Metromark Market Research Inc

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Services to Healthcare
Metromark® provides solutions to healthcare organizations to help improve quality of services.

Services to Law Firms
Metromark® provides legal research services to attorneys throughout the U.S. and abroad since 1979.

Services to Businesses
Metromark® provide businesses with knowledge and insights in an international market for action-oriented strategies.

Ask someone how they selected a hospital or a physician. Chances are they'll say that they talked with a friend, relative or someone else and got their opinion about hospitals or doctors. The same applies for law firms and attorneys. This is the use of word of mouth as a means of getting information for decision making.
Very few will say they selected a hospital by going to the hospital web site. Very few will say they selected a hospital based on billboards along the Interstate. Very few will mention TV ads or ads in the newspaper. Word of mouth is dominant as a trusted source of information.
What does this mean for marketers? If you think it means that marketers should push their organizations into social media to get new customers and keep existing customers, then maybe you need to think again. Word of mouth refers primarily to face to face interactions, with two or more people talking about a hospital or doctor or anything else in the marketplace. It is a lot harder to work with word of mouth than it is to set up a Facebook site or to order billboards, magazine ads, newspaper ads, brochures, and TV ads from the ad agency.

Metromark has been working with The State newspaper, one of the largest newspapers in South Carolina, since the late 1970s.
The emphasis in Metromark's work with The State, owned by McClatchy Newspapers, is on identifying public perception, knowledge and attitudes on major social, economic, and political issues.
Metromark's reports for The State are primarily based on surveys by mail and telephone. Other research involves bringing people together for discussion groups to identify issues within communities.
Metromark's latest reports concentrate primarily on issues within the Columbia Region, a multi-county area surrounding the City of Columbia SC. Reporters, editors and Metromark staff work to identify story ideas based on the survey findings. These stories are written and published throughout the year.

There is a great deal of information coming from the news media and from members of Congress about healthcare. Most, on both sides, is emotional rather than factual, with political rather than educational goals.
In the meantime, we hear physicians concerned about reduced reimbusement. We hear from hospitals concerned about their survival under a new health care initiative. We also hear from organizations with broad public support, such as AARP.
This is an issue in which every business, group and organization in the US should have an interest: to make a plan work in the final bill in Washington that reflects the basic needs and desires of members of the public. A "public option", meaning that there be an insurance plan, such as the one that members of Congress have, that can be offered by the US Government as well as commercial insurance plans appears essential, given national opinion. Commercial insurance companies flourish in Britain, France and Switzerland. In Britain, residents have a choice of the National Health Service insurance and commercial insurance as a supplementary policy. Many get both, just as Medicare recipients have a commercial insurance as a supplement. Commercial insurance should always be an option.
In the end, an American health plan that provides universal health care will be a compromise among all groups, businesses, politicians, health care providers, and individuals who may or may not have access to any health insurance.

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