When a Changing Market Changes Everything

When a Changing Market Changes Everything

By Judith Greifer

The Challenge

What do you do as a medical association when you need to prepare your members for pending certification requirements that haven’t yet been defined? That was the challenge that the American Society of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology (ASPHO) faced when we learned that new physician recertification requirements would take effect 2 years earlier than anticipated. How would these recertification changes impact the Review Course, our well-established and anticipated live and online prep course for initial and recertifying physicians that also happens to be an important revenue generator?

Tapping into In-House Expertise

As a client partner of AMC, ASPHO had access to an abundance of in-house expertise we could immediately tap into to help us navigate this challenge. First, we consulted with AMC’s Creative Media Services (CMS) team to explore options for growing revenue with our current Review Course product offerings. Since its inception, the Review Course has been offered as both an online and live course for certifying and recertifying physicians. CMS conducted an in-depth analysis of the course and its key audiences: early-career specialists studying for their initial certification exams and more experienced specialists who needed to meet recertification requirements. From that research, we developed an expanded suite of education products for the current course and, more importantly, beyond, called the KARE Toolkit: Knowledge and Assessment REsources. The new KARE Toolkit includes new options for the early career attendees and focused, content-specific products designed in large part for recertifying physicians, meeting the true goal of providing useful resources, and ensuring continued financial stability in the changing landscape.

ASPHO19 KARE Toolkit

Once we had diversified our products, we needed a targeted and integrated marketing campaign. We collaborated again with the CMS team to identify creative strategies for virtually every aspect of the outreach campaign. Just as developing the products came down to knowing ASPHO’s audiences, so did marketing. Increased segmenting of audiences in e-mails and messaging, specifically crafted website landing pages, targeted digital ads, and adjustments based on analytics findings were all key to successfully launching the new offerings. This was a time-intensive undertaking of communicating constantly with education staff to make sure the right segments were culled from the database, ensuring all communications were in place, tracking analytics, and tweaking the outreach based on data gathered.

Exceeding Expectations

So, how did the challenge end? We didn’t just meet our goals for the Review Course goals—we surpassed them. The additional KARE Toolkit is part of a longer-term strategy to support the education—and recertification—needs of specialists across different roles, institution sizes, specialties, career stages, and more. The past year was an exciting, “educational” exercise in collaboration, brainstorming, and being nimble in a fluctuating environment.

 Judith Greifer is the marketing and membership manager for the American Society of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology.

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