A recent Pew Research Center Poll indicated that the vast majority of Hispanics in America indicate that Hispanics in the U.S. have many different cultures, while less than a third say that they share a common culture. This internal diversity must be considered in any communications campaign that targets part of the Hispanic population.
When targeting Hispanics, politicians, companies, governmental agencies, and non-profits alike are quick to generalize and sometimes treat the entire Hispanic community as a single bloc. But research shows us that Hispanics are internally as diverse as non-Hispanics, even in terms of identity. Half of all Hispanics prefer to be associated with their family’s country of origin, and another one in five prefers to be called American. In fact, less than a quarter prefer to be referred to as Hispanic or Latino.
While there is immense diversity within the Hispanic community, many Hispanics also a consider themselves to be typical Americans. In fact, approximately half of all Hispanics polled indicate that they are typical Americans, while the other half indicate that they are very different from the typical American.
These results highlight the diversity of the Hispanic community, and the need to conduct a thorough cluster analysis before launching targeted communications campaigns. Relying on census demographics for targeting purposes will ultimately lead to inefficient targeting of demographic subgroups instead of maximizing return on marketing investment by targeting groups of people based upon their personal beliefs, opinions, needs, and desires.
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by admin on March 22, 2012
Healthcare providers are faced with rising demands of healthcare, limited resources and increasing inequalities in health. At the same time, consumers face rising healthcare costs and limited access to healthcare providers, in certain regions of the country. Over the past 30 years expenditure on healthcare has risen much faster than the cost increases reported in other sectors of the economy. As one of the largest sectors in most developed countries it is critical for the healthcare industry to improve access, affordability, and improve the quality of health of the community.
Community health needs assessment (CHNA) is a valuable tool that healthcare providers can utilize to gain an in-depth understanding of the community’s health problems and the underlining behaviors that are affecting unhealthy behaviors. CHNA is an inexpensive tool that healthcare providers leverage in order to effectively utilize the limited health resources in order to improve the quality of health in the community.
Even though non-profit hospitals are required by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to conduct a CHNA every three years, the CHNA can uncover startling results about your community. It is imperative that your facility take the appropriate action to improve the community’s health.
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by admin on February 24, 2012
The health care industry is on the heels of major change. As debates continue to discuss the President’s health reform, hospitals and health systems need to prepare for the implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The health care industry can look at Massachusetts as an example of change that is quickly approaching all of us.
State law St. 2006, c.58, also known as RomenyCare, was enacted in 2006 mandates that nearly every Massachusetts resident obtains a state-government-regulated minimum level of health care insurance coverage. Now five years later after the law was enacted, Massachusetts’ health care industry has seen both positive and negative change.
Massachusetts Reform witnessed an 8.1% increase in individual coverage of health insurance (non-Medicare) from 2006 to 2010 and employers offering insurance to their employees had a percent change of 10% prior to the reform to 2010, Massachusetts Division of Healthcare Finance and Policy. With more people having health coverage physicians throughout the state have seen an increase in patient wait times. Due to the increased demand of obstetric physicians, for example, wait times went from 34 days, before the reform, to 41 days, five years after the reform. Also, the wait time for internal medicine physicians went from 33 days to 48 days due to the increased demand of physicians.
As Massachusetts has seen a greater demand for physicians and hospitals have continued to see an increase in physician referrals, hospitals have identified physicians as a critical factor in being successful in the new industry. As a result, hospitals in Massachusetts are strategically aligning with physicians, and hospitals throughout the country should use Massachusetts as an example and strengthen relationships with physicians in the marketplace, which will help to improve financial outcomes.
In order for hospitals to strengthen their physician network and relationships it is important for the hospitals to understand two distinct physician motivators – satisfaction and engagement.
Utilizing research to understand the perceptions and opinions of physicians will allow your hospital to uniquely position itself in the marketplace. Those hospitals that are able to strategically strengthen its physician relationships and network will be most poised to be successful in the reformed health care industry.
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by admin on February 14, 2012
In January, WPA conducted a survey on behalf of Dunham+Company to determine how cutting, capping, or limiting charitable tax deductions would affect overall contributions.
The survey found that cutting, capping, or limiting the charitable tax deduction for those who make over $200,000 per year, a group that currently provides approximately $100 billion per year in charitable donations, would likely drop total donations by as much as $5 billion to $7 billion. This would spell significant trouble for nonprofits that rely heavily on support from high net-worth individuals.
