Filed under Natural Branding.

The healthcare practitioner channel is evolving and brands need to change their marketing strategies to appeal to this expanding market. With an average 8% growth per year, and 94% of HCPs discussing supplement use with their patients, the healthcare practitioner channel presents unique opportunities to promote supplement brands. The following post recaps Jeff Hilton’s advice to marketers and practitioners on branding and promoting a practitioner-only product line during his recent presentation at the Healthcare Practitioner Marketing Forum, April 5th in Long Beach, CA. 

Channel Overview

By product class, the HCP market is represented by the following 5 divisions:

  1. Specialty (30%)
  2. Vitamins (25%) 
  3. Herbs/Botanicals (24%)
  4. Sports Nutrition (11%)
  5. Minerals (6%)

Shifting Consumer Landscape

With the self-care movement gaining momentum, consumers are demanding more integrated therapies and becoming more knowledgable, sophisticated, resourceful and skeptical. They are also seeking more control and selecting care physicians who can address their health problems through an integrated approach.

Marketing Paradigm Shift (the 5 C’s of marketing) 

Marketing needs to adopt the 5 C’s in order to appeal to these consumers.

Concept: Brand story should depict how brand delivers custom solutions to consumer problems and education on HCP products. 

Concept

Content: Brands need to be supported by clinical data, including human clinical trials, qualitative consumer studies, lab tests, and market trend research.

Content

Connection: Brands must be relevant and connect with today’s consumer at both rational and emotional points.

3rdC

Community: Successful brands create communities of followers and advocates and make it easy for those followers to spread the word through their social networks with eblasts, podcasts, and posts that can be Liked and Shared.

Community

Continuity: Brands today must integrate their efforts at all points of customer contact and make sure all channels are promoting the same key messages.

Continuity

One way practitioners are meeting the needs of today’s changing landscape is through the Assess & Address model of customer care.

Assess & Address

An Assess & Address approach combines the two primary functions of care (assessing the problem underlying a patient’ condition and addressing that problem or imbalance through targeted therapies and nutritional products). The term Assess & Address is trademarked by NeuroScience, Inc. and represents their approach to HCP marketing.

A&A

For more on marketing that incorporates the 5 C’s and the Assess & Address model of customer care, contact Jeff Hilton at BrandHive.