How Do You Sell to Physicians?

Physicians are the lifeblood of many a healthcare organization. As competition increases for their attention whether it be a hospital, specialty pharmacy, medical device manufacturer, or pharmaceutical company, cutting through the din of messages and relationships can be a daunting task. So how do you cut through all of the chatter and have marketing and sales work together effectively?

Be the solutions provider!

You are supplying solutions to solve the physician practice challenges by providing data-driven or process solutions to those issues in practicing medicine in today's environment of change. And they must at a minimum, accomplish several things: A) practice medicine more efficiently; B) measurably improve the quality of care; C) assist in generating additional revenue; D) are cost effective; E) easy for the physician and office staff to use; and F) reduce the patient hassle factor by cutting down on complaints, or, as we like to say, increase patient satisfaction.

With that in mind, some basic rules of thumb apply:

1) Your sales people must be using a common sales strategy across the enterprise. I have seen too many organizations (hospitals mostly) where everybody's left to their own methods resulting in incorrect messaging and using poorly designed home-grown materials which could have some significant legal repercussions for the organization. Your sales force activities are about relationship selling and acting as the liaison for the physician to your organization. If you don't have a method and training, chances are you will not be as effective as your competition.

2) Use a sales database system to collect information and the marketing department needs to have full access. If your just starting to look at one, marketing needs to be at that table. Don't assume that sales or IT knows what marketing needs. They don't. Systems breed accountability on all sides of the ledger.

3) Create an interdisciplinary marketing and sales advisory committee. Where most organizations fall down is the poor communication and working relationships between sales and marketing. You have to get past the "the feet on the street" don't deliver the brand messages and promise in the right way, and all that marketing is good for is creating stuff, because I need more stuff to leave behind attitudes.

4) Train your marketing department in the sale approach that your sales people are using. This way marketing begins to understand the opportunities and challenges faced, and how your sales staff is trained to overcome them. This means that all marketing materials should be created to be applicable and useful at some point in the sales cycle. It's all about shortening the sales cycle. Effective materials will assist in that goal.

5) Let your marketing people go out on sales calls and major presentations. They can be a new set of eyes and ears as well as providing them with new perspectives on how difficult the job is. Insights from other areas will make you a stronger organization.

6) Cut down on the number of slide you use for presentations. An 80 page slide deck is all about you and nothing about your potential customer. If you have to use more than 10 slides, you don't know what you are talking about and don't understand your audience. Talking head are boring.

7) Have marketing attend you sales meetings and weekly funnel calls. It's about relationships and dialogue. Marketing should have a roll in explaining the organizational strategy, and what they are doing to generate meaningful leads for sales to follow-up on.

8) Joint marketing and sales goals and objectives should be established. Share in the pain and share in the gain.

9) Constantly evaluate and begin again.

As healthcare reform continues to be implemented and becomes more fully defined, the consolidation of healthcare providers will continue unabated. Physicians will play an exceedingly important role in the revenue opportunities for your organization. The physician is your partner. Ignore them at your own risk.

You can continue the conversation with me on:
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/krivich0707
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/mkrivich

For more information, or to discuss you marketing and sales integration needs, you can learn more at my web site the michael J group; email- michael@themichaeljgroup.com ; or phone by calling me 815-293-1471.

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Tapestry Marketing - Weaving an effective hospital marketing plan

So what is Tapestry Marketing?

Is it an analogy? Maybe, depending on how you look at it.

Tapestry Marketing is a new way of looking at stand-alone hospital and multi-hospital system marketing. It encompasses the “traditional” aspects of marketing, but acknowledges the special needs of hospital, the interplay of physicians and their influence on the process, patient insurance coverage and limitations, the needs of the consumer and the healthcare organization.

Tapestry Marketing is new. You will not find it in any text books. It is not taught in graduate school. It is a concept. A philosophy of marketing that is designed to cut through the clutter and bring a hospital or multi-hospital system out of the run an ad, hold a community program, send a newsletter marketing mentality.

