There is gold in them there hills! Well there is gold right within a few blocks of your office. Mining for patients, not unlike mining for gold or drilling for oil requires either great luck or great research.
It's all about the odds.
It's true that like old Jed from the Beverly Hillbillies, you might just take a shot and strike oil. But more likely you might drill a dry hole or dig a mine and find dirt not diamonds. Without research you might be a mere 2 feet from pay dirt, but drilling or mining in just the wrong spot.
Now oil companies and gold mining companies spend millions, if not, billions of dollars studying where and how to effectively find the "mother load". If market research is good enough for the big boys, it should be good enough for the healthcare provider. Remember as a health care professional you probably don't have the extras millions laying around to squander on trial and error marketing.
If you did there would be little need for you to market to find new patients to help.
In previous articles in the Health Care Marketing Series we talked about developing a marketing strategy, using metrics to measure the performance of your marketing execution, developing effective marketing warheads based on your marketing strategy, evaluating the most efficient ways to deliver those warheads, your marketing missile systems, and tying several marketing methods together into a marketing MIRV.
If you have been following along with our articles and starting to integrate the concepts detailed in them, by now you should have an excellent marketing infrastructure. Ready to launch laser guided marketing missiles tipped with nuclear marketing MIRVs. The better you have done your research, the more detailed your marketing strategy, the more effective and efficient your delivery systems, the bigger bang you'll receive from your marketing campaign. And ultimately the more lives you will help to change of patients that truly can benefit from your skills and talents as a doctor.
Sounds like you're ready for healthcare marketing shock and awe.
Everything is ready to launch, this is great, press the button and fire away!
Ah, but wait just a minute, General. What is the target? Where are they? What are the aiming coordinates?
The target? Why of course all those sick people out there.
Where are they? Well of course, out there!
The coordinates? Man just press the button, carpet bomb man. Carpet bomb!
This scenario is designed to show you how quickly the wheels can come off even the best intended marketing war machine. It brings us back full circle. We are right back to our original article on marketing strategy.
But this time we are going to introduce the concept of data mining. If you remember, our article on marketing strategy talked about doing research. We talked about research as the true cornerstone of all marketing efforts.
What is the target, General?
Answering this question is a little difficult and the truth is each healthcare provider needs to determine his or her high value target. And more importantly needs to know how to determine his or her high value targets.
Let's go back to our launch scenario to illustrate this point. Let's continue with our military analogy. Let's say we have several aircraft carriers, a few destroyers and a fleet of rowboats, making up our marketing battlefield.
As we have discussed previously, waging a marketing war, like any war, consumes resources. So do we want to launch our nuclear marketing MIRVs, the most valuable resources in our arsenal, and target the fleet of rowboats?
Or would it be wiser to target those aircraft carriers?
Well the obvious answer is "get those carriers".
But here is where things get a little tricky. One man's aircraft carrier is another man's rowboat.
You have to data mine your practice to determine which targets are high value targets.
What goes into that data mining process? Well first and foremost, what conditions do you 1.like to treat, 2. have a proven track record of treating and 3. obtain a reasonable reimbursement for treating.
In my own practice, I typically do not like or enjoy treating shoulder problems. I don't know if I don't like treating shoulders because I haven't had great results with them or if I haven't had great results, because I don't like treating them. Needless to say my reimbursement for treating shoulder cases is relatively low.
So do I really want to carpet bomb my marketing terrain and come up with 10 new cases of rotator cuff tears? These cases, for more than one reason, are my rowboats.
On the contrary, I like to treat neurological conditions like chronic pain; Neuropathy patients, Spinal Stenosis patients, Tinnitus patients, patients with Parkinson's Disease and Multiple Sclerosis patients. I've had results with these types of cases that have been good enough to publish. Because they are complex and difficult cases, I obtain a better than average reimbursement for my efforts. These cases are my aircraft carriers. If my marketing campaign brings me ten cases with these types of problems, chances are that the patient will obtain some great relief, I will find working with them an intellectual and stimulating challenge and my marketing efforts will bring me a handsome return on investment.
So the first lesson of data mining is to identify your aircraft carriers. They must be "your" aircraft carriers. You must have a good personal track record of helping these types of patients. You should enjoy treating these types of cases. And you should be rewarded for your time and expertise.
That's the first step in the process. Identifying your high value targets. The next step is THE most important aspect of healthcare marketing. As I discussed above, I enjoy working with complex neurological cases. But how many of these types of patients exist in my marketing terrain and are they looking for the type of help I can offer?
Being able to accurately answer these important questions is the single most valuable information I can extract using data mining.
It doesn't matter if I like treating these cases. It doesn't matter if I make a good living treating these cases. It doesn't matter if my success in treating these cases has made the local news. What matters is 1. do these types of cases exist in my neighborhood and 2. are they looking for the help I can provide to them?
You absolutely positively need to know who is looking for what in your marketing terrain and if what people are clamoring for is what you have to offer.
This knowledge is the most powerful tool in your marketing arsenal. It's your secret weapon. It is the foundation of your marketing strategy. It is so important that you should consider moving your office if the results of your data mining don't reveal an ocean full of aircraft carriers in your marketing terrain for you to target.
If your market research does not reveal an abundance of aircraft carriers on your horizon, you need to either 1. move to a new battlefield, 2. re-target your efforts towards the destroyers in your market or 3. try to create a market.
Let's look at your last choice. Trying to create a market. Unless you are Coke or Pepsi, your ability to create a market as a health care provider is extremely limited. To continue on with our analogy, to create a market requires converting rowboats into, at least, destroyers, but better yet aircraft carriers.
What would it cost if you took a rowboat to a ship yard and told them to rebuild it as an aircraft carrier?
This is what you face if you try to create a market where none exists. Unless you have a personality flaw and thrive on selling ice to Eskimos, creating a market is not a rewarding proposition.
So scratch this option off the table right now.
What about re-targeting your campaign towards destroyers? That's a viable option. It's a good option. It's probably your best option. It's an option that will likely give you your best return on investment. It is recommended that you focus your arsenal on the destroyers while at the same time never passing on an opportunity to sink an aircraft carrier.
So what is the secret? How do you data mine for aircraft carriers?
Well its quite simple in the internet age. Just use the services of a market research firm. I like http://www.marketresearch.com They will do the data mining for you.
They can provide market intelligence that will tell you not only what the health care aircraft carriers are, but also where they are.
With this information, you will have a competitive advantage in your marketing battlefield. You can segment, and target high value targets in your area while your competitors squander their marketing resources on rowboats. Or even worse carpet bomb and hit ocean water, not valuable targets.
Your marketing strategy should be highly targeted. Your marketing resources should be well spent. As we discussed in our very first article on true "Marketing Strategy" you should enter the battle against your competition already knowing your have won.
What gives you this dominant position in the market, is knowing ahead-of-time, who is looking for what in your marketing terrain. In other words, not trying to create a market, but rather identifying existing market niches, specifically targeting them with laser guided precision and having headlines and ad copy based on your strength versus the weakness of your competition within that niche.
This research-based marketing strategy is sure to cause a big bang with potential patients.
And leave your competition trying to sell ice to Eskimos.
I hope you see how important market research is and why it is a good thing to spend some of your marketing budget on research before you waste your marketing resources on poorly targeted low value or no-value targets. This article was intended to give you a glimpse at how to use data mining and consumer demographics information as a foundation for the development of a scientific research-based marketing strategy. This article shows you how to use existing resources to give your marketing efforts (and you) a competitive advantage.
Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Healthcare-Marketing-Series---Data-Mining---The--21st-Century-Marketing-Gold-Rush&id=1486283
