Brand categories, rather than Brand products

For long, the Pharma Company’s have been promoting their products, which only influenced doctors, chemists and people connected to the industry. No matter how hard the companies tried they were hardly able to address their target audience. With the entry of more Pharma companies, National & International, and increase in competition the need to differentiate from the clutter of products has risen. The questions product managers are always hunting, how should a Pharma company communicate their target audience on products?

The Pharma companies need to target their audience directly. The patients/ consumers in this new age are a lot informed. They know what they need and how to get it. Now the Pharma Company’s communication should be directly to its consumers through information about the diseases, about symptoms, etc.

The new age marketing will be on diseases category development, mass awareness about disease symptoms, effects about a particular deficiency, online forum, support group meetings, publicize disease specific docs, disease information brochures, etc. The Pharma companies now need to communicate the masses and KOLs. Also in this information age specific day related to the disease needs to be publicized with the help of KOLs, media and events. Some of the days which can be publicised are

1. World Heart Day
2. Breast Cancer Awareness Day
3. Hepatitis Awareness Day
4. World Anti- Tobacco day

These days inform the masses about the diseases and symptoms. Resulting in patients asking the doctor for more information. The doctor answers the queries of patients and gives information brochures. The consumer then for further information visits the website, created for that specific purpose and loaded with all the relevant information. This is new age marketing which involves the doctors and patients.

This also helps to promote the brand further by the same patients who become the Brand Ambassadors of the information, by spreading word-of-mouth publicity. The reason behind this is most consumers once they acquire information, they become knowledgeable and talk about it to the people they meet about the disease.
Now the Pharma companies have to be better informed because the consumer is empowered with knowledge. The Pharma companies are trying to realize this, but still are undecided on the strategy. It's high time they realize this and change their strategy, be more informative and mass oriented.

NGOs help to increase awareness on Healthcare

Healthcare and NGOs always go hand in hand. A lot of times NGOs help to address healthcare issues. NGOs work to improve healthcare facilities and services, they have lot of freedom, motivated staff, so respond easily to the needs of the healthcare community.

Following are some of the issues NGOs work on or create awareness on:

1. Malnutrition
2. Deficiency of Iron
3. Stress on students
4. Noise pollution
5. Air pollution
6. Vaccination
7. Drug abuse
8. Sexual abuse
9. Sucidie
10. Cartract operations
11. AIDS preventation

NGOs help to raise awareness on healthcare amongst patients and the common people. Their are also NGOs who promote good/healthy living manners amongst people. They work in the arena of Dental care, washing hands before eating food, etc.

So NGOs form very important part of healthcare awareness in turn growing the Healthcare industry. So it is very important for healthcare industry to promote and publicize such NGOs. Promoting NGOs will help create awareness among the target group, who in turn buy the product and increase business. NGOs act as the company's critic partner highlighting the weakness of the product. NGOs can become the CSR initiative arm of the company, thus creating goodwill about the company. It is easy to generate awareness about a disease category with the help of an NGO. NGOs can be used to attack competitors, coz when an NGO publicizes weakness/ill-effects about the competitor’s products in press they generate lot of mileage, thus impacting the business of competitor. NGOs can fight for a plea with the competitor company and still earn respect in terms of helping the society.

Healthcare is a very critical area and one mistake can lead to the downfall of a company. Coz Healthcare is related to the wellbeing of a human being and something destroying it will create negative influence.

How the company selects an NGO or should the company launch its own NGO?
Well, as per my experience the company in association with an existing NGO should launch a new NGO. The company will fund it and the NGO will take care on operations area. In the long run even if the existing NGO breaks the contract, the company can run/manage this new NGO on its own.

