PG and others tend to talk a lot about how PR firms and offline marketing are irrelevant to online startups -- I think this may be one particular instance where that's not true. In a way, this is a very web1.0 idea, but hey, it's something people seem to want, so I'm running with it.
"Our startup spent its entire marketing budget on PR: at a time when we were assembling our own computers to save money, we were paying a PR firm $16,000 a month. And they were worth it. PR is the news equivalent of search engine optimization; instead of buying ads, which readers ignore, you get yourself inserted directly into the stories."
The fact that you have a hospital willing to do this is something huge. If you can make it work with them you could go to other hospitals to do the same.
It is a tough one to figure out though. I would think you would need to try to inform everyone in a 6 mile radius of this service. If it is densly populated you might try door hangers.
Users of this service aren't allowed to "get ahead of" anyone. This service only allows people to wait at home rather than waiting in the ER; the wait time is still the same, it's only a bit more comfortable.
Users of this service aren't allowed to "get ahead of" anyone
That is rather clearly the whole point, but I'm not going to argue with you--I'm just alterting you to the fact that the public response to this will be overwhelmingly anti-elitist. As such, any advertising should probably be targeted.
Yes that is the story. Everyone wants to be rich and the guy who gets into the emergency room first. Kind of like those people who go to the front of the line at Disneyland.
