Fertility Marketing

13 Fertility Branding & Marketing Strategies for Fertility Brands

Take Expert Support in Building Your Fertility Brand

With the rapid growth of healthcare sector there is one niche that has mushroomed suddenly in recent half-decade and has been doing really well. The primary and the very obvious reason being the shooting up of the number of infertility patients who are seeking medical help every year, one cannot ignore the growth of fertility brands parallel in even the smallest section of the market.

We as healthcare branding and marketing agency have worked in vicinity with very significant fertility brands both in the local market and national, we have seen the need for fertility marketing not just as marketing agency but as an industry insider itself.

Strategy #1 Ruling Google My Business

#1. Ruling Google My Business

Google My Business has become very smart & powerful. It has all the essentials necessary which can create a favourable impression about your fertility brand before a prospective patient.

6 Main things to capitalise with Google My Business

Right Naming (If need be with Location)
Photos of Your Facility
3. Reviews & Ratings
4 Precisely Direct to your centre with Google Maps
5 Work Timings (Crucial Factor for Appointments)
6 Phone Number (For Immediate Connect)

Strategy #2 Create your Brand Asset Right : LOGO

#2. Create your Brand Asset Right : LOGO

Brand is the most desirable asset one can own. The value of which increases day by day manifolds with good work and there is a great pay back if you may prefer to sell it later. Creating the right brand logo is the asset you can cherish and get recognised with.

Check if your logo passes 3C Test

1. Clarity Test

1(a). Is your logo clearly readable from a distance ? 1(b). Is your logo Single Colour or Dual Colours?.

3. Connect Test

3 (a). Does your logo carry meaningful symbolism that your brand stands for? 3 (b). Can your target audience relate to the visual symbolism your logo carries?

2. Consistency Test

2 (a). Is there a guideline for your logo to follow when it appears in various formats?
2 (b). Is your logo consistent when it gets reproduced in stationery, uniform or signage?

Strategy #3. Make your Website More Powerful

#3. Make your Website More Powerful

Website has become the most authentic source of information about you by you. So make best use of it to build trust and to connect with your patients immediately

Call-to-Action

Phone Number
Appointment Form
Address
Google My Business Direction
Consultation Timing
Chat / Whatsapp

Essentials

Services / Treatments Offered
Infrastructure
Doctors & Their Profile
About your Fertility Centre
Insurance Details

Trust Builders

Video Testimonies of Patients
Milestones
Google Reviews (If your review are good)
Awards / Accolades
Case Studies
Media /PR Snippets

Awareness

Awareness Videos
Patient Education Videos
Treatment / Procedure Videos
FAQs

International Patients

Easy Call-to-Action
Local Connect (if possible)
Facility Tour
FAQs
Case Studies Specific to the Region
Content in their Regional Language
Testimonies Specific to the Region
Complete Treatment Module Tour (Daywise Program)

Promotion

Camp Promo
Treatment specific camp

Add Ons

Fertility Calculator
Pregnancy Calculator

Strategy #4 Start Medical Tourism

#4. Start Medical Tourism

India is leveraging a handsome share in the booming Medical Tourism Industry. Fertility Brands are already taking a major chunk of revenue by serving International Patients. Setting few parameters right can help you attract more patients.

International Patients are looking for specific communication in your website and those are the below

Local Connect

if possible, if you have local facilitator for follow up it helps. Share the local connect in your website

Content in their Regional Language

Make them feel you are already close to them.

Build Specific Pages for each geography

You can add relevant content in their regional language

Testimonies Specific to the Region

Pick & Highlight testimonies from the same region. So that they can verify & build trust faster.

Case Studies Specific to the Region

This is another important ingredient to help them know the complex cases you have already handled)

Facility Tour

Give them a Virtual Tour of your facility. Patients are very particular about your infra capabilities and wont come to you if you have a poor setup

Complete Treatment Module Tour

Give them a plan of what will happen from the day one of their travel till their safe return to their homeland.

FAQs

Have a dedicated FAQ section that answers all their queries that helps them get all the answers they want.

Strategy #5 External & Internal Branding

#5. External & Internal Branding

External Branding through signages helps people easy to locate you if they are searching for you and also acts as a brand recall whenever they pass by. Internal Branding is the most powerful area which you can make use to build brand credibility & earn their trust faster.

Points to consider for External Branding

1 Make sure your external signage is very clearly visible from a distance as it is the most important investment you are going to make please dont be stingy

2 Always use good quality materials for external signages on building so that your brand does not suffer from poor visibility (blinking lights remember!)

