We’re now six weeks away from the WHPRMS 2014 Annual Conference at the Wilderness Resort in Wisconsin Dells. Where did the time go!? As always, learning best practices from healthcare marketing experts is definitely a reason to attend. Especially when unique topics are addressed. Along with social media, data gathering and CRM, brand development and healthcare trends (all great topics), the agenda includes marketing to an audience often ignored: men.

I caught up with Will Flynn, President of Franklin Street Marketing, for a quick overview of his presentation on marketing to men. Franklin Street is a full service advertising agency in Richmond, Virginia, who works with healthcare organizations across the nation.

Q: Why guys?

We historically target marketing campaigns to female audiences and often ignore men in the messaging. Nationally, 90 percent of women have a primary care physician or OB/GYN. Sixty-two percent of men have established with a primary care physician. There is an opportunity to for market share there.

Women are 100 percent more likely to be accountable for their health. They are very active in health care decision-making. Men are slower but should not be ignored. My presentation will explain examples of how to market to men by looking at campaigns unrelated to health care. We smell our own fumes when we only look at healthcare marketing examples and case studies.

As the Affordable Care Act encourages us to move toward a population health focus, now is the time to encourage men to take charge of their health. And they will.

Q: What best practices will you share?

Yes, but I’ll focus more on national research that highlights the behaviors of men, as well as the rise of the dad-mom. One in 5 men are still unemployed and they choose to be stay-at-home caretakers. We’ll also look at market segmentation, offering you insight on the different types of men who you need to know about.

For example, there has been a change in masculinity. Men are more involved in their children’s’ health. Men are also more likely to be authoritative and less likely to ask questions than a woman would. They are also less likely to ask for second opinions in terms of medical care.

Q: How does marketing to men relate to the web?

Now is the age of the Internet and men enjoy being online. By the time men reach 55, they will be just as strongly online as women are.

It’s important to look at your organization’s website and how your content is organized and received. Hospital websites historically operate as libraries of content. We need to think differently as the future approaches. We are big fans of Amazon.com here at Franklin Street, and look to their website model as inspiration. Sure, Amazon has an incredible amount of content, but each page converts prospects into customers.

There is also opportunity to get men involved in event marketing and trigger marketing. Email technology and web customization. It’s now much more affordable to do web customization. We have a few blogs on this already. I’ll talk a lot about that topic so be sure to come to the conference!

Stephen Moegling, Will’s colleague, wrote a fabulous piece on successful campaign who market to men. Remember Michael Keaton in Mr. Mom? To watch the videos, CLICK HERE.

The early bird rate is over BUT there is still time to sign up. To register for this year’s conference, fill out this simple registration form.

This post was written and researched by Trish Skram. If you have other news, resources or links to share, please comment below or email Trish Skram, blogger and research content specialist for WHPRMS, at trishskram@gmail.com.