Page 37 - HME Business, November 2017

presence designed to help patients purchase resupply items and other HME offerings online, but still in support of a physical location.
• Model, 3 Dedicated e-commerce—a business that is dedicated to e-commerce and is focused on engaging with and transacting with online customers on a regional, national or interna- tional level.
The first question that springs to mind in surveying these three scenarios is where do HME providers stand? Throndson says that a loose estimate based on her experience with VGM Forbin customers, approximately 60 percent of HME providers with an e-commerce presence would fall into model 1, about 35 percent would be model 2 and only approximately 5 percent would qualify as model 3. That said, the over- arching goal of each model is to grow sales. The difference lies in the digital strategy the HME provider implements.
Model 1: Awareness
As the most common and easiest level for HME providers to rollout, model 1 is a basic online presence that informs customers about what
a provider offers and specializes in, and how clients can find or contact the business. It is more of a billboard than an interactive marketplace. The main goal of a model 1 website is to drive customers into the brick and mortar location in order to conduct business.
That said, truly succeeding at model 1 is much more involved than it sounds. Media to mining data analytics, creating, maintaining and measuring your customer pipeline is perhaps the biggest learning curve for online HME providers. The more a provider knows and acts on your data, the more successful it will be
at building an online presence, regardless of the level. Also, social media plays a big role in model one, according to Throndson.
“Model one helps with building awareness in the community; building relationships with your existing customers,” she explains. “Often times I’ll even hear, ‘Oh, you know, I’m not really doing my social media, but if
I do e-commerce I will.’ Well, why? Because you have a lot of opportunity to engage your existing customers, and even those in the community that are not maybe your customers right now but very well could be, or that could be a good referral source.”
And to that end, the use of social media in model one is about playing a role in the commu- nity. A provider shouldn’t look at social media as a tool for pure self-promotion. They should focus on providing value.
“It’s not always just about this particular product or service; the posts and the content might not always be about that,” Throndson says. “It’s about your influence as a business
as well. It doesn’t matter if it’s in Washington
or something localized or how they’ve helped patients or whatever. That’s something that a lot
of HMEs discredit themselves for.”
The cost for model 1 is difficult to calculate, as HME providers have many options, such as
building a site or using a third-party vendor. Ask yourself, are you doing online ads, paying for content, using a web designer? All considered, expect to spend about $500.00 a month to main-
tain a robust model 1 site.
So how does this work in real life? HME Home
Medical (hmehomemedical.com) does not
sell any products on its website, but uses it as
a marketing tool to get current and potential customers to visit one of its three brick and mortar locations. The goal is not for the website
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