Health Care Marketing on Steroids!
MMC®’s team are experts in leveraging memberships in order to raise cash for our clients. A membership model in the health care industry provides your practice with a steady stream of income from younger members/patients who are unlikely to come in with health concerns.
What we do at MMC® is generate a win-win situation for everyone involved. Doctors win because their income and practice grows. Millennials win because they pay a minimal fee for sporadic access to healthcare. Older patients win because their care is subsidized by younger members who don’t place extra weight on the doctor’s time or facilities. Healthcare becomes more accessible to all, and your practice reaps the rewards socially as well as financially.
In uncertain economic climates, business owners are constantly looking for methods to raise revenue. These four strategies are the most common:
They increase membership dues for existing members/patients. Even though it may look compelling on paper, doing this turns your loyal patients into disgruntled members who are then more willing to take their business elsewhere. These members/patients will feel no guilt leaving because you have given them a reason to do so. More often than not, your business ends up losing money rather than seeing more of it. The only way it works is if you already have a surplus of members with room to lose a few.
Another way businesses think they can increase revenue is by encouraging existing members to spend more money in underperforming profit centers. The plan is a tough sell considering the fact that consumers develop spending patterns and will rarely change their buying habits once they have already been established. Your loyal members/patients might also feel slighted when they figure out you’re just trying to milk them for more money.
Other business owners insist on cutting costs in a different way: by cutting payroll. This approach has the unwelcome side-effect of decreasing the business’s quality of service, which will encourage unsatisfied members to leave your practice and find a doctor’s office where the service is consistent and the staff isn’t overworked. Cutbacks never lead to prosperity.
The only consistently successful method of raising revenue is bringing in new members/patients who can be “conditioned” to spend money in the way that will net you the most profit. MMC®’s program will bring in new business and increase revenue from new members/patients who will not put a strain on your daily time at the office.
Health care has changed drastically over the last few years. New rules regarding insurance have placed unique demands on doctors’ offices all across the country, and the best way to prepare your practice to meet these demands is build a base of millennial members/patients who need your services infrequently.
Questions about how to get younger people to subsidize the care of the older generation have been around longer than the debate over Obama-care. Closing private practices and eliminating options for care will not solve the problem. Making sure your practice can treat patients and generate income is possible through our program.
MMC®’s clients develop stable business models that don’t result in loss of revenue or loss of employment. Why? We specialize in building new relationships and re-capturing old business. Our Millennial customers have been researched and profiled through a formula that ensures you will not be wasting marketing dollars while getting maximum ROI.
A health care provider must invest in demographic research to understand how to capture the elusive market. Knowing your competition will help you understand what kind of customers they are attracting and how. You will be able to compare pricing models and figure out how those prices stack up to yours. It doesn’t matter if it’s a large walk-in clinic or a part-time physician’s office. If it’s a health care provider offering any service and/or product, you need to know about it. MMC® has the resources to complete in-depth profiles of health care providers in your region to keep you ahead of the game.
The following step requires identifying your audience within your geographic market in order to spend your marketing money wisely. Our research and development team includes a 24/7 dedicated research department ready to capture and analyze important information to help our clients realize financial freedom and peace-of-mind.
You need to know your target market’s lifestyle, geographic location, income, education, spending habits, and buying patterns to name just a few. Marketers looking to cut corners will focus only on income, but income does not tell the whole story. You’ve probably tried this yourself: a direct mail campaign or targeted marketing in a community you believed was “affluent” only to find your return on investment was next to nothing? Sometimes, those who look most affluent on paper are those who also have the most debt. What we look for are people with discretionary income, not debt. MMC® does this kind of profiling for you; we’ve been doing it for the sports industry since 1991. The best part is we pay for all of it ourselves and don’t saddle you with the bill later.
MMC® profiles consumer spending. Emotions are what drive most people to make purchases they will have to justify to themselves later. Knowing how to engage positive emotions in your prospective customers will help you retain them as members/patients for years to come.
Your goal should be to eliminate painful emotions and replace them with pleasurable ones. We can help you design and implement a marketing/branding program which will help you accomplish this goal.
