Being able to start a conversation at the moment an individual needs your service is critical to driving volume and loyalty. In healthcare, there are many ways to segment your audience that go far beyond the basic demographics of age, income, and geography. Some targeting opportunities include propensity for commercial insurance, presence of children in the home, health and lifestyle propensities, profiling clusters, medical diagnosis and procedure codes (ICD-10 and CPT).
Coordinating the right message, at the right time, with the right person is the essence of marketing, and using segmentation will allow for higher response rates with a lower marketing spend overall.
With mass marketing, you are using budget and resources to send a generalized message to capture only a few people, losing most of the audience you were hoping to connect with. By segmenting your audience, you are able to customize and personalize your messaging to speak directly to the ideal individual. Coordinating the right message, at the right time, with the right person is the essence of marketing, and using segmentation will allow for higher response rates with a lower marketing spend overall.
If you were to run a marketing campaign for orthopedic services, you would attempt to reach those individuals who are in need of orthopedic services. However, those needing knee replacement surgery may be different than those needing hip replacement surgery. Often times these services are lumped together as a general orthopedic message, but being able to split the campaigns and target your audience with the right messaging will result in a better conversion rate.
Knowing who to suppress from your campaign is just as important as speaking to the right individual. For instance, if you are promoting a birthing center, you would want to suppress any woman who has had a miscarriage or stillbirth. It would be very upsetting to a recipient to receive a mailing about a birthing center if they just had a miscarriage, resulting in a negative impression towards your brand.
When it comes to segmentation, make sure you have a partner who is well-versed in building out healthcare campaign strategies and can offer their insight and value to your campaigns.
If you would like more information about segmentation and targeting, call 800-928-0712.
Amy Owens is a seasoned healthcare marketer with 15 years of experience. As the Director of Strategic Accounts at LionShare, she leads the Client Services team and is responsible for building client partnerships and developing and executing strategic marketing solutions. Prior to LionShare, Amy served as Director of Marketing and Communications at St. Francis Health in Topeka, Kansas and Team Leader of Marketing and Communications at Mosaic Life Care in St. Joseph, Missouri. She earned her MBA at Baker University in Baldwin City, Kansas. To contact Amy, feel free to email amyowens@lionsharemarketing.com or call 800-928-0712.
