Increasingly, hospitals find that partnering with organizations that develop customized online content is a smart way to attract new patients while maintaining an interactive dialogue with current ones.
Babycenter.com, which positions itself as an online informational resource for new and expectant parents, is a recent case in point. Although the Web site, http://www.babycenter.com, sells various products for this audience, it spends most of its time and resources developing original content about the pivotal family planning stages of preconception, pregnancy and child development through age three.
Launched in November 1997, the site fosters a community online environment with chat rooms, personalized e-mail communications, original news (reported by a staff of 12 editors) and a personalized page that provides customized information based on an individual's needs and concerns.
Parent company Consumer Health Interactive (CHI) also offers this expertise to healthcare organizations by repackaging the information offered by Babycenter.com for hospital patients and HMO members via e-mail newsletters, promotional booklets and retail discounts. CHI is working with at least four healthcare clients to expand their OB/Gyn informational offerings, including Sharp HealthCare, an integrated delivery system in San Diego, the Palo Alto Medical Foundation, a physician group practice in Palo Alto, Calif., and Blue Shield of California.
For healthcare providers with a limited communications budget, CHI is an affordable way to provide comprehensive news and resources for first-time parents that can be branded with the hospital's logo and other marketing information for less than $20,000, says Ben Wilson, CHI's general manager.
Expanding Patient Education
To drive physician referrals and boost patient education, Sharp HealthCare partnered with CHI last year. The partnership leverages Sharp's expertise in women's health services and CHI's expertise in providing a wealth of information on parenting, says Kelly Failey, Sharp's director of women's market development.
Sharp started with a conservative level of patient education that supported its obstetricians and gynecologists. That program includes 10,000 customized booklets for physicians to give to women who recently gave birth, expanding the Sharp Web site (http://www.sharp.com/sharp.htm) to include a link to Babycenter.com, a physician referral section, women's health programs and services and patient education. At this level, Failey says, the program strengthens the hospital system's ties with current patients and its open enrollment campaigns targeting young families.
Failey is looking to expand Sharp's partnership with CHI to target new patients by providing customized e-mail newsletters and news on the Web site. Although physician feedback is positive, Failey says that doctors will have to be educated more on how to develop an online dialogue with patients.
Credible Online Content
Part of Babycenter.com's success is tied to the way it packages information - it's consumer-friendly but makes a point of not trying to replace the advice that should be offered by an OB/Gyn. This positioning is key to the comfort level it has achieved among several physicians who refer their patients to the site, says Wilson. This credibility also is maintained by keeping a close watch on the kinds of products that are sold on the site, which are evaluated by a medical review board.
So far, Babycenter.com's interactive formula for cultivating customized online relationships with new and expectant parents is working. By the end of 1998, its first full year of operation, the Web site generated almost 10 million page views and 500,000 unique visitors. And by March, page view shot up to 14.5 million page views and 750,000 unique visitors.
"We keep the [Web site's] information appropriate by constantly asking our visitors what they want to see and communicating to them in a language they can easily understand," says Lara Hoyem, Babycenter.com's marketing associate.
In terms of publicity, the site is definitely making some media waves that range from witty to tongue and cheek. Most recently, the site's "millennium conception kit" was picked up by national newspapers like The Washington Post and USA Today, and when the site pitched a unique hook about fatherhood and sporting events, it landed ink in the Wall Street Journal, Sports Illustrated and Time.
(CHI, Ben Wilson, 415/537-0900, ext. 115; Lara Hoyem, 415/537-0900, ext. 120; Kelly Failey, 619/636-2064)
Demographics of New Parents
Anxious new and expectant parents are an exciting and profitable market to target online. Keep in mind, however, that these are busy folks, who - morning sickness aside - don't have much patience to wait for documents to load, says Lara Hoyem, marketing associate for Babycenter.com. In other words, make sure your Web site provides fast, comprehensive and relevant information for the key stages of preconception, pregnancy and early child development.
The hard work is worth the effort. Consider these demographics:
- Almost 4 million babies are born each year in the U.S.
- 53% of new moms held jobs before the birth of their baby, and the same number are back to work a year after.
- $7,100 is spent by the average family within the first year of the baby's life.
- Source: Babycenter.com