Choice

When I Googled the word choice I was presented with 429,000,000 entries, a few too many choices.

We open our eyes each day from a dream state where we have no conscious choices to make, to a life filled with nothing but choice. The toothpaste we squeeze out, clothes we pull on, and coffee we drink, are all based on choices we make.

Savvy marketers know that driving choice is about developing preference and preference is created by differentiation. The beauty of preference is that choice has been influenced before the actual choosing takes place. Each time a consumer strolls down the grocery aisle they know what’s going to wind up in their cart before they are confronted with brightly designed boxes of Tide, Cheer and All. They know because in their mind they were able to differentiate Tide from all the others. Somewhere along the way they were made to believe that Tide represents the best choice. Choice driven by their mom, great advertising, a personal experience or maybe all of the above

I’ve been thinking a lot about differentiation, because I believe too many healthcare systems don’t see the need to develop the strategies to create real points of difference between themselves and their competitors. High touch and high tech are the price of admission and not concepts of differentiation. Given the complexity of healthcare decisions that consumers make each day, there’s a clear need to invest in strategies that enable consumers to understand and value differences beyond the usual healthcare clichés, including location.

Take a hard look at the majority of healthcare marketing and you’ll find that in most ads one logo can easily replace another. Yet I believe that most healthcare institutions have innate differences that can be communicated, valued, experienced and remembered. It takes some work to find those differences, but once understood they can be developed into a holistic strategy that marries brand, experience and communication into a meaningful and highly effective marketing strategy.

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