Reaching the 5 audience segments of the healthcare startup
Healthcare startup businesses have boomed over the last five years. With interest rates low and the cost of technology declining — venture funding deals increased around 200 percent between 2010 and 2014.
Investments in new healthcare ventures average $6.5 billion/yr
Healthcare startups may have to communicate with five very different audience segments in order to thrive. Benefits to one segment may have no appeal at all for another possessing an entirely different stake in your product. Understand the motivations of each segment and adjust your marketing and communications approach accordingly.
Investors
Marketing to those who can fund your startup is do or die. The investor’s primary motivation is of course, return on investment (ROI). Serious investors will scrutinize a full business plan. But when a startup is seeking funding, remember that the investor is looking at your website too. Make sure to include verbiage on your website that touches on the market need and potential for big impact.
“Your premium brand had better be delivering something special, or it’s not going to get the business.”- Warren Buffet
Your website should answer four basic impact questions:
What opening in the healthcare ecosystem does your product fill?
What is the size of that niche?
What are projections of health impact?
And often, how much money will the use of your product save the industry?
Providers
Most healthcare startups do not sell directly to the public, but to service providers. Providers are interested in improved patient outcomes and improved reimbursements.
Providers are motivated by:
• Improved patient experiences
• Improved patient retention
• Improved treatment paradigms
• Improved patient compliance
• Streamlined workflows reducing non-reimbursable activity time
• Reduced waste
• Increased reimbursement models
• New streams of income
Once you sell a provider on your product, they will need to communicate and sell its value to their patients, and they will want your marketing support. Providers will want to see your patient-focused materials to feel confident that adoption of your product will be successful.
Patients
With more and more patients on insurance plans with high deductibles, high co-pays, and high co-insurance, patients are researching options online and becoming savvy consumers of healthcare. Patients are not passive puppets that may be obtained simply by getting providers on board with your product.
35% of US adults say they have used the internet to try to figure out what medical condition they or another may have.
53% of these people have talked with a clinician about what they found online. [1]
Patients are motivated by:
• Improved comfort, ease of use, and simplicity
• Convenience and reduced time expenditure
• New technology and mobile products
• Lower costs
• Better results
• Being empowered with options
• A more personalized experience
Groups — the B2B of Healthcare:
The completely independent town doctor has virtually disappeared. Providers function in groups, pooling resources to expand their patient base and provide more comprehensive care. In addition to health systems, you will need to know your acronyms — IDNs, GPOs, CINs, ACOs and IPAs.
Integrated Delivery Networks (IDNs)
IDNs are formally coordinated hospital systems that provide a full spectrum of healthcare, from health insurance plans to primary, long-term, specialty and acute medical care.
Group Purchasing Organizations (GPOs)
GPOs are groups of individual businesses with similar supply needs that benefit from volume discounts through bulk purchasing from vendors. Many health systems purchase everything from consumables to HR benefit packages from GPOs.
Clinically Integrated Networks (CINs)
CINs are formally arranged networks of independent physicians and hospitals that collectively negotiate payment rates and other financial incentives with insurers or the government by improving care delivery and reducing costs.
Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs)
ACOs are voluntary groups of healthcare providers ranging from doctors to hospitals who share in savings they receive through coordinating and improving care for Medicare patients.
Independent Practice (or Physician) Associations (IPAs)
IPAs are business entities comprised of independent physician practices that collaborate for large-scale contracts, to negotiate fees, and invest in technologies or improvements.
Groups are motivated by:
• Reduced costs through economy of scale
• Improved workflow
• Reduced administrative tasks
• Better communications
• Increased connectivity
• Increased compliance
Payers
Health insurance providers want to support accurate and effective care. They want to avoid payouts that exceed the premiums they collect.
Payers are motivated by:
• Prevention, prevention, prevention
• Reduced rates of chronic diseases
• Improved patient compliance
• Reversal of disease progress
• Reduced waste
• Improved care coordination
• Reduced costs
Expect to produce alternate versions of print materials and content downloads that address payer concerns more assertively. Payers can be late adopters of new products and services. They prefer to follow a large-scale adoption of a product rather than buy-into beta results. Payers want evidence-based ROI. They are averse to payouts for new services, except when you can prove that adoption of your product reduces or eliminates the need for costlier alternatives or eventualities.
G. Lee Wall is president at Raison Brands in Richmond, Virginia. To find out more, see Raison.