The Complete Guide to Women's Health Service Line Marketing

Mary Anne L. Graf, BSN, MS

Marketing your women’s service line involves more than just talking to women about your obstetrics services. Women are the family healthcare gatekeeper—attract them to your women’s service line and you will attract their family and friends to your other service lines as well.

It doesn’t take a million-dollar budget to promote your service line; all it takes is a focused effort. This book will teach you how to use data to learn who your audience is and create gender-specific marketing techniques. Readers will benefit from:

• Multiple strategies and tactics to maximize marketing of the women’s service line and support organizational success in an uncertain future
• Innovative processes to reach more women, more often, with information that resonates deeply
• The latest data about gender-specific marketing techniques in order to reach audiences faster and with less expense, and pave the way for successful gender marketing with other service lines
• Guides to rational marketing spending, for budgets from near-zero to near-million
• Ways of focusing on goals to demonstrate a return on the investment of marketing time, energy, and dollars

• Filling a gap in application of overall marketing strategy and tactics at the women’s health service line level

Testimonials: “Mag knows more about effective marketing strategies and tactics than any other service line executive I have worked with in the last two decades. Her knowledge about marketing is both wide and deep, including great gender-specific communication strategies. Mag consistently comes up with fresh ideas about gender-specific program development and marketing that make sense for any service line, from cardiac to psych and beyond.”

—James Sherwood, chief administrative officer, Bon Secours Hampton Roads Health System

“I keep Mary Anne’s first book on my desk—pages dog-eared and post-it notes throughout; it’s a valued resource. It is because of Mary Anne’s inherent love and passion for teaching that she shares her latest wisdom, provides good advice, and offers her perspective and good humor. Keep this new book handy!”

—Stephanie Fendrick, vice president, strategic partnerships and program development, Virtua Health System

“Mag is the best at connecting the dots that I have ever seen. She’s also very good at demonstrating the value of marketing, and she does it objectively. Nothing speaks to CFOs like using their own data to prove a point.”

—Pete Gallagher, president, Manakin Associates, LLC

Table of Contents:

Chapter 1: The Myth of “A Woman’s Merit”

• Power Up Your Thinking With Psychographics
• Focus the Lens: How Life Experiences and Culture Influence Reception of Your Marketing
• Critical Key: Know Your Market

Chapter 2: Women’s Marketing: Is It Really Different From Any Other Service?

• Disease/Event-Based Marketing? Or Population/Relationship-Based Marketing?
• The Internet: The Portico to Your Women’s Service Line
• What Is the Life Stage Approach?

Chapter 3: Achieving the Magical Connection

• Can Anyone Market Women’s Services?
• Getting Inside the Mind of Your Consumers
• It Really Is Nature … Honest
• How Gender Differences Play Out in Marketing

Chapter 4: Your Women’s Services Marketing Team

• Your Marketing Team: The Good, the Bad, and the Missing
• Wait! What If I Really Don’t Have a Marketing Team?
• Finding Out What’s New in Women’s Service Line Marketing
• Women’s Services Marketing Franchises
• Your Marketing Team: Before the “Do,” a Quick Summary of the “Be”

Chapter 5: Laying the Foundation: Key Market Databases

• Market Research … or MarketING Research?
• Foundational Market Databases
• Case Study: Choosing a Location for an OB/GYN Practice
• National Organizations: Database/Experiential Information
• Private Provider Patient Information

Chapter 6: Laying the Foundation: Marketing Research

• Case Study: Two Female Populations, an Hour and a World Apart
• Remember the Key Question
• Overview: Marketing Research Methodologies
• Quantitative or Qualitative Marketing Research?
• How Involved Should You Be in Marketing Research?
• Always Involve Non-Users
• Spreading the Impact
• Maximizing Your Qualitative Research
• Conjoint Analysis
• Case Study: Use of Conjoint Analysis With Qualitative Marketing Research
• Case Study: Mascot Marketing Research With Kids

Chapter 7: Within Your Grasp: Women’s Service Line Marketing Utopia

• Experiential Marketing
• Case Study: Texas Children’s Hospital Pavilion for Women/Gelb Experience Mapping

Chapter 8: Women and Media: New, Old, and Bridging the Gap

• Start Thinking Now About Your Target Markets and Submarkets
• Media Selection Factors
• Case Study: The Prevea/Hospital Sisters Wonder Campaign
• Case Study: The CDC and Social Media

Chapter 9: The Power of Public Relations

• Using PR Effectively
• Case Study: PR: Safe and Sound
• PR and ROI

Chapter 10: Getting Focused: Your Women’s Service Line Marketing Plan

• Strategic Marketing Plan Outline
• Overwhelmed Yet?
• Selling Your Strategic Marketing Plan

Chapter 11: Small Budget, High Impact, Planting a Flag

• Starting Small: Planting the Flag
• Guerilla Marketing
• Case Study: Speed Dating for Physicians

Chapter 12: What About …

• Marketing Children’s Services: Is There a Crossover With Women’s Marketing?
• Marketing Nice Services in Obstetrics and Overall Women’s Health
• Case Study: Market Segmentation for Population Mirroring
• Preparing for ACOs: Population Health
• Your Role in Clinical Business Development

About the Author:

Mary Anne L. Graf, BSN, MS, currently has full-time responsibility for business development and marketing for women’s and children’s services for the seven-hospital Bon Secours Virginia Health System, the largest faith-based integrated delivery system in Virginia. Prior to joining Bon Secours as vice president for women’s and children’s services in 2001, Graf founded Health Care Innovations and HCI Market Research Group. In the 16 years HCI was Graf’s full-time business, she led the firm to international prominence in women’s and children’s services planning and development. Graf is the author of Women’s Health: Strategies for Superior Service Line Performance (HealthLeaders Media, 2010).

Published: November 2013