November 5, 2012 •Brian Watson
You’ve got to hand it to marketers: they get involved in almost everything.
Spanning the spectrum from front-desk intake through patient billing and payment, their influence is nothing if not impressive.
And that makes perfect sense. After all, they tend to be the protectors of brand equity in most organizations. And have a responsibility to keep the patient acquisition and retention pipeline consistently stocked. In other words, if a decision involves patient expectations or the public perception of your practice, they’ve probably got a comfy seat at the table.
And your patient statements are no exception.
We’ve discussed statement branding in this space before. And that’s obviously really important to marketers. It ensures that the “handshake” after treatment is in line with brand expectations and patient demands
But even though brand equity is crucial, it tends to lag behind patient acquisition on the average healthcare marketer’s checklist. That’s where something like TransPromo can help. And precisely why it’s so attractive to your down-the-hall colleagues.
But let’s back up a bit. As a patient financial professional, you’re probably more concerned with bad debt, cash flow, and Days in A/R than the latest statement print and mail marketing trends. So a quick TransPromo primer is probably in order.
In that case, just what is TransPromo? And why is it a favorite marketing technique of companies that print and mail billing statements?
What is TransPromo?
TransPromo is a statement printing and mailing technique that converts available white-space on your patient statements into a personalized marketing appeal.
The message may be purely brand-related (like a mission statement or thank-you note), or use data from your legacy system to provide patients with a relevant, timely, HIPPA-appropriate advertisement for services offered by your practice.
How Can TransPromo Improve Marketing Effectiveness?
Today’s healthcare marketplace is intensely competitive. With high deductible health plans and healthcare savings accounts on the rise, patients are increasingly shopping around on price and quality to find the best treatment situation possible. While this consumerist environment is obviously great for patients, it puts additional pressure on already stressed healthcare marketers.
The good news: there are more ways to market than ever before. From the traditional (e.g. billboards and newspaper ads) to the cutting-edge (social media and search engine marketing), marketers aren’t lacking for marketing channels.
The bad news: more channels mean more noise. And more noise means it’s more difficult – not to mention costly - to communicate with consumers.
Consider this - contemporary consumers are bombarded with a truly copious amount of marketing media. American households receive approximately 848 pieces of junk mail each year. The average email inbox faces an annual inundation of 4,351 spam messages. And telemarketing still thrives despite legislation enacted to shield consumers from the practice.
That goes a long way towards explaining the appeal of TransPromo. Statements are sent to each patient that has a self-pay with your practice, so customer penetration is high. And because your billing already uses variable print and data parsing, the cost of implementation is low.
How else does TransPromo boost response rates and marketing ROI?
1. Impressive Reach
According to a 2007 InfoTrends study, 95% of consumers open and read the transactional documents that are sent to them. In short: transactional documents have a reach that dwarfs the average direct mail piece, which is often tagged as junk mail and discarded before being open or read.
2. More Time with Consumers
Consumers spend an average of just 15 seconds with each direct mail piece they receive. And that’s if it’s viewed at all. Contrast that with transactional documents, which according to a recent InfoTrends study, are examined by recipients for a whopping 2 to 3 minutes (and almost 20% take a peek for over five minutes).
3. A Receptive Audience
Transactional documents are sent to current customers who have a pre-existing relationship with the sender and are already expecting a bill. So it’s no wonder they tend to outperform cold-call direct mail in both viewership and marketing response rates.
And because increasing share-of-wallet with current customers is much more efficient than acquiring new ones (5-10 times cheaper, according to Bain & Company consultant and best-selling business author Fred Reichheld), leveraging pre-existing relationships with trans-promotional appeals makes a ton of sense.
4. Lower Marketing Spend
Incorporating relevant, effective marketing messages on a statement that must be sent to patient for billing and collection purposes provides a way for companies to efficiently support (or replace) traditional direct response media. Which, in turn, can lead to lower marketing spend: reducing the resources (paper, printing and postage) typically allocated for bill inserts or direct mail projects.
5. Uniquely Targeted
Personalized, targeted, timely. These are the keys to truly effective direct response marketing and at the foundation of what makes trans-promotional messaing tick. Data mining, variable imaging and custom business logic provides true 1:1 communication: enabling the message printed on each bill to be customized based upon the recipient’s demographic profile and lifetime purchase data.
6. Better ROI
The last (and most important) reason to use TransPromo? Better ROI. Documents that use trans-promotional practices sport a low-cost of implementation, ridiculously high reach, and significant impact that generates better ROI when compared with other direct response media (like direct mail).
That’s the nuts-and-bolts of TransPromo. As a cost-effective, high-ROI marketing tool, it’s a great way to help offset the costs of statement printing and mailing. And if you want to learn how to add it to your patient statements, we’d love to help. Simply click here to schedule a time to talk.
Do you use TransPromo? Be sure to share your success stories in the comment section.