Kane and Morrison

PCTs around the country are commissioning more NHS dentistry for their local populations to meet government targets. Some PCTs are doing better than others and there are variances in the numbers of new patients they are targeted to place.

One would think that upon announcing new NHS dentistry places, there would be queues around the block, but apparently not!

K&M are also working with PCT's to help them in their efforts to market their NHS dentistry places to their populations and therefore meet their targets.

A crucial element of good marketing is knowing your customer. Not only who they are and where they are but what their motivation for action is likely to be. While working with our clients we sought to find out what information they had about their customers so we could maximise the effectiveness of any campaign. To our surprise we were told that there was no quantitative or qualitative research that they or the department of health had undertaken and that they were working on assumptions based on their personal knowledge such as cost, anxiety or general awareness.

Perhaps I should not be surprised that the department of health has targeted the PCTs to commission new NHS dentistry places, and therefore to market these to patients without having done any research on the publics reasons for not accessing in the past. We may assume that we know the reasons why but many have come unstuck in the past for making assumptions that have turned out not to be so accurate.

Such information will allow a marketing campaign to be targeted at the right people in the right way through segmentation and positioning and should result in more efficient use of funds.

If anyone knows of any research that will help our PCT's I would be very grateful if you could let me know before I commission some on behalf of our clients.