Companies can get detailed information on NGOs through http://www.indianngos.com/

Also can visit the following link for an more information: http://www.expresshealthcaremgmt.com/20030615/conversation.shtml

How a doctor himself can promote his services

For a doctor to increase his business he will have to consult and treat more patients, without patients a doctor cannot survive his/her business. Also if you (doctor) get more patients you garner more experience resulting in more patients. For this the doctor needs to differentiate from the competition i.e. other doctors and create his/her own USP. There are variety of methods a doctor can maintain Public Relations/Patient Relations. I have listed some key strategies:

1. No patient likes to wait and waste time at Hospital/Clinic. So the doctor needs to maintain an appointment diary and one day prior needs to call/message the patient about confirmation. This creates discipline for doctors and patients as well. I have myself witnessed patients confirming the appointments with doctor and the same vice-versa but the problem arises when the doctor travels to more than 5 locations and the doctor is stuck in traffic jams, leading to not checking the patients on time.
2. A doctor needs to maintain all the records about the patient, so the patient need not carry his/her records. Also on the patients next visit the doctor can check/inquire on the health of the patient. This is for the patient’s convenience after all they are the Clients. There are a variety of free software’s available like Google Health which the doctor can use: https://www.google.com/health/
3. Whenever pricking any patient with a needle/injection a doctor/nurse has to say sorry because you are hurting the patient. This leads to a very positive impact on the patients and the patient won’t ever forget in their life that a doctor said sorry before hurting.
4. Speak to patients and listen to them, they are already frightened. Console the patients and ask them to be positive about the treatment. Most often more than medicines and treatments a positive attitude helps to get cured from the aliment.
5. Call your patients after a week or two to check how they are feeling? Post-treatment hardly any patients will remember you, a call will make the patient feel important and they will refer you to everybody who is suffering from any aliment or disease. A patient satisfaction is very important to word-of-mouth publicity.
6. Whenever a patient comes to you for consultation for the first time give them a disease prevention booklet. The booklet will contain information on different diseases related to your specialization, symptoms, healthy living suggestions, etc. The booklet will also contain information about you, clinic addresses, consultation timings, appointment contact no, and how to reach clinic map. A Pharma company can sponsor the booklet, and can give their courtesy at the end of the booklet.
7. Attend CMEs and built contacts with other doctors, networking helps to build refferals.
8. Read newspapers, incase you find any story on surgery, disease diagnosis or anything related to healthcare, write a reply mail to the journo on what you think about the story and if possible suggestions on how the journo could improve and get more information, don’t forget to signoff with your contact details. This helps to increase relation with journo’s and in future the journo might feature your quotes on a story related to this article.
9. If you feel you have treated a unique patient or the surgery done was a very difficult one. Prepare a brief case study and mail to a journo, if the journo is really interested they will revert. On the other hand get in touch with a PR Professional for press coverage of the story. PR professionals will help to garner the best coverage in different publications.
10. Get your self and your clinic listed in local area directory and online on Wikimapia, this helps when the patient is doing Google on doctors available in a particular area. http://wikimapia.org/
11. Attend seminars and be a speaker of those seminars addressed at community levels in Rotary clubs, Church conventions, etc. Also be a part of free check-up camps this helps to generate patient’s leads.

Last but not the least, please do not try to scare patients and be honest in treatments, it always pays.

Evolution of Healthcare Communications and Public Relations

There was a time, when there were very less no of doctors available to treat patients. But with the growth in economy the number of doctors has increased and the patients numbers has also risen with the rise in new age diseases.
A new attitude among patients has been observed in last couple of years which the doctors never anticipated? The patients now are much more informed. Now, patients do their homework on the aliment they are suffering from, and information technology plays a crucial part in spreading information.

Patients now, are more prone to do a Google on their ailment they are suffering, the best doctor available, advisable treatment and medicines. With the information, patients have become knowledgeable; they now ask the doctor for more information on the ailments, diseases and debate on best possible treatments.

The media for quite sometime observed this trend and launched columns and wellness supplements in there publications. For that matter even TV Channels, Websites, Radio stations have dedicated special shows and sections for the public at large. Most of the issues are related to Health, Wellness, Fitness and diet. Through extensive coverage is given to Health based stories, New technologies in hospitals, successful case studies, Yoga, Wellness columns by eminent doctors, Q & A based columns, etc. These articles often quote expert doctors, and leads to awareness on the doctors expertise.

