At Novant Health, headquartered in North Carolina, the marketing team has embarked upon a journey to use untapped data to identify and engage new consumers, develop more relevant products and services, and pinpoint the media channels that perform best for significant consumer segments.
The Path to Segmentation
In 2013, the Novant Health brand was launched when the health system brought together more than 350 separate brands with a goal of improving the patient experience. Additionally, the aim was to double annual revenue within five years. To achieve these ambitious goals in a hypercompetitive marketplace, the marketing team turned concepts used by many industries for several decades, but which haven’t been used to their full potential in healthcare—segmentation and targeting.
Segmentation is the grouping of people with common characteristics to deliver messages, products, and services that match their unique needs. These groups are typically shaped using demographic characteristics, such as age, gender, income, education, location, and ethnicity.
Hypothesizing that those elements alone would not provide the insights necessary to create enduring connections with consumers, the health system added several dimensions to strengthen the study: attitudes, lifestyle and behaviors, caregiving status, life stage and health status, and desire for value-added services, such as online scheduling and same-day appointments.
Using the data, Novant Health identified six unique population segments. Two segments—“Eager & Engaged” and “Savvy & Connected”—emerged as key priorities. Today, marketing resources focus on these groups which account for nearly 50 percent of the target market.
New Models and New Tools
In the March/April 2017 issue of SHSMD’s Spectrum newsletter, David G. Duvall, chief marketing and communications officer at Novant Health, shares insights and resulting initiatives from the segmentation journey.
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