subject: Marketing plans: Ways to market to American healthcare consumers [print this page] Marketing plans: Ways to market to American healthcare consumers
The normal average consumer in the United States reads at a 5th-6th grade level. Notwithstanding this, most doctors and medical staff write to them at a 10th to 12th grade leveland that is just half of the communication problem.
The other half is that majority of healthcare professionals and marketers communicate to consumers using cold facts, logic and intellect. However, the American consumers select products and services based on emotions and feelings. They may justify their decisions later on with facts and logic, however virtually every buying decision, including the decision to select a certain healthcare practice, is based on emotion.
This is not an opinion but is a fact based on numerous market research studies. American healthcare consumers are no different than most consumers in general; their main concern is selfish. They only care about what is in it for them. If you do not tell them about the advantages they can receive from your care in language they understand, they will tune you out. In spite of this fact, there's a prevailing sense among many physicians that healthcare consumers are somehow better educated, smarter and more sophisticated than consumers in general. However they are not.
What makes healthcare consumersact in response to a healthcare marketing message is the emotional connection they feel with the message. If they do not feel that you don't care about them or for that matter if your message is written over their heads, they will not respond.
To learn more about marketing effectively to healthcare consumers and to get tips on ways to sell medical practice, talk to one of the marketing experts at a healthcare marketing servicesagency.