Use marketing to draw in more patients
Newspaper ads? The Internet? Public speaking? Here's how to choose the most effective business-builders—and avoid those that don't work.

Gail Garfinkel Weiss
You'll garner free publicity if you position yourself as the community expert in specific medical topics.
Word of mouth could be your most effective marketing tool.
Peter E. Bentivegna, a plastic surgeon in Cape Cod, MA, gave lectures on common hand conditions at local community centers, and netted five to 10 new patients per session. Katrina Hood and one of her partners built up their Lexington, KY, pediatric practice by giving free talks to parents about illness in day care and speaking to future parents at prenatal clinics. Jeffrey A. Elting credits radio advertising with doubling the size of his family practice in Washington, DC. John C. Johnson, an emergency medicine specialist in Valparaiso, IN, swears by good road signage. "People may not need you for years," he says, "but they remember driving by every day, and head in your direction when they do need you."
For many practices, marketing is a survival tool. But with so many ways to approach it—public speaking, print media, radio ads, the Web—it's a tool that doctors often use haphazardly, or not at all. "One of the biggest mistakes physicians make is that they don't develop a marketing plan," says Keith Borglum, of Professional Management and Marketing in Santa Rosa, CA. "In medical terms, it's like doing treatment without a diagnosis."
In marketing, as in medicine, you're much more likely to achieve your goals if you take the time to determine what they are. Begin by setting quantifiable parameters. How many additional patients do you want to attract? Can your practice's staff and internal systems handle that number of new patients? How much time and money can you invest in marketing? Are you seeking a particular type of patient? If you're hoping to attract 20-and 30-somethings, say, you'll probably need to develop a website and fashion an ad campaign aimed at luring that cohort to the site.
And be sure to periodically evaluate which promotional efforts are working and which should be scrapped. As Kenneth T. Hertz, a senior consultant with the Medical Group Management Association, puts it, "With practice margins shrinking, it's increasingly important that marketing produces results."
Target specific patient populations
Like successful theatrical presentations, effective advertising entails good timing and knowing your audience, in addition to having a good product. To attract athletes to his practice, John Pagliano, a podiatrist in Long Beach, CA, sponsors 5-and 10-kilometer races, so that his practice is advertised via each event's T-shirts and programs. He also holds running clinics after the races, in which participants discuss their running-related problems. The local press has taken notice: In August 2007, the Daily Breeze ran an article about Pagliano in which he was referred to as "Doctor Distance."
Sumana Reddy, on the other hand, wanted to attract a diverse range of patients to her family practice in Salinas, CA. So she and her partners hired a professional to design ads promoting various themes, including preventive care, extended hours, and women's health. "Recently, we gave up obstetrics and were concerned that we'd see fewer children," she says. "Since this is a major joy for us, we also developed a pediatrics-specific ad."
TipsAnother identifiable group you might want to target in your marketing efforts is former patients. For tips on how to do that.
Regardless of your marketing objective, a professional-looking website is a must. "Most physicians do fine with a site that costs $500 or less," says Borglum. It should be easy to read and navigate, so avoid slow-loading, animated graphics and busy background illustrations. Include recent photos and biographies of the practice's clinicians and staff; your office hours, address, and contact information; and a summary of what the practice offers. Gastroenterologist Patricia Raymond, who depends on a steady stream of new patients for her colonoscopy screening practice in Chesapeake, VA, has educational links on her website ( http://www.simplyscreening.com), as well as several videos in which she talks about colonoscopy.