3 Make sure the structure erected is very strong with good foundation so that it does not fall as it is a matter of safety (many poorly fixed signages fall against a strong wind)

4 Partner with traffic authorities and set up direction boards in and around the centre - directing them to the centre and also offering Road Safety messages (Usually its 60:40 Ratio - 60% for Road Safety Messages and 40% for Brand Message)

Strategy #6 Capture your Patient Voice

#6. Capture your Patient Voice

Always its not a direct testimonial, its about their journey which matches with the journeys of several others and that is going to get you more attention. Your patient’s voice is the most valuable thing you can capture, cherish & spread. This is the voice which is going to build your brand.

Thoughts on “Capture your Patient Voice”

Capture your patient voice in various forms as it is convenient to them, if they are video hesitant then text will do - make it flexible.

Various ways to Capture your Patient Voice

Text

SMS / WhatsApp Message

Platform

Google Reviews

Written

Feedback Forms

Video

Phone Video / Professional Camera Video

Various things your Patient Voice can capture

Your patient journey & how they overcame their challenge
If they go out of the way to praise you dont stop them but dont ask them to do so
Focus on what they underwent & what is the message they want to share to those who lost hope

Strategy #7 Talk about the Standards you maintain

#7. Talk about the Standards you maintain

Its very much essential to talk about the professional /ethical / hygiene standards you maintain. This instills trust and people can verify by using your services to check what you claim is true.

Thoughts on “Quality Standards”

Its necessary to inform patients about the standards you maintain

1 It can be about the materials & drugs you use (educating on that to make quality transparent - also will justify your pricing if the patients feel its higher)

2 How you strictly adhere to standards set by authorised bodies for Quality (If your centre is NABH accredited, how you follow those standards or other bodies as may be relevant)

3 The ethical standards you maintain in terms of maintaining patient’s records. If you are using technology in storing patient’s case history will be an added advantage (this will build loyalty)

4 Ease of fixing appointments, getting admitted & checkout process - all these are also considered quality parameters in the minds of patients - it has to be hassle free experience which can happen by putting the right technology at use.

Strategy #8 Offer Counselling Help

#8. Offer Counselling Help

Its Counselling and not “SELLING”. Make use of right Counselling methods to give them confidence and help them come out of their problems. Genuine interest in their well-being is the key. Advise what is right and not what is favourable to your brand (if what you advise is right & most favourable for your brand then you are most welcome). If this is done right, this will be your most powerful marketing tool.

If your counselling happens right, then they are going to opt your services for sure.

1 A productive counselling is one where decent time is spent withpatient

2 Right Counselling will give the patient mental confidence to take up the treatment (if they desire so and they will also know if there is a need too)

3 It will build immense loyalty with brand

4 Those who get right counselling will not sit quite, they will speed the message. They will become word-of-mouth marketing agent for your brand

Strategy #9 Awareness & Procedure Videos

#9. Awareness & Procedure Videos

People are consuming health related information online morethan ever. The easiest way to consume information online isthrough videos. There is huge number of increasingviewership for videos which talk about preventive health andtreatment procedure.

Best Practices for Awareness & ProcedureVideos Creation & Dissemination

1 Make use of Youtube extensively. Its free now, may be payable later

2 Make the communication in English and Regional Language

3 Break Down the video into simple steps so that it is easy to remember & follow

4 Avoid Medical Jargons - make it as simple as possible tounderstand

5 Pick-Up topics from your every day interaction with patients ( if you have more number of patients asking a particular question then it means, its time to create a video on that topic)

6 Also pick up topics from youtube (if there videos made on a particularsubject which has more viewership you can also make a video for your audience on that subject)

7 Stick on to your specialty specific information (if that has been the purpose) & dont deviate

8 Any hot / trendy topic if you may wish to cover be first to do so related to your specialty

9 You can also pick up questions from Google / Quora and create videos answering them

10 If you are creating videos for your international patients, make yourvideo in English and make the subtitles in the language they understand better

11 Lot many are interested to understand the process involved in a treatment, make sure you make videos on the same

Strategy #10 Creating Educative Funnels through FB

#10. Creating Educative Funnels through FB

Facebook is the most powerful Social Media, it has all the important data on earth about individual behaviour. Making use of FB in creating awareness through educative content is the way forward.

Check your whether your fertility website has the following

1 Create a Video / Article / IVF Guide and run your FB campaign with precise targeting. You will be able to know people who are interested in the information.

2 Through videos you establish your brand personality. People want to know how you address the issue before fixing up an appointment with you and all these help you in building your personal & organisational brand ethically digitally.

3You can create a series of communication and you will be able to grow your audience online who would be interested in such communication.

4 When people are coming to your website to obtain information routed through FB funnel, they will be able to find more information about you, the treatments you offer, credibility your have built through patient testimonials & lot more - they may end up fixing up an appointment with you or refer those in need.

