Monday, February 13, 2012

Custom-Fit Marketing

What a difference fifty years will make. In 1963, we had the passage of the Community Mental Health Center Act and the concept of serving all the mental health needs of the community in one place.

Roll forward fifty years. We know more about mental illness; we know more about comorbid health conditions; we have better treatment tools; we have parity; we're close to having universal coverage; and we have a national imperative to try to control health care spending which is now 16.5% of the GDP. And we also know that the majority of health care spending in the United States is spent on a very small segment of the population, the majority of whom have chronic complex conditions. As a result we're moving to a system where the financial and service delivery models for serving those consumers is very different (I wrote more about this in my cover story of our last newsletter, The Marketing Challenge Of The 5% & The 95% all members).

The strategic issue ahead for both service provider organizations and care management organizations is that this shift in systems requires deliberately choosing which consumer markets to service and how best to serve them. It's all about market segmentation. If you're not familiar with the concept – it is the marketing process of dividing a large population into identifiable segments with unique needs and wants – and designing a marketing approach that matches the specific needs of the consumers in that segment. In other words, one-size-fits-all services will no longer work – the services for the 5% of the population is not service delivery that is "needed or wanted" by the 95%.

This puts service provider organizations in a difficult position. And the reality is that organizations will need to decide to serve one segment or another (and, yes, there are subsegments) or develop separate strategies for servicing these two populations. For some quick reads on customer segmentation and targeted service line development, take a look at these resources:

• Looking For New Revenue? First Step Is Customer ID all members

• Commodity Market Pricing and Business Planning: How Can Provider Organizations Respond to Falling Payment Rates? premium members

• From Design To Measurement: How To Build A Successful Referral Development Campaign For Your Residential Treatment Center premium members

• Who Is My Customer Anyway?: Recognizing Distinct Customer Groups & Tailoring Marketing Efforts Effectively premium members

• Moving To A "Customer-Driven" Competitive Strategy: The Information And Analysis Needed For Strategic Market Positioning premium members

• Harnessing Consumerism in Health Care: Meet the Needs of Six Consumer Types premium members

The opportunities for delivering services to these two "markets" are rapidly expanding, and with this expansion, there will be increased pressure on organizations to adopt new ideas and new business models to position themselves for the future.

Sincerely,
Monica E. Oss
Chief Executive Officer, OPEN MINDS

Back to top

For another free resource, see: Going Where the Money Is: Cost Containment Options for High Needs, High Cost Population all members 

This is free for the next sixty days to all registered OPEN MINDS Circle members.

Back to top