INTRODUCTION
Many of us recall a time when it was considered unethical for
universities, hospitals, physicians, dentists, or attorneys to
directly market their services to the public. For good or ill,
those days are long past. We, too, recognize that to secure public
attention we must market our services. This article briefly
explores what marketing is (and what it is not),
identifies three ways by which marketing can be
viewed, and offers a simple tool to improve
marketing at the level of the individual practice.
WHAT MARKETING IS AND WHAT IT IS NOT
Marketing can be defined as "a strategic process that seeks to promote an exchange of value among parties." Value is indexed by received benefit in exchange for financial or other consideration. Too often, marketing is viewed as a set of isolated tactics, rather than as a strategic process. Thus, we look to groups such as the ASHA to produce public service announcements, Web pages, and brochures for the public and for our clients. Such tactics may or may not increase awareness of our services, and they may or may not nurture our practices, but they do establish the role played by ASHA, both to the public and to professionals. Similarly, collective efforts to influence the policies of third-party payers and agencies such as the Department of Public Instruction play a role in expanding (or maintaining) traditional service patterns, but they are not necessarily effective as marketing strategies. Nor should marketing be viewed simply as classified telephone listings, presentations to civic groups, or posters describing (for example) the risks of exposure to loud sound.
These examples relate to the general public, or to the
individuals who consume our services. Other important publics are
the administrators and allied practitioners with whom we share
work settings and professional communities. Some of these may be
external to our work setting, but still properly considered
internal because they form part of our service delivery network
(e.g., insurance companies). The point is this: marketing
strategies for internal and external audiences should differ
because the interests of those audiences differ.
THREE VIEWS OF MARKETING
For the present purpose, marketing can be viewed from three
overlapping perspectives. These will appeal (or not) to
communication disorders professionals depending on where, how, and
why they provide services.
Marketing as a Process of Meeting Goals
This view emphasizes the strategic goals of the marketing process, and is relatively simple, at least on the surface. Strategic goals include the following.
- Secure the attention of the intended audience.
Here, a first task is that of defining the intended audience. An easy (but not very useful) answer to the question of audience is, "everybody." In other service areas much effort is devoted to "market segmentation," the process of identifying that portion of a total population to be served. Securing attention is normally managed by advertising methods such as those noted above, through referrals from other professionals, and through positive word-of-mouth among current and prospective clients or patients. In some cases, the intended audience may be other professionals or agencies that become pathways to clients, or that act as agents for clients. A business truism is that it costs much less to keep a current client than to acquire a new one. Maintaining the attention of prior clients requires approaches that differ from client-finding methods (e.g., newsletters, telephone calls, remembrance advertising, and other follow-up contacts).
- Establish a positive attitude about what you have to
offer.
Here, it is necessary to first discover what the intended audience needs and wants, and the perceptions of that audience about the services offered by you or your agency. Attitude is influenced by the credibility (a perception assigned by members of an audience) of individual professionals and of institutions on the basis of prior relationships (goodwill toward and sincere interest in clients), perceived relative advantages (value, competence, currency of clinical methods, likelihood of positive outcomes), compatibility with personal desires and constraints (e.g., availability of evening or weekend services), and amenities (e.g., convenient parking, accessible and comfortable offices, pleasant support staff, etc.). Other enterprises seek positive attitudes through sales methods such as "state-of-the art," "vertical market," "bundling," "name brands," and "special pricing." However we may feel about these methods, they are among those used by health maintenance organizations (e.g., capitation schemes for corporate purchasers of health care), and by professional groups (e.g., marketers call ASHA's efforts to increase public recognition of speech-language pathology and audiology as "branding," that is, establishing brand-name recognition).
- Make it easy for your intended audience to take the
actions you desire.
Here, a first task is to determine desired actions and impediments to those actions. In some cases, a desired action may be as simple as showing up for an appointment, not always easy for people who lack access to transportation or who must deal with complex personal or family problems. In other cases, desired actions may include compliance with therapy regimens, or paying for services. Providers may not always understand client perceptions of impediments. Techniques common to other health-care providers include business cards, toll-free telephone numbers, extended office hours, trained support personnel, simplified billing statements, credit card services, stamped, self-addressed envelopes, provider coordination with third-party payers, and money-back, satisfaction-guaranteed policies for prosthetic devices. Many of these are common in our professions, too.
These goals have value because they suggest something of the
sequence necessary to establish goals and how to measure success
in accomplishing goals (see below). Ideally, any particular array
of marketing tactics will address each of these goals.
Marketing as a Process of Attending to Changing Needs
Absent serious global warming, selling refrigerators to those who live in igloos is unlikely to be successful. But things could change.
