Why do most PHCs not invest in marketing?
If you ask the leadership of those PHCs why they don’t invest in marketing, they will tell you that, of course, they want to “get the word out” about their services, but they just don’t have the available funds to do so.
In other words, marketing investments are not a priority, just something the PHC might do if there are a few extra dollars lying around.
All available PHC funds are prioritized to flow to servicing the needs of women, in other words, funding the “product” that the PHC offers.
And the teams that work at PHCs, as well as the benefactors who financially support their work, LOVE that product – choose life services – because when an abortion-minded woman chooses the PHC’s product it results in a life being saved from abortion, and as a bonus, Planned Parenthood’s business loses a sale which hurts their business.
The Trap of “It Sells Itself”
In yesterday’s article, we discussed falling into the marketing trap of “If you build it, they will come.”
Just as insidious is the trap of “The product is so good, it sells itself.”
This can happen in any business when the company falls in love with its own product, instead of being obsessed with what the customer actually wants, and using that deep customer knowledge to frame (marketing and sales) the product better than the competition does in order to match those wants.
From the perspective of a pro-life advocate, the product that PHCs offer – choose life services – is “off the charts” AMAZING.
That’s why pro-life benefactors willingly fund so many PHCs across the country, year after year, even if those PHCs have poor market share numbers versus Planned Parenthood, year after year.
Even in the face of poor results, there seems to be a prevailing attitude among many benefactors that goes something like, “It’s OK for the PHC we support financially to have poor results because the team at the PHC consists of such kind-hearted people offering such a wonderful service to women.”
They are probably right about that.
But the front-line market reality is that the “wonderful service” the PHC offers is not what abortion-minded women actually want, at least not initially.
PHCs Have to Sell
For an abortion-determined woman who wants to be un-pregnant, the product that Planned Parenthood offers is the one that actually does “sell itself.”
So much so, that when a woman seeking an abortion calls Planned Parenthood, the staff person taking the call doesn’t have to sell the woman anything.
She’s simply taking an order.
The pregnant abortion-seeking woman has already sold herself on Planned Parenthood’s product because Planned Parenthood has done a good job of branding (marketing!) in women’s minds that it offers the perfect product for becoming un-pregnant: abortion.
Offering choose life services, a product that an abortion-seeking woman doesn’t want, means that the PHC will have to persuade the woman to change her mind about what she wants by giving her instead what she actually needs, and is better for her.
That process of persuasion is called SALES.
Next week, I will share with you a sales process that has proven to be an effective one-two punch for converting women who initially wanted to get an abortion, but ended up choosing life instead.
Regards,
Brett