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Marketing Strategy
Introduction
Health Care Options and Our Audience
Highest ethnicity groups: Hispanic and African American
Highest age group: 65 – 74 and 75+
Low Income families are the highest social group
(Ohio Diabetes 2011 Fact Sheet,” 2011)
Hospitals
Clinics
In-home care
Assistance Programs
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Given this market, the marketing campaign must have a wide stretching plan. Social Media, radio, and television will all have to be incorporated into this campaign as the targeted audience has an eclectic skill set for gathering information.
3
Information Sharing
Verbal communication
Technology
Observance of commercials
Group outings.
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4
Health Care Reform
Federal health reform that uses “building blocks” approach to build off of the current health insurance system we have today in the United States. While building off of it to provide people with access to health insurance coverage, establish legal protections for consumers, and set up mechanism for consumer to shop knowledgeably for insurance
Effect on new diabetes program
Here is information on what the health care reform is doing for consumers who are looking to pick up insurance or get improvements in their current plans.
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5
Health Care Reform Continued
Targeted Audience
Marketing to targeted audience
The targeted audience for the new diabetes program being offered by Southern Ohio Mercy Hospital would be mature adults. The program has been developed to help monitor patient care, admissions and re-admissions that are concerning diabetes health.
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(리포트) Digital Health: Building Social Confidence in Pharma
BUSINESS PLAN
1. Table of Contents
Content Page Number
1. Opportunity Recognition 1
1.1.Business Opportunity 1
1.2Mission 1
2. Market Research 2 to11
2.1.Market Research 2
2.2.Target Market 3
2.3.Competitors 4
2.4.CompetitiveAdvantage 9
2.5.Business Growth 9
2.6.Challenges 10
3. Promotion 11 to 13
3.1.Market Plan 11
3.2.Promotion 12
4. Financial Information& Operation 13 TO 16
4.1.Business Model 13
4.2.One Unit 14
4.3.EOU 14
4.4.Expenses 14
4.5.Sales Estimate 15
4.6.Income statement, Year 1 16
2. KIDS.ON
Page 1 of 16
KIDS.ON
Hope and Support
Business Plan
1. OPPORTUNITY RECOGNITION
1.1 Business Opportunity
In hospitals, everyone needs support, but children with illnesses need it most. According
to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), approximately 6.4 million children
17 years old and younger were hospitalized in the United States in 2009. As these patients
recover, they often require psychological support. One way to fulfill this is by visiting a
psychologist or counselor. However, every year there have been budget cuts for mental health.
This includes the counselors that help sick children to psychologically recover. According to the
National Alliance on Mental Illness, U.S. state governments have collectively cut $1.6 billion for
their mental health programs since 2009, and are expected to continue budget cuts in the
future. As a result, this opens an opportunity to fill the gap between patients’ need for
psychological support and availability. The KIDS.ON team decided to build digital support
groups that young patients could be a part of, all on a single app. The best part is that KIDS.ON’s
users will mutually benefit each other, which will reduce the need for human labor and
employees. KIDS.ON will connect them with each other and to survivors of diseases for comfort
and support. It will be a way for survivors to pay back to the community and for patients to
receive the support they need. It will also be a safe way for children to access digital support
groups, and KIDS.ON will ensure that they will only be talking to other minors and some older
survivors.
1.2 Mission Statement
KIDS.ON aspires to make young patients as comfortable as possible by connecting them
with relatable and supportive friends, from peers to survivors of their diseases. Our app enables
sick children to make the best of their hospital stays and to continue receiving the emotional
support required in recovery.
3. KIDS.ON
Page 2 of 16
2. MARKET RESEARCH
2.1 Market Research
National Opportunity: Overall, in the United States, approximately two million children within
our target market are hospitalized each year.1 Our surveys confirmed that 70% of children in
hospitals would be interested in being a support group. As a result, 1,400,000 sick children will
be interested in our app. In 2011 there were 4,973 hospitals overall in the United States. This
number has only grown, as there were 5,724 hospitals in the United States in 2013.2 The
healthcare industry is growing rapidly, and as more hospitals are being built, there are more
opportunities to distribute our app to children with illnesses. Our own industry, social
networking, is also growing. In the last year alone, it was among the ten fastest growing
industries in the United States.
