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Have your marketing strategy align with patient and referrer needs in your area
Basing strategies on market-specific data can give the best return on your marketing resources.
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CHICAGO — Just as orthopedists base their clinical decisions on the best available data, they should also make their long-term practice marketing plans on hard data.
“It is ironic and interesting that almost every important and critical decision that an orthopedist makes is based on research, from the implants they use, the surgical protocols they utilize to the prescriptions they write. Yet when it comes to the strategy and the business of their practice, that discipline gets completely thrown out the window and replaced with subjectivity, opinion and gut feelings,” Bill Champion said in a presentation to the annual BONES Society meeting held here.
Champion, who is president of Orthopaedic Marketing Group, stressed that successful marketing involves thinking, not just reacting, and collecting and understanding the data specific to a market. “If you are not measuring, then all you are doing is spending,” he said. “Make sure that if you are going to spend money and resources that they are in alignment with all of these elements. We advocate going after the lower lying apples — where there is a market need and your competitors are not going after it.”
Planning alignment
One of the problems that practices run into when devising a marketing plan is taking a sporadic approach. “Practices get in trouble when they are being reactionary,” Champion told Orthopedics Today. “A competitor does something, so therefore they feel that they have to do something and 9 out of 10 times the competitor is not being smart about what they are doing.”
Champion said that most practices devise a market strategy based on the practice’s vision and objectives, but fail to include external input about what their market needs. “The best way to develop a marketing strategy is to account for input both internal and external to the practice. The market’s voice must be included.”
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Primary care referrers
Knowing the needs of your market segment is a good starting point for a marketing plan. “Patients don’t always need more choices, but need help choosing,” Champion said. Other needs within a market may be information, patient confidence in choosing the right provider and good communication. Also, don’t forget the needs of the primary-care referrers in your area. “There are scenarios out there now where primary care physicians don’t know what physicians offer which subspecialty care.”
Direct-to-consumer marketing also has an impact. “You now have a lot of patients who will go to their primary care physician to ask about procedures such as mini-incision and metal-on-metal. Primary care physicians are fielding a lot of questions and they are looking to orthopedic practices for help on handling these questions,” he said.
Practice strategy
The marketing plan should also incorporate the practice’s overall strategy. Champion noted if a practice does not have an aggressive strategy to obtain a larger patient base, but may need another physician on staff, it does not make sense to allocate marketing resources to acquire more patients.
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“Rarely do we see a practice have a solid marketing strategy to get prospective physicians to join their practice,” Champion said. “In some areas this is less of an issue; however there are some areas, usually rural, where it is the most important issue in their practices.”
For example, if there is only room for one foot and ankle surgeon in a market, a practice’s ability to recruit that surgeon is a huge competitive advantage. “Not only does it bring that foot and ankle component to your practice, but it also prohibits your competitor from doing it,” Champion said.
Rural practitioners have an opportunity to increase their practice by 20-30%, since data indicate that many patients will go to a larger metropolitan area to seek specialty care. That data is available to surgeons and can be used as the basis for a marketing plan. “Physicians in those areas work closely with the hospitals and the hospitals have data on what their Medicare leakage is,” Champion said.
Branding
Another component to the well-thought-out marketing plan is the use of branding. “The best definition of branding is: a promise,” he said. “With it, you make a promise to all your referral sources.” To be effective branding has to meet two criteria: It has to be meaningful to them and it has to be different from your competitors.
“You only have to brand in your primary market area, which may only be a 5 or 10 mile radius,” he said. “You don’t have to be better than anyone in the country, just better than anyone that your marketing reaches,” he said.
Branding should effect what you look like, how you act and the care you deliver. “Most patients perceive their experience with an orthopedist the same way they perceive a visit to a dentist or to a primary care physician,” Champion said. “They are going to determine their opinion of you based on how you act and follow through on your promise, in comparison to their other health care experiences.”
For more information:
- Bill Champion can be reached at Orthopedic Marketing Group, 3227 Harney St., Omaha, NE 68131; 402-408-2355; e-mail: bchampion@orthopaedicmarketing.com.
Reference:
- Champion B. Align company vision with marketing efforts. Paper #452. Presented at BONES 38th Annual Conference. May 6-9, 200. Chicago.