Written by Russell Faust on Apr 8, 2015
The Surprisingly Helpful Way to Connect with Your Patient Community
We are pleased to introduce thought leader and physician, Dr. Russell Faust, as part of our Forward Leadership Series. Dr. Faust is a healthcare blogger, professor, and entrepreneur. He is the CEO at boogordoctor.com – a site that shares natural, everyday health remedies for children. Follow him on Twitter, @russellfaust.
Healthcare “Marketing?”
If you want to truly connect with your patient community – and your prospective patient community, for that matter – you must know who you are trying to connect with. You must understand them. This article is about how to develop patient personas in order to better connect with those communities for healthcare marketing. But first let me explain my loathing for that term, “healthcare marketing.” Let me back up two steps and explain my take on content marketing in healthcare: it’s not really marketing. We’re not marketing: we’re not selling anything. In fact, we’re not even selling healthcare. Not Marketing. Not Selling. Connecting.
What Are Patients Looking For?
What are they looking for? They’re looking for answers to their health questions. They’re looking for trustworthy experts to reassure them when they’re freaking-out about their symptoms, because they discovered some inaccurate online sales-copy that insists they are doomed. They’re looking for accurate information. They’re looking for a conversation that develops into a relationship.
Simply Stated: They’re Looking for Human Connection
After all, isn’t that what we need most when we’re sick? Or not even sick, maybe just experiencing a symptom that we don’t understand. Most importantly, we want information that we can understand and trust; we want comfort; reassurance; real health care. Not some automaton filling in the boxes on their electronic medical record. We want a human who will care for us. That’s what we want as patients.
Connection: What Are You Looking For?
What we want as a hospital or medical practice is different: we want to be the trusted resource for our patients; for our prospective patients. We want to be where they go to receive their health care. But in order for you to connect with your prospective patients, in order for you to be found when they are searching online for answers, you must first understand them. And you must provide content that they seek. Simple as that.
Not the Average
Providing content for the average person searching online misses the individual by pursuing the average, by providing content for the many. There is great power in speaking to one person … your persona.
Do not address your readers as though they were gathered together in a stadium. When people read your copy, they are alone. Pretend you are writing to each of them a personal letter …” David Oglivy
Example of a Patient Persona
So now, instead of creating content for “women, ages 25-39, married, income over $45,000, with 1-3 children,” you will create content for a single persona:
Rachel, 32 years old. Bachelor’s degree in the liberal arts. Works part time from home while raising two children, ages 3 years and 18 months. Manages family’s health issues, including a spouse who is overweight, with type II diabetes, and a child with recurrent otitis media. Also caring for aging parents who are relatively healthy, but require increasing oversight and assistance meeting their health needs.”
Value of Your Patient Personas
Doesn’t Rachel sound real? Isn’t it easier to think of content that will interest her, that will speak to her needs? Content that will actually help her and that she will be grateful for? Content that will connect with her?
Objections
The common concern is that you will miss the rest of your audience by speaking to your One Persona, “How can I afford to ignore the rest of my market?” The answer is that you won’t ignore the rest of your community. When people find your content and visit your website they should feel welcome. You should provide content that they will appreciate. But if you focus on an average of your community – a demographic – nobody will feel that you are speaking to them, because nobody is “average;” nobody is a demographic. And your content will be just more of the same noise already online. Your content will be just more online vanilla, nothing that connects. Now I know better. . . patient personas boost connection.
So What is It? What is a Persona?
Your patient persona, your One Person, is a fictional representation of your ideal patient: your “archetypal patient.” Personas are based on real data from patient interviews, questionnaires, and analytics, about patient demographics and online behavior; along with educated speculation about their personal histories, motivations, and concerns.
How is a Patient Persona Different from a Demographic?
A persona is a fictitious, single person. Yes, it is based on demographic data, and on psychographic segmentation, and so much more. Those data represent a collection of real people; the statistical characteristics of a population.
How to Develop Your Patient Persona(s)?
Start with your One Person. The One Person that your most-important-service-line is designed for. For the remainder of this article, we’ll assume that there is a single service line or specialty that you are most interested in creating content for; a service line that you are developing a content marketing program around. After that, simply rinse, repeat, to create content that connects for your other service lines. For an individual practice, instead of “service line,” think “area of specialization.” Don’t know your One Person? Time to create them. Here are some tips for creating your first persona:
-Interview current patients that use your favorite service line. -Interview in person or by phone. When interviewing patients, focus on their health journey: -When did symptoms begin (acute or chronic)? -How did they find your health system – referred or discovered through online search or by word of mouth? -How did they first contact your organization and what was that experience like? -How long did it take to arrange a visit? -How easy was it to ind their way once on-site (issues like ease of parking, signage, etc)? -What was the on-site, face-to-face visit like? -What were the off-site, follow up touch points like? etc. -Focus on the touch points.
Review your website content analytics to uncover trends about how people find and consume your content; pay attention to where they came from (which websites or landing pages), and what is currently the most popular content on your site;
When creating forms for your website, include form fields that capture important persona details. For example, whether male or female; ages of children; whether they manage care for elderly parents; education level; household income; etc. Make it clear that they can leave some blanks, but that any information they can provide will help you improve their patient experience. And that all information they provide is strictly secure and only used internally to help improve their care.
Learn how to create your patient personas. Read the complete post on RussellFaust.com.