Local Opportunity: On a smaller scale, there are many hospitals that could subscribe to our
app, and many of them are nearby. In New York City alone, there are 90 hospitals for us to
potentially distribute our app through.3 We would be a tool for hospitals to improve not
physical health, but rather the psychological health of children fighting various diseases.
Financial: We have concluded that most hospitals have the disposable income to subscribe to
our app. To be specific, only 94 acquisitions and/or mergers took place in 2012.4 Overall, this
small number shows that the strong majority of hospitals are in good financial shape. This is
because more money in the United States is being spent on healthcare than in previous years.
The United States spent $2.8 trillion in 2012 for healthcare costs. These costs are projected to
reach $4.6 trillion by 20205.
Distribution: Our app can be distributed well through hospital networks, as opposed to
marketing to individual hospitals. This is because a small majority of hospitals, 53%, or 3,007
hospitals in the U.S., are part of a larger hospital network, as of 2011. Therefore, we could meet
with fewer administrators, and have our app distributed in multiple hospitals for the same
amount of marketing as one. This would help us to build a larger user base quickly, and in turn
this would give our app more value to users and hospitals alike. Some networks are enormous,
and these networks include both non-profit and for-profit hospitals. For example, the largest
for-profit hospital network is the Hospital Corporation of America, which owns and manages
162 hospitals. The largest non-profit hospital network is Ascension Health, which manages 100
1 According to cms.gov, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
2 According to the American Hospital Association
3 According to the Department of Health and Human Services
4 According to Irving Levin Associates
5 According to cms.gov, the official website of the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
4. KIDS.ON
Page 3 of 16
hospitals.6 Overall, the healthcare industry is growing rapidly, and KIDS.ON can take advantage
of that growth.
2.2 Target Market
Demographic Information:
1. Our target market for users is children from the ages of 8 to 17 who are admitted
into a hospital due to a chronic disease. In particular, we seek to appeal to children
with asthma, diabetes, cerebral palsy, sickle cell anemia, cystic fibrosis, cancer,
AIDS/ HIV, epilepsy, and spina bifida. As our user base grows, we will add more
support groups for our app.
2. Our target market for consumers is hospitals with sizable populations of patients
below 18. They must also have some disposable income. Additionally, they should
be part of a larger hospital network so that we can more easily distribute our app to
more hospitals.
Geographic Information:
Phase 1: Because we are based in New York City, we will be working with hospitals
solely in New York City to distribute our app. Furthermore, it is productive to be in New
York City because the larger population leads to a greater concentration of hospitals.
According to the New York State Department of Health, there are 90 hospitals in New
York City alone, which could provide plenty of users/distribution opportunities for the
first year of our startup.
Phase 2: As we grow, we will expand to the rest of New York State and to other states in
the tristate area. This is because we have relatively easy access to other cities in New
York and nearby states. There is also a greater concentration of hospitals than in other
cities and states throughout the country due to the large population of New York, and
overall, the Northeast.
Psychographic Information:
1. Users: The children who we want to use our app are often bored or lonely. They
wish to see their friends and family, but also need to talk with someone that can
relate to them. Also, they wish to quickly pass their time in the hospital with
companionship and fun activities.
6 Based on financial data by the CMS and interpreted by the American Hospital Directory.
5. KIDS.ON
Page 4 of 16
2. Consumers: The hospitals that will subscribe to our app will be open to new
technologies that would improve the stay and recovery of their patients.
Buying Patterns:
1. For-Profit Hospitals: These hospitals want to invest money in any program that
would ensure that they have more paying patients. Our app will be a
promotional tool for them to have more patients, particularly children. They pay
the majority of their bills on a monthly basis.
