Listen to the podcast here: How to do a DIY Market Analysis
Episode Summary: In this episode of DPC Pediatrician, Phil and Marina break down how to conduct a practical DIY market analysis before starting a pediatric Direct Primary Care (DPC) practice. They explain that while you don’t need to spend thousands on a formal report, you do need to thoughtfully evaluate three key areas: local demographics, community economics, and the broader wellness landscape. First, they discuss assessing whether there are enough children and growing families in the area by reviewing birth rates, school growth, and housing development. Second, they emphasize understanding average household income to ensure families can realistically afford a monthly DPC membership. Finally, they suggest looking at the success of other cash-based wellness services—such as doulas, lactation consultants, and chiropractors—as a proxy for whether families in the community are willing to pay out of pocket for personalized care. Blending analytical data with intuition, they encourage listeners to take a strategic yet practical approach when deciding if a pediatric DPC model will thrive in their chosen community.
Welcome to DPC Pediatrician. We’re Dr. Phil Boucher and Dr. Marina Capella, two DPC pediatricians who are on a mission to share our love of direct primary care with you.
Welcome to another episode of dpc pediatrician today we’re going to be talking about marketing for those that are thinking of starting their practice this is going to be specifically looking at the marketing analysis oftentimes when you talk to somebody that’s businessy about starting a new business they’ll say well what does the market analysis look like and you’re like i don’t know i got the vibes that uh i want to do this And I’m certainly a vibes person.
Dr. Capella here is much more analytical and thoughtful when it comes to the actual everything. But in particular, like a marketing analysis.
And so you don’t necessarily want to pay someone thousands and thousands of dollars to do a marketing analysis to tell you that there are children in the community, that schools are growing in the community. that there is a need for pediatricians in the community because, duh, all of those things we already know.
There’s more in the weeds that we can probably get into of will a pediatric direct primary care thrive in a community and does the community support that? Today, we wanted to talk specifically about that. And Marina, can you kind of share some of the big picture things that you think about when it comes to knowing that this can fly when it comes to a pediatric DPC practice when you’re looking at a community?
Absolutely. And just as a correction, I am very much an analytical person, but also vibes person.
You are a vibes person too. I will absolutely give you credit for that as a vibes person too. You’re both.
Using that brain to look at what you can look at and then making that final decision based on your vibes.
On the vibes, yes. It’s a hybrid approach.
Okay. When it comes to the analytical approach about this, I think that there are three main things that you want to look at. Right. There might be some other smaller things, but the three most important things to look at are, first of all, are there enough children in your community?
Of course, in most big cities, in most suburban areas of the country, there are going to be plenty of children and families. But maybe when you are in smaller communities, in rural areas, maybe sometimes even particular parts of cities can be kind of older population and maybe not that many children.
So you might have to like maybe say, well, I want to be here or, but I’m going to have to market to a wider area, or maybe I live in this community, but my office should be over like 20 minutes away where there are more children. So you have to kind of think strategically. So look at the population of children and births,
all of the demographics around how many kids are being born each year. What’s how many schools are closing versus opening versus stable populations, things like that. So You have to have children, right, for families to come to you and seek your services.
The second one is the economics, right?
So if you live in a city where the average household income is $45,000, that’s probably not going to be the best place to open a pediatric DPC where you’re charging $100 to $200 a month because many of those families are already kind of strained financially and And so they might not have, even if they really wanted your services, they may not have the disposable cash to be able to pay for them. Now, that’s not to say that the UPC can’t work in rural communities, but you have to be much more strategic about the pricing and what your specific offerings are.
So economics, economics, people have to have money to pay for your services. So looking at things like average household income in your community can be a really helpful benchmark. And then finally, look at other wellness services, not necessarily just health care, but things like midwives, doulas, chiropractors, lactation specialists, massage therapists, kind of that wellness industry, wellness industry.
Exactly. And are those businesses successful? are people going and willing to pay cash, right? If there are enough people in your community that there are enough of those businesses that are thriving, it’s more likely that that same population that’s willing to pull out their wallet and pay cash for those services will also consider your services.
