Health care providers often have a need to transcend the traditional selling approach and instead work on awareness and education. When devising marketing plans and creating marketing messages, it is easy to fall into the trap of constantly selling. Selling is good and should be a part of any marketing strategy.  Selling is the process of creating a fast rapport, introducing a product or service, and attempting to close a sale. It produces fast results.

On the other hand, health care providers reach a point where people have either been sold, have proven unreachable, or have given a firm “no.”  If selling is the only tool in your toolbox, you have little left to do with those people, so you move on. Or, worse yet, you continue selling to people who have already been sold or have reached their limit, and you run the risk of damaging the rapport. 

The alternative is focusing on top-of-mind awareness (TOMA) strategies including loyalty building and education. TOMA strategies tend to shift the emphasis away from closing a sale right now and toward educating and reminding a person to use you as needed in the future. Rather than inspiring immediate action, TOMA strategies tend to focus on achieving greater understanding and better recall. TOMA strategies have the disadvantage of taking somewhat longer to produce results.  Even people who have already been sold require at least three marketing impressions before responding to TOMA strategies.  An advantage of TOMA strategies is that they are perceived by customers as unobtrusive and even helpful.  People who have already told you “no” will be more receptive to TOMA approaches than to straight selling. More importantly, TOMA approaches can take people who have already been sold on you and build them into better, more active patients or referral sources. The additional sales generated by TOMA strategies tend to have a lower marketing cost per patient than sales alone.   

Two hallmarks of good TOMA strategies are a needs-based approach and non-repetitive repetition. 

Needs-Based Approach vs. Product-Based Approach:

A product or service-based approach involves listing a service and perhaps detailing some features. For example, “We are equipped to provide a number of therapeutic modalities such as infrared therapy, TENS, therapeutic ultrasound, and more.”  A needs-based approach starts by trying to identify a need that your target audience may have.  Example: “Family practitioners occasionally encounter recalcitrant dermal lesions, and these can be particularly problematic for your diabetic patients.”  The needs-based approach gets to the point more slowly, but it has the advantage of making the target audience feel talked to more than feeling sold to. Defenses lower while interest increases. 

Non-Repetitive Repetition:

TOMA, like any other advertising, requires repetition to be effective, but there’s an extra requirement. TOMA requires a relatively engaged audience. If the repetition is perceived as repetitious, the audience will disengage. Therefore, TOMA programs should constantly provide new information and new hooks while simultaneously repeating top themes. The repetition must be in the theme and the medium, not in the message.   

Blending Selling into TOMA:  

TOMA approaches need not be exclusively passive education efforts.  You can have a call to action and even blend a sales message into your TOMA approach.  However, TOMA approaches should lead with the needs-based hook and treat any sales messages as secondary or lastly.   

In short, TOMA approaches are what businesses should do when it’s time to pull back from hard-sell approaches. It’s time to pull back from hard-sell approaches both when the person has said “no” and when the person has said “yes.” TOMA efforts should lead with needs-based messages and should create repetition while consistently providing new hooks and new information.