2. Non-Profit Hospitals: These hospitals want to invest money into products that
improve the care and comfort of their patients. For our user market, they will
want something safe and effective. They pay the majority of their bills on a
monthly basis.
As our app is a form of comfort for sick children, and has the promotional aspect
aforementioned, both non-profit and for-profit hospitals would find it a desirable
product.
2.3 Competitors
Direct Competitors:
1. Ben’s Friends is a website and mobile app that maintains support groups for over 30
rare diseases. Members that cannot find their condition listed can make their own
group, by request. It has a strong founding story and, according to their website, over
40,000 users. It is a direct competitor because it has support groups for some of the
diseases that we have on our app; particularly ADHD.
2. iamafighter is a website and mobile app that maintains support groups for problems
that adults and teens sometimes face, such as alcoholism. However, it is a direct
competitor because it also has some support groups that KIDS.ON shares, particularly
cancer. It is popular among thousands of people.
3. SUPPORTbuddy is a mobile app that provides support groups for people with diseases
and addictions. Its goal is to allow people to set up their own support networks. As a
result, anyone can sign up to be part of a user’s network. On Android, it has many
technical problems. For example, we needed to open it several times on our phones to
explore it, as it crashed repeatedly. On iOS, it is rated at 3.5/5 stars.
6. KIDS.ON
Page 5 of 16
4. patientslikeme is a website that provides support groups for various diseases, which are
organized by parts of the body. However, it is mostly meant for adults. Children can join,
but of its approximately 277,000 users, we found that less than 6000 patients are 20
years old or younger. This was found through patientslikeme’s patient filtration feature,
which uses age and other traits to filter who a patient can interact with.
7. KIDS.ON
Page 6 of 16
Company KIDS.ON Ben’s Friends iamafighter SUPPORTBuddy patientslikeme
Target Market Children &Teens General Adults &Teens General Adults
Platform /
Location
Android
iOS(Apple),
Website
Android , iOS, &
website
iOS & Android
Website, iOS
(limited app
features- not full
website tools)
Purpose
Children’s
Support Groups
Support Groups
for Rare Diseases
Support Groups
for Cancer,
Common
Problems (ex.
Children’s
support groups
Support groups
for any disease;
diseases are
classified based
Price(For Users) Free Free Free Free Free
How do they
make money?
Hospital
Subscriptions
Donations Advertising
Unclear; still in
early startup
stage
Sell patients’
information for
commercial
purposes, such
Amount of users
/ Popularity
Facebook:
381 followers
Twitter:
30 followers
42, 164 members
Unclear;
Twitter: ~1,000
followers
Facebook:
~800 Likes
Unclear; still in
startup stage and
seems to lack a
social media
campaign
277,546 users
Company
KIDS.ON Ben’s Friends iamafighter SUPPORTbuddy patientslikeme
Cancer
Community
Cystic Fibrosis
Community
Diabetes
Community
Cerebral Palsy
Community
ADHD/ADD
Community
Competitive Matrix- Direct Competitors
8. KIDS.ON
Page 7 of 16
Indirect Competitors:
1. Support by EBT is an app and website that is meant to relieve stress by giving tools to
users so that they can live a better lifestyle. It gives users videos to watch and things to
read so that they can learn how to manage their stress, and bring them to a state of joy.
It is an indirect competitor because it doesn’t target people with diseases, but people
with diseases have used it effectively to reduce their stress and help in recovery. We
found this by looking at their testimonials, in which some people with cancer attested to
its performance.
2. Lotus Stress Relief provides its customers with equipment and software to reduce their
stress. There is a whole system in which bands are placed around one’s limbs and head,
which are in turn connected to a power source. It is an indirect competitor because
anyone can use it, but people recovering or fighting various diseases have used it to
relax and manage their stress.7
7 All information about our competitors comes from reading their user agreements, exploring their websites and/or
apps as users,and/or exploring otherinformation about their products,such as testimonials and visiting their social
media pages.