So it’s kind of a really good proxy. But let’s kind of talk through these just a little more in detail. With demographics and kids, Phil, how did you, when you started your DPC, that there were enough kids and families that would consider your model to make it work?
Right. I think in the big picture, our community continues to grow. And if you just look at the metrics, schools are busy and packed and they keep building new schools on both sides of town. And on the side of town that I’m in, which I wanted to be relatively close to our home to decrease commute time,
we see that schools continue to be built and schools continue to be filled. So that tells me that there is a lot of growing need for pediatricians because there’s more kids in the area and there’s more home building in the area. There’s new neighborhoods and all sorts of developments and those sorts of things.
That tells me that people that are smarter than me anticipate that there are going to be continuing to be new families moving into the area in the next 20 years, that they’re going to build all these houses and infrastructure and everything along those lines. So in the big picture,
I have a feeling that there’s going to be more families in this zip code in five years than there are right now. and everything would indicate that on the outside. And then I think for me as well, it’s how long does it take to get into the pediatrician’s offices in town?
This is something where you could just kind of sneakily do call them and say, hey, I’m looking for a new pediatrician. Are you accepting new patients? If most practices in town are not accepting new patients, then there’s probably an ongoing need and demand for Yeah. in the community when it comes to pediatricians.
And that’s an opportunity to say, well, we have same next day checkups or like we can see you next week for your child’s nine month visit because we’re not booked out that far. Those are good indicators that, okay, there’s going to be enough ruffled feathers because it’s hard to get in with your
child’s regular pediatrician that there’s probably room for more pediatric and different pediatric care options in the community.
Yeah, excellent idea about kind of looking at the saturation of pediatric offices, right? Because as a measure of dissatisfaction, it’s very true. Communities where more parents are frustrated with the care that they’re receiving, there’s going to be more of a window of opportunity for you to make your case and appeal to families for sure.
So what about the economics? Tell me a little bit about how you thought through that when you opened your practice. How were you relatively certain that people in your area could afford what you were going to have to offer?
I really like what you said there about other cash pay health care services. I mean, there’s lots of different things that people can spend their money on. But if you already know that there are in-home doulas or in-home lactation consultants or other things where people have said, yeah, there’s an alternative, but I want the convenience.
I want the personal relationship. I want that more handholding. That is a great sign that people in the community are aware of it. and aware that there are other options because sure they could just go to their ob across town and then not have any of that kind of hand-holding niceties
conveniences extra touch but people are saying yeah i want that and it’s worth it to me to have those sorts of things um so i love that as kind of a indicator that there’s people that are willing to already say it’s worth it to me to have the extra the touch points and everything along those lines
And then I think just looking at the overall trends in the area of town or the town that you’re in, when it comes to other sustainable things that parents can choose to spend money on their kids, whether it’s private schools, whether it’s
even what do we have here urban air which is just like a a bounce university sort of place like it’s expensive though i mean we have six kids so it’s like 150 to take our kids there so we don’t go there but a lot of those sort of things require
parents to say it’s worth it to me to spend money on my kid in this way and if those businesses are growing and thriving that’s another soft indicator that okay Parents are here and they have enough disposable income to pay for trampoline access.
I bet they’re going to care about their child’s health care as much as they are about letting them spend energy and burn, burn energy at the trampoline park.
Yeah. Speaking of kind of looking at some of those other things in the community, the businesses that parents are paying cash for, right? One of the first relationships that I developed was with a midwife in my community. I know there might be mixed feelings about midwives out there in the world of pediatrics.
If that’s not your cup of tea, it’s okay. I didn’t really know much about the midwife. Honestly, right. I knew they existed, but I found one that is as far as midwives go, very responsible. She has a kind of state of the art little facility, not huge.
