Marketing the unseen and indispensable

A bit like when we lived at home and shirts thrown on the floor magically reappeared clean and pressed in our cupboard, courtesy of mom. It's only when we move out that we realise the love and value in the services she quietly provided.

To market silent essentials is incredibly challenging. For the better part of the last decade I've marketed the products that ensure that within minutes of your visit to a medical practitioner or private hospital your bill has been processed and is electronically winging its way to a medical aid.

Before healthbridge came up with these bill-processing world-firsts we take for granted - doctors could wait up to 69 days for payment from medical aids, now they get paid in 12 days or less. Patients could expect long waits at hospital, but our technicians came up with electronic solutions that see minimal or no delays for those who visit private hospitals. Once your name and medical aid number is keyed in computers talk to each other and within seconds approve your visit.

So unless you go to government hospitals you've forgotten that there ever was a time when people could sit in slow queues to be seen. We take it for granted.

But simplicity isn't always embraced. Many staff in medical practices have poor computer skills and so the rapid technological advances we introduce sometimes require careful training and marketing.

Trusting computers is still hard for some. When we launch a new product, for example, mypractice which sends an email or fax to practices every day telling them which bills to chase up and how much they earned the day before or Pocit Collections, which allows patients to pay from cellphones or on a website, it is always challenging because we are launching something completely new and often without global precedent.

There is no manual we can take off a shelf and see how another company has described or marketed a similar product.

Our market is resistant to change especially technological advances, some medical practices still have computers that have MS.DOS. As an example, we launched a product called Recon Relief that reduced to a few minutes what previously could take practice administrators hours or days to reconcile remittance advices.

It was a repetitive and mundane process but Recon Relief automatically does an electronic reconciliation. We sent all practices a sachet of instant soup explaining that reconciling was now as quick and simple as making a cup of soup. Some practices cottoned on fast and loved the way it cut their administrative workload. But most were too scared to even try it. They suspiciously asked how something that had taken hours could be done with just the press of a button?

They felt nervous that they were no longer in control of all aspects of the process. Once we realised this, we changed the product and provided practices with a printed report to see what has been reconciled. And we relaunched the product using a direct mailer which included a remote control - it still spoke of the simple steps the practice would have to follow but underscored that they were in control.

Internal marketing is critical too, in the past we have suffered when we have been too quick to get products out of the door without sufficient internal marketing and training. If the sales and support staff don't understand the value of a product, it won't sell.

Because we are marketing technology, we have to ensure there are hand-holding processes; for many the speed of technological development is scary and they need assistance and encouragement.

Lots of companies try to get around this by sending a CD demonstration, but we have found clients are unlikely to view it, they first want a personal preview and often training or call centre backup.

The old-fashioned also works in marketing the new - testimonials especially from big clients help our market trust the safety and value of our products.

Intangible products need to show real value. If you calculate an expense that they may be incurring due to not using the product, you need to couch it diplomatically. People don't always like to be told that their business is not operating optimally. So we tell them how much better it can be.

For example, a study was done on the Rand value derived from using our full set of products and we sent it out as a marketing communication. The response was lukewarm. But when the same message was presented by our managing director at a conference, it was well received, showing that face-to-face explanations are important when marketing an intangible product.

You need to drill down into what makes the product real for clients. Let them feel that they're the experts - which they are with some aspects.

Always let them know there is a safe exit if things go wrong; so communicating offers as well as trial periods to allow ease of switching over is a must.

The amazing thing is that within a few months of clients switching on to new technology, they rapidly forget that they ever feared it - until the next radical breakthrough comes along.