Telling Dieters a Pill Works Only if They Work, Too

By STUART ELLIOTT
FOR decades, the beauty industry was described as — or accused of — selling “hope in a jar.” Now, a marketing blitz with a budget estimated at more than $150 million in the first year will try to persuade dieters to seek hope in a pill bottle despite widespread skepticism about the grandiose promises of diet pills, plans and potions.
The campaign, being introduced in stages by seven agencies, promotes a product from GlaxoSmithKline called Alli — pronounced, not coincidentally, like “ally,” as in a helper or associate.
Alli is the first weight-loss drug to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration for sale in the United States over the counter, no prescription necessary. It works by preventing the body from absorbing some of the fat one eats.
The campaign is centered on an elaborate Web site, myalli.com. There are also television commercials, direct mailings, print advertising, books, online ads, displays in stores and information being provided to health care professionals.
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Alli is a version of Xenical, a prescription weight-loss drug sold by Roche. GlaxoSmithKline acquired the American rights to Xenical in 2005 and has spent much of the time since then figuring out how to master a tricky balancing act.
On one hand, Alli ads need to persuade dieters the drug can work well for them. On the other, the ads also must make sure the target audience — primarily men and women ages 35 to 50 — does not dismiss Alli out of hand as another unworkable get-thin-quick diet scheme.
The challenge confronting GlaxoSmithKline is epitomized in a cartoon by David Sipress in the May 7 issue of The New Yorker magazine. The cartoon shows a woman watching a TV commercial as an announcer declares, “Ask your doctor if taking a pill to solve all your problems is right for you.”
“Our vision is to change the way people think about weight loss,” said Steven L. Burton, vice president for weight control at the GlaxoSmithKline consumer health care division in Pittsburgh.
“People are really fed up because they are bombarded with hyped products, fad diets, that overpromise and underdeliver,” Mr. Burton said. “Alli breaks through the clutter with straight talk, an honest voice, saying that losing weight is hard work.”
The campaign appeals to potential Alli customers to educate themselves on using the product and improving their dieting techniques as well as their eating habits.
The dedication page of a 152-page book, “Are You Losing It?”, published by GlaxoSmithKline, refers to “the most important element of successful weight loss: you.” (A second book, “The Alli Diet Plan,” includes recipes.)
The myalli.com Web site also takes a just-the-facts tone. “You don’t just try Alli — you commit to it,” one Web page declares ... or is it warns? The theme of the campaign promises, “If you have the will, we have the power.”
The emphasis on education meets with approval from a diet doctor.
“They’re trying to say, ‘We want to be forthright,’ and I think that’s reasonable,” said Dr. Arthur Frank, medical director at the weight management program at George Washington University in Washington, compared with “the advertising and marketing for most weight-loss products, which tends to be inflammatory.”
“People have been burned so many times” in trying those products, Dr. Frank said, “but there’s this eternal hopefulness they might make some progress” and Alli can appeal to that.
“This is a legitimate drug, tested, evaluated, not some hokey stuff someone is promoting through some overseas Web site,” Dr. Frank said.
Still, it is “not a drug you can be passive about,” he added, because “it does obligate you, the consumer, to take an active part in the process.”
“If you do, it can work and you can see some tangible results,” Dr. Frank said. “But you have to be thoughtful about it; you can’t take this, then go to a ballgame and have a couple of hot dogs and French fries.”
The reason for the caution is that a dieter who eats too much fat while taking Alli may experience what the ads delicately refer to as “treatment effects,” which can include “loose or more frequent stools, an urgent need to go to the bathroom or gas with an oily discharge.”
Although GlaxoSmithKline is required to disclose the side effects only on Alli packages and not in the ads, Mr. Burton said, “We go out of our way to make sure people understand how to use the product with a reduced-calorie, low-fat diet.”
“To be successful, we have to sell a program, an attitude,” he said, “and part of that is making sure people have all the information they need.”
In working on GlaxoSmithKline products intended to help stop smoking, like Nicorette and Commit, Mr. Burton said, “what we’ve learned is to present a brand that’s a partner, but not a total solution.”
“We’re here to help, but we’re not the answer,” he added. “The answer is your commitment.”
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The commercials and print ads are being created by the New York office of Arnold Worldwide, part of the Arnold Worldwide Partners unit of Havas, which has worked on campaigns for the GlaxoSmithKline drugs meant to help smokers quit cigarettes.
Alli’s marketing is like ads for those drugs in that the purpose is “to give people a chance to succeed by making sure they’re prepared to make changes” in their behavior and habits, said Kate Murphy, senior vice president and creative director at Arnold New York.
The campaign is aimed at “a jaded consumer,” Ms. Murphy said, who “will say to you, ‘I’ve heard it all, I’ve done it all: Weight Watchers, TrimSpa, the cabbage-soup diet.’ And even though they don’t believe the claims, they will try it anyway.”
“We felt we had to separate out people who wanted quick fixes from those who understand they had some work to do” to lose weight sensibly and safely, Ms. Murphy said, “and if the choice is Alli, to give them everything they need to succeed.”
The other agencies working on the campaign are Casanova Pendrill, owned by the Publicis Groupe, for the ads aimed at Hispanic consumers; Draft FCB, part of the Interpublic Group of Companies, for the direct marketing; Footsteps, for the ads aimed at black consumers; HealthStar Public Relations, part of HealthStar Communications; Imc2, for the online and interactive elements; and MPG, part of Havas, for the media services.