Marketing an outreach service in
West Sussex the rolling English
drunkard way
Tom Roper, Primary Care
Librarian, West Sussex
Knowledge & Libraries
#btnlibtm, 20 March 2012

The rolling English road
Before the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode,
The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English
road.
A reeling road, a rolling road, that rambles round the
shire,
And after him the parson ran, the sexton and the squire;
A merry road, a mazy road, and such as we did tread
The night we went to Birmingham by way of Beachy
Head.
G. K. Chesterton
#btnlibtm, 20 March 2012

#btnlibtm, 20 March 2012

#btnlibtm, 20 March 2012

#btnlibtm, 20 March 2012

Marketing planning
Grieves, Kay
How do you like your eggs?
Update, March 2012: 42-43
http://www.cilip.org.uk/publications/update-maga
[CILIP membership required]
#btnlibtm, 20 March 2012

Outreach: The first informationists?
Lamb, G, Jefferson, A, White, C
And now, ‘clinical librarians’ on rounds. Hartford
Hospital Bulletin 30(2), 77-86
Recently reviewed, systematically:
• Van Kessel, Karla.
• Gertrude Lamb’s Pioneering Concept of the
Clinical Medical Librarian. Evidence Based
Library and Information Practice 2012 7(1 ):
125-128
http://ejournals.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/EBLIP
/article/view/11766
#btnlibtm, 20 March 2012

Marketing in less than five minutes
• A definition
• Alignment
• Segmenting
• Value propositions
• Choosing the channels
#btnlibtm, 20 March 2012

Marketing
‘A dialogue over time with specific groups of
customers whose needs you understand
in depth and for whom you develop an
offer with a differential advantage over the
offer of competitors’
McDonald, M
Marketing plans 5th ed
Butterworth Heinemann, 2002
#btnlibtm, 20 March 2012

Alignment
• Coastal West Sussex Federation:
– 488,000 people
– 58 GP practices
• Sussex Community NHS Trust
– 3254 staff (WTE)
#btnlibtm, 20 March 2012

Alignment: Coastal West Sussex
Federation
• To reduce emergency admissions back to
2008/09 levels
• To reduce elective referrals
• To improve productivity of prescribing and
effectiveness
• To improve community services for patients
• To work with partners to provide improved
capacity for re-ablement services for patients
NHS West Sussex 2011/12
Operating Plan
#btnlibtm, 20 March 2012

Alignment: Sussex Community
NHS Trust
• Develop flexible and innovative care based on
patient-centred design.
• Improve patient experience and raise the
quality of care.
• Sustain and improve our financial strength.
• Become a thriving Foundation Trust
supported by excellent staff and public
engagement.
Strategic objectives 2011-16
#btnlibtm, 20 March 2012

Market segments
• GPs • Community
– GP principals – Nurses
– Sessional GPs – OTs
(salaried GPs, locums) – Physios
– GPs in training – Podiatrists
– Practice managers – Health visitors
– Practice nurses – School nurses
– AHPs
#btnlibtm, 20 March 2012

And the rest…
• Senior managers
• Executive Directors
• Board members
• Public health
• Commissioners
• Commisioning Suppport Services (CSSs)
• Deanery functionaries: regional and local
• Patients
• RCGP/LMC/LRMG etc
#btnlibtm, 20 March 2012

Value propositions
• The Primary Care Librarian saves you:
– Time
– Money
– Lives
• He helps you
• Reduce risk
• Get on
#btnlibtm, 20 March 2012

Roper’s hierarchy of channels
• Allies
– Eg Clinical Facilitators
• Face-to-face:
– Appointments
– Study days
– Opportunist or serendipitous contacts
• Electronic:
– Social media: @WSKPrimaryCare
http://primarycareknowledge.wordpress.com/
– http://www.netvibes.com/westsussexprimarycare
– Websites
– E-mail
#btnlibtm, 20 March 2012

#btnlibtm, 20 March 2012

Roper’s hierarchy of channels
• Dead-tree
– Letters
– Leaflets
– Posters
– Other paraphernalia
#btnlibtm, 20 March 2012