Lifestyles, lifestages impact female healthcare consumers

Understanding niches key to building trust
Experts to share successful case histories at M2W®-HC™ conference

 

Washington, D.C. – October 22, 2009 — From selecting baby formula to caring for their aging parents, women are clearly the prime movers in today’s diverse healthcare arenas. However, with a range of ages, ethnicities, faiths and lifestyles, addressing the ever-changing needs of today’s female consumer continues to pose a challenge for healthcare brands.

 

To discuss the many demographic and psychographic segments of their female customer base, some of the world’s most renowned healthcare marketers will meet here for M2W®-HC™...The Conference for Marketing Healthcare to Women, November 5-6, 2009 at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

 

Ethnicity, age, culture, religion, are all vital factors to take into account, marketing experts say, both in terms of reaching the purchaser and ultimate end-user. Understanding and addressing these factors is a crucial first step toward building trust and achieving a company’s marketing goals.

 

“Women are leading incredibly busy lifestyles, and they need to have healthcare marketers reach out to them in ways that are relevant and time-saving to them,” said conference speaker Marti Barletta, founder of The Trendsight Group and author of Marketing to Women and PrimeTime Women.

 

“Very often healthcare marketers make the mistake of talking about themselves – their capabilities, their technologies, their awards – but a much more effective way to connect with women is to talk about the people that they’ve helped, to make that personal connection.”

 

“The opportunities for healthcare marketers to improve their connection with women and to help women improve the healthcare of their families is enormous,” Barletta said. “Healthcare marketers who recognize that opportunity and take action on it sooner, rather than later, will find that they benefit in terms of stronger relationships with their customers and ability to help their doctors.”

 

Conference speaker and author of What’s Black About It, Pepper Miller, said African-American women in particular are disproportionately affected by hypertension, heart disease, breast cancer and diabetes. But cultural differences and myths have made it a challenge for marketers to get their message across.

 

“We most often hear about the huge healthcare disparities between African-Americans and mainstream patients,” said Miller, President of the Hunter Miller Group. “Understanding the insights behind those disparities – the cultural influences on patients’ health – is not only crucial toward effective treatment, but also in developing relevant communications between patients and their caregivers.”

 

“Understanding women consumers at various life stages is critical,” according to Jill Griffiths, Head of Thought Leadership, Clinical and Provider Relations at Aetna, who will be moderating a panel on how Aetna uses partnerships to deliver preventive health messages to women. “A message that will resonate with a young woman right out of college just beginning her career is very different from a message that will catch the attention of a woman making health decisions on behalf of her family.”

 

During the M2W®-HC™ conference, Aetna will present a case study on how it reached out to educate young women that taking 400 micrograms of synthetic folic acid each day for one year prior to becoming pregnant, can reduce their risk of premature birth by 50-70 percent.

 

With more than 30 speakers and presenters from top brands and marketing agencies, M2W®-HC™...The Conference for Marketing Healthcare to Women is the premier marketing conference focused on the powerful, female healthcare consumer segment.

 

“For years, healthcare marketers targeted women as a single group,” said Nan McCann, President of PME Enterprises, LLC, producer of M2W®-HC™. “But as we all know, there are many different niches of female consumer, each with their own needs and expectations based on age, religion, ethnicity and many other lifestyle factors. Many of the presentations at this year’s conference will focus on these issues so healthcare marketers can forge stronger bonds with their female customers.”

 

Associate Sponsors of M2W®-HC™ are Aetna, Draftfcb, Ketchum, KickSkirt, LifeScript.com, M2W® E-ssentials, Paramount Market Publishing, Pink Tank, Publicis and Saatchi & Saatchi Wellness; Hospitality Sponsors are The Hunter Miller Group, NBC Universal and WomanWise; Affiliate Sponsors are the National Woman’s Health Resource Center, WomenHeart, Look Good – Feel Better, Go Red for Women and The Center for Medicine in the Public Interest; Imc2 Health & Wellness is a Workshop Sponsor; Pharmacy Health Network, Women’s HealthCARE Television Network and Zeno Group are Showcase Sponsors; SNiPPiES is the Video Journalism Resource.

 

For the complete conference schedule and registration information, please visit www.m2w-hc.com.