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Developing a Marketing and PR Program By Alvin M. Hattal (Published in Physician’s Practice Digest) In the twenty or so years since it became professionally correct for physicians to actively market their services to prospective patients, a growing number of MDs have developed highly effective, ethical marketing ways to attract and retain patients. Despite lingering negative connotations of self-promotion, they have discovered that marketing is not a dirty word. Many clinicians would prefer to maintain their existing patient base without having to bother with cultivating new patients, but for an increasing number of providers, today's economic realities are making marketing essential to remain competitive. Patients have become better educated about their health care, and have more demanding expectations of their services. "Patients want availability, affordability, affability and ability," says former American Medical Association trustee John Dawson, MD, of Seattle, WA. The impending changes brought by the growth in managed care and health care reform is forcing physicians to reassess their present operations and position themselves for survival in the coming era.
The Key to Good Communication If you're like most physicians, you probably think marketing means advertising, period. It's much more than that, and the medical profession at large has come to realize that appropriate, well-executed marketing is acceptable but also necessary for good communications between patients and practitioners. And, as professional marketers will tell you, the greatest barrier to effective communication is the delusion that it has already occurred. Marketing is an ongoing process to determine consumer needs and wishes, and it includes the planning and implementation of ways to meet them. More physicians are recognizing the need for a polished marketing program, says Diane Bricker, communications director of the Medical Society of the District of Columbia. "It doesn't mean they're comfortable with it, and it doesn't mean they do it themselves — that is, write the copy or whatever," she says. Larger numbers of physicians are becoming affiliated with managed care programs, such as HMOs, which do marketing on their behalf. "But the individual, solo practitioner — of which there are very many in Washington — understands that marketing is an important component of their practice management," Bricker says. Developing a marketing program doesn't mean launching a crass advertising campaign. Physicians and other professionals have wide latitude to develop a full-fledged patient relations program without stepping over the bounds of good taste. This brief primer may enable you to develop a plan you'll feel comfortable with.
Communicating to Patients and Peers Advertising and public or patient relations — the two major parts of any communication program — are separate functions that complement each other. The fundamental difference is that advertising is one-way communication; public relations is two-way and dynamic. Advertising is designed and written to gain attention and, once gained, should provide enough information to secure the interest of your target audiences and motivate them to act — to call you for an appointment. Regardless of the size of the program, advertising is a four-step process: getting attention, generating interest, providing motivation and leading your targets to take action. The simplest advertising might entail only a patient-information brochure, telephone or medicine cabinet stickers, calendars, and possibly announcements in medical journals and the yellow pages. A more ambitious effort may add newspaper advertisements about your practice, and news releases when you open an office or add professional staff members and equipment. If the size of your practice and the number in your group justify a full-blown campaign, advertising professionals can create, write, produce and place your messages in appropriate media for you, running the gamut of print and broadcast media, direct mail, outdoor signs and other media. Advertising simply enables you to make prospective patients aware of you. One newly arrived Richmond, VA, ophthalmologist decided to conduct an aggressive marketing campaign to increase his cataract patient volume. He developed a booklet on cataracts and cataract surgery, and a newspaper advertisement containing a coupon to request either a copy of the booklet or a free exam. The newspaper ad was placed in every other issue of the weekly senior citizen newspaper and two to three times a week in the daily newspaper. The six-month campaign brought in more than 1,700 coupons. About 40 percent of the respondents asked for the booklet plus a free screening; 60 percent, just the booklet. At that point, advertising had done all it could do, with the result that more than 650 people were examined during the following six months, and about half were found to have cataracts.
Public Relations In contrast to advertising, a public relations program involves two-way communication. This simply means communicating in ways that enable you to get feedback from your target audiences so that you can continually improve the manner in which you serve them. It was up to that Richmond ophthalmologist to win the trust of the nearly 300 who chose to have him perform their surgeries. The purpose of the public relations part of a physician-marketing program is to cultivate new patients and reinforce the positive attitudes of current patients. You may have other reasons for patient relations. Is your patient base shifting? Are you trying to establish a new practice or taking over from an older practitioner? Has your ability to serve your patients been affected by changes in the neighborhood, improved transportation, increased competition? Have you added new diagnostic equipment or other capabilities? Understandably, many doctors prefer the more subtle approaches to patient relations, such as educational talks to civic and social groups, or a personalized newsletter providing health advice.