Company
KIDS.ON Ben’s Friends iamafighter SUPPORTBuddy patientslikeme
Chat Feature
Support Group
Feature
Games Feature
9. KIDS.ON
Page 8 of 16
Indirect Competitors
Company KIDS.ON Support by EBT Lotus Stress Relief
Price (For Users) Free
Free limitedversion;
Emotional BrainTraining
(EBT) Tools- $20/ month;
-Supportgroupand
physician:$220/ month
$120/ hour
$65/ half-hour
Platform/Location Android Android, iOS, Website
-CenterinFL
-Software and
hardware that can be
shippedanywhere
Popularity/ Reputation
396+ Likes
on
Facebook
2453+ Likes on Facebook
Is acclaimed to have
gone international,
but its Facebook
page has only 57
likes. However, it is
targeted to an
older, less tech
savvy target
market.
Target Market Children Adults Adults
Support Group Feature Yes Yes; with expense No
Hardware Complement No No Yes; with expense
10. KIDS.ON
Page 9 of 16
2.4 Competitive Advantage
1. Privacy- We guarantee the privacy of our users. Some of our competitors, such as
PatientsLikeMe, profit by selling user information to various companies, including
pharmaceutical companies. We would use only the most general information about our
users, and only for their safety. For example, we would need to collect parent email
addresses for parental consent and notifications.
2. Hospital Partnerships- Since we will be partnering with hospitals, so we expect to have
direct access to patients for distribution and feedback. In other words, to many patients,
our app would be the first support group app that they would see. Our competitors
don’t have this advantage, and rely solely on their users to spread the word. We will
reach out into the community for distribution, as well as rely on users.
3. Games- Our games feature helps to keep KIDS.ON’s early adopters and therefore grow
its user base. As there will be no people to chat with on day 1, it gives users a reason to
retain the app until the user base grows.
2.5 Business Growth
Short-Term Business Goals:
1. Promotional: For our promotional campaign, we want to have a YouTube channel with
at least five videos by the end of September 2014. They would inform people of our
mission about why we started KIDS.ON and how we help our target market.
2. Distribution: We aimto have an established partnership with at least 12 hospitals in the
next 12 months. This would be manageable because we could distribute our app in one
hospital per month, as well as through our social media campaigns and at events. This is
also beneficial because, according to U.S. News & World Report, there are 8 highly
nationally ranked children’s hospitals in New York City alone. There are also other
numerous public and private hospitals in this area, with sizable populations of patients
from 8 to 17 years old. In particular, we seek to partner with Memorial Sloan Kettering
Cancer Center, Staten Island University Hospital and other hospitals with both adult and
children patient populations. Overall, this will facilitate our growth, because we can
request noteworthy hospital directors and doctors to spread the word to their
counterparts elsewhere.
Long-Term Business Goals:
1. Consumers/Distribution: By the end of 2016, KIDS.ON aspires to be used by at least 24
hospitals in New York City. This would follow our expectation of distributing our app in
at least one new hospital per month. Overall, within a few years, we want to distribute
our app enough in New York City that we’ll become a standard product for at least
children’s hospitals to distribute. Eventually, we wish to become a standard product for
all hospitals in the New York Metro area to distribute to their young patients.
11. KIDS.ON
Page 10 of 16
2. Promotional: We want our logo to become as recognizable as any hospital’s logo, or
even more. This is because we need a solid brand identity for a good, well renowned
reputation, which in turn would give us opportunities with hospitals. Overall, it means
that we would be able to grow and expand faster. As making a company’s brand familiar
to consumers is very difficult, and requires expensive advertising, we cannot set a
deadline for this goal. However, we want our company to be known to all the children’s
hospitals in New York City by the end of 2016.
2.6 Challenges
Short-Term Business Challenges:
I. Legal Obstacles:
Especially because our users are patients, we must ensure that we are not liable for any
offenses, and we must explicitly follow all legislation that affects our business. In
particular, we must follow two important pieces of legislation: the federal HIPAA and
COPPA Acts.