Tapestry Marketing is learning how to weave a colorful, comprehensive, integrated multi-channel marketing program that drives brand, generates revenues and dominates the competition. A methodology to achieve market success, show Return on Marketing Investment (ROMI) and bring you, the marketing leader, to the senior management table as a strategic player.

Please note: Tapestry Marketing is ©Michael J Krivich, FACHE, PCM 2010. All rights reserved.

A Tapestry Marketing plan is no longer than 10 pages.

That's it folks. Any marketing plan longer than 10 pages will not be implemented. Looks great but is generally a lot of words, to say what you will do when you will do it and how you will measure it.

Page 1: Mission and Vision Statement:
-A clear mission statement for the product line and the marketing plan will help to focus the efforts. The mission statement is the purpose and starting point from all which flows. It is important to evaluate your mission statement in light of changing environmental conditions and helps to keep you focused as an organization on what you are about. This will help you in evaluating the objectives you develop latter in remaining consistent with the mission of hospital or health system xyz.

Questions for guidance:
– Who are we? Who do we serve? How do we serve them? What are the limits of what we do? Does everyone have a shared understanding of our mission?

Page 2: Situation Analysis:
– Examine your current marketing program or examine your internal and external environment to understand where you are today and how you arrived at that point in time.

Questions for guidance :
– Describe your past experiences relative to the financial, human and capital resources as well as the strengths and weaknesses of your service/product line. Describe the cultural, societal, economic and demographic trends existing in your world. What other marketing opportunities can be identified from the strengths and weaknesses?

Page 3: Market Research:
– Surveys and discussion groups formal and informal, sales reports and market intelligence are the best ways to really understand your market for the purposes of developing a marketing plan. But a self-evaluation can also be helpful in answering the following questions and thus understanding your market. Here are some categories for self-evaluation: service/ product excellence; service/product attributes versus the competition; ease of use; customer service; service/product literature cost.

Questions for guidance:
- Why did insurance plans, physicians, employers and individuals choose our services/products? Why do some choose others? What does the industry and community think of us? What are competitors saying?

Page 4: Identify Target Segments:
– The goal here is to match your service and product line strengths with people most likely to be influenced by those strengths. Describe your target group in detail. Where are they located? What part of the service/ product value equation will influence them? Can they afford your services? What are their needs?

Questions for guidance:
- What types of customers are most likely to choose our services as it currently exists? What types of customers’ might choose our services if we make some affordable improvements or changes? What are the financial requirements in determining price and service?

Page 5: Marketing Strategy:
– Brainstorm for ways to develop and communicate the right messages for your service and for ways to create the right service or product line improvement/s. Develop measurable goals.

Questions for guidance:
- What are the quantifiable goals for the marketing program? How will they be measured? What will be offered to the key decision makers in relation to the Service or Product Line? How will the key decision-makers use the service Place? What is the message to be communicated to the key decision makers Promotion? What must the key decision-makers give up to purchase Price?


Page 6- 8: Marketing Tactics and Budget:
– When executing marketing strategies, it is important to get the basics right, be clear about who is doing what and track progress carefully. First and foremost, the strategy must be communicated and supported. All employees of the organization need to understand the message, including which elements of it are the main focus and which are the important facts supporting it. All employees need to understand their role in disseminating the message. All employees need to understand the goals of the marketing program and why they are important. Give a detailed account of each aspect of the strategy that will be put into operation.

Questions for guidance:
– What actions will we take? Who will be responsible for implementing each action? When is it to be accomplished and how much does it cost? What are the growth targets and how will we measure the results?

Page 8 - 9: Evaluate the Strategies:
– Your basic messages are unlikely to change dramatically from year to year, but your strategies should be evaluated quarterly so that weaknesses can be identified and strengthened, or strategies can be adapted to meet new market needs.

