The new rules
Image by Capstrat
It’s no surprise that starkly reduced spending from hospitals and healthcare providers is changing the game for those that market to them. What’s less clear is what to do about it. Some companies are accelerating their push into digital marketing. Others are experimenting with social media. And others are revamping their brochures with messaging to fit the current environment.
While adjustments like these have the potential to improve marketing effectiveness, if they’re not undertaken as part of a more fundamental shift in strategy they may be no more useful than rearranging the proverbial deck chairs. Recent research conducted by Capstrat on hospital and healthcare purchasing trends found that the ways in which today’s buyers research, select and purchase products bear little resemblance to the marketing strategies designed to reach them. From who they target, to how they talk about their products and services and which tools they use to connect with prospects, marketers need a new approach. It’s not just about brand building and supporting the sales team. It’s about making a direct connection with buyers, on their terms.
In this post, we’ll offer some suggestions on how marketers should be changing their model for communicating with buyers at hospitals and healthcare systems, including the research findings that informed our recommendations.
Know your place
As a marketer, you spend virtually all of your time thinking about one thing: your product. How to improve it, how to sell it, how to talk about it, who to sell it to – that’s what you’re paid to think about. In that environment, it’s easy to get tunnel vision. So by the time the next brochure is printed, or that new section is added to the website, chances are it looks like it was created in an echo chamber, where the only products are yours and the ones your direct competitors are selling.
But here’s the thing. Buyers are rarely evaluating your product solely against others in the same product category. They have a finite chunk of money to spend, and they have a lot of options. And if your entire category is deemed less important than others, well, beating out your direct competitors isn’t going to help you win the sale.
Takeaway
You need to understand how your product category is perceived by your core set of buyers in order to fully understand the context in which you’re operating. One easy place to start is by making some calls to current clients. Ask them about the choices they’re facing today, and those they were facing when considering your product. Of course, a more formal survey approach would be even better. Plus, it would give you a reason to reach out to clients and prospects about something other than your product. And that’s always a good thing.
Listen (for a change)
How much of your budget do you spend on listening versus telling? If you’re like most marketers, you probably spend most of your budget on telling. But our research among buyers uncovered some surprising insights regarding what they value most during the sale. When asked “what’s the one piece of advice you would offer to vendors hoping to win your business?” empathy showed up at the top of the list. If you learn their business and understand their challenges, your chances of success go way up. Some choice quotes: “Learn about my business before you come see me.” “Listen to your customer and hear what they have to say – don’t just assume that your product will fit everyone’s needs.”
Are your ears burning yet?
Takeaway
It’s time to introduce some new elements into the marketing mix. Start simple – try a questionnaire. If you’ve been there, done that, how about borrowing a page from the political playbook and going on a listening tour? Visiting customers and prospects in person, with a “no promotions” promise, can be an extremely valuable way gather intelligence and build relationships at the same time. If in-person visits don’t work with your prospect list (or budget), you can do the same thing in a virtual environment with far greater ease.
Dial back the pre-sale. Dial up the peer sell.
Good salespeople focus on making the sale, but great ones know that what happens after the sale is just as important. There’s a big lesson for marketers there as well. Like the sales team, marketers are judged on sales numbers – so it’s no surprise that we focus most of our energy on the lead-up to the sale. Identifying prospects. Reaching them with the right communications at the right time. Helping the sales team close the deal. You know the routine.
But our research tells us that what happens after the sale is just as important – if not more. Why? Because buyers depend heavily on word-of-mouth. They call their friends at other organizations. They engage with peers they don’t even know online. They send out feelers into their own organizations to ask how current users view the product. And in those environments, what you did before the sale isn’t important at all. They want to know what happened afterward. That’s the real story on your product. And if you’re not shaping that story, you’re missing the boat.
Takeaway
Map your current marketing tools against the entire lifecycle of your product. If you aren’t spending at least one quarter of your total effort on what happens after clients purchase your product, you have some work to do. Surveys are one proven way to keep in touch with clients after the sale, and they can provide valuable feedback for the whole organization. Bulletins or newsletters are another great tool in this environment.
No matter what tactics you choose, your goal should be to arm current clients with the tools and information they need to help sell your product to their peers. Make them ambassadors.
Focus on the patient
When we gave buyers a long list of sentences and asked which they agreed with most, the most popular response was “I’m excited about how new technology can improve patient care.” There are a lot of criteria on which a new purchase is judged, but the most important one is still the impact it has on patient care. Even in a tight budget environment, buyers are willing to spend big to get big results for their patients. The impact on patients is an easy thing to get lost in the shuffle when you’re talking about features, price, quality, and all the other key talking points about a product. If all roads don’t lead back to the patient, you’re missing a big opportunity.
Takeaway
Conduct an informal survey of all your marketing content. Is the patient message getting through? If not, there are some simple, cosmetic ways to make the change in the near term, starting with a refresh of your website’s homepage. It’s also important to put this issue on your entire marketing team’s radar.