The study also found that the greatest impact would likely be on an important emerging donor demographic - individuals between 45 and 54 years of age. This group showed a potential 19% decrease in annual giving.
Not surprisingly, the survey also found that the vast majority (73%) of Americans believe that private nonprofits are better at promoting social good that the government.
The full presentation of the results of the survey can be found here.
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by admin on February 10, 2012
The other night I was reminded of trends in hospital advertising. While I sat at the dinner table with the television on in the background I heard a hospital ad that highlighted the experiences of patients advocating their hospital visit. It seems that this is the new trend for hospitals today, to have patients tell their stories to consumers.
This reminded me of working with a couple of hospitals a few years ago that just got a new da Vinci® machine and was all about wanting to find a way to put this new machine in their ads. Apparently, I was out of the loop and this was the new emerging trend to advertising your hospital’s new state-of-the-art medical machines. Maybe it’s just me but I thought that the new MRI, PET, or CAT machines still look like a big donut.
Over the last year or two the new trend is to post your Emergency Room wait times. Advertising your ER wait time has questioned whether or not your hospital is attracting the right patient to your ER. Is this type of advertising affective for increasing ER visit? Yes. However, review of ER visits from this advertising has shown that there is a fairly sizable portion of ER patients would have otherwise had gone to an urgent care or primary care physician, for example. When advertising ER wait times you’re reaching out to more than just people with a heart attack or to someone who just feel and broke their leg.
These ads basically tell me that “We have a robot,” We’re high tech.” “We have short ER wait times,” and “We’ve helped people get better.”
There’s been little attempt by some hospitals to frame the message in the context of the audience. They’ve simply told you that we got it, we’re here, and we can help.
In order to create an effective advertisement it is critical to really know who your target is, understand which factors consumer base their decision on, and to be able to identify if there are any commonalities in consumers’ habits or preferences. Knowing this information can make the difference in your marketing campaign.
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by admin on February 2, 2012
Sometimes companies are misguided by the notion that customers depend on them. The truth of the matter is that we very much so depend on them. Many researchers and academia have highlighted the importance of customers in today’s market.
The level of satisfaction a customer has with a company has profound effects. Studies have found that the level of customer’s satisfaction has a positive effect on profitability:
- A totally satisfied customer contributes 2.6 times as much revenue to a company as a somewhat satisfied customer.
- A totally satisfied customer contributes 17 times as much revenue as a somewhat dissatisfied customer.
- A totally dissatisfied customer decreases revenue at a rate equal to 18 times what a totally satisfied customer contributes to a company.
Research has shown that when a person is satisfied with a company or service they are likely to share their experience with other people to the order of perhaps five or six people. However, dissatisfied customers are likely to tell another ten people of their unfortunate experience. With social media readily available for consumers to tell their story to all of those online, you can easily go to Twitter or Facebook and read about someone’s experience with a company or service.
However, merely focusing solely on customer satisfaction has its drawbacks in the marketplace as well. For those companies that focus only on customer satisfaction run a real risk a failing to differentiate their brand from others. In order to achieve long-term sustainability companies must seek to establish ties of loyalty with consumers that are strong enough to ward off the advances of competitors. Creating loyalty among customers can help the company to increase purchases of existing products, charge premium prices for appreciation of your added-value services, and create positive word-of-mouth promotion for your company, which is the core marketing objective for companies.
Customer loyalty is much harder to obtain than satisfaction. Even though customers are satisfied with the company there are several factors that could cause the customer to defect to the competition, such as finding a better value or the competitor is more convenient. With that said, having high levels of customer satisfaction does not always lead to customer loyalty. However, a company cannot achieve customer loyalty without having customer satisfaction.
Thus, though customer satisfaction does not guarantee the repurchase from a company but it does play a very important role in achieving customer loyalty. Conducting customer satisfaction research will provide your company with the necessary insight it needs to make informed decisions in order to retain and increase your customer base and improve customer relationships.
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by admin on January 25, 2012
In today’s market place the consumer is taking a more active role in deciding the products they purchase, this is especially true for the health care industry. It is expected that more individuals will continue to purchase health insurance or pay more for their own health care costs as a result of federal health care reform.
This is forcing hospitals to market specific services, particularly ones that are revenue producers, to attract new patients and retain existing ones. Often the services that are big revenue producers are services where the patient has a choice and hospitals in the marketplace are fighting to build brand equity in the mind of the consumer and among the physicians in the market.
