Plain Talk

The landscape for healthcare patient acquisition is changing.

This is leading many systems to rethink their approach, and one excellent category to emulate is health clubs. Not only are they closely related to the healthcare industry, but health clubs set a defined path for market planning and targeted marketing to diverse audiences.

Health clubs expertly utilize datasets to produce models for site selection. Healthcare systems have been reluctant to use models for market planning. However, increasing pressure to grow available access points is forcing systems to rethink their approach to healthcare analytics.

Like healthcare systems, health clubs have a highly diverse clientele, which demands deployment of multiple marketing messages simultaneously. Again, health clubs have created a roadmap every healthcare system should examine.

Specifically, here are three club‑proven strategies that make good planning and marketing sense for healthcare systems.

Think of your patients as customers.
When locating new facilities, trade area characteristics such as ease of access to a clinic, drive‑time and distance from the highway are critical. That's why health clubs place facilities near supermarkets and shopping centers - and why you see so many empty spaces in strip malls being repurposed by healthcare systems. Taking care of strep throat and picking up dinner in one are the convenience play the doctor ordered.

Determine the big picture with better market planning.
Reduce capital risk when planning for future facility and service placement by starting with analytical tools. Household‑level demographics and psychographics inform health clubs with better knowledge of their market areas when planning for expansion - a technique that brings science into the picture instead of just hunches.

Data, plus local market knowledge, delivers new insights.
Yes, you can thoroughly understand current and prospective patients and their myriad of needs. That's exactly how every health club determines whether to offer additional Pilates classes or invest in more cardio equipment. The same approach applies to deploying specialists, staffing ambulatory facilities and crafting new healthcare marketing campaigns.

The next time you're on an elliptical machine at your health club, take a look around. And realize that everything at that club has done to attract and retain its customers applies directly to how you can grow your healthcare system and improve patient outcomes through better patient profiles. It's an approach that means a healthier future for everyone.

Buxton is the leading customer analytics firm that helps organizations identify who their customers are, where those customers are located, and the value those customers have to the organization.

2651 South Polaris Drive
Fort Worth, TX 76137
1-888-2BUXTON

buxtonco.com

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