Imagine that you just started a new business, and you can prove with real measurable results, how your product or service improves the lives of your prospective customers.
In other words, your business is truly “customer-centered,” and the customers and clients who purchased your product or service could testify that their lives were made better in some way by having purchased and used your product.
In this scenario, if you put on your “business” hat, it is so obvious that you have to “Promote” your business to your prospective customers.
Otherwise, how would they know that what you offer can improve their lives?
Given that, if you choose not to promote your business, then your prospective customer’s lives would not be as good as they could have been.
Why would you choose that outcome for your prospective customers?
It doesn’t make sense.
…Because Promoting is Expensive!
I can hear the tension in the voices of many PHC Executive Directors already, “But Brett, advertising is so expensive.”
My reply, “You think advertising is expensive because you view it as an option, not as a necessity. If you viewed promoting your PHC to be as necessary to your “success” as you view having an ultrasound machine and a skilled ultrasound technician to be necessary, then you would simply look at advertising not as a “nice to have” for your PHC business, but as a “must have” – a non-negotiable.
I continue, “If you viewed promotion of your PHC business that way, when you presented your plans to your Board of Directors, you would defend the Promotion line item as fiercely as you defend the line items for an ultrasound machine and a skilled ultrasound technician.”
I finish with, “The reason you don’t do that is because you don’t view your PHC business as being in competition with Planned Parenthood where ‘success’ is defined by winning the market share battle, not by just developing and offering a great product.“
Doing the Easy Thing, or the Right Thing?
I realize that is a harsh assessment on my part.
But in my experience working with PHCs, it’s true for the most part that they don’t consider Promotion a necessity.
I think the primary reason this happens is because most folks who start PHCs approach it from the angle of social justice – a desire to protect preborn humans from abortion.
It’s an understandable sentiment, but it overlooks that the woman facing an unexpected pregnancy is the decision-maker and will choose between two competing options: abortion services, or choose life services.
And for her to make a choice between competing options, she must know what those options are.
If a PHC doesn’t promote itself to make women in its community aware of what it offers, how then can a PHC expect a woman to choose its offering?
First Up: Make Sure They Know
To be successful, as measured by market share, a PHC’s “4 Ps” strategy must be robust.
If I had a team that was starting a new PHC tomorrow, I would not begin with the Product strategy.
It is reasonably well-known how to create an attractive pro-life Pregnancy Help Center product.
There are already several PHC operating models to choose from that we could quickly replicate.
Instead, I would begin with a robust Promotion strategy backed by a substantial, non-negotiable, budget.
And, I would only bring on Board Members who bought in to that strategy.
Once up and operating, I believe our PHC would quickly pass other local PHCs in terms of client volume, even PHCs that had been operating for years with a great product, but with little to no promotion investment.
More importantly than that, I believe our PHC would start to increase our market share versus our real competitor, Planned Parenthood.
More to come…
Regards,
Brett