Strategy #11 Thoughtful & Helpful Camps

#11. Thoughtful & Helpful Camp

The effectiveness of traditional camps have gone down drastically, people understand the camps to be a direct marketing approach to induct patients. A thoughtful & helpful camp strategy is the need of the hour.

Thoughtful & Helpful Camp Strategy.

1 Camp has to begin with a general address to set the camp tonality by inviting the Camp patients, Existing patients & Local Gynecs (if they can come - give them also a role). It has to be awareness on pregnancy driven approach (Knowledge Session + Camp) will work.

2 Inviting your existing patients during that time who have delivered babies for a general meet up is good as it builds confidence with those who have come for the camp

3 Registration before coming to the camp should be made compulsory as it will createseriousness

4 Once the registration happens, you can send them educative videos about pregnancy created by you

5 Helpful Counselling has to be the core of the Camp Strategy. Couple counselling is most effective

6 Conducting camps in your premise is the right way forward to build trust

7 Check ups if any can be included (optional)

8 If camp patient decide to opt for your services you can consider on reducing the cost.

9 With those where you find genuine need for further counselling with some test - you can offer them 4 week / 4 times max free counselling (Free is not commitment free. They have to come obtaining appointments & follow the protocols). The probability of them opting your services will be high if they make use of the opportunity.

10 Converting those who come to the camp as your audience online will help you stay connected with them

Strategy #12 Collaborate & Succeed

#12. Collaborate & Succeed

The only mantra for success is right collaboration. In placeswhether there is a good collaboration with Fertility Specialists& Gynecs we see a good amount of patient referral happen.Also there is a collaboration opportunity with multi-specialtyhospitals who dont offer fertility services.

Collaborate & Succeed Strategy.

1 Conduct education programs / CMEs to Gynecs in & around your geography to increase their knowledge levels on the various fertility treatments that are available

2 Give them a facility tour

3 Educate them as to when their patient get qualified for getting referred to you. How, even after the referral, you keep the Local Gynec informed on a regular basis about the health status of their patient and how on discharge the referred patient can start consulting withtheir Local Gynec as usual.

4 Have a strict “no commission policy”as it is against the MCI Guidelines

5 Do camps partnering with Strong Local Gynecs in their clinics, also create growth opportunities for yourLocal Gynecs in your hospital as well.

Multi-Specialty Hospital Collaboration.

1 You can make an IVF set up inside a multi-specialty centre

2 It will save you cost on expansion as licensing and other management related things are already handled by the centralised hospital management

3 You will have a steady flow of patients due to the hospital’s goodwill and your brand goodwill

4 You can work on revenue sharing partnership with them

5 This method ensuresgood growth mutually

6 You can use hospital infra for conducting CMEs on the subjectby inviting Local Gynecs

Strategy #13 Celebrate Brand Day with a Meet-up

#13. Celebrate Brand Day with a Meet-up

Fertility brand has a unique advantage in this case as it touchespatients emotionally in building their family. Patients alsocreate a sense of belonging to the brand family and the brandfamily increases. Celebrating the Anniversary of the FertilityBrand as Brand Day with a Meet-up will strengthen bonding.

Celebrate Brand Day with a Meet-up Plan.

1 Those who experienced your services and still connected with you, by livinga healthy & happy life is the greatest gift to cherish in your profession.

2 Plan the day like a family event, invite the Couples with kids to come &participate in a variety of games - give winners & participants prizes & gifts

3 Allow them to share their journey - this is one of the best places to recordyour patient voice with their approval

4 You connect with them by reassuring your family like support

5 As your Brand Family grows you reach more organically well and all yourethical promotion will only amplify with more word-of-mouth positiveagents all around.

1. What is fertility marketing?

Fertility Marketing is the super specialized marketing specialization in healthcare marketing itself that looks to grow any fertility brand’s business through performing the every required marketing function stitched seamlessly with the soft factors that fertility talks about.

2. Top 5 signs your brand is craving for support

All fertility brands are keen on taking a wholesome plunge into marketing and advertising their fertility brand extensively to grow in their chosen marketing. But are all of them being if not pro at least successfully amateur at it? It’s a question that perhaps brands should ask themselves.

1. Your recent campaign has not done well
2. You are not able to find your brand’s tone despite running a few campaigns in the past
3. Your brand manager hasn’t been able to stay concurrent to your brand’s value, image or desired perception in market
4. Many campaigns to boast of but none to satisfaction
5. Your brand wants to address a number of health issues through creative communication but you don’t know start where

So a number of fertility clients have we have encountered have fallen in one of the above mentioned categories. This can be cured only with effective brand partnership with an agency that clearly knows these pain points like its own.

