Big Dreams
Having trouble sleeping can make a person feel desperate. And when you’re desperate, you look everywhere for advice.
Sleep Wellness Institute Inc. wants to be a source of advice — and ultimately help — for the sleep deprived. That’s why the West Allis, WI clinic is using public relations as part of its direct marketing strategy, to get the word out that it’s a resource for sufferers of disorders like sleep apnea (which causes a person to stop breathing while sleeping).
The clinic had worked with several different advertising firms in the past but hadn’t really considered its marketing from a true “measurement/response viewpoint,” says Grant Johnson, CEO of Johnson Direct, the Institute’s current agency.
“[The clinic] had always done a fairly decent job of capturing where its patients were coming from,” says Johnson. “We wanted to enhance that.”
An analysis of the Institute’s marketing strategy came up with one glaring shortcoming: While it was getting a fair amount of local news coverage, it wasn’t taking advantage of that positive PR in direct marketing efforts.
The Sleep Wellness Institute gets clients from two channels: business-to-business, where doctors refer patients to the clinic; and consumer, where potential clients see a radio, newspaper or TV ad and call directly. “PR helps ramp up instant credibility, and that equals more patients,” Johnson says.
“We’re doing a better job of repurposing our news coverage,” adds president and co-owner Mark Stoiber.
Johnson Direct, which began working on the project last August, redesigned the clinic’s Web site to better showcase the news coverage. The URL also was changed from SleepWell.org to SleepWellAndLive.com, to better reflect that sleeping leads to better overall health.
The clinic, which has just one location in southeast Wisconsin, recently got national exposure when Fox News tapped one of its doctors to comment on a news story. Another organization had written a press release linking sleep disorders and coronary problems. When Fox couldn’t reach the contact person on the release, it searched the topic and found Sleep Wellness’ new Web site. It turned out the reporter used to work in the Milwaukee area, and was taken with the idea of talking to someone from the old stomping grounds.
“Within a couple of hours we had a national story,” Johnson says. “We repurposed that on the Web site and it turned into more business for [the Institute] on the consumer side.”
On the B-to-B side, a story on the clinic in M.D. News, a magazine distributed to doctors in Wisconsin, was used as a marketing tool. Five hundred extra copies were ordered and the sales force distributed them either with letters or during face-to-face meetings.
“‘Hey, we’re on the cover,’” says Johnson. “What a great direct response tool.”
Radio — particularly on predominantly male-targeted stations — has long been the backbone of the Institute’s direct response marketing strategy, but it was a medium the clinic got into by accident, notes Stoiber.
“A DJ was talking about snoring. One of our people called in and said, ‘We could help you with that.’ One thing led to another and soon they were talking about it on the radio,” he says. “The person had bad sleep apnea, we fixed him, he felt great and the idea hit us that we should do radio advertising.”
Radio spots with testimonials were the natural next step. And tracking those who came in via radio was essential.
“We always drilled everybody on where they’d heard about us, so we knew what was working,” Stoiber says. “But [the execution] was always kind of haphazard, because I don’t have a background in marketing. Radio (still the clinic’s biggest lead generator) always worked well, but we’d ridden the testimonial train for a long time and it was kind of petering out a bit on us.”
This led to the move toward PR and direct response newspaper ads, which recently began running. One, placed in the obituary sections of local papers, warns that every year 38,000 people die due to snoring complications and that sleep apnea can be treated. A local phone number and the Web site URL is featured as the call to action.
Repeat business for the clinic is primarily through parts and supplies for continuous positive airway pressure devices used to treat sleep apnea. Patients also receive pass-along cards they can distribute to friends and family; they receive a gift card for each new patient who turns in one of the pass-alongs.
The ROI of the clinic’s PR and other DM efforts is being tracked. The place where a new patient hears about the Institute is logged into the company’s Eclipse database. The data is exported into a program created by Access and then shared monthly with Johnson Direct.
Direct mail hasn’t been tried, partly because there aren’t any lists of people with sleep disorders. A big cause of sleep apnea is obesity, so doing mailings to people on weight-related lists might be tried eventually, says Stoiber. However, he adds that Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act rules mean healthcare marketers must be extra cautious.
Television has been tested in the past, with DRTV spots running late at night to try catching people who can’t sleep. They didn’t pull as well as hoped.
The clinic is setting up a permission-based e-mail program, using postcard mailings to ask physicians if they’d like to be alerted when notable articles are posted on the Web site. When doctors log on, they’re invited to sign up to receive e-newsletters on sleep topics.
