Talstone Group Delivers Solid Leads in a Tough Market

The Situation

NotifyMD, which provides medical only call management services to healthcare providers across the United States, is well known for their After-Hours Call Management solution, known as notifyprovider. However, their Daytime Call Management solution – NotifyOffice – did not have the market penetration they desired.

NotifyMD needed a way to increase their brand awareness in the daytime call management market to physician providers. They had significant opportunities to up sell their After-Hours clients on the Daytime solution, but lacked a marketing strategy that could help them achieve their sales goals.

The Challenge

The biggest challenge NotifyMD faced was brand awareness about NotifyOffice as well as a gap in the target's understanding about how the solution worked. Talstone Group held discovery meetings with NotifyMD sales personnel and realized that a salesperson had to spend a significant amount of time educating a potential target about what the product was before they could begin the sales process. It created a lengthy sales cycle and awkward initial cold calls.

The Strategy

After gathering information from NotifyMD and researching their target audience, Talstone Group asked the question, "If we could only say one thing to the target about this solution, what would it be?" The answer boiled down to the word "Revenue." The target audience was unaware that NotifyMD functioned as much more than just an answering service for physician practices. They did not realize that the NotifyOffice solution could actually help them save revenue in their practice by streamlining their workflow and operational efficiencies.

After strategic brainstorming meetings, Talstone Group created the idea for the "Save the Pig" campaign. The campaign concept revolved around a film noir-type theme and imagery with an out-of-control phone positioned as a revenue killer. The pig represented revenue, and NotifyMD represented the detective that captures this killer and offers physician practices a better solution.

The campaign hinged on three different visuals, correlating with three separate drops, which highlighted the pig (revenue) in peril and then culminated with the killer being captured by NotifyMD. The copy accompanying each visual was the beginning of a faux news story based on actual NotifyMD client situations with the stipulation that "all names have been changed to protect the innocent."

The call to action was to visit a unique URL – savethepig.net – that featured the rest of the news story. A premium offer to receive two free movie tickets if the target watched a Web demonstration video about NotifyOffice was included.

Talstone Group decided on an integrated marketing strategy to deliver the campaign. This included a direct mail piece in an 11 x 17 poster format, an HTML e-mail to NotifyMD's existing opt-in e-mail list, print ads in a trade industry magazine, online ads on targeted industry Web sites, and customized bill stuffers to be inserted in invoices to current NotifyMD clients.

The savethepig.net URL featured a different short film that changed with each episode as the drops progressed.

The Results

To date, the Save the Pig campaign has delivered more than 170 highly qualified, warm leads to NotifyMD's sales personnel using the integrated marketing strategy. Each lead represents a decision maker in a physician practice who has viewed the NotifyOffice demonstration. The NotifyMD sales personnel also report that the campaign has led to a significant reduction in the time it takes to educate a potential client about the NotifyOffice solution.