Marketing Doctor Finds Cures for Ailing Medical Campaigns
Janet Casey is proud of the reputation her agency has established in the field of medical marketing.
When people spend money to market a product or service, they expect positive results and an increase in business. But that doesn’t always happen.
In today’s world, marketing has become a science, and many factors must be taken into consideration before an effective advertising campaign can be launched. This is especially true in the medical market, where change occurs at a fast and furious pace.
“Many health professionals realize the necessity of marketing and advertising, but are unsure how to execute an effective and cost-efficient campaign. And people need to be smart about where they spend their advertising dollars,” said Janet Casey, owner and principal of Marketing Doctor in West Springfield. “Businesses tell us that 50% of their advertising budget is wasted, but they don’t know what 50% that is.”
The problem can be difficult to solve unless someone is steeped in the industry and understands its challenges. Casey said that, although her agency does take clients from many arenas, it has chosen to specialize in three areas and become experts in those fields. As a result, 60% of her clients are in the medical industry throughout the Northeast, while the remainder are mostly political candidates or educational institutions.
“We strive to stick within a select group of industries and stay on top of them,” Casey said. “Our business clients range from colleges to car dealerships. But we can really nail a medical campaign or a political run, which sets us apart in our field.”
Her agency’s slogan is “results-oriented medical marketing,” and the approach it takes is akin to a doctor with a new or established patient. Her team talks with the client, studies its advertising history, analyzes its effectiveness, then compares it with best practices used by other physicians and/or medical facilities across the country.
“We tell doctors that they may be the expert in the operating room, but we are the specialists in the advertising market,” Casey said, adding that the largest sector of her business is marketing bariatric surgical devices, which lead to dramatic weight loss.
“We stay on the cutting edge of the field,” Casey said. “There is a lot of fear and uncertainty in the medical market due to frequent changes in legislation. So it’s hard for doctors to control their own destiny, as legislation limits or mandates the reimbursements they receive. You have to find out where your message works and saturate that market until you get to the point of diminishing returns, then begin to change the mix of media and study the demographic where the ad was successful. And we have become an expert in that field.”
Body of Work
From left, Marketing Doctor owner Janet Casey, graphic designer Laura Pixley, and office manager Julie Rosten show off a poster on display in the Manhattan subway system as part of a medical marketing campaign.
It’s important for clients to have a creative message, and in some cases, that means starting from scratch with a new logo and jingle.
When that is accomplished, it becomes critical to determine the best placement for the message. “People can have the best message in the world, but if they don’t put it where it needs to go with the right frequency, they can end up giving up,” Casey said. “Sometimes they think their message doesn’t work. But the biggest sin in advertising is to sprinkle a message everywhere, but not really concentrate it anywhere. It’s most effective when you saturate the correct media channel.”
And figuring out where that is can be difficult for a physician. “There are so many options available,” Casey said. “Many businesses run one ad campaign on TV, radio, or print, then stop it. But that doesn’t work. You need to be consistent.”
Clients also need to know what type of ad will draw people in. “I can show you a picture of eggplant parmesan that will make your mouth water. But if you go on the radio and talk about it all day, you might never get a response,” Casey said.
Her team conducts research before deciding upon the most appropriate avenue. “Then we come up with a formula of where the client’s dollars should be spent and how to flight their ads,” she said, using an industry term that refers to the frequency with which an ad is run. “No one can afford to be on TV or radio all day, and some businesses put an ad in the newspaper every week for 12 months. But there comes a point of diminishing returns. If they ran the ad once a month and added more to their media mix, they might bring in a whole new customer base.”
Market Doctor also pays attention to the price clients have paid for advertising. Casey compares purchasing space to buying an airline ticket.
“When people fly on a plane, they have no idea what the person sitting next to them paid for their seat. And when people advertise on radio, TV, or on a billboard, they may be paying way too much for the space,” she said. “You can have two ads on the radio in the same break, and there can be 100% variance in what they paid for them. It’s like buying a used car. If you don’t know anything about the supply and demand on a station, you will most likely pay too much.”
She said her team often meets with clients who bring them a long list of places where they want their ads, even though they have bought into these venues without success in the past.
And that brings Casey to that third M — math. In addition to conducting an audit of past practices, new campaigns must also be analyzed for their effectiveness, which usually happens 90 to 180 days after they are launched. “It’s important to make sure clients are putting their money where they will get a return on their investment,” Casey said. “Our only question at the end of each campaign is, ‘what were the results in dollars and cents?’”
Making a Diagnosis
Casey has more than 20 years experience in media buying, negotiation, and the formulation of marketing strategy. Today, her agency does everything from direct-mail campaigns to online ad-word campaigns, search-engine optimization, digital media, graphic design, Web site design, and more. She is very competitive, loves what she does, and says, “my job has never felt like work.”
She was working for Channel 22 in 2003 when she decided to establish her own agency. “I wanted to sell more than what our business could offer,” she explained. “I knew in my heart that some of the clients I was dealing with needed a complete advertising package and someone to manage it.”
Casey named her new business Smart Moves Advertising, and one of her first major clients was a Springfield-based surgical practice. “They were promoting weight- loss surgery,” she explained. “The campaign we set up was so effective that a national medical-device company contacted us and asked us to conduct a marketing campaign for their other clients in the Northeast.”
The request gave birth to the agency’s focus on medical marketing. “I began meeting with doctors every day of the week around the Northeast and realized I was good at it,” Casey said. “And the doctors I met were doing elective surgery, which is highly dependent on advertising.”
So she changed the name of her agency to Marketing Doctor, and the bariatric-surgery business soon led to other medical disciplines, including orthopedic and cosmetic surgery.
Today, Marketing Doctor handles a wide variety of accounts, including many political campaigns, and was part of a small team responsible for Mayor Domenic Sarno’s successful election over incumbent Charlie Ryan in Springfield. That coup led to Marketing Doctor handling a wide variety of political candidates running for state auditor, attorney general, and U.S. Congress.
But, despite success in other areas, Casey’s focus remains on medical marketing.
“I realized a long time ago that I couldn’t meet with a car dealer and then a hospital, and then a furniture store, because shifting gears is too difficult,” she said. “It’s a full-time job to stay on top of one market segment, so I weaned out a lot of industries because I wanted to become an expert in a few. And I have come as close to it as you can get.”
Her staff attends educational advertising events across the country and participates in a group made up of 25 medical practices and hospital advertising managers across the country. They hold frequent Skype conferences which allow them to exchange valuable information about best advertising practices. Casey said the group began when a handful of specialists met at a national conference. “The Skype conferences allow hospital marketing managers to hear success stories as well as where people fell flat on their face,” she said.
In the Right Vein
Scientific knowledge must be disseminated through education, and the team at Marketing Doctor spends a lot of time teaching doctors and other clients about benchmarks and language of advertising.
A recent project for a practice on Long Island involved the creation of 100 short videos that deal with every aspect of bariatric surgery. “Our work is interesting, and we have created a real niche market,” Casey said. “We are ready and well-prepared to help doctors grow their practices.”
Which they accomplish by using science, creativity, and knowledge to write a prescription for curing marketing ills, leading to a bright future.