With a marketplace that is quickly becoming highly competitive, hospitals have sharply increased their advertising spend. The majority of the advertising investments focus on differentiating the hospital services in the marketplace and into educational materials that provide patients information about hospital services such as bariatric surgery, which has become a highly competitive business.
Due to the competitiveness of the market for these services coupled with the time and investments that are put into the campaigns it is critical that hospitals are able to maximize their returns on their advertising and marketing investments. This requires a truly effective message that has the ability and power to get into the mind of consumers and physicians in the market, and since misguided efforts related to branding and advertising can create powerful setback that can ripple through an entire organization hospitals cannot afford to wait for hindsight to determine how effective their marketing strategies were.
The good news is that a hospital can partner with a market research firm to conduct research prior to a hospital’s campaign that will provide valuable insights determining the optimal messages for the target population for the services the hospital is promoting. With a little bit of research, hospitals can ensure that every marketing dollar is used most effectively.
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by admin on September 14, 2011
More bad news for nonprofits — the main funding source for his $447 billion jobs bill is a limit on the deductions for those individuals making $200,000 a year or more.
Specifically, the proposal would limit the value of itemized deductions to 28 cents for each dollar of income deducted. Currently, the value of deductions for high-income earners is 35 cents on the dollar if they’re in the top 35% tax bracket.
Read a related article from the Wall Street Journal here.
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by admin on August 9, 2011
You run a nonprofit firm in a soft economy. The donation stream has slowed. Your goals seem harder to reach. The short-term objective? Open financial floodgates. Here is a good read by Cord Cooper at Investors.com that will help you through this journey as such a tough time:
• Map it. Scope the key people in donor firms, says “The End of Fundraising” author Jason Saul. “Once you’ve identified the decision makers, determine their priorities and personal agenda,” he said. “What are they looking to accomplish within the organization or within their career?”
Some key people have two agendas — the firm’s reputation and their own. Giving to your nonprofit could improve both. Find out how. “Locate your (donor’s) points of greatest need or desire and connect those to your work,” he said.
• Leap. What hurdles do you face in getting a donation? “More common obstacles include timing, budgets, personalities involved and political considerations,” he said.
In addition are common excuses like these, Saul said: “I’ve never heard of your organization.” “There are lots of people already doing that kind of work.” “That doesn’t fit our funding guidelines.”
Knowing the roadblocks can help you steer around them. Counter objections before they’re raised.
• Delve. If you face unexpected hurdles during interviews, ask the donor “what’s missing or not resonating,” he said. If the answers don’t lead to a connection, note the obstacles and schedule another meeting. Then come armed with convincing arguments.
• Point. If the donor isn’t familiar with your firm, “find a way to lower the risk” of giving, Saul said. Outlining past gifts to similar nonprofits “will help relieve that concern.” The key: Stress why the donor should give to you.
• Build it. When seeking donations, present a “case for support,” which is “a philanthropic justification for funding” a cause, Saul noted. In your case for support, state your vision and mission, history, budget and the problem you’re trying to solve, says the Association of Fundraising Professionals.
Also include your track record (in solving problems or reaching goals) and the benefits to the donor. Make the report short and to the point. Limit it to 10 PowerPoint slides or three to five pages.
• Segment. Grouping donors by giving level helps you eye big spenders. It can also help move midscale givers to the top tier. You know what you’re dealing with and can target more effectively, says attorney Ilona Bray, author of “Effective Fundraising for Nonprofits.”
• Value ‘em. Every dollar counts. A large group of small givers can easily outpace larger donors, notes Burke Keegan, author of “Fundraising for Nonprofits.” Track regular donors who give smaller amounts.
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by admin on August 3, 2011
It appears that, for now, charitable tax breaks have been left untouched after the Senate passed the deficit deal on Tuesday.
But not so fast….
These tax breaks could come under fire as “Super Congress” needs to find an additional $1.5 trillion to cut. Philanthropic deductions could come under fire at that point, according to Philanthropy.com.
“We assume that the new committee will certainly consider the cap on deductions,” said Jason Lee, a lawyer for the Association of Fundraising Professionals, a trade group that is opposed to reducing the value of the charitable deduction. “So we’re working under the premise that we still have our work cut out for us.”
Read more on this here.
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