|
Healthcare delivery through urgent care centers is a medical niche still in its infancy. Because this new delivery method is built on the awareness of consumer choice, there’s a strong emphasis on customer service.
With healthcare consumers as the new focus, traditional medical and healthcare marketing strategy no longer works. Here’s why ...
- Until recently, mainstream healthcare delivery has been
through hospital and freestanding emergency departments, associated clinics and independent private specialty practices
of one or more physicians.
- Both clinic and independent physicians depend heavily on referrals from other doctors for new business. So, of course ...
When this is your business model, targeting your marketing to other doctors makes good sense. It’s no wonder that traditional medical marketing has the look and language you’re so accustomed to:
- Print and Internet marketing—using graphics of doctors in
white coats or in scrubs and white masks—has the power
to attract other doctors because it gives them images
with which they identify.
- Display ads with an alphabet soup of designations following
a physician’s name … and Web site About-Us pages with
long lists of degrees, certifications and areas of research or study … have the power to develop other doctors’ interest because this information is meaningful to doctors.
But rare is the urgent care center that's successful because of referrals from other physicians.
In fact, in today’s highly competitive medical environment, other doctors most likely view your center as competition, no matter how much your services may be needed in the community.
So, if your urgent care center's marketing message uses language and images still targeted to other physicians instead of to the healthcare consumers who are your center’s source of business, it's a mistake that could cost your center's success.
The Formula for Success
While it's true a number of elements make up the formula for your center's success, high on the list must be marketing that has the power to attract and then persuade healthcare consumers to choose your urgent care center as the one for them, long before they ever need your services.
Let's face it: without enough healthcare consumers—whether members of the general public or corporate human resource directors—choosing your center, none of the other elements of success will ever come into play.
How to market to healthcare consumers is not rocket science. It does require, however, a change in your marketing mindset … a change that may be difficult for you for two reasons:
- First, you may be uncomfortable with the very idea of marketing your urgent care practice. After all, medical advertising has been legal for a mere 30 years. But the trend
is toward more marketing and advertising, even by high-end practices and our nation’s most prestigious institutions. Plus, you may not have considered the consequences of not marketing your practice: patients who need and want your services will be denied the information needed to access your “brand” of healthcare—friendly, compassionate, courteous, convenient, top-quality, professional care.
- And second, changing your marketing mindset may be
difficult for you for the same reason that also makes you
a good doctor: your analytical and scientific thinking.
Basic to this new marketing mindset is an understanding and acceptance of how consumers make decisions to buy. And if you're like most medical professionals, you probably think the best way to influence a consumer's decision-making is to present all of the facts …
But consumer research shows consumers make buying decisions based on emotion—so unlike the way you make medical decisions. Only later do consumers use their logic to process the facts … and then, it's done simply to justify their emotionally based decisions.
So, what’s an urgent care physician—accustomed
to marketing to like-minded doctors—to do?
This is where I can help. Hello, my name is Kay Steele Faulk. I’m a specialist in business-to-consumer (B2C) marketing and a copywriter known for writing copy that attracts attention and makes an emotional connection by speaking to the prospect’s heart.
In the 21st Century marketplace—with all the changes brought about by social media—it's time to forget mindshare and market- share. More than ever, effective marketing—marketing that gets results—is about gaining “heartshare.” When you have a greater heartshare in your marketplace, both mindshare and marketshare will follow. But …
As the urgent care marketplace grows more crowded every day … with walk-in services provided by the likes of CVS and Walgreen adding to the competition, you may wonder …
How Can Your Urgent Care Center
Gain Heartshare in YOUR Marketplace?
To make this happen for you, I’ve created a series of 24 display advertisements—a complete ready-to-go print campaign for newspaper or magazine—that connects emotionally with prospective patients. Each customizable ad is patient centered and brands your urgent care center as the one providing "urgent care with heart."
The ads feature your various services—treatment for lacerations, fractures and acute illnesses, after-hours care and occupational, sports and walk-in medical services—but they do it from the patient's point of view, ethically and professionally addressing patients’ needs, wants and fears.
These heart-to-heart messages have the power to motivate prospective patients to choose your center as the urgent care center for them, long before they ever need your services.
To help you decide if this healthcare marketing campaign is right for you, I’m offering two sample ads from the “Urgent Care with Heart” series for your review. Click here to provide me with your name, email address and UCC name, and I’ll send you the download link. (Please be assured I hate spam as much as you and will not share your email address with anyone.)
Or if you’d like to discuss your current marketing needs, feel free to email or call me at 870-265-9897 at your convenience. There’s no obligation or fee to see if I can help.
A Look at the Numbers…
Exclusive rights to the “Urgent Care with Heart” print campaign are available on a first-come-first-served basis to one urgent care center per geographic area. The fee for the campaign is $2,700, but for a limited time, if your geographic area is available, you can get all 24 ads for $1,900. That's $79.17 per ad—about the cost of a fine-restaurant dinner for two.
Return on Investment (ROI): Using an average patient fee of $135, the “Urgent Care with Heart” series would have to bring only 15 new patients for a 100% ROI. Let’s not even consider the full lifetime value of these 15 patients or their referrals to family and friends. But suppose after their initial visit they each return to your center only three times during the coming year. Including the initial visits, this would yield a total of $8,100, for a 426% ROI—a great return on any investment.
My Guarantee
Because I want to do everything I can to help you feel comfort- able doing business with me, my no-risk guarantee has two parts:
- Every urgent care center is unique. In the event you find
up to four ads that are not applicable to your center’s
services, I’ve created four alternate ads as replacements. They’re available to you by request. And ...
- Marketing is an ongoing process of getting your message
to your target audience consistently over time through
a variety of media. That’s why this print campaign contains
24 ads—enough for one ad per week for six months.
However, if during the first 30 days after purchase, you change your mind, simply email me and tell me why you think this print campaign won’t work for you. In exchange for your valuable feedback, I’ll cheerfully refund the entire fee ... regardless of how many ads you may have already used. All rights to the ads, of course, will revert to me.
So, first, consider how much a new patient is worth to you, then email or call me at 870-265-9897 to request your review samples. There’s no obligation or fee to see if this is something that’s right for you.
Writing for your success,
P.S. Don’t let a competitor beat you to acquiring the reputation-enhancing brand image “Urgent Care with Heart.” Exclusive rights to these 24 customizable ads are available to only one urgent care center per geographic area. When you click here to request your samples, you can place your first ad almost immediately.
*The “Urgent Care with Heart” series is not available for hospital urgent care centers.
Top
Special Report About Contact
Healthcare Marketing Now | 4403 E HWY 82 | Lake Village, Arkansas 71653
Tel 870.265.9897 | Fax 870.265.0034
Email kfaulk@HealthcareMarketingNow.com
©2008 Kay Steele Faulk. All rights reserved.
|