She does not hesitate to send women to the hospital if something is, you know, if there’s a real risk or something doesn’t seem to be going right. And so I was impressed by her approach, her facility. I felt like she was really responsible in terms of helping to support women who wanted that different birth experience,
but also kind of adhering to medical risk guidelines and everything. But yeah, I formed a relationship with her and she started just really slowly in the beginning, like a few referrals trickling in. And then I’ve also returned the favor by… There’s a mom recently that she lost her insurance and she was like,
I can’t afford like the hospital birth. What are the other options? And I said, well, if you’re low, lower risk, you can consider her. Also just doulas. I happened to be a doula at a women’s business training in my community and that has been a great one. And then through that,
I also met someone who’s a birth educator and just has connections with everyone in the community. So it can be good research to do as your market analysis, but then it can also translate into really good networking to network with these people, especially the ones who charge cash for their services.
Because my opinion is don’t go waste your breath and your time on people who are in the insurance based world. Yeah. Because their clientele wants to use their insurance and they’re not necessarily going to consider you or even take a second glance. So cash pay services in your community, especially those wellness ones.
For some reason, my name has gotten out there among some chiropractors too. And I get referrals from some chiropractors. Anyway, so that’s another proxy, right? Are people paying these other health and wellness professionals money? Then they’re more likely to pay you.
And that’s not to say that most of our patients don’t have insurance because probably 95% of our patients are insured. And I imagine that even if they go to the midwife, the doula, the chiropractor, that they also have insurance.
Yeah, exactly.
But they’ve decided for whatever reason, whether it’s wanting a higher touch or they want some specific offerings, they’ve decided that despite having insurance and that I could go without and just use my insurance, I’ve made that conscious choice to pick somebody that is able to do the thing that I want to do.
And that doesn’t mean that’s going to be just your patient panel. But it is a good place to start and to say, OK, I mean, you can even ask them, like, how do you find your birth clients? Where do you find those good birth clients that that are a good fit for you?
Because they’ve already done the market research and you can benefit from it in a collegial sort of way because you’re not not competing, like you’re not offering doula or midwife services, but you’re offering the next step for most of their clients, which is to have their child born and cared for.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Now, when it comes to kind of getting a little more into the weeds of this information, certainly you can just do Google searches, search doulas in my community, midwives in my community, chiropractors in my community, massage therapists in my community, and also take a look at those listings.
Is it a business that’s listed, but only has two reviews from like five years ago? Maybe that’s not a business that’s doing well, right? Or I don’t know if it’s even alive, right? And they just left their Google listing up, but certainly take a close look at those sorts of metrics.
Are these businesses that are not just existing, but that are thriving, right? So that’s something important to look at. How close are they in proximity to your area? Is there an area of oversaturation or a lot of demand, depending on how you look at it, right?
When it comes to kind of the economic data and the demographic data, census.gov has a lot of free stuff. You might have to do a little digging to find what you need, but you can look by zip code. You can find information there. And there are other databases online.
We are in the process of rolling out through DPC Pediatrician, a market analysis tool that for a couple hundred dollars, you can get a full report on the demographics, the economics, some things related to also like population and number of people kind of using insurance as well,
just kind of as a big landscape picture for you on the market. Right. And we’ll be rolling that out in the next couple of months. So if you want extra help, if you don’t want to be doing all of that by yourself, trying to figure it out,
there will be a helpful report that you can purchase through dpcpediatrician.com. So just another tool out there. But you can also do a lot of this searching on your own, as we’ve mentioned, especially when it comes to some of the stuff that a data-driven report is not necessarily going to be able to give you, like
who are the other wellness professionals in your community and are they in demand?
I think one last thing too, I love the idea of having kind of the, the PDF report, like, like you’re talking about with the DPC pediatrician. I think one thing that you can do as well, especially if you’re already in practice and considering switching is talk with your patients that really well and say, Hey,
I’m thinking about this. What do you think? Yeah. would this fly where are the gaps there and that’s not a conversation to have like right after their checkup but it might be something if you run into them at the grocery store the coffee shop like hey can i pick your brain or maybe even schedule
or hey can i pick your brain if you’re really close with a family this isn’t i’m not asking you to be my patients but i would love to get your input on the landscape and maybe the things that you see that the current practice that i’m in
that you go to are lacking that would be a way that things could be improved. And if you do that with families, they’re going to be like, he or she wants to build something new. These are the problems that I’m facing. I bet they’re going to help figure them out. Sign me up.
