Business owners often think of sales and marketing as one thing. Understanding the difference between sales and marketing can help managers create more effective business plans. Sales is one important component of marketing. However, using sales as if it were 90% of marketing creates situations where businesses get less than the maximum return on their marketing investment.
Marketing is the entire process of discovering the needs and wants of your customers (the referral sources), communicating internally to create offerings that address the needs of the customer, and communicating the value of your offer to your customers. When it comes to the last part, communicating your value to your customer, you have sales (“home health marketers”), advertising, public relations, viral marketing, and other possible avenues. Home health marketers usually ranks as the single most expensive impression you can make on a doctor or case manager. Newsletters, advertising in specialized journals, postcards, reminder items, etc. can cost up to $2 per impression. Even a sales rep who sees 300 referral sources per month easily costs $10 per impression.
Ideally, the salesperson / home health marketer gets to focus his or her efforts on the hardest part of the sales process, closing the sale. “Closing the sale” means giving a prospect the last little push he needs to commit to a transaction (i.e. start referring the patients you want). Many small businesses also use the home health marketer to build name recognition, work towards top of mind awareness, position the agency against the competition, educate referral sources, and build credibility. Managers need to keep in mind that they can accomplish these last five objectives with other, less expensive marketing methods (i.e. advertising).
It should be noted that Brazzell Marketing Agency has at least three clients that have never created a formal outside salesperson position and that, nevertheless, have the largest home health census in their counties. For those managers using or considering sales people, put yourself in the doctor’s position. Imagine that you are buying life insurance. You are considering a policy from MetLife vs. HSBA. You never heard of HSBA until you met the salesperson. Everything you’ve learned about HSBA is the word of this salesperson and the information he typed on a sales sheet. All things being equal, most people lean toward MetLife because they “know” the company. How do they “know” MetLife? Snoopy says “It pays.” He says it on TV, radio, print ads, and internet. MetLife has more credibility with consumers because they use a consistent, diversified marketing mix, not just sales people. Do you back your home health marketer with advertising and/or public relations, or is your salesperson all on his own out there? To get the maximum possible return on the most expensive impressions you make on referral sources (the sales visit), first warm up the referral source with other marketing and then support your salesperson with follow-up marketing.