This phenomenon suddenly gave a boost to Healthcare PR. Healthcare PR professionals often publicize the doctors, treatment and diseases. Well this is for what they are known for. But they also do a lot of other things like

1. Provide information on wellness
2. Crisis management of medicines
3. Information on new diseases and treatments
4. Creating awareness on existing incorrect policies
5. Website designing
6. Doctor's brochure compiling
7. Promotion of CMEs

There are lots of other aspects where a Healthcare PR professional plays an important part. Healthcare PR professionals have become an intrinsic part in spreading word-of-mouth awareness and pubicing the Doctors Consulting business.

Word-Of-Mouth in Healthcare

The healthcare industry largely depends on word-of-mouth publicity. In fact doctors and hospital for decades have been dependent on word-of-mouth publicity and this has been the best mode of awareness for them. Actually the reason being, ICMR had laid stringent laws pertaining to advertising and publicity carried out by Hospitals, Doctors, Pharma companies, etc. Doctor businesses even today totally dependents on referrals by treated patients and other doctor's. Referral in marketing terms is classified as word-of-mouth publicity.
The fact is by the time doctor establishes their business/consulting they end up spending enough of money and time. This could be the reason we are not able to create a pool of expert/specialist doctors. Once the doctor becomes specialist they leave India for greener pastures abroad, so we again end up with very less specialists for a particular disease.

In US the doctors are allowed to advertise, there are rules laid by American Medical association but not that stringent. In US the doctors can promote their expertise through media; it is mostly informing the general public so they can decide. The doctors then can earn decent reputation and in turn don't have to dependent on referrals.
Healthcare is one of the fastest growing sectors, growing at more than 26%. More and more people are turning towards health and wellness. People are using different medium like internet, newspapers, television to keep them abreast about the latest developments. So why not allow doctors to give information and create awareness on wellness within the general public. What more is a better way to serve society?

Below is a brief on US laws on Advertising by Doctors

Doctors advised on advertisingThe General Medical Council (GMC) has revised its guidance to doctors about advertising their services. The information must be factual and verifiable and must be published in a way that conforms with the law and with the guidance issued by the Advertising Standards Authority. It must not make claims about the quality of services nor include comparisons with the services provided by colleagues. "It must not, in any way, offer guarantees or cures, nor exploit patients' vulnerability or lack of medical knowledge."
The GMC says that in information about specialist services patients should be advised that they cannot usually be seen or treated by specialists without an appropriate referral, usually from their general practitioner. The same advice should apply to advertisements for services by organisations with which specialists are associated.
The council says that information "must not put pressure on people to use a service, for example, by arousing ill founded fear of future ill health. Similarly, you must not advertise your services by visiting or telephoning prospective patients, either in person or through a deputy."

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/315/7118/1314?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=us+laws+on+advertising+by+doctors&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&resourcetype=HWCIT

Brand Positioning

Brand positioning forms an intrinsic part of any product/service launch. It is the most important function of any brand to survive in this cluttered market of Brands. Positioning helps to define category in which the Brand will survive, grow and grab market share to earn RoI.
Often more than 10 brands of similar features compete for market share and that is the main reason why positioning is very important. The brand needs to segregate itself from other competing brands in terms of packaging, spotting the right target audience; features such as colour, taste, aroma does count the other factors being personal touch and user friendly. We can jot down more than 100 factors where the Brand needs to position, but this largely depends on Brand like whether it is a product or service, then whether it is consumable, etc.

The Brand to appeal a consumer, it should first appeal to their senses. The brand needs to create first impression or impact on consumer sight, then smell/aroma, the touch. The other two senses hearing and mouth will have less impact. Post approval from these three senses the mind and heart thinks about the brand. This whole process takes less then 2 seconds but a lot of money is at stake. The money involved for R & D, marketing, packaging, sales, human resources, etc
So this brings us to a very important point that, we have to influence the consumer at first sight, then touch, then smells and aroma. Now that we have reached this stage, the consumer is prompted to think and decide with the help of heart. Heart plays an important role as it takes most of the decisions. There are many examples, let me illustrate a few:

