On Friday, April 28, 2017, I will be speaking at the 2017 Practitioner Channel Forum. This is an annual executive gathering focused on strategies to capitalize on the rapidly expanding healthcare practitioner market. My topic: “Instilling Practitioner Confidence: Proven Strategies for Business-to-Practitioner Marketing.”
What is the Practitioner Channel Forum?
Founded by Holistic Primary Care, the nation’s leading practitioner-focused natural medicine publication, The Practitioner Channel Forum provides incisive content and strategic insights on the opportunities and challenges in marketing natural health products to and through healthcare professionals. The Forum provides top-tier networking opportunities, delicious healthy meals, and lively interactive sessions designed to facilitate creative, strategic thinking.
The theme for this year’s forum is “What’s the prognosis for the practitioner channel?” We’ve been asking this same question for the past five years through a series of research studies, the most recent of which is our upcoming Integrative Physician Market Landscape 2017: A RealPersona™ Segmentation Study of U.S. Integrative MDs and DOs.
I’m very honored to be invited to speak at this three-day event in San Diego (April 26-28). Erik Goldman, editor, and Meg Sinclair, publisher, of Holistic Primary Care, always put together excellent programs — this year’s speaker roster, made up of recognized experts and thought leaders, is no exception.
Who attends the Practitioner Channel Forum?
So should you attend this event? If you’re a manufacturer of dietary supplements, nutraceuticals, medical foods, or natural products that currently distributes or is looking at the opportunity to distribute into this growing channel, you’ll want to have someone attend. Attendees are a veritable who’s who of C-level executives from marketing, sales and R&D, as well as owners, medical officers, and product developers.
I’m looking forward to meeting Joseph Pizzorno, who founded Bastyr University. The term “pioneer” is used far too loosely these days, but Dr. Pizzorno really is one. Bastyr was the first accredited, multidisciplinary university of natural medicine and the first NIH-funded center for alternative medicine research. We also know from our own research that he is highly regarded across a wide spectrum of CAM practitioners.
What is My Talk About?
If you’re like most direct-to-practitioner brands, your sales team barely has time to visit the top 20% of accounts that make up 80% of your business. How do you make sure you are connecting personally with the remaining 80% of accounts, instilling confidence so they have an opportunity to grow their business — and yours? In this 60-minute presentation, I’ll explain the new rules of Business-to-Practitioner (B2P) Marketing and how you can leverage marketing automation technology (MAT) platforms for success.
My talk starts with a question for companies that sell to practitioners: “How do you empower practitioners to have the confidence that your brand is the right choice for them to dispense to their patients?”
In business-to-practitioner marketing (what we’ve coined “B2P”), there are two funnels that we pay attention to: the first is the traditional lead-to-qualified lead-to-customer funnel, and the second is what we call the “Confidence Funnel.” This is where we bring a new customer along to become more and more confident in choosing a brand to recommend to their patients. And this is critical, because the more confident the practitioner is in a brand, the more assured the patient will be in taking the recommended supplements.
For my session I’ll demonstrate a proven way to take practitioners down the Confidence Funnel. I’ll include a mix of best practices and provide examples along the way. This will include:
- Ways to measure success or failure
- The importance of segmentation, and how to segment your customers
- Developing a content matrix
- The different stages of activation
- A review of the most common marketing automation (MAT) technology platforms and what to look for when choosing one for your practitioner brand
Special Promo Code for 2017 Practitioner Channel Forum
I hope you will be able to join me at the 2017 Practitioner Channel Forum, April 26-28 at the Coronado Island Marriott Resort & Spa, just outside of San Diego. Meg and Erik are graciously offering a special discount of $400 for our readership. Just go to http://www.tpcforum.com/registration and enter “TPCfriend” to receive the $400 off.
I look forward to seeing you there.