Yeah,
I think that’s a great way to to kind of do a market analysis of, hey, you seem plugged in to the young parent ecosystem. do you think this would fly and i think most people would say yeah it would fly because i’m used to paying for subscriptions because i have netflix and i have all
the other things that i do this isn’t some foreign concept to me of of a subscription and i get where there’s gaps and i want the convenience and the personal touch and all those sorts of things this makes sense to me so i think that’s a really good way that you can get some really actionable information and
probably hear a lot of the things that a lot of patients and parents are facing
Yeah, I like that. And if it is someone that you relatively well, or who you think would be really honest with you, also ask the harder questions of like, okay, like, I know this sounds great. And there are things that you say are good about it. But okay,
if it was the moment right now to decide whether you were going to pull out your wallet or your credit card and like sign up for it, right? Me through your thought process of like, are you actually willing to sign up? Because I think people may like the idea from an abstract perspective and see the benefits,
but then there’s kind of that money junk that gets involved. Well, if it’s the choice between this and this other thing that we want, are we going to do it? Yeah. especially the mentality that I encounter a lot of like, well, we only go to the doctor like once a year. My kid is healthy.
Why would I want that? And I’ve had families where I have, it’s really an access fee. Like it’s that you have a pediatrician that you can like call when you need and you can text when you need and you’re not going to get that at other places. And so- Just kind of explaining that,
but really exploring the psychology and kind of the thought process of like, okay, when it comes to telling him to pull out your credit card, like what is going through your brain in terms of making this decision?
Well, and I think I would, and I would try and talk to a few because I was telling my sister-in-law recently, who’s a doctor about this. And, and she’s like, oh, I would never pay for that. And they’re like well-off people that are really big. I’m just like, I would never pay for that. And so.
I’ve had that conversation before too.
This is what I do and what I think about and you have no interest in it or would never pay for that with all of your disposable income that wouldn’t even register for you. And you’re not going to convince people that are unconvincible. And you’re not going to say, well,
what if we could just text them or what if you could just get in or schedule all the different features that you have? Some people are just, no, that doesn’t make any sense to me. And so get multiple opinions. That’s the reason for sharing that.
Don’t get doctor’s opinions because doctors are like, I’m not going to pay another doctor because I’m a doctor. I should know. I can look it up.
And like, I can figure, yeah, she’s not a pediatric doctor, but I bet she goes in less frequently than the average bear because she’s an eyeball. They can’t be like, I don’t think they’re septic. So yeah, don’t ask other doctors about it. We do have, I have a lot of patients whose parents are doctors.
And they join because they’re busy and just want the convenience and access and those sorts of things. But a lot of times if, if insurance is what you’re used to, then it’s like, what the heck are they doing here?
Exactly. Yeah. When I first was opening and I told one of my colleagues what I was doing, she had the same kind of, it was almost this like look of disgust. Like why would anyone pay for that? Well, I’m not talking to you about this again.
Exactly. Yeah.
Have a nice day. Yeah.
Well, hopefully this has been helpful. Hopefully this has helped to shed some light on, okay, how do I know if my community can support a pediatric direct primary care practice? And like Marina said, there’s a marketing analysis tool coming for DPC pediatricians so that you can get that actionable information for your practice.
But don’t sit and wait years because you’re not sure if your community can handle it. decide get good input get advice get the vibes get the data so that you can make a decision and not continue to spin your wheels because the likelihood is and we have enough experience with practices and pediatricians across the country that most
communities not only can handle a dpc pediatrician but that they will thrive with a dpc pediatrician in their community so don’t let that be the hang up get the good advice get the the actionable data so that you can make the right choice for you
All right. Thanks for listening, everyone. Until next time.