1. Idea - An idea can change life - The priest wants to teach, needy and poor students but lacks resources less no of teachers, far of villages, less classrooms, etc. So uses Idea mobile network and starts classes for these students through speaker phone. The teacher teaching students through mobile phones a great idea to reach the needy students in villages. Everybody wants to help society what they need is a simple Idea, this also highlights that Idea can reach the remote villages where teachers cannot reach.
2. Vodafone- While Vodafone says wherever you go will be there with you always. They positioned this with a pup following a small child the goes in forests, in bathroom, in school bus, etc the pup follows the child everywhere.
3. Airtel – Airtel instills the emotional connect of a father and son. It starts with a young college lad visiting a small house in a distant village. An old lady opens the door and upon enquiring finds out that the lad is her grandson. Grandson meets grandfather who is angry with the lad’s father for leaving them alone in their old. The young lad uses his mobile to call his father, and hands his (young lads) mobile to his grandfather. Upon hearing apologies, the grandfather gets emotional and cries. Thus the young grandson helps to bridge the gap between grandfather and father.
4. Reliance mobile – They openly claim that they are present in more than 100,000 villages through advertising.

If we compare each mobile service providers communication, they tell/inform the consumers that their network is present everywhere even in villages, but the positioning and communication is different. So positioning helps a Brand to separate itself from clutter of different Brands, this helps to establish trust in consumers mind and they began to own the brand.

Is the new age of INSURANCE about creating CLONES?

Well, insurance sector is posed to be the largest sector with turn-over predicted to be more than any sector. After credit cards this industry will clock billions in sales. Earlier it was roti, kapada aur makan. Then the wants increased with money, so focus shifted to lifestyle. Further this led to lifestyle related diseases. To save themselves from these diseases people shifted to health and healthy living. With healthy living gaining importance this gennext humans dream to live longer from 70 years to 700 years. Scientists have always worked towards achieving the human dreams and converting the perception to reality. This actually led to more and more scientists working on projects to increase the life span of humans.
The media often spoke and published articles related to these new innovations, some of them I have tried listing below:

1. Storing the body in liquid nitrogen just before death and then recovering the same body after 200 years, expecting that the technology will be developed by then to retrieve bodies stored in liquid nitrogen.


2. Designing synthetic DNA which has the genes to increase the lifespan and fight all the existing diseases in the world. This innovation led to a lot of new theories and innovations in cell development.


3. Stem cell research led to the discovery of the use of umbicol cord blood cells which can help in saving the person from life threatening diseases. Stem cells are found in umbicol cord at the time of delivery, this cord blood is taken in glass chambers and stored by cord blood banking companies.

Some scientists went to a further step and started research on creating clones... I mean cloning of a Human to create a look-a-like (Clone means look-a-like with the same qualities, thinking skills but without birth deformity). Earlier the organs were cloned and stored for future use. But then huge organ banks will be the need of the future to store those different organs. Also, the scientists were not able to predicate how long the organs will survive.

The next-gen scientists thought about this and researched discussed & argued... They reached to a conclusion that if a clone of human is created and kept in controlled surrounding, without contamination from outside environment; the clones’ body parts (organs) can be used by the clone owner when required. The research for creating clones received lot of funds from big corporates as CSR initiative, while this highlighted the corporates initiative towards human development, but they had their inner greed to live longer. The research started on rats, dogs, monkeys, etc to create the perfect CLONE or should I say INSURANCE…

But is this right, should we challenge the creator of universe and try to change the laws of nature? The world is already populated with people, with pollution and with everything to destroy mother earth. This new research on cloning will kill existence of living beings.
Imagine each living human having a clone staying somewhere out there in a lab far from city, these clones start thinking of getting out from lab and going out in the open world, I mean leaving the lab, leaving the controlled environment and going out in t. Will have humans of same type, more than that where are we going to the cit live life. These will double the existing population of the world leading to blast of population in the world...

Today this will sound really weird and unbelievable but this situation will hold true in the coming century, INSURANCE will all be about CLONING and increasing life-span. Below some links to website offering information on cloning

http://www.scq.ubc.ca/human-cloning-science-fiction-or-reality/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/377122.stm

http://library.thinkquest.org/C0122429/ethics/disadvantages.htm