3. Why your brands need a specialized marketer at hand?

Healthcare marketing itself is a niche that needs a tailor made understanding, interpretation and implementation of concepts adept to healthcare brands. In that fertility is a super-niche that has to be operated with ardent care and sensitivity with a mindset of dealing with an issue the society is dealing with.

This rather needs more in-depth understanding of patient behaviour, psycho-metrics and socio-metrics to make each fertility brand push the envelope in its own unique way.

A specialized marketer will perhaps bring ideas and strategies not only to catch up with the spree of campaigns going on in the fertility segment but also study the brand in the context of its own target audience, tone of communication and positioning in the target market.

Even though BCC Healthcare is an agency that specializes in Healthcare and mainly in fertility marketing, our very base of treating or serving each client is different according to the client’s stated and the brand’s unstated demands. We believe so that every healthcare marketer and fertility marketer is committed to a fertility specialty brand in a way that the brand asks for.

4. 10 Things you need to know about marketing for your fertility clinics

1. Fertility marketing is different from generic healthcare marketing

By nature fertility marketing calls for a different approach than other specialties in healthcare marketing. Fertility is often come across as something that’s always a hush-hush matter and health issues regarding the same are brushed under the carpet. So take a very very responsible tone when you start off with fertility marketing.

2. Fertility marketing has to strike a subtle chord

Fertility marketing has to not just make noise but touch people’s lives and hearts. It’s a topic that touches people who relate to the pain the topic addresses and happiness it promises. So take even minutest step should be taken with utmost care.

3. There are social issues to address, not just campaigns to make

We as a society have been battling with endless patriarchy, stereotyping, stigma around infertility which has given raise to a number of issues. Fertility is a very sensitive topic that can form the base to an argument as a part of opening up a dialogue in these topics. So make sure you utilise the unique opportunity fertility as a specialization can give you.

4. Every brand has to cut-across the crowd not jump into the bandwagon

Make sure with respect to campaigns you generate in promoting fertility services you say something unique, something that other brands don’t often attempt to say or something that people always wanted to hear but never dared to tell themselves. Break open stigmas than saying the same stories that your competitors often play safe with.

5. Understand that…it’s more than procedures that cure fertility

Take it from our side that you or your healthcare brand are going to get nearly zero leverage from creating marketing communication that talk about and just about the services your fertility brand offers. Push your brand’s horizon by making your brand promise a bigger cure, a cure to patient’s trauma due to infertility or a cure to the whole society that makes a fertility issues a bigger deal than what they are.

6. Make patient education your priority then, patient acquisition

This is one such rare specialty that everyone wants to hear about, learn about and be aware about but the education that comes from experts is very less. So cater to the need, make enough marketing attempts to educate as many as possible.

7. Educate people on reproductive health at large

While it comes to education it is important that you realize you need to educate not just your target audience but the near and far to that also. Reproductive health is something that adolescents, teens and adults or well matured beings they all need it. We all need to get educated about things that we consider a taboo, private or just not so discussable by and large in the society.

8. Busting myths is a head-start to fertility marketing

Ironically fertility and the topics around are secrets that everybody knows. For an issue that’s so important and left undiscussed the demand for information is high this becomes a loophole for myths to penetrate in. Bust them NOW, shout from your hospital’s rooftop that what we all are made to believe about infertility might not be true.

9. Dear doctors, it’s your time to drape your cape!

Fertility marketing has a big responsibility that healthcare professionals have to deal with. Take ardent care in making use of the responsibility in a way that benefits people at large and also your healthcare brand. Become super-heroes who propagate fertility to reach your long-term goal in a shorter while.

10.Always address the bigger issue, the bigger audience to satisfy the ultimate purpose of your existence as a fertility brand

Fertility Marketing is a bigger cause in itself. So make your marketing activities aim big than they are told to. Conduct behemoth marketing campaigns that promote healthy messages related to fertility through unconventional channels and ways. Make it massy, let the messages ring and reverb in your audience’s ears for years.

We at Iswarya fertility center are really happy with BCC Healthcare’s service. We wanted them to increase the reach of our core specialty and focus on new services. BCC had a very interesting campaign in mind that highlighted our specialty in every way possible. Their idea of an integrated campaign which included a TV commercial caught our attention and trust. Our integrated campaign “IVF vudan PGD paneengala?” is a proven success now. Not just that, they came forward to tell us how better our website could get and built an appealing and user-friendly website for our fertility center, which has now become the heart of our hospital’s web presence. The agency’s value of delivering services on time without compromising on quality is something to marvel at.