My Take: Business Tools Can Help You Promote Health. Really.
By Matt McDowell | April 24, 2014
Quick: what do you think when you hear the words, “We really need to market that health program.” Or how about, “We could sure use some cutting-edge business tools to make this health program stronger.”
If you’re like a lot of people I’ve met in the worlds of public health, health care and nonprofits, you may be recoiling in horror—or at least shaking your head. Here’s what people often tell me about marketing and business tools.
- Marketing is difficult. And it’s expensive. We can’t afford it.
- We’re not a business, and we’re not in sales. We don’t want to use tools designed for big business.
- Marketing and business promotion are manipulative. That doesn’t fit with our values, so we don’t do it.
My belief, after 25 years in the marketing and business world, and 7 years in the nonprofit arena, is that you and everyone you work with are in business. You may be selling a service, an idea or a product. But, if you can’t close the sale, you won’t succeed in your mission.
You’re Trying to Lose Your Job
In most nonprofits, the very best possible outcome would be that you succeed in your mission so thoroughly that the issues you address are solved and your work is no longer needed. While applying smart marketing principles isn’t likely to make your job disappear, it will help you succeed in reaching more people, more often and more effectively.
Promoting your work well gives more people access to your services, messages and products. It also helps you develop a stronger brand identity.
I know. More recoiling. But another premise I believe is that every organization has a brand identity. It may be weak or strong. It may be positive or not so great. But you’ve got one. And this is a good thing. Because when you apply effective branding, you’ll be first in mind among the people you want to reach. When someone in your intended audience of clients, patients or customers has a question about the issue your work addresses, they think of… your organization!
This is immediately clear when you think about some health organizations that have done a fantastic job of branding. Where would you go for answers to questions about cancer? heart disease? lung disease? There’s a good chance that first in mind are the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association and the American Lung Association.
Know Your Audience
The tools that work best today for businesses and nonprofits focus on two things: your audience and the data.
Start by identifying your audience. Are you reaching people interested in sexual and reproductive health? nutrition and physical activity? obesity and chronic disease? preventive health and primary health care?
Then get more specific. Are you reaching adults? parents? children? health providers or educators? You probably have a number of audiences.
Develop profiles of your audience. What makes them unique? What types of messages, delivered in what fashion, are most likely to resonate and be effective? What strategies can help you stay first in mind with this specific group?
Keep It Updated
Successful organizations keep checking on and updating these profiles, because their initial ideas may not be completely on target. And, even if your profiles are spot on, what works can change over time, and audiences develop message fatigue if the content isn’t kept fresh.
How do you know what changes to make when updating customer profiles and outreach strategies? Data. You need to track “touches”—the times your audience contacts you or you contact them. What generated the touch? What was the result of the contact? How successful is the follow-up from your audience?
This is also an era in which money is tighter. Funders are more demanding, and they want data. Measure and evaluate everything you do—for grants and contracts, for business plans and for your own continual improvement. Good evaluation helps you invest more toward your successes and pull limited resources away from what isn’t working.
Make It Easy
To be effective, you want to make it as easy as possible for your audience to interact with you. As the world becomes more nomadic, organizations need to offer a wider range of ways to make contact, including workable mobile options. Your clients or patients might reach you by phone, email or text message, or through social media. They might want to talk with a live person, download relevant content, or set up an appointment.
Ease of use is part of your branding and marketing strategy. When people find it easy to contact you and get their needs met, your positive brand is reinforced.
Choose Your Tools
Here are a few of my favorite tools that can help organizations promote themselves and create effective relationships with their audience.
Constant Contact helps companies create dynamic email campaigns. They work with large and small businesses and offer affordable starter packages.
HootSuite is a social media management dashboard. It allows users to manage multiple social networks, schedule posts across different networks, track mentions of their organization in social media, and more. They offer a range of plans and pricing.
HubSpot helps companies set up inbound marketing programs. Basically, this means that instead of just pushing messages out there into the wide world, you send out special offers or free content that draws in your selected audience.
Make It Powerful
In the new world, organizations also need to use some familiar tools in new and more powerful ways. For example:
Visual content makes a huge difference. The brain likes visuals better than text. Did you know that posts with videos attract 3 times more responses than plain text posts? (Read more about the power of visuals here.) Crank out those videos, develop some infographics, embed good content from other sources. But make it visual!
Media and public relations are necessary. Interactions with media and PR are more prevalent and necessary than ever before. Organizations need a media/PR strategy and should assign staff to manage this function.
Community building is key. Blogs, newsletters, social media and email campaigns build your presence and engagement with your audience. It’s important to keep the streams active and lively to maintain that engagement.
Gather Information and Respect Privacy
Part of this new strategy builds on obtaining relevant information from your audience—as much as is reasonably possible. What are their names? Where are their neighborhoods? What health issues concern them? When did they last see a health care provider?
Why? Because this allows you to stay in front of your audience with relevant content, engage them in ways that matter, make a difference in their lives and track your successes.
Obviously, it’s also essential to respect privacy and build in protections for this content, and to always give people the choice to opt out.
Tons of Resources
There are some incredible and easily accessible resources out there that can help you and your staff build greater sophistication in business and marketing strategies. A good place to start is the American Marketing Association.
If you work for a nonprofit or service organization, enter “nonprofits” into the AMA search bar and you’ll find webinars and other content tailored to the nonprofit sector. Access to some of this content requires membership, but there are also materials available to the public at large. Look for their announcement about the 2014 AMA Nonprofit Marketing Conference, scheduled for next July.
Over the past few years, ETR has travelled a path toward greater marketing and visibility itself, so we understand what it’s like to be on this new-world journey. We provide marketing consultation for nonprofits and health organizations, as well as measurement and evaluation services, so feel free to contact me if you’d like to know more about these offerings.
One of the best descriptions of marketing I’ve heard is that it makes value visible. You’re doing some incredibly valuable work out there. Market on!
Matt McDowell is the Director of Marketing at ETR. He can be reached at mattm@etr.org.