D E V E L O P I N G A P L A N "Marketing is merely finding out what your patients want and providing them with more of it," says Mitchell S. Karlan, MD, a surgeon in Beverly Hills, CA. Contemporary marketing techniques integrate advertising and public relations. To be effective, a marketing program should have four components: market analysis, market planning, implementation, and review.
MARKET ANALYSIS Market analysis determines the needs and preferences of customers — in this case, your patients — as well as what they don't want. Take some time to explore these questions:
You and your staff can do most of this research yourselves. But, if you can't spare the time or you prefer a more extensive analysis, researchers who specialize in health care can help explore your market, and practice management consultants can show you how to adapt your practice accordingly.
PLANNING Once you've uncovered your patients' needs and related them to the medical services you provide, you'll need to put together a plan to communicate the availability of those services to the public. Patient-directed communications use methods of both advertising and public relations. Make a list of desired goals, an ideal that you would like to achieve. Then expand upon your list with an itemization of projects that would help you reach your goals. Do you need a brochure? Perhaps a video for patient education or referrals. Would a newsletter help? If you prefer a minimal program that you can do by yourself, be sure to check your state's annotated code, which clearly specifies the limitations on advertising and directory listings.
IMPLEMENTATION Implementation of your plan depends on the kind of practice you have, whether a solo or group, your patient load, and the changes you expect in the size, services and needs of your practice.
REVIEW To ensure that your plan is working, you need to develop a way to obtain ongoing, reliable feedback from your patients. Some physicians have their staff provide evaluation sheets to patients after the office visit. Some make it a point to encourage their patients to tell them directly how they feel about their treatment.
Think you don't need a patient relations program?
Informally, there are many little things that contribute to good public relations:
Depending on your personal objectives, you may need nothing more intricate than the simple, direct approach of one recent OB/GYN graduate. By working a few hours each week as medical director of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Baltimore, MD, one young physician was able to build a very healthy practice out of the referrals from staff members she met there. True public relations is always in the public interest and requires good performance of a product or service before public approval can be won and, therefore, before customer or patient acceptance can be earned. Like advertising and marketing, PR has been given a bad name by misleading, deceptive practices conducted in its name. It is misunderstood by people who confuse the label with the substance. The most successful practitioners coalesce their individual goals with those of the market they serve. And, there is a proven, systematic formula for achieving this.
Establishing Goals Once you're focused on your goals, think of how to reach them. Say you've recently joined an established physician who plans to retire within five years and who would like to start to shorten his office hours as you assume more of the burden. Some patients may not welcome the change on a personal basis; others may wonder whether you're as good as the older doctor; still others may fear losing their status as favored patients. Your goal in such a situation would be to retain every patient. How? What can you do, short-term and long-term, to reach that goal?
Setting Objectives Should you send a personal note to each patient, or would a printed announcement suffice? Is it possible to schedule a chat with each patient? Can you arrange to talk at a community event, such as a PTA meeting — and get a notice in the local newspaper? Can you find the time to write an article on health care for that paper or a letter to the editor about a current medical controversy, or offer an interview about such matters to local radio and television reporters? Doing any of those things would be a desirable objective on the way to achieving your goal. To use a football analogy, think of each objective in your public relations program as a first down that you must make on your way to the end zone.
Targeting your Audience If you decide to write an individual note to each or some of the patients you hope to inherit, you will, of course, want to tailor each message to what you perceive to be that person's concern about your replacing Dr. Blank. If you deliver a talk, socialize with as many as you can before and after. If you write an article, send copies to each patient with a personalized note. Even if you mail out a printed announcement, write a sentence or two with each card to show that you care about each of your senior partner's patients.
Framing Your Message Obviously, variations on the above scenario require different messages. Each goal, each objective has its own target, and whether individual or group, the message is critical and deserves careful preparation. The vehicle you use will largely determine its content. Nothing satisfies most patients more than personal communication, one-to-one dialogue, which is why professional media advisors tell their clients who speak to groups, either directly or via radio or TV, to talk to one person at a time. The remainder of your patient relations program involves other functions — budget, timetable, reactive activities — that are shaped by the decisions you make concerning the foregoing steps. You might, for instance, wish to publicly support or counteract developments involving community health as they occur. You need to review the effectiveness of your efforts and continually revise them as necessary. In the end, it is always the relationship between physician and patient that counts. The linchpin to this relationship is superior service, a continuing process of creating patient loyalty and trust by providing information, assurance, comfort and solutions to your patients' health concerns. Marketing puts it all together. RETURN TO INDEX (on the home page)
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