Has the healthcare marketing tipping point arrived?

With the healthcare consumer  taking more control of and in their healthcare choices in a market that is evolving to a semi-retail model of healthcare, has the tipping point arrived in healthcare marketing to move from marketing communication activities to a hybrid consumer marketing model? 

Being responsive, outcomes transparent, delivering an exceptionally consistent patient experience from first contact through post purchase and the coming pricing wars, will have great influence on how to execute marketing at the hospital or health system.

An organization will still need to compete for that individual patient at some level in the five markets that you serve: Medicare; Medicaid; Exchanges; Commercial; and Uninsured. And within those market segments will be the ACOs, patient medical homes, narrow networks, bundled payment mechanisms, employers etc. 

It really comes down to the tipping points of the market- sustainability, presence, perception, outcomes, price and experience.

These are what healthcare providers need to focus on and incorporate for success in their marketing operations and campaign efforts in a consumer-driven market.

Sustainability- The resources to effectively and continuously communicate brand and differentiate what you’re offering across multiple channels.

Presence - By maintaining a continuous presence across multiple channels as in so many other consumer-directed industries you build brand preference.

Perception- With a sustainable, continuous presence in the marketplace, sooner rather than latter, your key messages become the opinion of consumers and they become fact in their minds.

Outcomes- No longer the great secret of healthcare, quality information is available from any number of consumer directed sources. The healthcare consumer and employers are seeking out that information. It’s another one of the tipping points in healthcare marketing.  Ignore it at one’s own peril. Define the market along outcome attributes or have competitors or the market define you good or bad. 

Price- As with outcomes information, price information good or bad is available. It’s another tipping point in marketing to the healthcare consumer.  Price could become the answer to the why should I go here, when all other factors are equal in their mind.

  

Experience- The actual customer experience matches the brand image, perceptions and opinions of customers that you created in the marketplace, that had been communicated in an integrated multi-channel sustained effort, that includes social media engagement.

The tipping point in the transformation of healthcare marketing has arrived.

To my readers- I offer my apologies for not posting for nearly two weeks now.  The fastpitch travel softball season has started for my daughter at the 16U A level.  Alex is a left-handed pitcher.  What is different for this season is that after 10 years of playing, it all comes to an end. She will stop playing at the end of the season in August after the USSSA National World Series where her tarvel team has been invited to play.  Alex has also made the decision not to play in college. She just wants to be a normal student figuring out what she is going to do with the rest of her life.  Great wisdom from one so young.   

This has been a big part of our lives for the last 10 years. I have seen her win tournament championship games, pitch a no-hitter and handle adversity with grace and dignity. Skills which will last her a lifetime.   I will miss it, especially the coaches, parents and players of the teams that she has been on. And much deep gratitude to Lisa, her private pitching and hitting coach who has helped her in ways un-imagined when this all started. And I will enjoy every last minute of it as a proud parent should. So I will post but only when the opportunity presents. Have a great summer. I know I will.

Should healthcare providers change marketing in an era of reform?

Faced with a cacophony of payment models from fee-for-service to value ad risked based with everything else in between, the evolving healthcare consumer and the newly insured, healthcare marketing becomes an even greater challenge than before. One size does not fit all. And growth is good.

The hospital or health system has five markets: Medicare; Medicaid; Commercial; Exchanges; and Uninsured. And in those five markets it’s about:  Sustainability; Presence; Perception; and Experience.

These are the four dynamics that healthcare providers need to understand and incorporate for successful marketing and campaign efforts in a consumer-driven market. In short the answer is yes. No longer nice to have, these four basic concepts are now business requirements:

 ·         Sustainability- The resources to effectively and continuously communicate brand and differentiate the offering across multiple channels

 ·         Presence - By maintaining a continuous presence across multiple channels as in so many other consumer-directed industries is how one builds brand preference

 ·         Perception- With a sustainable, continuous presence in the marketplace, sooner rather than latter, your key messages become the opinion of you by consumers and they become fact in their mind.

 ·         Experience-  The actual customer experience at all touch-points matches the brand image, perceptions and opinions of customers that you created in the marketplace, that have been communicated in an integrated multi-channel sustained effort that includes social media engagement

What to do?

A consumer-directed market is much different environment than a provider-directed market which requires skills and abilities that may or may not exist in an organization.   Key success factors for creating a high performance marketing operation that delivers revenue and market share in an era of reform in the new healthcare environment include:

·          A Vice President of Marketing senior management position that reports to the CEO and is involved in all decision making.

·         Marketing resources human, operational and capital budgets to support a multi-channel effort externally and internally.

·         Comprehensive strategic and measurably focused marketing plan that is integrated with the financial and operational plan of the organization.

·         Price, outcomes and experience transparency

·         Internal communication and training to educate the organization around marketing efforts, expectations and their role in the execution of the plan.

·         Creation of a comprehensive marketing dashboard which communicates activities and results on a monthly basis to all levels of the organization.

As the healthcare providers continue to consolidate across all segments, marketing will assume an increasingly important role in the survival and revenue generating activities for the organization. And that requires a far different innovative sustainable marketing presence that changes perceptions than the old way of doing things.