MARKETING EXPERT IN HEALTH INDUSTRY: What Could Neurotechnology Learn from Cosmetic Surgery?
As new players in health industry, neurotechnology practitioners (NTP) could learn a lot from cosmetic surgery practitioners (CSP) in marketing matters. A business project group surprisingly found that NTP in Australia only have limited effort on their marketing strategies. Therefore, NTP should learn from CSP which among all health industry practices, have been effectively penetrate customers with latest marketing strategies.
CSP as well as NTP have to handle high-profile customers who require spending high amount of money, willing to do continuous treatment, and have power to choose different treatment since it is not the only way to reach their objective.
In Korea, entire face make over surgery will cost USD $ 40,000 in average, not including after treatment cost. Yet, the trend which each out of 77 people had done cosmetic surgery despite the fact that they also have to go under pain of knife is still increasing (Schalow 2013).
On the other hand, neurofeedback as one of neurotechnology practice would cost around USD $ 2,000 – USD $ 4,000 for minimum number of 20-40 sessions to improve mental health problems such as ADHD or depression. Although neurofeedback has non-invasive approach, it has not been popular enough among customers since medication still is the main treatment for ADHD (RCH 2015) or depression in Australia (Victoria 2015).
Different trends on similar high-profile customers’ characteristic, make it interesting for NTP to learn how CSP could grab attention from public and successfully gain customer preferences.
Five marketing strategies to implement
1. Website as online presence
Building website is the first marketing strategy that should be executed by NTP, since 80% of potential patients have been used their internet to search their future medical treatment (Sunila 2006). Yet, a business project group recently found that 17% of mental health practices in New South Wales (NSW) still have not build any website. Website effectiveness has been proved by a cosmetic surgery practice which stated that 80% of its new patients have been referred from its website (Sunila 2006). Therefore, a novel alternative such as neurotechnology is supposed to follow this strategy.
2. Rich contents
NTP should feed their websites with rich contents to enlighten customers, since this strategy has successfully powerful for CSP. Rich contents could contribute more values to customers through knowledge sharing, while in the same time also add credibility image for NTP. Knowledge could be shared by formulating up-to-date information about neurotechnology or newest research results into customer friendly contents. Detailed information about treatment procedures, video and real pictures of treatment, expected outcomes, and budget calculation could also be added as contents to give specific image to customers. 3 0ut of 13 NTP in NSW have tried to provide blog to give more knowledge for potential customers, yet they still need to improve in the future. Rich contents also support website to reach highest rank in search engine, thus help neurotechnology to be seen as credible treatment among other alternatives.
3. Engage with social media
As CSP have been impressively use their social media to communicate with their customer(Lewis 2012), NTP are also expected to engage with customers by using these platforms. CSP have been use social media to share patients’ real experiences or even before and after photographs(Domanski 2012). While business project group discovered only 2 out of 13 NTP in New South Wales have used social media, NTP could adopt this approach by providing testimonials from patients or their carers after had treatment in the clinic. Of course, since neurotechnology has longer time to show its impacts, NTP with patients’ consent could create continuous testimonial video to show progress from the treatment. Background and success stories allow patients to engage with perspective from other patients. Patients could be assured that with similar symptoms, they could have same treatments for expected result.
4. Involved in local communities
Involved in local communities have been implement by several CSP and it is assumed could bring equivalent positive image if NTP apply it as well. A cosmetic clinic that mostly do breast implants in Australia, consistently supports local breast cancer community in order to gain awareness from local public(Domanski 2012). NTP have wide range of opportunities as well to target local communities such as ADHD and depression community support groups. NTP could gain awareness from local by providing their expertise as speakers or sponsorship funds to community groups which have been regularly gather potential patients with its seminars, meetings, conferences or newsletters.
5. Mix of both
It is necessary to remind customers about their clinic existences to encourage word-of-mouth, hence NTP could amplify their positions by combining both online marketing and local approach strategies. A cosmetic surgery in Cincinnati has been effectively legitimize its clinical practice by spreading email digitized its published traditional marketing such as radio and print advertising to its potential patient database (Sunila 2006).
NTP could also prove their sustainable business commitment by digitized their traditional marketing or even their event, seminar, or information session which give more added value to customer. Limited explorations of this strategy was showed when business project group only come across one NTP in NSW that has implement this mixed strategy.
There are still large unexplored rooms for NTP in Australia to experiment with their marketing strategies. Learn from CSP, these five marketing strategies could help NTP to gain stronger position as reliable alternatives in mental health market. While these strategies are expected to bring excellent results, they have to be followed by regular evaluations in order to find the right marketing proportion for each clinic. There are future possibilities for NTP to build their practices as success as CSP’s by doing similar strategies and providing the best services to patients.
References:
Domanski, M. C. a. C., N. 2012, 'Self Reported "Worth It" Rating of Aesthetic Surgery in Social Media', Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, viewed 1 November 2015,Springer.
Lewis, W. 2012, 'Smart Practices: Social Media Outsourcing: Who can you trust?', Medical Sciences - Surgery : Anthem Media Group, viewed 2 November 2015,Proquest,<http://ezproxy.library.usyd.edu.au/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/1641867339?accountid=14757>
RCH, T. R. C. s. H. M. 2015, Kids Health Info: ADHD - Stimulant medication, The Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne,viewed 1 November 2015,< http://www.rch.org.au/kidsinfo/fact_sheets/ADHD_Stimulant_medication/>
Schalow, T. 2013, Cosmetic surgery is a growth industry in Korea, Global Business Views,viewed 1 November 2015,< http://www.globalbusinessviews.com/?p=794>
Sunila, J. 2006, 'Marketing in Digital Age', Plastic Surgery Practice (Online): Anthem Media Group, viewed 2 November 2015,Proquest,<http://ezproxy.library.usyd.edu.au/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/1642083894?accountid=14757>
Victoria, V. S. G. 2015, Depression - treatment and management, Victoria State Government Better Health Channel,viewed 1 November 2015,< https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/conditionsandtreatments/depression-treatment-and-management>
Image source: theaustralian.com
