Despite conventional thinking, consumer education isn't just good public relations. It's a marketing tool that, when used effectively, can help you enter new markets, launch new products and services and win new customers.
In healthcare, consumer education is rarely employed as a tool to generate direct sales or establish new markets because of the difficulties in tracking its impact. But marketers need to look beyond the box by realizing that consumer information is a decision-making tool.
By providing a useful, easy-to-understand resource on the benefits of your products or services, you can create a strategic, competitive advantage for your organizations. Add an intelligent direct response element such as a toll-free number to this information and you can generate tangible sales.
"Good information empowers consumers to make their own decisions about what to buy and from whom," said Mary Anne Arnold of CareComm Healthcare Communications, a syndicated healthcare publisher in Prospect, Ky. "Educating customers is the best way to obtain an informed response."
CareComm publications include: Guide to Pregnancy and Parenting and The Healthy Baby Route Care Book. CareComm allows hospitals and clinics to put monthly mailings, class listings, patient education and announcements of special events or offers in its publications.
Arnold said it is important for marketers to find a niche. For example, in an effort to boost advertising by better qualifying the leads it could deliver, Cincinnati Bell Directory produced a Medical Specialty Guide within the yellow pages of its phone directory. The premise of the guide is simple: make complex healthcare terminology simple by educating consumers about specialized services and therefore strengthen the impact of ad dollars spent by directory advertisers.
The 10-page guide highlights the human anatomy and uses icons and arrows to link specific ailments with their corresponding medical practices.
Rheumatologists, who specialize in problems with the muscles and joints, now receive calls from shoppers who, if uninformed, would probably have called a general practitioner for that ailment. The success of the guide has led other directories to create and even market the sponsorship of such guides to specialized providers.
While businesses can generate tangible sales by linking direct response programs to consumer education guides, the purpose of an educational guide first and foremost is to inform. Guides should contain clear, objective information.
One of the biggest advantages to producing an educational guide is that, if done correctly, it's a keeper, said Mark Johnson, president of The Understanding Business, a San Francisco-based information design and publishing firm that produces marketing materials.
People hold on to useful information. Even the best direct mail eventually gets tossed. Here are the essential elements needed to produce an effective, sales-generating consumer education guide:
Pick an Engaging Topic
Choose a subject that will create customers for you, but keep it broad enough to ensure it's useful. If you are in a niche business, don't waste your money producing a too-narrowly-defined guide book on the minute details of your business. Think bigger picture.
Inforum, a provider of PC-based marketing information systems to hospitals and managed care organizations, commissioned a guide entitled The Language of Health Care Reform: A Glossary of Terms and Definitions to help shed light on the complex topics of healthcare reform, insurance and managed care.
The glossary is a general guide of helpful definitions designed to assist potential Inforum customers in making more informed choices in the complex and rapidly-changing healthcare environment.
Consult With Other Experts
Use leading authorities as writers or contributors. They can bring a wealth of knowledge to the subject and can help a company look outside its own definition of the business (and possibly into some new growth areas for you.)
A series of Understanding Guides to Herbs and their Health Benefits was produced by The Herb Research Foundation using scientific information from the nation's top herb researchers.
The guides are marketed to herb producers for use in direct mail and in-store promotions to inform customers curious about herbal and homeopathic medicines. Because pharmaceutical drug laws prohibit the producers from using this information on product labeling, the guides are a crucial sales tool.
Create a Compelling Design
Experts advise using a lot of visuals. Place the essential concepts of your topic in graphic form and the more detailed information in clear, easy-to-read text, said Ellen Bond of Guest Communications Corp., a syndicated publisher of personal healthcare handbooks. Guests' The Guide To Personal Healthcare is a reference on health and wellness information and has an area for enrollment information. This way you can still engage the novice, while satisfying the expert, said Bond.
Become the Industry Resource
Is there a centralized source of information on your industry available to the marketplace? Ponder the advantages of becoming that resource, of empowering customers to make decisions and changes they've been afraid to address, or have not been informed enough to make, said Arnold. If your company provides a "me-too" service, becoming an informative resource may be the competitive advantage you've been looking for.
Bond said marketers should give consumers the resources they need in an informative, easy-to-use and creatively-designed guidebook that unravels the complexities of their business. Include additional sources such as bibliographies, phone numbers and Internet sites that provide related information.
Finally, make the guide a cost-effective sales tool. Incorporate a mail reply card that is designed to retrieve specific marketing data for your company. A well-produced consumer education guide can cost from 10 cents to $10.
Weigh the costs of producing such a guide against its very strong potential of developing sales leads in new markets, in building new customer databases, in further defining constantly-changin g customer profiles and in converting uninformed consumers into customers. (CareComm, 502/228-4650, The Understanding Business 415/616-6800, Guest Communications Corp.800/567-9000)