That is the point: things change. Twenty years ago, few speech-language pathologists anticipated working relations with dieticians and nutritionists. Similarly, few audiologists anticipated differential assessment of outer hair cell integrity in children as a routine screening method. On the other hand, twenty-five years ago, [s, r, l] therapy occupied the attention of many "speech therapists," and audiologists routinely sought to identify patients with pseudohypacusis using methods now considered excessively aversive. We may not know precisely what the next decade will bring, but we can be sure it will bring change.
In competitive environments, change requires attention to the
differences between current and future demand. Changes in demand
result from a host of factors--scientific and technical progress,
third-party policies, government policies, population
demographics, social and political agendas, evolving cannons of
ethics, the capacity of various publics to pay for services, and
other factors we cannot begin to imagine. The following figure
illustrates (albeit speculatively) change for our professions.
The images appearing in the corners of this figure suggest specific alternatives to marketers: "cash cows" (high current demand and high future demand), "problem children" (high current demand and low future demand), "bombs" (low current demand and low future demand), and "rising stars" (low current demand and high future demand).
Some industries anticipate future demand by tracking the
purchasing behaviors of consumers (e.g., supermarket "discount"
cards that link buying histories to individuals whose demographics
can be defined by other data sources), by large-scale satisfaction
surveys, and by focus groups. Although we may dislike these
methods, some have become common in higher education and in health
care.
Marketing as a Process of Delivering Service
Schools of business typically approach marketing through the four "Ps" of Product, Price, Place, and Packaging. What follows applies to both services and products, and represents an approach to competitive marketing.
- Product refers to the benefits of what is offered.
The emphasis here is not on the product or service itself, but
rather on the impact upon the consumer or the agent who pays
for the product or service. Benefit may take the form of
improved communication effectiveness or efficiency, a slower
rate of diminished communication ability, or some less obvious
future benefit (e.g., greater earning potential, lessened
future liability, or increased likelihood of a desired
outcome).
- Price refers to the fees paid by the agent
responsible for payment. Price is influenced by the costs of
service (which may or may not be entirely passed along to the
consumer or the paying agent), and in private settings, the
need to generate surplus income (profit). Public and not-for
profit agencies traditionally have been considered immune from
the need to generate surplus income, but in many circumstances
this is no longer the case. Low price is not always perceived
as better. For some, price is not an issue; for others is the
only issue.
- Place refers to the location from which a service
(or product) originates, and the location at which it is
consumed. Separating the two may constitute a competitive
advantage, as in the case of telemedicine, where time and space
(or both) may separate caregiver from patient. Centralized
offices and treatment centers will persist, but so will
patterns by which care is brought to consumers (e.g., SLPs who
provide services at several schools, audiologists who have more
than one office, and shopping mall centers of the sort common
to optometry).
- Packaging refers to the organization of the delivery
of products or services. For our professions, packaging is not
a new idea (audiologists once prided themselves on combining
speech reading services with hearing aids), but it has received
scant attention in recent years. Packaging alternatives include
combinations of therapeutic devices (e.g., augmentative
communication systems or laryngeal prostheses) plus therapy
services for "significant others," hearing aids plus personal
adjustment counseling, or coordinated service arrangements that
systematically call upon allied professionals to serve patients
with swallowing disorders, traumatic brain injury or
degenerative neurological conditions. Creative packaging, like
product, price, and place may become compelling factors in the
marketplace if it rises to the level of benefit in the minds of
those who pay for services.
DEVELOPING MARKETING TOOLS
If the material above is useful, it suggests as many questions as it does answers. Among those questions are--
- Whom do I want to serve?
- How did my clients become my clients?
- How do my clients perceive the services I provide?
- How can I better serve my clients?
Most of these deal with client perceptions of value, benefit, need, and satisfaction. These perceptions have real impact and can be discovered systematically. A survey offers one means by which client perceptions can be sampled.
Professionals in health care and education may dislike the idea of competing with each other. Yet in many situations, we do compete, if not with each other, then with other professionals (e.g., in medicine, physical therapy, occupational therapy, special education, or music therapy). If "marketing is an exchange of value," we often compete by seeking to provide greater value than our competitors. Pressures to demonstrate efficacy of service (e.g., particular therapy regimens, or new hearing aid technologies) make it clear that regardless of our views of the value of what we do and how we do it, a growing number of internal and external audiences require objective evidence of benefit.
For some, marketing will remain repugnant, and for some it may be irrelevant. For others, familiarity with the perspectives and language of marketing may suggest ways to enhance services to clients and (thus) the viability of our practices. For many, the ability do "good works" is largely determined by success in also doing "good business."
