I had a really illuminating conversation with a guy who called me recently. He ran a marketing business and was a specialist in using Twitter.
Basically, the guy told me he’d been looking at my website for some time. He had been monitoring the number of Tweets I sent out. He’d been reading all the blog articles – they were brilliant. Appealing to my vanity – really you shouldn’t but it got my attention.
Actually, he’d found my details because he was a Tweet follower of and ‘tweeted” on behalf of a consultant surgeon who in turn was a Tweet follower of me. Thus he’d be watching MHM for some time.
Social Media Footfall
He was confident he could dramatically increase the mhm social media “footfall” and its Twitter presence by sending out at least 10,000 tweets a day on my behalf.
As he had done to his consultant surgeon client, he charges for his services as he rightly should. There is no problem with a price being attached to the service. I genuinely have no objection to paying a price for a service.
Most people expect it for free or as near to free as is absolutely possible. But I’ve always followed the mantra if you think an expensive professional is costly, try using a cheap or even a free amateur.
I also believe in Warren Buffet’s mantra of “price is what you pay, value is what you get”.
How many surgeons?
So I asked bearing in mind MHM clients are orthopedic surgeons, ENT surgeons, gynecologists, anesthetists, physiotherapists, and other medical professionals, how many consultant surgeons would receive the “tweet”?
In other words, how many would receive a Tweet that was relevant to THEIR needs?
My newly acquired friend wasn’t sure.
Instead, he stated that all the tweets would be seen by “professionals! For example electricians, engineers, social media specialists and newspaper publishers” That is not to suggest such professionals are anything other than perfectly respectable occupations. Of course, they are. I’m sure they are fully engaged in social media too and good luck to them.
But they are hardly likely to find the MHM offering suitable for them because they are not surgeons.
Marketing Niche
The crux of the matter, therefore, is why send 10,000 Tweets to anyone not within the same niche as me? He did not or could not understand this point.
What he did understand though was his request that once MHM became one of his “clients” I would pass over to him the list and database of all my contacts who WERE consultant surgeons.
Just as the consultant surgeon mentioned earlier had done. Or so he claimed for he would not divulge the name of his client (about the only thing I was starting to respect my new friend about).
Many, many people from a variety of organisations have asked for this list. A polite decline normally satisfies such a request but if pushed far enough its greeted with the immortal “which part of the word NO don’t you understand?”
What market am I in?
Meanwhile, I still do not understand why sending 10,000 tweets a day out to anyone who is not in the same market as MHM will ever benefit MHM. More so, if MHM’s marketing strategy – just the same as a consultant surgeon – pursues a pull marketing approach and not a push marketing one. Actually, I asked the question. Never mind MHM sending 10,000 daily Tweets out. Why would a consultant surgeon want to send 10,000 Tweets out a day to anyone who is not a potential patient?
But hang on a second?
My newly acquired friend claimed to have been studying and reading MHM’s website for some time. Yet he was still to understand, MHM Ltd only works with consultant surgeons, anesthetists, physiotherapists, etc. Either the website doesn’t make this clear (it does), he didn’t understand or he didn’t want to understand.
MHM is not likely to find more clients if it targets electricians, engineers, social media specialists or newspaper publishers. Nor is a consultant surgeon likely to find more patients if he or she Tweets the same audience.
No-one is suggesting Twitter can’t help a business. It can.
What I am suggesting is that in a specialist market, you need a specialist and not an amateur. In MHM’s world, many claim medical invoicing and medical accounts is easy. Some have no issues at all. Some have major issues and ring us.
Some however either don’t know they have major issues or bury their heads in the sand hoping the problem will solve itself.
It never does. Then they call a specialist in.
pete@medicalhealthcaremanagement.co.uk
p.s. yes, I know the picture is the wrong type of Tweet but I got confused. Sorry.