A membership to an office of a healthcare provider meets the six core emotional needs of the customer:
Significance- The member/patient will feel important with the idea of being a preferred patient;
Security- The member/patient will feel secured by having access to consistent healthcare;
Variety- This need is fulfilled through the varied services you offer which the member/patient can take advantage of;
Connection- The member/patient will feel they belong to an organization where people know them and care for them;
Contribution- The member/patient will feel they are helping contribute to their well-being by enrolling in this program;
Growth- The member/patient will not feel they are stuck with only one option when it comes to their healthcare.
The marketing designed by MMC® for your practice/business will focus on these six core emotional needs.
MMC®’s team of experts has mastered the art of selling health care memberships to Millennial. Of course, we do know that some health care business owners are not too keen on selling monthly memberships assuming that these members/patients will put too large of a strain on their time and resources without contributing enough to the bottom line. We hear your concerns and we can assure you our programs target the kinds of customers who will truly help grow your business. In fact, balancing value and investment is one of our true areas of expertise.
One of the biggest perks of marketing to Millennial is they make purchases based on peer reviews whether they read them online or hear about a new product/service through word of mouth. If you can capture one Millennial and convince him/her that a membership is a fantastic approach to health care, you can get all of a Millennial’s friends.
If what you’ve been doing for the past five to ten years has not worked, it’s time to change your approach. It was Albert Einstein, after all, who said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result.”
One of the most valuable things MMC® does to ensure your marketing campaign’s success is research. We conduct our own studies and compile everything from communications to advertising awareness to price studies. Knowing the findings inside and out helps us understand what has worked and what will work for your healthcare business.
Marketing for the turbulent health care industry requires creative thinking. Under our program, millennial will see a low barrier to entry as incentive to buy a monthly membership plan for their healthcare as well as their preventative care. This additional income will help fund the care of members/patients who will need more frequent visits to your healthcare facility i.e., the older patients.
This is just one of our marketing hooks used in the “Cash” promotion, but we have many more that conform to your current business model while still ensuring your success.
When it comes to healthcare, you can’t present low price as the best thing about the services you offer. Prospective customers want to be price-conscious, but they don’t want to feel like they are cutting corners when it comes to their health and/or healthcare. But there is nothing wrong with using price as a hook to get a customer’s attention.
The price hook you use is only the tip of the iceberg, and most healthcare providers fail to see the support system underneath the surface that ensures the success of this multi-faceted marketing campaign.
MMC® does the research that prevents your campaign from attracting the kinds of customers who won’t contribute to your bottom line. Furthermore, registering members/patients is still a hands-on process in which you or your staff will meet prospective members and be able to evaluate how often they might use your services. Most importantly, you are the final barrier and you maintain full control over who becomes a member and who does not.
As marketers, we know that changing the pre-conditioned buying habits of today’s consumer is an uphill battle. Your existing customers will be more difficult to convince than the new ones you attract through improved marketing campaigns.
Take the airline industry as an example. Existing customers find the à la carte system makes them feel as if they are being robbed of perks which existed with the purchase of any airline ticket. New customers see it a little differently because they appreciate the level of customization an à la carte system provides.
MMC® believes you can have it both ways. Existing members/patients should be able to choose whether or not to maintain their status quo so you don’t lose any loyal customers. New members, on the other hand, will participate in a new a la carte system of healthcare with an option to upgrade to more inclusive levels of care.
MMC®’s “cash promotion” is set up to encompass three different tiers of patient membership-based on age with the option to add more services. All three levels make sure you aren’t discounting your pricing; you’re just redirecting your revenue stream by repackaging your services into a monthly membership.
The mid-level health care membership is for those members between the ages of 34-44. They have greater access to services in anticipation of their growing healthcare needs. These are the customers who are starting to think about their health daily and are more concerned with preventative care in order to avoid problems in the future.
The final two levels, while more expensive, provide the most security for members who are 45 and older. They need access to your services on short notice; they might have more questions about medications and other treatment options. They like knowing their monthly fee doesn’t change even if their needs shift over the course of their membership. Of all your members, they are most likely to be interested in paying a premium for access to you because they foresee needing it.
Needless to say, your older members will receive more involved service from your administrative staff.
Marketing in the digital age can be highly effective because of all the forms it can take. Most businesses are searching for the least expensive marketing option even though it ends up yielding less than ideal results.
Invariably, they use social media to spam old, tired offers to people who turned down those same offers in the past. Each daily e-mail or tweet blast infuriates the subscriber more and more, eventually turning your potential customer against you before they’ve had a chance to step through your door.
