic growth or, two, adjust reimbursement rates to pay doctors on a Pay for Performance basis. Increased reimbursements per sea promise financial stability for doctors while Pay for Performance rates promise appropriate pay for proven outcomes.

The question remains. What drives medicine? Is it money for any and all services regardless of outcomes ­ or money for proven performance? The doctor's voice is needed to help the government reach a workable solution.

Patient Safety

Is Quality Care A Dinosaur?

Yes. No. Maybe? Not Yet. Who knows? One thing that holds some degree of certainty is this - preventing quality care's possible extinction may well depend on physicians being willing to openly demonstrate to patients and other healthcare professionals their ability to provide superior outcomes.

Validating results with measurable data is emerging as a valid answer to the constraints imposed by third parties on quality care issues and physician incomes. Nowhere is this more evident than in the initiatives taken by major healthcare institutions and individual practices to promote their capabilities directly to patients via positive and competitive marketing campaigns. Marketing - once the outcast step child may, if invited to the party, save the day for healthcare.

The competitive stand taken by these prestigious institutions and private practitioners using results oriented, patient education marketing, is paving the way for an eventual mandate requiring all doctors to take CME credits in "patient safety" - another step that will go a long way to promote quality care, highlight its important place in the future of medicine, and prevent it from going the way of the dinosaur.

The Bi-Lingual Patient Challenge

The Hispanic population in this country is growing at a tremendous rate. Currently, there are over 40 million Hispanics in the U.S. with a projection of over 100 million by the year 2050, representing 25% of the the total U.S. population. New growth adds new challenges to providing quality care to patients who speak Spanish as their primary language. Overcoming communication barriers in pursuit of quality care for this new demographic is best accomplished with bi-lingual staff member(s) who can render spoken-word interpretations to patients both in the office and over the phone. Making a patient language initiative available is a plus for any practice and should be considered in a practice's marketing effort. Reaching this rapidly growing, yet underserved patient population, in their own language, can dramatically increase a practice's ability to provide improved, quality care – to everyone in its market area. Quality care starts with a language friendly marketing initiative that specifically targets foreign language patient and ends with a significantly improved clinical experience for them and the medical facility too.

Partial Source: Healthcare Executive – Nov./Dec. 2006

US HEALTH CARE SYSTEM GRADED "D"

The U.S. health-care system is doing poorly by virtually every measure. That's the conclusion of a national report card on the U.S. health-care system, released Sept. 20. Although there are pockets of excellence, the report, commissioned by the non-profit and non-partisan Commonwealth Fund, gave the U.S. system low grades on outcomes, quality of care, access to
care, and efficiency, compared to other industrialized nations or generally accepted standards of care. Bottom line: U.S. health care barely passes with an overall grade of 66 out of 100.

The survey was carried out by 18 academic and private-sector health-care leaders, who rate the system on 37 different measures. The poor grade is particularly discomfiting, the researchers note, because the U.S. spends more on medicine, by far, than any other country. Approximately 16% of the nation's gross domestic product (GDP) is devoted to health care, compared with 10% or less in other industrialized nations.

Health care is also responsible for most new job creation, according to BusinessWeek's Sept. 25 cover story (see BusinessWeek.com, 9/25/06, "What's Really Propping Up The Economy"). Yet the U.S. ranks 15th out of 19 countries in terms of the number of deaths that could have been prevented.The study estimates that each year 115 out of 100,000 U.S. deaths could have
been avoided with timely and appropriate medical attention. Only Ireland, Britain, and Portugal scored worse in this category, while France scored the best, with 75 preventable deaths per 100,000.

Below Potential. The U.S. ranks at the bottom among industrialized countries for life expectancy both at birth and at age 60. It is also last on infant mortality, with 7 deaths per 1,000 live births, compared with 2.7 in the top three countries. There are dramatic gaps within the U.S. as well, according to the study. The average disability rate for all Americans is 25% worse than the rate for the best five states alone, as is the rate of children missing 11
or more days of school.

The report found that quality of care and access to care varied widely across the country, and it noted substantial gaps between national averages and pockets of excellence. The authors concluded that, if the U.S. improved and standardized health-care performance and access, approximately 100,000 to 150,000 lives could be saved annually, along with $50 billion to $100 billion a year.

The Commonwealth Fund, which studies health-care issues, commissioned the report last year as part of an effort to come up with solutions to the nation's troubled health-care system. The report "tells us that overall we are performing far below our national potential," says Dr. James J. Mongan, chairman of the team that pulled together the study and chief executive
officer of Partners Healthcare in Boston. "We can do much better and we need to do much better," he says.

Among the reports' findings:

--Only 49% of U.S. adults receive the recommended preventive and screening tests for their age and sex.

--Only half of patients with congestive heart failure receive written discharge instructions regarding care following hospitalization.

--Nationwide, preventable hospital admissions for patients with chronic health conditions such as diabetes and asthma were twice as high as the level achieved by the best performing states.

--Hospital 30-day re-admission rates for Medicare patients ranged from 14% to 22% across regions.

--One-third of all adults under 65 have problems paying their medical bills or have medical debt they are paying over time.

--Only 17% of U.S. doctors use electronic medical records, compared with 80% in the top three countries.

--On multiple measures across quality of care and access to care, there is a wide gap between low income and the uninsured, and those with higher incomes and insurance. On average, measures for low income and uninsured people in these areas would have to improve by one-third to close the gap.

--As a share of total health expenditures, insurance administrative costs in the U.S. were more than three times the rate in countries with integrated payment systems.

The Business of Medical Marketing

Marketing is an information resource. It is not art nor entertainment. Its function is to educate consumers and get them to buy goods, products and services whose ads promise them value.

The same is true for medical marketing. Patients "buy" medical services from ads that promise to relieve or cure their problems. This can be anything from relief of symptoms or suffering to the promise of enhanced beauty, better cure rates, improved procedures, faster recovery, less pain, speedier return to every day normal activities, and so on.

Every great marketing campaign, be it medical or other has, at its heart, a real and true promise which attracts customers (patients). Their feeling about the service, technique, procedure and/or physician in the marketing materials directs their response and decision making in favor of one practitioner over another. In addition good medical marketing pays attention to two basic elements. One, the "essence" medical needs of the patient and two, the "essence" of the business needs of the practice itself. The patient's needs are improved health - but the business needs are improved practice health with more money, more prestige, more validation, a better life for the doctor.