As marketing-to-women thought leaders, we already understand the purchasing power of female consumers. Yet, there appears to be one category where women are still considered a niche market: healthcare. Here are some quick facts:
--Women make 90% of all consumer healthcare decisions
--Women account for 93% of all OTC pharma purchases
--Women account for 85% of all healthcare purchases
--66% of women feel misunderstood by healthcare marketers

Sound familiar? There was a time not so long ago when the entire marketing-to-women concept showed the same kind of numbers. We have watched as brands and categories have not only acknowledged women as consumers, but have embraced them as the key to their current and future business success. Healthcare appears to be moving in this same direction. “As the primary healthcare decision makers for both themselves and those around them, women are a critical audience for marketers in this growing industry,” says Dr. Nancy Snyderman, chief medical editor at NBC News. “With healthcare reform at the center of media attention, now more than ever consumers are looking for information on health and wellness. The key thing for marketers to keep in mind is that women make 87 percent of the healthcare decisions for their families.”

Snyderman is one of more than 30 speakers who will be participating in the upcoming M2W®-HC™-The Conference for Marketing Healthcare to Women, November 5th & 6th at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C. During her opening keynote, Snyderman will share insights on how companies can help women decipher the abundance of information available to them—a great way to start two-days of intense learning and connections.

Created by the team behind the highly successful M2W®-The Marketing To Women Conference, this event is focused on the powerful, female healthcare consumer segment and is a must-attend for anyone charged with increasing market share in the healthcare industry. Think hospitals, group medical practices, pharmacy/retail chains, eldercare facilities and insurance companies—all categories of healthcare that would benefit greatly by better understanding the female consumer. Women are not only the ‘gatekeepers’ of health in the family—they view health as a long-term process. “Healthcare is complex and requires deciding on a variety of competing potential solutions,” says closing keynote speaker Dr. Barry Sears, chairman of MedWell Foods, bestselling author of The Zone. “Women have more patience than men in wading through these complexities. Furthermore, they inherently know that all health care ultimately starts with the diet.”

Dr. Sears points out that the healthcare industry often offers simple and quick solutions to complex problems and needs to look at new ways to approach consumers—such as joining up with food companies to co-market convenient healthy foods with in-package coupons that can be applied to purchases of their drugs. “Marketers should be thinking of developing a lifetime customer,” says Sears.

Senior-level brand and agency healthcare marketers will be treated to a great mix of speakers that include marketing-to-women thought leaders such as Marti Barletta, Pepper Miller, Stephanie Ouyoumjian and Mary Lou Quinlan as well as those in the healthcare industry who are effectively connecting with female consumers—Aetna, Saatchi & Saatchi Wellness, Microsoft Health Solutions Group and Hologic, Inc. “With women in the U.S. accounting for almost 90% of all healthcare decisions – some $500 billion a year – we believe this is a topic that can’t be ignored,” said Nan McCann, president of PME Enterprises, LLC, producers of M2W®-HC™. “The female consumer is the critical linchpin in the future of American healthcare.”

For more information or to register, visit http://www.m2w-hc.com

Patti Minglin is the editor of M2W® E-ssentials, www.m2w.biz.  Based in Chicago, Minglin can be reached at 630.209.2524 or pminglin@comcast.net.