E-marketing has the benefit of being “opt-in,” which means that people who receive your marketing wanted it in the first place. Don’t alienate that potential market by using the resource the wrong way. Wise use of social media marketing will increase your business. MMC® has the research and experience to present captivating marketing materials to your customer pool and convert them into members.
Each form of media marketing can be relevant to your growth plan. But radio, television, social media, and newspapers are less effective than direct mail drives. Targeting specific people based on our demographic research will give you better results. Your geographic range as a health care provider should extend no more than twelve miles from your office, and while there are exceptions to this general rule, anything further than that is wasting your marketing dollars.
A direct mail marketing campaign that is both targeted and personalized will immediately yield measurable results. No other form of marketing can compare. Eventually, you’ll want your practice to be what everyone in the area thinks of when they think health care. Putting your name on direct mail will accomplish that goal. Other media will act as a support tool for the direct mail campaign.
Direct mail is expensive, but we have a solution for that, too. Because all of our campaigns are no-risk/self-funding, we wait until our initial program raises enough money to fund direct mail before we pursue it as an option.
The MMC®’s “Cash” campaign is divided into four phases.
The “internal” launch signals to your existing patients and those you’ve treated in the past that you’re offering a membership model. You can communicate this information through signs at your office, letters, and emails. Whatever revenue we collect will then be invested in the beginning of the direct mail campaign. While we reach out to your existing customers, we’re also profiling new ones, writing new ad copy for social media, newspaper, radio, and training your staff to answer questions about the new membership.
What follows is the “external” launch. This phase encompasses a direct mail campaign tailored to your target market and strategically divided into four consecutive mail drops. Each week’s mail drop is slightly modified to take into account the success of the last week’s results.
The following phase is a “close out.” This is when we bring out all forms of marketing to work in concert and use a variety of mediums to get our message across. In the final two weeks, you can expect to gross about 40% of your total. This phase is fully customizable since it allows you to pull back if you’ve already seen great results with the first two phases, or it allows you to ramp up efforts if you are still a little short of your goal.
Finally, the “forward thinking” phase gives you time to plan your future maintenance marketing campaigns. Now that you’ve seen the success of the MMC® campaign firsthand, you should think about joining other satisfied business owners in enrolling in our platinum plus membership. We will provide you with ongoing support in the form of two years of additional marketing and sales systems expertise. In the meantime, you’ll be able to sit back and enjoy the fruits of your labor.
Here are a few more points to consider if you are still undecided about MMC® providing you with the training and marketing know-how to solidify your earnings and help you change the increasingly defunct healthcare model.
• Recurring monthly membership fees keep your revenue from dipping in a slow season.
• MMC® is only a guide; you are still the boss, and as boss, you have the opportunity to accept or deny any terms of membership.
• You won’t need additional staff. We’ll train each of your employees how to handle a new membership application.
• Because our marketing materials thoroughly explain how a healthcare membership works, you won’t need any special sales skills. Even so, we still provide those sales skills to your staff. It gives you a stronger chance of maintaining success with your future members.
• We know you’re passionate about the healthcare industry; we’re passionate about making that passion pay off.
• If our promotion does not fund itself you may cancel our agreement at any time.
• Our program converts doctor-hopping Millennial into loyal customers who feel safe and comfortable with you as their health care provider.
• You control any money raised during the campaign. It goes straight into your bank account.
• We pay for research, demographic studies, and market analysis out of our pocket and don’t pass off any of our administrative expenses to you.
• If requested, MMC® will provide our “cash” promotion as a commission only program.
The way we get paid is simple. We collect 20% of gross sales on the membership model we’ll incorporate into your current business structure, which means you keep 100% of everything else (daily receivables, residual income, and renewals).
Every Monday, you’ll pay us by wire transfer for the memberships bought in the previous week.
Our strategy is to think of business building like we think of a chess game: three moves ahead of your competitors to ensure the win.
Hopefully, this was helpful to you and sparked ideas about how to grow your business/practice. Take the time to look around the website and see what other tips you can find on changing the health care industry to benefit you and your patients. The videos and articles are all available to you at no charge, and we hope you find some of these tips valuable to your business model.
THANK YOU FOR PARTNERING WITH MMC® TODAY IN GROWING YOUR HEALTHCARE BUSINESS/PRACTICE AND YOUR HEALTHCARE CAREER.