Focus on Healthcare Benefits

To generate response from prospective patients, medical practice marketing should focus on the benefits of your healthcare services and products. The most common mistake physicians make when creating promotional marketing materials for their practice is stressing the features of their services and products instead of the benefits.

But, people don’t by features….they buy benefits.

Benefits are the reason people select your healthcare products and services over another. For example:

“state-of-the-art facilities” – this is a feature of your practice

vs.

“accurate, life-saving screenings” – this is the benefit of your “state-of-the-art facilities”

OR

“we offer spinal decompression” – this is a feature of your practice

vs.

“alleviate involved and chronic disc conditions without surgery!” – this a benefit of spinal decompression

You see, features are simply a factual statement about your product or service, but benefits provide the answer to the question that every patient wants to know, which is “What is in it for me?” Your patients need to understand your value, especially if you are providing services that are paid for out-of-pocket.

In the examples above you can see the power and persuasion linked to a truthful benefits statement. Take a look at your promotional materials. Are they chock-full of benefits? If not, it’s likely to be the reason your promotional materials are not performing well. I’m amazed at how common this oversight is, and in working with clients, I’ve realized that most practice owners/managers or marketing directors don’t understand how to differentiate between a features and benefits.

So, I’ve come up with several steps you can take to ensure your medical advertising materials are benefit laden.

First, Understand Your Target Market

You need to learn everything you can about the types of patients you are trying to attract to your practice. More importantly, you want to be sure that you are targeting the right type of patients to begin with. Once you understand the demographic and behavioral buttons of your target patients you will be able to better identify the features that will lead them to choose your practice over many others.

Second, Step into the Shoes of Your Prospective Patient

Oftentimes if you are doing your own marketing you are too close to your medical practice to perceive it the way a prospective patient would. This is why you must make an extra effort to look at your practice as a stranger would, and refrain from making any assumptions. From this different perspective, consider the features you’ve identified and ask, “what results will I have with this product or service?”  These “results” will lead you to your preliminary benefits.

Finally, Focus On Results

Take the “results” you generated and ask “why are these results helpful or valuable?” Ask, “How is my lifestyle and health improved by these results?” Once you have fully outlined the answers to these questions, you will have a solid set of benefits that you can use in your medical marketing materials.

Use these three steps in all of your marketing collateral development and watch your response rates soar! Remember, patients are becoming savvier than ever about healthcare so it’s your job to communicate your value to them so that you can develop a sustainable and profitable practice.

Tagged as: benefits, health, healthcare, healthcare benefits, Healthcare Marketing, healthcare services, Marketing Your Medical Practice, medical practice, Medical Practice Advertising, medicine, physician, practice