Saturday, November 19, 2005
How does one market a free health education library ?
I run the world's largest free health education library, called HELP , in Bombay, India ( www.healthlibrary.com). Our major problem is that very few people make use of our services - even though they are free ! What are we doing wrong ? How can we get more people to use HELP ? Is it that people don't value our services because they are free ? I don't want to charge for what we do, because I feel patients should have free access to health information !
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Maybe its because of the internet? When you can pretty much get all the information you need - from a variety of health websites - for free, at the click of a button why would you bother to go to HELP (both the website or the physical library)? Also, perhaps people prefer actual visits to doctors as opposed to reading;perhaps out of laziness or just for increased comfort.
ReplyDeleteI haven't been to your library(physical) in a few years but I see (online) you have done some PR activities in the past, maybe its time to do some more?
Perhaps you could speak to health journos and offer them syndicated services from your website? Journos are always starved for research and local information to support what they write. That way they will credit you if they use info from your website.
Also, maybe you could try to draw people to the actual library by having for instance:Free consultancy from you on a certain day for a few hours? or have a guest speaker and invite people to listen to him at HELP? All who come, get a free copy of your latest book?
The space can be used regularly for value added activities like this therefore differentiating HELP, making it more tangible- and spreading awareness of your website.
Do you have links to your website from popular local general interest websites?
With the plethora of information available to us at our fingertips, I think differentiation is vital. I think creative PR tactics is the solution.
Just Linked to the site from my blog.
ReplyDeleteThe reading room is real good .
Do you plan to have these books as pdf downloads so one does not have to be online while reading a particularly large book.?