Catch them Young: Healthcare Marketing to School Kids

Schools have become new battle grounds for all kinds of marketers pushing soaps, candies, cosmetics, toothpastes, music and a new exhilarating lifestyle to the youngsters. The schools view most of this as frivolous and wholly unnecessary and often resist it. Sometimes the marketing effort is cloaked in interesting events, which are entertaining and educative.  Schools allow these and healthcare marketers are able to reach out to school kids through School Health Quizes,  talks on diet, exercise, hygiene and healthy lifestyle habits.

Some may be wary of allowing healthcare marketers to reach out to school kids. Children are generally healthy, it is a carefree time and weighty matters like healthcare should really be no concern to them. I am not sure I agree with this line of thinking. I would have a kid grow up in an environment, which helps him make ‘healthier’ choices. As a kid I was taught the benefits of ‘early to bed and early to rise’. I still swear by it.

Healthcare Marketers can reach out to schools, with specially designed programs, which educate and inform about how healthy choices made early, allow for a healthier lifestyle later on. This should really be looked upon as an investment by the hospital in a long relationship. To expect instant monetary rewards from a school program is expecting the moon. Persistence is the key here.

Some of the engagement programs that hospitals can run with schools are highlighted here.  

Lessons in Healthcare Marketing Communication

Building healthcare brands is an arduous task. 

It takes enormous effort to get it all right. The mix of customer experiences at various hospital touchpoints, the look and the feel of the hospital, the people and of course the communication. No one goes to a hospital willingly or to enjoy a few days of well deserved rest. Neither is it a place, which attracts willing repeat customers. Customers in a hospital are necessarily driven by a misfortune, which involves something as precious as their or a loved ones health. A hospital visit is also usually fraught with risk. Fear and anxiety generally accompany a customer to the hospital.

Building brands by delivering great experiences to customers who are in this frame of mind is tough. Communicating with customers to influence their choice of a hospital in dire and difficult circumstances is often akin to walking a tight rope. The message runs the risk of being perceived as either too commercial (this hospital seems to be hoping that I fall sick and land at its doorsteps), too glib (it trivialise something as serious as my health and well being) or just too smart or plain dumb.

Here are some lessons that I learnt, while handling communications for large hospitals.  

Marketing a Hospital to those Next Doors

Marketing a hospital to those in the neighbourhood is often looked upon as the ‘low hanging fruit’ by many a marketer. The thinking goes something like this. ‘We have just started a great hospital and those in the neighbourhood cannot help but notice the swanky chrome and glass exteriors and the blazing signages on the top of the 10 floor edifice. We have world beating technology and some of the most competent and respected doctors joining us. We are streets ahead of all those who have been in this neighbourhood for years and we really do not consider them as competition. All those who have been living in this community will now flock to us.’

Honestly, this is a recipe for disaster, yet so many of us marketers are so blinded by our spanking new hospital that we do not see anything beyond it.  

The Role of ‘Referral Fee’ in Healthcare Marketing

Referral Fee has always been one of the most controversial issue in the Marketing of Healthcare Services in India.

Large tertiary care hospitals derive much of their revenue from patients who are admitted in the hospital. The revenue comes from the room rent (that the hospital charges from the patients), the surgical fee, the anaesthetist’s fee, the Operating room charges, the investigations that the patients need during their stay in the hospital and the medicines and other sundry consumables that are used by the patients.

Patients who need admission rarely walk into the hospital requesting admission. They generally come through the Emergency Room (the ER) or are referred by their family physicians or other specialists who practice outside the hospital. Many a times patients are also referred by smaller secondary care hospitals or nursing homes.