Four Tips to Boost Cardiovascular Marketing Direct Mail Response

Direct mail is not dead.

Don’t get me wrong. I love email and online marketing as much as the next digital guru. But those of you who know me well can hear me saying, “They’re just another tool in our toolbox.”

Based on recent campaign results for our clients, I’m convinced more than ever that cardiovascular marketers can generate excellent results with strategic, targeted, well-crafted, “traditional” direct mail.

It’s an excellent medium to reach residents who are new to your area or to engage with new patients through offers of screenings or heart-healthy educational content.

However, it’s not necessarily enough to just mail once and to expect miracles. Direct mail, like any media, can benefit from frequency.

An excerpt from “Strategy & Tactics for Boosting Direct Mail Response,” a new 122-page report from Direct Marketing IQ, features best practices from leading direct mail experts. It highlights four ideas to consider:

• Re-mail the original package to the same target audience.
  • As with any message, timing is everything, and a re-mail could catch people just when they need your services. We’ve had great luck with the strategy — often generating more than 50 percent more response than we got with the first round.
• Send anew mailer execution to non-responders.
  • Highlight a different benefit. The theory is that if one approach doesn’t work, you go back to the prospect with a different pitch.
• If your offer is good for a limited time only, be sure to play that up.
  • People tend to respond more if there’s a sense of urgency. For example, if you have packaged screenings into a package price, think about setting a time limit: “Your eligibility for this final offer expires on December 31, 2011.”
• The last contact with the prospect can be a postcard.
  • 
Postcards are inexpensive, and your message is instantly visible. Our clients have had great success with follow up postcards. It’s certainly an easy strategy to consider.

Cardiovascular Marketing Insight: A Rare Look Inside the Doctor-Patient Relationship

“Ultimately, I found peace in the realization that medicine is an art and that interpersonal relationships are at its core.”

Ram Y. Gordon, M.D.

In the process of developing campaigns for cardiovascular centers over the past couple of decades, I’ve often heard cardiologists talk about the things that set their programs apart from competitors.

Of course, we consider technology and usually spend a lot of time talking about proficiency with complicated procedures and the latest in new equipment.

Sometimes, the conversation turns to the “softer” side of medicine.  One client likes to tout their philosophy of “longitudinal care,” meaning that they develop deep relationships with patients and their families over time.

Often, though, I’m left wanting to know more – more about the type of human connection that can truly build a differentiating patient experience.

An article in The Journal of the American Medical Association offers a candid view of the intricacies involved in forging a successful doctor-patient relationship.

Dr. Ram Gordon shares his experience with a longtime patient from the beginning:

I was in practice only three months when I met him. I had just finished my cardiology fellowship and, insecure about my lack of experience, strove for a serious, professional demeanor. My tie was straight, shirt pressed, white coat starched and buttoned. Above all, I sought to establish and maintain the boundaries of the patient-physician relationship.

Soon, Dr. Gordon began receiving notes from his patient, “Mr. M.”

As has happened each time, I left you yesterday with added confidence, trust, zing, and a feeling that things-are-going-to-be-all-right. I know the cautions, but I also know the feeling and I am grateful to you for it.

Several months later, another note read:

I look forward to my appointments with you. Our conversations are good for my morale and good cheer, as well as my physical health.

At some point in the relationship, “Mr. M” began to ask Dr. Gordon more about his own life.   At first, this made the doctor uncomfortable.

He was my patient, not my friend. Our relationship, while cordial and warm, was one of physician and patient, and I was fairly certain that this line should not be crossed. But this request, from this particular patient, felt somehow different.

The article highlights several more interactions between Dr. Gordon and “Mr. M” over the years.   Clearly, a deep mutual respect and affection emerged.

After several years, “Mr. M” passed away.

