“It’s all about the research: Healthcare marketing is sophisticated and targeted”

Nashville Medical News, by Sharon H. Fitzgerald

When you watch a commercial on television, that’s business-to-consumer marketing, known as B2C. The commercial seeks to persuade, to prompt the purchase of a product or service. There’s nothing subtle about it.

When it comes to business-to-business (B2B) marketing, however, the approach is more sophisticated, and two experts in healthcare marketing agree that pinpointing the audience for your message is a critical first step in effective B2B outreach.

“On the B2B side, your approach needs to be much less shotgun and much more rifle,” said Rosemary Plorin, senior vice president and partner with Lovell Communications in Nashville. “Generally, you need a more refined and precise strategy for identifying who your customer is and who the decision maker is. Who actually has the purchasing power? How do you best reach those folks?”

Under the “overarching umbrella” of marketing, Plorin said, are a variety of communication avenues — a Web presence, direct mail (although that mail may be delivered electronically), sponsorships and promotions, public relations, the use of social media, paid advertising and direct networking.

According to Laura Campbell, “They’re all means to an end, which is to increase the visibility of the company, to improve its financial performance and to help it grow.” Campbell is president and CEO of Nashville-based Laura Campbell & Associates, which specializes in business growth advising, including marketing strategies. While different communication avenues serve different purposes, Campbell had this advice: “Direct contact and personal relationships are always the preferred medium that I lead with, connecting directly with your audience.” No matter the medium used, she added, stressing a company’s results is the best message to convey. “There’s a lot of fluff and noise to get through to communicate your message,” she acknowledged.

B2B Marketing: A Glossary

When companies set about selling themselves, in healthcare as in any other arena, the term marketing is most frequently used to refer to that process. And when companies reach out to other companies, the phrase is business-to-business marketing, or B2B.

But what about other words and phrases that represent other strategies in the marketing game? There are public relations, media relations, publicity and advertising … just to name a few … and each is distinct.

“Marketing is ultimately about developing and maintaining relationships with customers,” explained Don Roy, PhD, associate professor of marketing with the Jennings A. Jones College of Business at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro. “In the process of doing that, companies learn what the needs and wants of customers and prospective customers are; they determine which segments of the market they are best suited to serve; and then — and only then — can they effectively develop products and services, price them, decide how best to distribute them and then decide the best way to communicate. All of those things make up marketing, but they are all done in support of forming and maintaining customer relationships.”

Marketing, in other words, is the whole communication package with customer relations and ultimately sales in mind. According to Roy, it’s “all dependent upon understanding your customers, and that includes understanding what are the best channels to communicate with them. What are the best ways to get a message to them that they will receive, process and respond?”

One way is through public relations. Roy acknowledged that the terms marketing and public relations are frequently used interchangeably, but that’s a mistake. Just like the purchase of paid advertising, PR is simply another effective communication initiative in a total marketing plan. “Public relations is a coordinated effort to manage reputation and image,” he said.

Using the media — and in healthcare, that usually means trade publications — to reach customers and potential customers is a common PR tactic employing press releases and personal communication with journalists to encourage coverage of the company. “When the source of any ensuing article appears to be the magazine and not the company, it comes across as highly credible. It’s great exposure,” Roy said.

And the outcome of PR efforts? Now, that’s publicity.

Who’s Doing the Buying?

Much of healthcare sales are focused at providers — hospitals, freestanding surgery centers and other outpatient facilities such as imaging centers. Plorin said she sees suppliers spending too much time trying to reach physicians rather than doing the painstaking research necessary to pinpoint just who actually makes the buying decisions. “You can waste enormous time, money and effort because reaching physicians is very difficult. Ultimately you’re probably going to find that you have an operating room director and a purchasing agent who are very involved in that decision-making process,” she said.

And when those buyers weigh their options, they look at much more than price. “In my experience, cost is not going to be the No. 1 driver. … You have to be competitive, obviously, but I think that exceptional customer service, strong marketing and really demonstrated expertise will be a buyer’s first considerations in a B2B market,” Plorin said.

That’s one reason why sales representatives are still worth their salt in some healthcare arenas. That one-on-one service and the knowledge gained over time of a customer’s specific operations could tip the scale in a company’s favor. Especially for early-stage, high-growth companies, sales reps remain “incredibly important,” Campbell said. “To me, nothing beats establishing and cultivating a personal relationship with your customer.”

She takes it one step further: “What has happened to the traditional art of letter writing? I highly recommend handwritten letters. E-mails can land in junk and spam folders or simply be deleted. Direct mail and even typed letters are often thrown in the trash. A handwritten letter usually reaches its recipient and is such a kind gesture.”

Options Abound

When deciding how to reach customers, it’s all about the research, Plorin and Campbell agreed. “The most effective marketing method would be to back up and do strategic planning on the front end. An integrated, strategic plan is what I see is missing with a number of businesses,” Campbell said.

Such research is “a documented and rigorous process,” Plorin explained, “and from there you become increasingly precise.”

Plorin recommended that businesses meticulously maintain their databases of clients, potential clients and other “influencers” and turn to them for references and testimonials. It also behooves companies to develop case studies and white papers to help bolster a company’s results-oriented reputation. “In a perfect world, you’re going to leverage the effort that goes into developing a great case study in three or four different ways,” she said. For example, the study could be promoted on the company’s Web site, cited in trade publications, touted in advertising and at trade shows, and shared in e-mail blasts.

“It’s very true that media has converged, and there’s a great opportunity in that,” Plorin said. “You can leverage those individual efforts across several different platforms and really increase your bang for the buck.”

There’s certainly a place for paid print advertising, too. Plorin said its beauty is that the message is totally controlled, yet its challenge is finding just the right outlet. Focused trade publications with a strong Web presence are the best bet, she said.

Reaching out to editors, news directors and reporters is another effective strategy, and one that is a specialty at Lovell Communications. “The opportunity to promote your brand through solid and consistent positive media relations can easily be the most valuable tool in the toolbox,” Plorin continued. Know the editorial calendars of publications that regularly cover healthcare and its niches, she recommended, and promote the company’s leadership as experts, offer to write a guest commentary or volunteer to serve on a panel discussion.

Finally, Plorin stressed the importance of an up-to-date, continually dynamic Web site. “Some companies launched a Web site in 2004, and they think they’re done,” she said. That’s flat wrong. “The Internet can be such an anonymous world, but in many ways, it can also become a highly personalized conversation,” she said. That conversation begins with a sophisticated Web presence, search engine optimization, and perhaps even outreach via social media such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. “There are certainly B2B opportunities in social media. They are a fraction of the social media opportunities in B2C, but they are still there,” Plorin said. “It takes cultivation.”