Health Business Solutions

Communication, marketing and branding in General Practice

Presented by Belinda MacLeod-Smith

September, 2013

Welcome to the session

Format for today:

Housekeeping (Morning tea break @ 11.30)

Brief introductions

Overview of attendee priorities/expectations

Reasons we’re here

And specifically?You asked about… Will we cover this?

Increasing visibility in the market place

✓

Increasing ‘numbers’ (patients/attendees/website hits)

✓

Encouraging member engagement ✓

Attracting funders ✓

Improving staff awareness of organisational direction

✓

Developing appropriate brand qualities

This topic can be quite in depth, but we’ll certainly touch on it.

Logo/trademark registration http://www.ipaustralia.gov.au/get-the-right-ip/trade-marks/apply-for-a-trade-mark/

Stakeholder communication methods

✓

What we’ll cover today

① Basics of marketing and common terminology

② How to set marketing goals and objectives that are right for your business (and questions to ask yourself when writing a strategy)

③ Understanding the importance of targeting clients, positioning and branding

④ How to focus your resources and energy to meet marketing goals and objectives

⑤ An overview of communication and outreach options, and deciding on the best fit for your business

⑥ Evaluating and measuring the success of your marketing activities

Marketing mantra

It’s not about you (usually!)

Marketing is a discipline that applies wherever there is a need to influence the behaviour of others.

The first rule of Marketing Club is to KNOW THE OTHERS (your customers/clients/stakeholders)

The second rule of Marketing Club is THERE MUST BE A BUSINESS PLAN.

We’ll cover this (which is covered by market research and segmentation) in a brief whirlwind tour of marketing terminology.

Before we begin… A quick word from the Medical Board of Australia

You are probably all more than aware of this, but just in case:

The Medical Board of Australia has strict guidelines for the advertising of regulated health services. The guidelines apply to:

Registered practitioners

Employers of practitioners

Other persons who provide services through the agency of a registered health practitioner.

The guidelines give a range of more specific details, but essentially advertising is deemed to comply if it is:

“…information published in the public interest, and is factual, honest, accurate, clear, verifiable and not misleading.”

Common terminology

Marketing – a wide range of strategically planned activities to meet the needs of the business.

Activities include: Market research Competitor analysis Identification of niches Research into service and product pricing Promotion through targeted advertising,

promotions, public relations and sales.

Common terminology

Market profile : a summary of the characteristics of the market you most want to deliver services to. It usually includes information about typical clients and competitors.

It can also include general information on the economy and retailing patterns of the area you serve.

Market ProfileThe Brown family moves from interstate to Grange, SA

in search of an improved family lifestyle.

Both parents are aged 40, work full-time in the CBD, and have two primary school aged boys (one aged 8,

one aged 12).

Their home is mortgaged to a credit union, and they have a combined gross income of $120,000 a year.

ACTIVITY

Based on this desktop information – what are some communication preference assumptions

we could make about the Browns?

Market Profile

Brand Brand refers to the name, term, design,

symbol or feature that identifies one type of product or services as distinct from another.

The legal terms for a brand is ‘trademark’ ™

A brand may identify one item, a family of items, or all items of a particular organisation.

Image

Image is defined as the general perception of a product or service. Image marketing commonly distinguishes brands of similar products.

What did Mrs Brown do next?

After a quick ‘Google’, Mrs Brown clicked on the top search engine, called ‘healthengine’ and clicked through to the website of a practice that had a lot of detail about the GPs on staff.

The website looked clean, efficient, was well laid out and all the things she was interested in were easy to find.

More common terms

Word of mouth advertising (WOM) unpaid (usually), unstructured advertising that

happens when people share information about product or promotions with friends.

Product life cycle A theory that products or brands follow a sequence of

stages that generally include

Introduction – Growth – Maturity – Decline

Many organisations get sick of their marketing efforts without objectively analysing which stage their brand/product is at.

You will get sick of colours/designs/messages much sooner than your customer will!

More common terms

Pricing

The consumer perception of a product/service price with its competition in the local market.

Pricing (in the $ sense) is not a platform I would recommend as a leverage point for health services.