His death hit me like a ton of bricks. I felt as though I had lost a grandfather. I was his physician, and his cardiac issues always came first. But his office visits, telephone calls, and letters were special gifts. I could not deny their importance to me. My medical training had imprinted on me the principle that evenhanded distance is the appropriate relationship between physician and patient. I wondered if we had crossed any lines that reduced my medical objectivity. Had I served him well as his cardiologist? Had I become too close to a patient?

Ultimately, Dr. Gordon came to the following realization:

To deny his proffered “friendship” would have been to miss out on an amazing relationship with a fellow human being. Understanding his nature also made me a more effective physician. On some level, I used these insights to build trust, gain his approval, and improve his adherence to a complicated medical regimen. His survival as a patient was built partially on his belief in me.

Build trust and gain approval.  Isn’t that what we, as cardiovascular marketers and caregivers, strive to do each day?

Thank you, Dr. Gordon, for sharing your insights in such a personal and candid manner.

Does Physician Involvement in Social Media Pose a Threat to Cardiovascular Marketing?

Physicians’ online activity is on the rise.

• In a recent study by Google, 86% of U.S. physicians said they use the Internet to gather health, medical or prescription drug information.
• They’ve joined the social networking revolution too. According to a survey by Mediamix International, 34% of physicians now use social media.

For the most part, I’m excited by these statistics.   Most of the heart and vascular marketers I know have been trying to encourage physician involvement in online activities for a long time.

But is there a downside?

I’ve been hearing a few horror stories lately.

• A marketing director friend recently told me about a patient who appeared at a cardiologist’s office without an appointment.  When the office staff politely told him that he must have his dates mixed up, the patient said, “Oh no, I’m supposed to be here.  I’ve been chatting with Dr. Jones on Facebook, and he told me to stop by.”
• Cases of doctors being sued for giving online advice in venues such as Facebook are also starting to surface.

Should these fears discourage marketers from involving physicians in social media efforts?

I hope not.

Physician and staff involvement adds credibility and knowledge that is hard to find in other sources. Online physician discussions offer amazing opportunities for both patient acquisition and retention.

But, it’s important to use common sense.

American Medical News recently published a post by Arthur R. Derse, MD, on this subject in its ethics forum.

I plan to share this with some of our clients as we plan for future campaigns.   I think it offers some great reminders that communications must be HIPAA compliant and that they should avoid giving specific advice to individual patients.

As Dr. Derse says, the bottom line is that online physician involvement in social networks should begin with the tweetable Hippocratic aphorism, “First, do no harm.”

Focusing on Patient Follow-Up In Cardiovascular Marketing

It turns out that messages around patient follow-up practices could yield a competitive advantage.

According to a study published in the European Journal of Heart Failure, aggressive device therapy, more frequent follow-ups and better heart-failure management programs may help decrease mortality and readmission rates of heart-failure patients.

“We evaluated which components of the one-week follow-up visit offered the greatest incremental value in predicting cardiovascular rehospitalization and mortality,” said coauthor John Spertus, professor at the University of Missouri in Kansas City, Mo.

Using Cox models, c-statistics and integrated discrimination improvements (IDI), researchers looked at a variety of factors that impacted outcomes.

Spertus said they concluded that a comprehensive assessment one week after hospital discharge may represent the best strategy for identifying HF patients at highest risk for adverse outcomes.

Components of the assessment included:

•         patient history

•         review of medications

•         targeted physical examination

•         laboratory and health status assessments

This study made me think about how we can communicate competitive advantages that go beyond the initial procedure.

One of our cardiologist clients likes to talk about the concept of “longitudinal care,” the idea that he and his staff follow patients far beyond their hospital stay.

He goes so far as to say that the cardiology team becomes almost like members of their patients’ extended families.

I have a feeling that if we really examine the way things work in our hospitals we may find more great examples that create real competitive advantages.  How many hospital ads have you seen that go beyond talking about the great doctors, great nurses and overall great care?

I think we should challenge ourselves to be more specific about how we deliver that care in quantitative ways that lead to better patient outcomes.

We may just find the path to more relevant competitive differentiation.