Questions for guidance:
– Did we achieve our goal/s? Which strategies should we continue? What have we learned? What are the new targets created from this evaluation?

Page 10: Next Steps:
- A wrap-up of major learning's including not only success but failures as well. You planned, you did, you checked, you acted. The PDCA process of the Dr. W Edwards Deming Quality Cycle. Now, what do you want to do next?

Questions for guidance:
-What do we need to do to take marketing to the next level? How do we communicate our financial contribution ROMI (Return on Marketing Investment) to organizational senior leadership to build the business case for more resources? How do we intend to use this planning format in our budget justification?

I can be reached at 815-293-7471 or via email michael@the michaeljgroup.com to answer any questions. I do have a Word template for this format and it is available. Contact me for pricing details.

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Comparing Healthcare Service Advertising Back-to-School Physicals

Its back-to-school time again, so everyone in their brother is touting those specials for school and sports physicals in various ads or direct mail pieces. Same day, next day, comprehensive, call for an appointment or just walk in.

Multi-specialty group practices, hospital ambulatory centers, solo practitioners and retail clinics are all offering the same essential service.

What caught my attention were three ads in the local paper from three different channels for these services in the market. It raised the question is anyone paying attention to their advertising message and how it compares to what can be viewed as competitors?

The multi-specialty ad - same day but you had to call for an appointment and gave no price but mentioned pediatricians implying a doctor will see you. The hospital ad - call first for a next day appointment, take advantage of our discounts, offer ends soon and gave a price. The retail clinic ad - same day, just stop by and gave a lower price. Thankfully, three very different choices for a consumer to make an initial decision to explore a purchase based on need.

Observations

The Group Practice:

If I am already a patient of the multi-specially group and have physician, I will probably call them and have insurance pay for it except for my co-pay. If I am uninsured or don’t have a doctor, I won’t go there because I won’t be able to afford the cost of care or they may not be part of my plan. The group practice will get existing patients which could have been reached more economically, personally and less mass marketing focused.

One-half page ad, lots of small copy in a gray scale box in a generally dark black and white ad with imagery of two kids doing cartwheels in yard. The imagery kind of works, but the gray scale, dark ad with too much copy makes it difficult to view. A total of 88 words. Consumers move right on buy.

The Hospital Owned Clinic:

What is convenient about calling for an appointment for the next day, seeing a price and being told there are discounts all in the same body copy? Is that the right price quoted or will it be cheaper because of discounts? Not clear- one or the other, give the lowest price or take the discount statement out, it only confuses people. Teeny tiny small print- payment due at time of service, immunizations not included.

I can see lots of copy in an ad with 124 words, three headlines and some bolded words, 4 column inches across top to bottom on the page, full color. Note to designers bolding words in copy is like shouting at someone. Not a good thing.

And contrary to what the CEO thinks, you are not differentiating yourself from anybody else because you bolded a couple of words.

How’s this for imagery, a nurse examining a kid with gloves on, holding an instrument to examine ears while looking at the camera and not the patient, photo-shopped into an in-ground outdoor pool setting. What is wrong with that picture?

Too confusing, too may messages, too much information for a really simple topic. Neither affordable nor convenient.

The Retail Clinic:
Price first, $30 think us. Smart, affordable choice. Right now and all year long. Just stop by for convenient…. A total of 56 words to get a clean, clear actionable message out. And setting up the opportunity for future service if not now then later we are always here. The ad is three column inches across, in a three color format, top to bottom on the page.

The ad speaks for itself.

Lessons learned……
Keep the doctors and CEOs out of the ad design and development.
Focus your message for a simple service.
Be aware of your target audiences needs and provide a solution.
Understand the price point.
Stop messaging that it is all about us and not about you.
Be a provider of solutions.

Think about the future and what a good customer experience from a simple service can bring to you.

Because when it comes down to a simple service that almost anyone can do, it becomes a commodity and is purchased on convenience and price.

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