Creating Practitioner Demand for Supplements

Over the years, consumers have become increasingly unhappy with that old model. Patients and medical practitioners alike are embracing a vastly expanded menu of alternatives: organic foods, dietary supplements, herbal remedies and a rainbow of healthcare practices that extend the boundaries of traditional medicine. Choice has helped redefine the patient/doctor relationship, too, as patients increasingly seek a bigger decision-making role. To accommodate that shift, supplements companies are redefining the way they market their products and services.

It would be a mistake to underestimate the influence that education-based marketing has had on the direction of healthcare in this country. Education is the fuel powering consumers' confidence in the alternative healthcare industry. And because of consumers' enthusiasm, many practitioners now feature supplement and herbal dispensaries in their offices—including an increasing number of medical doctors.

“MDs are recognizing that patients are going to buy supplements anyway, so why not guide the process? That's what the patient wants. It translates into good patient care in the eyes of the patient,” notes Erik Goldman, editor of Holistic Primary Care, a New York-based bimonthly magazine focusing on the intersection of alternative and conventional healthcare.

Transitions for Health, a Portland, Ore., company that produces supplements, herbal products and health advice books for women, began marketing directly to practitioners more than 20 years ago, when it rolled out its first product, Pro-Gest, a skin cream that mitigates symptoms of menopause. Among the methods the company originally employed, educational seminars and direct mail have proven their worth over the years and are still in use today. But with a growing product line and sales that doubled over the past five years, Transitions for Health has expanded the ways that it attracts new clients.

In 1999, the company created an education and research arm, called the Women's Institute, to serve as an authoritative resource and advocate for women's health and wellness. Through its website (www.tfhwomensinstitute.com) and phone bank, the Institute's professional staff fields more than 2,500 health-related questions a month, both from practitioners and consumers. The Institute also recently published a book, A Women's Health Resource—A Guide to Health and Hormone Balance. Thus, Transitions for Health has grown the Institute into both a valuable information source and a subtle marketing tool that helps to build trust in the parent company.

That approach is further enhanced by company sponsorships of continuing education seminars, as well as keynote presentations at conferences and staff-written articles for peer-reviewed journals. In addition to the Institute, the company engages in educational activities through its Women's Group Formulas (WGF) division, the home of Pro-Gest and other wellness products targeted primarily at practitioners, as well as Emerita, a division devoted to retail consumer product lines.

Emerita has sponsored more than 400 in-store lectures that feature naturopathic physicians from the Institute speaking on topical issues. “These aren't infomercials for Emerita, either,” says Lisa Dolezal, brand manager for Transitions for Health. “We're very careful about giving reliable information without pumping our products. Consumers are smart; they know who's sponsoring the event,” she adds.

Continuing education programs, combined with patient demand, are spurring more and more conventional MDs to incorporate aspects of alternative healthcare into their practices, consequently increasing the practitioner market for supplements. “There has been a great increase in the past 10 years in the number of national alternative healthcare associations offering continuing education to members,” notes Deborah Moskowitz, a naturopath who serves as managing physician for Transitions for Health. “Many of our WGF clients are MDs, but many of them had already been practicing alternative care.”

As demand for good information expands, everyone in the supply chain must step up to the mark. Emerson Ecologics is a case in point. The 20-year-old Bedford, N.H., company is a distributor of about 4,500 products from more than 125 manufacturers. Their clients are exclusively healthcare practitioners. In the old days, it might have been enough to have a few fliers and to call on customers once a month. Nowadays, it's a different story.

“We have three naturopathic physicians and a nutritionist with a masters degree available to answer questions from our professional customers,” says Jacqui McCartin, marketing director for Emerson Ecologics.

Emerson sets up “one-stop-shopping” accounts with clients so they can order in bulk for their own in-house apothecaries. But the company also provides a “virtual dispensary” for clients without their own. “We can drop-ship a single item to a patient at their home, if that's what the doctor orders,” McCartin says.

Through the company's website (emersonecologics.com), healthcare professionals can do comparative analysis of various products to determine which would be best suited to their patients. The company also has a weekly newswire with journal abstracts and new product news, divided into discrete professional categories. Practitioners can also utilize Clinical Essentials, an extensive online database on everything from herbs and botanicals to health issues, drug information, ayurvedic, phytomedicines, glandulars, and advanced nutraceuticals and supplements.

In summary, education-based marketing can be credited in part for the success of alternative healthcare practices and products, and their gradual acceptance by medical traditionalists and insurance companies. Of course, it helps that alternative therapies have also proven themselves over time.