1. HIPAA:
The HIPAA act stands for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of
1996. It ensures that a patient’s information, even the most basic, such as names and
photographs, are kept confidential and can only be released with the consent of the
patient. It impacts any business or non-profit that is in the healthcare industry, or any
business that collects medical information about patients.
Solution:
In order to pass this obstacle, we need to write a thorough disclaimer to reduce our liability.
2. COPPA:
COPPA stands for the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. It states that if a child is
under 13 years old, we must take some precautions for the safety of that child. Also, we
must require parental consent. Consequently, we are only allowed to collect
information from the child for a temporary purpose, and must delete it immediately
afterward. Furthermore, in order to use any of the child’s information for any purpose,
the child’s parents must be notified, given the opportunity to opt out, and allowed to
view the information collected. There are many more restrictions, which is the reason
why many social networks restrict their users to be 13 years or older.
Solution:
KIDS.ON will write adisclaimerforCOPPA.Forthis,KIDS.ON needstoresearchall interpretationsof
COPPA,asthere have beenbusinessesshutdownbecausetheyinadvertentlyviolatedthisact.
Additionally,we cannothave certainfeaturesinourapp,suchas uploadedprofilepictures.Thisis
because COPPA includesphotosaspersonal information,whichmustbe keptconfidential.Another
feature inthe future thatwouldsolve thiswill be alibraryof imagesthatuserscan choose from.
12. KIDS.ON
Page 11 of 16
II. Other Legal Considerations:
1. Notary:
For any legal documents that we produce, such as our disclaimers, we need a notary to
make them legally binding.
III. Media:
Putting ourselves out into the community has proved to be our greatest challenge. We
still do not show up in searches in large search engines, such as Google, and it is difficult
to find our Facebook and Twitter pages without a link.
IV. Technical:
1. Android SDK Tool -We have decided to no longer use Adobe PhoneGap, as it has
posed many problems in the construction of our app. Instead, we will make the app
native. Our alternative is to use the Android SDK development tool.
2. iOS Development -We must learn Objective C so we can put our app on the iOS
platform, as to gain more users.
Long-Term Business Challenges:
I. Team Growth:
Funding new employees will be a challenge because we might need higher subscription
prices. However, we don’t want to risk losing the business of the hospitals we will
already have partnered with. We will need more employees in the future because
additional communities need moderators to monitor them so that any hurtful
comments or users can be removed from our system.
3. KIDS.ON PROMOTION
3.1 Marketing Plan
KIDS.ON plans to market our app to hospitals and their staff along with the public schools and
social workers. Marketing the former will help KIDS.ON expand its network day-by-day.
The marketing plan will highlight the following customer benefits:
1. Patient Support: Patients will receive the necessary emotional support from peers that they
can relate to, as well as from survivors of diseases in the community.
2. 24*7 Access: With our app, patients can access their support network 24/7, unlike in a
traditional support group.
3. Communities/ Wall Feeds: We provide support groups/ wall feeds for the most common
diseases, fromcancer to cystic fibrosis.
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4. Chat: Patients can communicate with their new friends for support on a one to one scale, as
opposed to a physical group.
5. Contact Survivors: Survivors get to share their stories with sick children, and be able to pay
back to the community.
6. Anonymity: KIDS.ON will keep the information of our users anonymous. We will have to
collect a name and email for each account for the sake of accountability, but that will not be
visible to the public. For children too young to have an email address, we will accept their
parent’s.
3.2 Promotion
Overall, we have categorized our promotional plan into two sections: active and passive.
Passive promotion includes social and viral media. Active promotion involves physically
reaching out to the community and meeting with people.
A. Passive Promotions
1. Facebook- We will reach out to support groups on Facebook, which often have
thousands of followers that have diseases or are friends and family of sick children.
This would increase awareness of our app, and increase our referral rate.
Additionally, our data shows that the majority of people would refer a support group
app to a sick friend.
