I wanna be like HealthCare Marketing Guru Eric Berkowitz some day...

As we are revisiting our yearly Marketing Plan I was reminded to check back over my notes from the lecture delivered by Eric N. Berkowitz (Not to be confused with Erik G. Berkowitz—Computer Programmer and author) at the 2007 Urgent Care Association of America (UCAOA) Conference in Daytona Beach, Florida. I was fortunate enough to steal away from my exhibitor booth and let Amy fight the crowds, as we were repeatedly mistaken, fairly enough, for “Registration”. Thanks to our wonderful conference organizers at the UCAOA, we had a prime location next to the entrance but, even our FindUrgentCare.com banner didn’t stop many an attendee from intently parking in front of us to ask for their name-tag. However, the frequent stray did result in many fruitful contacts and of course, a few good laughs. Although during this afternoon lecture, and to Amy’s delight, she was steadily entertained with visits, but for the most part the crowds dissipated.

Even with 500 attendees present, the expanse of exhibitor domain on third floor of the Hilton quieted to a low buzz, with the exception of the animated Dr. Berkowitz’ voice and intermittent laughter sneaking past the double doors and adding high notes. Peering inside the lecture hall, a latecomer like me found it hard to slip in and find a seat and either ended up in the back-row or held up the wall for easy access to their booth. But even these spaces weren’t inconspicuous to the dynamic lecturer who coursed the room, engaging his audience in jests. At one point he dialogued with a woman to whom he responded loudly, “Do you love your children?” I was too far away to understand the context of the matter but despite this, I laughed into hysterics with the rest of the room. Although highly entertained, would you believe I still scribbled 4 pages of notes?

For those of us who haven’t read any of Dr. Berkowitz’ publications or received formal Marketing training specific to the Health Care Industry, his lecture entitled “Distinguishing Your Urgent Care Center in the Marketplace” truly shed light on how much there is to be learned in the realm of marketing an Urgent Care. He taught many basic marketing principles, but applied them directly to the HealthCare Industry, drawing from over 30 years of experience in marketing and consulting.

Among the many questions he asked were:
• What is your Differential Advantage- How do you stand out from the crowd?
o Ex. Later hours than your competitor
o Ex. Participating in a Patient Benefit Program
• What is the value added for patients at your clinic?
o Ex. Staffing MD’s and PA’s
o Ex. Sending Medical Records to the patient's primary physician

• Who is my target market?
o One man replied “women between the ages of 18-35” to which he replied “NO! --- Married women with children and a husband with a fixed income”
--I wasn’t the only one who didn’t expect such an exclusive demographic group

• How are you working on keeping the patients you already have loyal?
o Don’t make any major changes that will alienate the majority
• Where are you advertising? Not everyone should see your ad, just people who are looking for Urgent Care

I don’t know Dr. Berkowitz personally or professionally, but I’d hate to go on about his lecture without some mention that he expounds on this material much more eloquantly in his many publications. You may join me in purchasing one of his books specific to Marketing in the HealthCare Industry.

If I may, I’d like to highlight a few of the points he touched on and add to it from my own experience more specifically in Internet Marketing. One thing he recommended regarding a primary website, (in addition to of course for instance a webpage on FindUrgentCare.com...Shameless plug #2) was to list your clinic’s prices competitively on your webpage. His main point behind this was that people like to shop, and they might associate prices too low with poor quality, but what they appreciate is a reasonable deal and the option of knowing prices in advance. This will almost always drive them to your door versus an emergency room.

Another recommendation he made was to list all medical staff with a short bio on your primary webpage. I scale through many Urgent Care primary webpages on an average business day. Most look dated, are missing zip codes or other vital information for finding the clinic. I would also recommend featuring a picture of the clinic so that patients may see the building they are searching for. If you are going to spend the money on a webpage, I also recommend that you make sure it’s accessible to the public, and not on the 10th page of search results on Google.com.

Taking the advice of Dr. Berkowitz, FindUrgentCare has been working on adding value to the services of our clinics, with the X+raCare Patient Benefits Network. We only target web users who are searching for Urgent Care online, which is ususally only available to those who have a fixed income and are able to afford internet service. We allow a link for a primary webpage with more detailed information about the medical staff, or this content can be posted directly on your FindUrgentCare site. Vital information like office hours, address and phone number is found on every listing, and services offered or any other detailed information may always be added to the page content.

I know that I am one of my product's greatest fans, so let's hear about your's....Has anyone else started to implement some of these marketing principles to their Urgent Care? Comments are also welcome for those who though we were registration!

How did FindUrgentCare get started?

FindUrgentCare saw the expansion of Urgent Care within the Healthcare Industry as patients needed immediate care without waiting weeks for an appointment with their family doctor or multiple hours in the emergency room. Primary Care and ER physicians even started referring patients to local Urgent Care facilities due to overbooking or patient or doctor vacation.

Finding a local Urgent Care center can prove tedious, especially for patients who are traveling. In addition to this, since Urgent Care is a relatively new facet of the Healthcare Industry, most patients are not familiar with the many names it assumes. Urgent Care facilties can be called anything like "immediate care", "walk-in clinic", "convenient care" and the list goes on. FindUrgentCare simplifies the process of finding the nearest Urgent Care clinic. Just enter your city and state or zip code and the results are immediate!

What Is Find Urgent Care?

FindUrgentCare is an interactive tool which enables patients to locate the nearest Urgent Care facility by zip code or city & state, eliminating the hassle of cumbersome search engines with limited search scopes. FindUrgentCare is a priority driven system that locates Urgent Care centers by geographic areas.

FindUrgentCare delivers patients to the doors of Urgent Care clinics using a sophisticated search engine database and patient information gathering tools.

Additional information can be found at:

https://www.findurgentcare.com