Clarity of offer gives your practice a marketing advantage

Effectively communicating messages to the market calls for clarity, research, consistency, creativity.

Issue: October 2006

ByBill Champion

Bill Champion [photo]
Bill Champion

Patients and referring physicians need lots of help selecting from among the many orthopedic practices available to them. To help them choose your practice over a competitor’s send clear messages about who you are, what you do and why your practice is one they should prefer.

Using clear messaging is critical, but it is not easy. The bigger the practice and the greater its scope of services, the more difficult clear messaging and communicating becomes. Eventually though, clarity of offer pays off through increased business.

Even companies with popular brand names like Coke, Nike, Dell and Starbucks struggle with clarity of offer. In spite of creative in-house talent and enormous budgets, they hire outside experts to craft messages that help consumers choose their products over leading alternatives.

Although your practice’s target market is much smaller, you need to pay as much attention to messaging as the big players do.

Proper positioning

The goal: Reach referral sources and patients with relevant messages that properly position you in their minds. Practices that are diligent about this usually send messages that are consistent, simple and appropriate. And they wind up doing a better job at helping everyone in their market choose them, from patients to referrers.

We suggest figuring out what messages the market is getting now and then focus yours on what it needs and wants to hear. For example, a midsize orthopedic practice in Texas recently saw referrals from its best source decline although they had a multi-faceted marketing campaign in place. After following up, they learned why business had dropped off: Their fax machine was always busy.

The unspoken message the referral source “heard” from the practice: “It’s not easy to send us patients, but keep trying.”

Targeted messages should differ for each market segment.

Consider the effect from using the phrase “one-stop shopping” across the board in messaging. To an employer it might be positive, implying patients return to work quicker, but it might spell greed to a primary care physician.

Be disciplined about practice communications, ensuring every message is based on solid market research. Review geography, demographics, psychographics and results of focus groups, interviews and surveys to understand what the market needs. Communicating to it in meaningful ways will generate more business.

Keep messaging simple and don’t over-communicate. Avoid the common pitfall of listing in each communication every physician, subspecialty, ancillary and all methods of contacting the practice. Instead, choose your words carefully so everything you say helps people choose you.

For example, a parent with a son injured in a football game perceives an important difference between “XYZ Orthopedics” and “XYZ Orthopedics, Official Team Physicians for ABC University since 1980.” Slightly different wording can help decision-makers learn something meaningful about your practice.

Frequent, integrated, consistent

chart Send messages to your target markets often. They need to receive them at least seven times, according to research. More is okay. You’re not only competing against other practices’ messages, but every other one that might get your customers’ attention. With the average American exposed to over 250 commercial messages daily, getting anyone’s attention at all is challenging.

Broadcast or communicate your practice’s message in numerous, integrated ways to help it reach intended targets: be memorable and convincing. Some integrated options for referral sources include: in-service programs, public relations, a Web site, and word-of-mouth.

Consistency ensures your audience gets the same information each time and increases a message’s effectiveness.

One of the best ways to promote your organization is by crafting effective messages. What they say and don’t say helps the market choose you, however other group’s messages can affect the market’s impression of your practice.

Example: Our firm now works with a practice we’ll call Practice A. Practice A was concerned its competitor, Practice B, had used its highly visible ad campaign to convince the market that Practice A does not offer minimally invasive procedures like they do. Practice A indeed offers those same procedures, but the market did not know it. Practice A’s suspicions were correct. In the 6 months since Practice B’s ads started running, they did 20% less minimally invasive procedures.

Two issues surface here. First, even when you do not communicate the market is still forming opinions about your practice. Second, it is typically more effective to be the first to grab mind space or introduce a concept. Proof in point: Everyone knows Charles Lindbergh was the first pilot to complete a trans-Atlantic flight. But who was the second?

For more information:
Bill Champion is president of Orthopaedic Marketing Group, Omaha, Neb. The firm focuses exclusively on strategic marketing and execution for orthopedic practices nationwide. He can be reached at questions@orthopaedicmarketing.com.