Fertility Marketing Audit

These are fac­tors you can review to deter­mine how your clinic or com­pany is con­duct mar­ket­ing activ­i­ties. They are intended to give you a snap­shot or overview of your entire mar­ket­ing operation.

Statistics/Demographics

• Num­ber of and per­cent­age increase/decrease in new patients and cycles over a three-year period

• Your esti­mated mar­ket share

• Patient demo­graph­ics: res­i­dence, median age, insur­ance ver­sus self-pay, length of time try­ing to con­ceive, eth­nic­ity, other data that paints a pro­file of the patient population

Com­pe­ti­tion

• Main com­peti­tors and any knowl­edge of their mar­ket­ing strate­gies, brand­ing, posi­tion­ing

• Mar­ket share of your com­peti­tors

• Com­pet­i­tive challenges

Refer­ral Sources

Per­cent­ages from each cat­e­gory:

• Physi­cian refer­rals, refer­rals from patients, social media, web­site, con­sumer adver­tis­ing, sem­i­nars, insur­ance com­pa­nies, non-profits (RESOLVE, the AFA), media rela­tions, search engine mar­ket­ing

Posi­tion­ing and Brand­ing

• Your clinic’s posi­tion in the marketplace/positioning mes­sage

• Tag line: one sen­tence sum­ma­tion of a posi­tion­ing mes­sage or state­ment

• Branding/Logo: Do you have a con­sis­tent look through­out your print and online mar­ket­ing mate­ri­als? Are you sat­is­fied with it?

Type and Out­comes of Con­sumer Adver­tis­ing Your Clinic Con­ducts

• Ban­ner ads on local/general Inter­net sites

• Ban­ner ads on infer­til­ity web­sites (Fer­til­ity Author­ity, Inter­net Health Resources, etc.)

• Radio and tele­vi­sion ads

• Print: news­pa­per, mag­a­zine, out­door

• Sem­i­nars and webi­nars

• Facebook ads

• Google AdWords

• Spon­sor­ships with the non-profits like RESOLVE, the AFA, PVED and others

Social Media

• Types of social media accounts and key stats: number of likes/follows, posts per month

• Key stats about engagement and reach

• Experience with advertising on these vehicles

Physi­cian Refer­ral Rela­tion­ships

• Approx­i­mate num­ber of physi­cians who refer to your orga­ni­za­tion and the per­cent­age they rep­re­sent of the local OB/GYN’s

• Any analy­sis done on physi­cian refer­ral pat­terns

• Affil­i­ated hos­pi­tals

• Types of physi­cian out­reach: sales vis­its, grand rounds, direct mail (let­ters, newslet­ters, announce­ments), email blasts, luncheon/dinner meet­ings • Com­mu­ni­ca­tion vehi­cles with physi­cian offices about the progress of patients they have referred to your practice

Rela­tion­ships with Suc­cess­ful Patients (alumni)

• Mail­ing/email list of all suc­cess­ful patients who con­ceived through any type of treat­ment or adop­tion

• Baby reunion or other type of event for suc­cess­ful alumni

• List of suc­cess­ful alumni who will speak to the media and/or current/potential patients

• Alumni involved in focus groups, “buddy” sup­port pro­grams, or other ways

Cus­tomer Service/Patient Sat­is­fac­tion Ini­tia­tives

• Type and fre­quency of patient sat­is­fac­tion sur­veys

• Other vehi­cles for patient input – focus groups, sug­ges­tion boxes, patient advo­cate, for­mal sys­tem for com­plaints

• Sup­port groups, mind/body pro­grams, and other emo­tional out­lets

• Other value-added patient ser­vices like mas­sage, coach­ing, etc.

Patient Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Mate­ri­als

•Brochures and/or lit­er­a­ture packet sent before ini­tial con­sul­ta­tion •Spe­cialty brochures – on spe­cific treat­ments, financ­ing, egg dona­tion, sup­port ser­vices, etc.

•Patient edu­ca­tion mate­ri­als to learn about diag­no­sis, treat­ment, and self-care

•Patient newslet­ters, email blasts, CD’s, pod­casts, videos, etc.

•Print and Web adver­tise­ments, radio/television ads, etc.

Refer­ral Source Lit­er­a­ture

• Brochures or newslet­ters specif­i­cally for physicians

Website/Social Media

• Sta­tis­tics on web site vis­its, refer­ral sources, most pop­u­lar pages, time on site, hits, etc., over a 12-month period

• Sta­tus of search engine place­ment

• Sta­tus of: Face­book fan page, Twit­ter account, blog

• Con­tent man­age­ment sys­tem for website

Mar­ket­ing and Strate­gic Plans

• Copies of either

• Review progress for both

Media Rela­tions

• Num­ber of press releases sent per year and for type of issues, top­ics, ‚etc.

• Use of Inter­net press release dis­tri­b­u­tion ser­vices

• Does media con­tact you, view your doc­tors and staff as infer­til­ity resources?

• Record of past media coverage