We recently sat down with three Intouch experts – Chastity Spencer, Associate Media Director; Antonio Rivera, Associate Director, Inclusion & Diversity; and Chanel Hemphill, Senior Marketing Strategists – to get their thoughts on what brands need to know about the importance of developing marketing messages that speak to all kinds of audiences, how to do it wisely, and how it can help patients. In Part II, Rivera and Hemphill explain the difference that data-driven decisions can make in marketing to diverse audiences, and offer several practical examples of how brands can make that happen.
Brands Need to Get More Personal
Data can help brands better understand which efforts will be most effective for their patients and HCPs. For instance, the sort of work patients do to empower themselves can differ based on their ethnicity: Hispanic Americans have been found to be more likely than other patients to search for information on causes and risk factors for Type II diabetes, suggesting a prime opportunity to make a difference by providing focused educational materials.
“Data and technology drives much of today’s marketing conversation,” says Chanel Hemphill, Senior Marketing Strategist, Intouch Solutions. “Companies can no longer talk about data-driven personalization and meeting patient needs without exploring the unique barriers to care, and motivators to care, that exist within the patient landscape. The data is there. It’s simply about being curious enough to explore the uniqueness of the sub-segments. Doing so will result in a shift from the one-sized-fits-all approach to truly patient-centric marketing that meets patient needs.”
Once the data tells a brand what’s needed, tactics could be as simple as translating materials into more languages. Or they could be larger-scale, such as working with health systems, or with individuals trying to help health systems change. (For example, one woman’s community outreach to fellow Korean immigrants has grown into a nationally recognized template for systems nationwide.)
The relationship between a person’s race or ethnicity and their healthcare is – unsurprisingly – multifactorial, and requires detailed consideration as we seek to improve the health of our patient populations.
Our collective task, is to first improve our understanding of patient diversity and then to make concerted and systematic efforts to ensure we’re reaching and communicating in ways that are relevant to ALL of our audience versus just a portion. We have a long way to go to accomplish this, but we’re optimistic that it can be done.
Click HERE to read Part I, in which Chastity Spencer and Antonio Rivera discuss the history that makes it difficult for patients of color to receive the right healthcare, and the reasons that brands need to look at not just patient diversity, but HCP diversity, when they’re seeking to help these patients.