2. Twitter- We have a page on Twitter dedicated to KIDS.ON. This not only helps
awareness of our app, but it is helpful in reaching out to hospitals and their staff
members. Our market research shows that the majority of New York City hospitals
have regularly updated Twitter pages, but their Facebook pages are often either
rarely updated or nonexistent.
3. Tumblr- We will use Tumblr, a blog site, to share survivors’ stories to give inspiration
and motivation to children with the same diseases that they overcame.
4. YouTube- We plan to have a YouTube channel to promote KIDS.ON and raise
awareness of the necessity for emotional support for every sick child. YouTube
videos are useful because they provide information quickly and conveniently.
Particularly for busy staff in hospitals, people often don’t have the time to read
through a blog post or any other long messages and explanations. Additionally, our
surveys indicate that the majority of people prefer to watch videos over reading an
introduction in order to learn new things.
B. Active Promotions
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1. Free Trial- In order for hospitals to learn more about our product, as well as to
engage their patients with our app, we would give them a free trial for one month.
From there, they can make surveys for their patients to see if they benefited from
our app. This would further motivate hospitals to subscribe to our app, particularly
because they want their patients to have a comfortable stay. Positive reviews would
help us to gain hospitals as consumers.
2. Advertisements- We plan to have an advertising campaign throughout pharmacies
and flower shops throughout New York City. We would place small posters by the
cash registers. This is because the first place people go to when their friends get sick
is either a pharmacy or a flower shop to buy flowers and “get well soon” cards.
When they see our app, a way to help their friends more than any flowers or cards
can do, they will likely refer it to them. Furthermore, we would place a QR code on
these small posters so that they could download our app immediately without
having to search for it in an app store. This is particularly important because we
currently lack the publicity to be easily found on the Android app store, and a QR
code would make up for that.
3. Events- We would promote our app at walks, marathons, and other events
dedicated to raising money for research and funding of treatments for various
diseases.
4. Support Groups- We will physically visit support groups and hospitals to promote
our app among patients.
4. FINANCIAL INFORMATION & OPERATIONS
4.1 Business Model
Business Model: Subscription
Rationale for Business Model:
Based on our target demographic, we decided that we would sell subscriptions to
hospitals/schools/social-working institutions. They would buy subscriptions of our app, and then
distribute it among the patients. Additionally, to persuade them to use our app at all, we would
give them a harmless free trial. We would be depending upon our survey data, which tells us that
a support group app would be popular in hospitals and the latter. If the app proves popular
among patients, then institution will be bound to use our app.
Available subscriptions:
Subscription Type Number of Sign ups Cost/Month
Wind <200 $1,849
Summer <500 $4,399
Sunshine <800 $6,699
Rainbow 800+ $7,799
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4.2 Definition of One Unit
One subscription will allow the hospital to sign up a fixed number of users per month for a fixed
value.
4.3 Economics of One Unit
Selling Price per Unit $4,399
Variable Expenses per Unit
Costs of Goods Sold
Materials $0.00
Labor $600
Total Cost of Goods Sold $600
Other Variable Expenses
Commission $0.00
Other $0.00
Total Other Variable Expenses $0.00
Total Variable Expenses $600.00
Contribution Margin per Unit $3,799.00
4.4 Fixed Expenses for One Month
Expense Type Monthly
Cost
Explanation
Insurance $0.00 No insurance needed
Salary $200 We wish to higher high school/college graduates.
Advertising $300 Includes the cost of printing flyers, spreading the word out.
Needed for any additional payments/expenses for promotional
events.
Interest $0.00 [text]
Depreciation $62.50 To be saved each month in order to replace 5 laptops at the end
of four years.
Incidents $30.50 $9.25: Need to paid to maintain the server; $1.25: Need to be
paid to the playstore; $20: Need to paid each month to Powtoons.
Utilities $0.00 Since not renting place, bills do not need to be worried about.
Rent $0.00 Would prefer to work at a local shop or a library.
Other Fixed
Expenses
$100.00 $100: Monthly savings, to be used in case of emergencies.
Total Fixed
Expenses
$693.00