Marketing Strategy Tips for Positioning When You Lack Differentiation

We recently explored what to do when you don’t have good targeting options for your medical billing company and in this article we’ll share essential marketing strategy tips for positioning when you’ve selected a target market but struggle with market positioning and differentiation. This is a common challenge we’ve encountered with clients who lack clear positioning in their specialized niche.

The Positioning Challenge

To review quickly: once you select a target market (let’s say gastroenterology), you need to understand that market deeply to develop an effective customer persona. This typically involves conducting research interviews with clients, asking about their decision-making criteria, and gaining insights into their pain points.

With a solid customer persona, you can develop your marketing strategy tips for positioning (how you’ll present yourself to them) and differentiation (how you’ll stand out from competitors). But what if you can’t easily gather this information?

When Research Falls Short

We recently worked with a client targeting a specific specialty where we encountered this exact problem. During calls with their existing client in that specialty, we couldn’t extract specialty-specific information that would help with positioning. The business owner lacked deep experience in this specialty due to having a broad client base. Even their billing manager who worked with the one or two clients in that specialty couldn’t provide meaningful insights.

This left us without ammunition. How could we position the company as specialists when we didn’t understand what these practitioners cared about? How could we create messaging that resonates without knowing their specific challenges?

You could resort to generic positioning like “we ensure no claims sit unresolved” or “we perform well on A/R”—but you’ll disappear in the noise of thousands of other billing companies saying exactly the same thing. Generic messaging won’t grab attention because it doesn’t speak to specialty-specific pain points.

Building Expertise From Scratch

Instead of giving up, here are my recommended marketing strategy tips for positioning when you lack information:

1. Form a specialized team: Dedicate one or two staff members to become experts in this specialty.
2. Analyze existing client data: Pull all denials for your one or two clients in this specialty and analyze them thoroughly. Identify patterns in payer responses—what requires medical documentation? Which procedures need prior authorization? What coding combinations cause issues?

According to McKinsey’s healthcare revenue cycle research, organizations that develop specialty-specific billing expertise see up to 25% improvement in clean claim rates compared to general billing operations.

3. Create specialty-specific SOPs: Develop standard operating procedures based on your findings. Document exactly what needs to be done differently for this specialty to prevent denials and optimize reimbursement.
4. Research payer policies: Obtain payer policies for the relevant procedure codes and payers. Extract this information into a rule set—perhaps an Excel sheet—that guides your work.
5. Implement and document improvements: Begin using these new procedures with your existing client(s). Track the improvements and document case studies.

This entire process can be completed in less than 30 days. In just one month, you can transform from having no positioning to possessing substantial specialty-specific expertise that genuinely differentiates your services.

Turning Knowledge Into Effective Positioning

After 30-60 days of focused work, your dedicated team members will have developed deep practical knowledge. They’ll be living and breathing the unique challenges of this specialty daily. This expertise becomes the foundation for your medical billing company branding.

Now you can create messaging that truly resonates with your target market. When leads come in, you’ll demonstrate credibility by showing (anonymized) examples of your specialty-specific SOPs and payer policy lists. Prospects will recognize items that relate directly to their practice.

The result? You’ll close an incredibly high percentage of deals because you’re demonstrating real value specific to their specialty needs. You’ve gone from “we have one client and don’t know much about this specialty” to having a marketing and sales advantage.

Additionally, your existing client will benefit from improved service, becoming a better reference and potentially even referring other practices to you. This approach creates a virtuous cycle that helps you develop stronger develop RCM KPIs tailored to specialty-specific needs.

These marketing strategy tips for positioning transform a potential weakness into a competitive advantage. Instead of struggling with generic positioning, you’ll build authentic expertise that creates genuine differentiation in the marketplace.