Marketing is generally defined as the process of making consumers aware that you are there—creating and relating to consumer needs and wants for your solutions or products, and developing relationships with consumers—causing them to become your customers/repeat customers. In marketing for the home accessibility (HA) market, there are three essential questions to answer: What is the HA marketplace?—In the simplest of definitions, the HA marketplace is comprised of people who are having difficulty living safely, effectively or comfortably in their homes. They want to continue living in their homes but their homes are no longer user-friendly. Therefore, finding solutions and products that return the user friendliness to their homes is the HA marketplace. What are the characteristics of the HA consumer?—Generally speaking, the HA consumer is above 55 years old and/or has diminished physical capabilities. More than 90 percent are baby boomers or beyond, so let’s look at the characteristics of the baby boomer. What they want, they get; they have grown up and lived in the mass media/commercialized era; they are independent, freewheeling and impatient, with an attitude that says, “Get out of my way, I’m coming through!” How do I market HA consumers?—For HME/DME companies, this requires a somewhat drastic change—from the traditional HME/DME model to the HA future model. Looking at the characteristics of the HA consumer and HA future model, we see that we are going to have to change our marketing approach to be successful in the HA marketplace. You might say we need to start romancing the HA consumer. How do we do that? We do it with effective promotion and advertising. Effective promotion and advertising begins with the message you are sending. It should contain seductive thought, refreshing candor, a common perspective and create a mental experience—that tells you a story that has you in it—while being frank, direct, believable and consistent. Seductive thought means that it captures the mind and helps someone want to do something or take certain actions. Refreshing candor means your message shows openness, sincerity and honesty. A common perspective means that people can easily relate to it. Creating the mental experience lets people see themselves in your message. Being frank and direct means getting to the point you are making in an effective and efficient manner. Believable simply means easy to accept as true or possible. Consistency means that you are portraying a consistent message about your company concerning who you are in the marketplace (the caring company, the experts, your hometown partner, etc.). A message that meets all of these criteria will begin your romance with the consumer and give you the opportunity to change them into customers/repeat customers. Now that you have the right message how do you get it to the consumer? You do that through effective promotion and advertising. While there is an abundance of possible ways to advertise or promote your company, we will focus on two components—reach and frequency—that are essential for your promotion and advertising to be effective. Most people think of reach as simply how many people will see, touch or feel your message, but it should mean more than that to you. An advertiser may tell you that they have a reach of 2.5 million people which sounds great—but if all of them are less than 25 years old, it is not going to hit your targeted population. You need to reach the correct who, which for the home access market is the 55 and older demographic when you are looking at reach. Another aspect of reach is when. You want to reach the targeted consumer when or before they need your solutions or products. If you are told something 12 times, you are much more likely to remember it. That’s why frequency is important for promotion and advertising. If consumers see and hear your message again and again, your message will stick with them. We call this “VELCRO for the mind.” You have put the mental experience—the why—into the consumer’s mind, and now all you have to do is wait for the when.