But at the same time, you should be evaluating deeper issues such as core product positioning.
Stop talking about quality
Is product quality important? Of course. But that doesn’t mean buyers want to hear about it during the purchase process. In fact, product quality shows up near the bottom of the list of factors contributing to an enjoyable purchasing process – only 4 percent of decision makers cited “getting a quality product” when asked what they liked most about bringing on a new vendor or supplier.
What topped the list? Control and simplicity. Buyers are grappling with massive complexity at every turn – if the purchasing process is refreshingly free of unnecessary complications, they’re more likely to buy. Now consider how most companies market their goods and services in the healthcare industry. In most cases, these are highly complex, sophisticated offerings – so marketers naturally strive to head off every question or concern about quality by providing buyers with a mountain of technical specs and jargon. Which is exactly what buyers are trying to avoid.
When in doubt, strive for simplicity.
Get empathetic
When buyers are looking to purchase massive, expensive products and services, they’re looking for something far beyond the product itself. They’re looking for a partner that’s signed on for the same challenges they’re facing – someone who is in for the long haul.
In fact, our research showed that high levels of long-term vendor satisfaction aren’t linked to product dependability or even a responsive approach to customer service. Instead, satisfaction is most closely aligned with the perceived level of empathy they receive from manufacturers and service providers. Yes, empathy. They’re looking for partners who “learn about my business before they come see me,” and who “don’t assume their product will fit everyone’s needs.”
Empathy: check. But what does it mean for marketers? It means you can’t just rely on the sales team to create those long-term, empathetic relationships. You have to foster a more open dialogue with customers that acknowledges the challenges of their situation, and is built not on a model of one-way information delivery, but on a series of facilitated conversations with customers. Because empathy is all about listening.
Go straight to the source
How many of your marketing plans over the past few years have featured “generating awareness” on the short list of goals? Generating mass awareness has always been an important goal – and who would argue with that? Especially in the healthcare marketplace, where new innovations are flooding the market daily, establishing a foothold of awareness can be key.
But mass awareness doesn’t go far when it comes to establishing trust and awareness with purchasers – and that’s where marketers face a huge opportunity in today’s market. Today, only 23 percent of decision makers say they’re happier with their current vendors than they were with the ones they worked with only a few years ago. That means no relationship is safe. Marketers need to be establishing trust with existing customers as well as prospects. In this environment, mass awareness is no substitute for personal relevance. And personal relevance comes from (surprise!) people.
The good news is that technology is making person-to-person communications easier than ever before. That doesn’t mean it’s easy, of course. Nor does it mean you should discard advertising, direct mail or public relations tactics. It does mean that you need to find ways to make these channels support the human side of your sales efforts.
One important way to do this is to add customers to your list of communications vehicles, right beside print advertising, direct mail and online. Because your customers are 12 percent more likely than their counterparts in other industries to say they’re “good at convincing others to try new things.” And 77 percent of them like to share their knowledge with others. Think of them like a highly qualified, ready-to-be mobilized sales militia looking for something to pitch. You need to understand how they communicate with their peers (not just vendors) so that you can give them ready-to-use tools for winning over their peers – information and other relevant content that’s easily forwarded and shared.
Right relevance, right time
Everybody knows that relevance is one of the most important markers of a successful marketing campaign. But relevance comes in different flavors, each of which is best used at different times. Here’s what we mean.
Specific relevance
In-person demonstrations, conversations with sales people – these are examples of specific relevance. It’s used when the marketer knows enough about the target to tailor a very specific message for them, and it’s usually developed only after a series of interactions. It’s rarely achieved on first contact.
Situational relevance
When decision makers are looking for advice or recommendations from peers who have made similar decisions in the past, they’re looking for situational relevance. These peers won’t likely know all the details to guide their decision, but they know enough to offer useful insight. Ultimately, the decision maker alone is on the hook for making the right decision. This is about being informed by people who know. It often arrives through word-of-mouth channels or, increasingly, online forums such as peer review websites or social networks.
Self-selected relevance
This is where a decision maker decides exactly what type of information is most relevant and seeks it out on her own. Using a search engine, visiting a manufacturer’s website – these are all prime examples of self-selected relevance. All three forms of relevance come into play over the course of the purchasing process. The key is to make sure prospects are able to access each type of relevant information whenever they need it most. Programs built around mass awareness usually fall short when it comes to relevance.
First-mover advantage
There’s been a seismic shift in how healthcare buyers approach the purchasing process – our survey only scratched the surface of these changes. The question for marketers is how quickly can they respond to these changes. Those who are able to take these insights and quickly translate them into a fundamentally different approach to marketing are the ones who will come out on top in the next year or so.
We have spent years honing our approach to health care marketing, working with some of the best-known companies in the industry, and today we are working on the front lines of these changes to the industry. For an informal, impromptu discussion with us to find out more about whether we can help you gain first-mover advantage, please call Karen Albritton, president of Capstrat, at 919.656.8272, or email her at kalbritton@capstrat.com.
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