Telemedicine is changing the way hospitals operate - providing an efficient, cost-effective way for facilities to offer specialty care to patients, regardless of location, population, or on-site resources. As a result, more and more rural hospitals and clinics are now offering this benefit to their communities.

The question now is, how do we communicate with potential users? How do we educate our local population, staff, and board members about the benefits of a Telemedicine program?

Fortunately, there are a number of resources available to assist in the development of a comprehensive Telemedicine marketing plan, even if you have limited marketing experience.  

One of the best guides was created by the California Telehealth Resource Center. "Developing a Telehealth Marketing Plan: A Step by Step Guide," is a comprehensive 24-page PDF booklet for non-marketing professionals to develop and implement a professional marketing strategy for their telehealth program.

From the Introduction:

• This Marketing Plan is designed as a template that can be easily taken and adopted to suit the needs of a hospital or clinic which is the recipient of telehealth services that it can provide to its community.
• There are multiple ways to put together a marketing plan. Some plans can go into a lot of traditional market research and analysis such as segmentation, targeting, positioning, the 4 P's (product, price, place, promotion), etc.
• This plan does not take that approach because it can be too complicated and time consuming for professionals whose primary job is not actually marketing, but who need to generate and execute effective marketing strategies to drive telehealth awareness, increase its utilization, enhance its reputation, and ultimately drive growth.
• So instead, we opted for a clear, simple way to help someone like a telemedicine director develop a marketing plan.
• The plan assumes that XYZ regional Medical center has already gotten approval to start a telehealth program. therefore, the marketing plan is (and should be) but one major element of the broader plan for successfully implementing the telehealth program.
• This plan template is designed to help someone explain what they plan to do from a marketing perspective, why they want to do it, and how they will measure the results.
• Someone could essentially take the goals, target audiences, marketing activities, success metrics, and economics in this plan; customize these for their particular situation, and have a marketing plan ready to go.

Access the full PDF document online here.

Remember, you are not in this alone! Your WCTN Telemedicine team is here to help with every stage of marketing and education for your Telemedicine program. Please let us know how we can help you, whether it be physical resources, training, on-site meetings or events, or anything else. We're here to make your Telemedicine program succeed!