Direct to Consumer
Will making marketing and advertising efforts directly to the populations we serve make a difference in our program’s census?
Around this time of year, every year (even prior to the pandemic), marketing efforts become more challenging and can feel like a nuisance. Everything from colder weather making it more burdensome to travel to visit referral sources, to day-to-day hospital needs limiting your ability to leave the building. However, the need to
continuously generate referrals constantly persists. This is when we should turn to solutions such as direct to consumer marketing to generate more referrals.
Typically, when we first open programs, one of the biggest referral sources for our programs are self-referrals. These are residents in the community that found program information either through digital or print advertisements, or through word of mouth. Digital advertisements can include Facebook ads or posts, google ads, tv commercials, digital newspaper articles, blog posts, etc. Print advertisements can include direct mailers to residents of a certain age demographic in a certain area, billboards, newspaper ads, flyers, etc.
While these print advertisements can sometimes be costly, they also are quite effective at generating interest in the program. Well done print advertisements can elicit more referrals by asking the audience to do something, or by highlighting specific mental health challenges they might be facing and providing them with a solution. Keep in mind however, these advertising methods work in higher volumes (i.e. sending to a lot of people) and proper frequency (i.e. not sending out too often, not sending out too far apart).
Does this sound like a good solution for your program?
Jacob Shaheen
Director of Business Development
UltraGroup Healthcare