Pricing in the sense of time and effort seem more appropriate levers for the industry.

Can you think of some reasons why?

A final few terms Advertising: takes many forms – signs, brochures,

commercials, direct mail, and emails to name a few. We’ve already covered guidelines that apply to advertising in this this industry.

Promotion: advertising provides a reason to act, promotion provides an incentive.

Public Relations: activities or programs designed to influence an organisations image. PR activities help audiences understand the business, its services and products. Promoting staff to speak at conferences and events

Writing newsletters, producing brochures, sending focused emails

Writing and distributing press releases

Offering special events or training

Often – but not always, PR can be handled through the media

Targeting clients, positioning and

branding Who is your market?

We can’t target market/markets unless we know who they are and what makes them tick.

Medical practices hold an enormous amount of data on current patients.

There are other ways to find out useful ‘demographic’ information.

Demographics – the holy grail of marketing and

communication Socioeconomic characteristics of a

population expressed statistically, such as age, sex, education level, income level, marital status, occupation, religion, birth rate, death rate, average size of a family, average age at marriage.

A census is a collection of the demographic factors associated with every member of a population.

City snapshot (City of Playford)

Demographics

And if your business goals specifically want to target a niche market that features audiences with languages other than English?

Don’t make assumptions about ANY market.

Again, if you service an area recognised to have high levels of cultural diversity, look to your local council.

A list of councils can be seen on the Multicultural SA website.

Positioning

To position your brand/business, you need to be able to show customers what you do differently from your competitors.

This is why you need to know who your competitors are, and how they do business.

Simply put, you need to be able to answer the customer/audience question:

“Why should I choose YOU?”

Brand

Brand refers to the name, term, design, symbol or feature that identifies one type of product or services as distinct from another.

The legal terms for a brand is ‘trademark’ ™

A brand may identify one item, a family of items, or all items of a particular organisation.

Question things like this…

Lets be logical. Do we all have the same personal experiences/ideas when it comes to colour?

Colour is better matched to the appropriateness of the brand.

Brand personality

I’m not even going to dare you to Google this. It’s a huge field.

However, I do recommend common sense supported by research.

I will tell you to go back to your business plan, your mission, your vision and make sure everything you do is ‘on song’.

Still not sure? Do a comparison shop – think about companies/organisations who do it well. Analyse the elements of their brand.

Alternatively, look at companies who get it all wrong!

Focus your resources and energy

Marketing activities don’t always require specialist knowledge or training – mostly it takes some dedicated time and thinking to set up a program, then discipline and consistency to implement that program.

If nothing else, remember that marketing is ANY activity that moves your practice in the right direction:

Strategic planning Patient relations Recall systems Practice hours Office location Ancillary products and services

Focus your resources and energy

Five fast tips

① Have a written plan

② Demonstrate availability, affability and ability

③ Keep your name in front of patients and referrals

④ Have an appropriate web page

⑤ Maintain a commitment to quality

Promotion and communication outreach options

In case I haven’t mentioned it enough already:

The best fit for your business means the best match to your target customers AND your resources.

Before you commit to something new – ask yourself are you already doing the basics to the highest standard possible?

Evaluation

You need to know your plan is working, or if it needs to be adjusted (it will).

If you have followed the ‘rules’ for setting sound marketing goals, evaluation will be a simple an elegant process.

Evaluation – questions to ask

For what purpose are you doing the evaluation? What decisions will be made as a result?

Who are the audiences for the evaluation?

What kinds of information do you need to make the decision/s or enlighten the audience?(information about the marketing activity, customers/clients targeted by the activity, client benefit etc)

What sources should information be collected from? (employees, clients, partners?)

How can that information be collected in a reasonable way? (questionnaires, interviews, document review, focus groups)

When is the information needed, and by when must it be collected?

What resources (time, treasure and talent) are available to collect the information?

FIN

Thank-you for your time, input and attention.

Any follow-up questions can be sent to me via email:

Belinda.macleod-smith@generalpracticesa.org.au

If you enjoyed this seminar, make sure you take a look at General Practice SA’s other Business Solutions Seminars on their website at www.gpsa.org.au