Segmenting a general practitioner market to improve recruitment outcomes

Recruitment is an ongoing challenge in the health industry with general practitioner (GP) shortages in many areas beyond rural and Indigenous communities. This paper suggests a marketing solution that identifies different segments of the GP market for recruitment strategy development. In February 2008, 96 GPs in Australia responded to a mail questionnaire (of which 85 questionnaires were useable). A total of 350 GPs were sent the questionnaire. Respondents considered small sets of attributes in the decision to accept a new job at a general practice and selected the most and least important attribute from each set. We identified latent class clusters (cohorts) of GPs from the most–least important data. Three cohorts were found in the GP market, distinguishing practitioners who emphasised job, family or practice attributes in their decision to join a practice. Few significant demographic differences exist between the cohorts. A segmented GP market suggests two alternative recruitment strategies. One option is for general practices to target members of a single cohort (family-, job-, or practice-focussed GPs). The other option is for general practices to diversify their recruitment strategies to target all three cohorts (family-, job- and practice-focussed GPs). A single brand (practice) can have multiple advertising strategies with each strategy involving advertising activities targeting a particular consumer segment. What is known about the topic? Recruitment is an ongoing challenge in the health industry. A wide range of government strategies and incentives have sought to increase GP numbers in areas of need, especially rural and Indigenous communities. However, declining GP to patient ratios in such sectors suggest new recruitment strategies are needed. To know how effective new strategies might be, it would also be useful to know whether practices have already adopted such strategies in their recruitment advertising. What does this paper add? This paper reports results from an empirical study showing that the overall GP market can be segmented into cohorts of GPs who similarly value attributes of a GP position. The research finds three discrete cohorts in the GP market: practitioners who have job, family or practice dominant preferences. This finding can be used to improve GP recruitment by designing recruitment strategies targeting the cohorts. The study also demonstrates that rural (and urban) practices have, either intentionally or unintentionally, been attracting only one of the three GP cohorts. What are the implications for practitioners? A segmented GP market suggests two alternative strategies. One option is for general practices to design recruiting strategies that target members of a single cohort (family-, job-, or practice-focussed GPs). The other option suggested by our research is for general practices to diversify their recruitment strategies to target all three cohorts (family-, job- and practice-focussed GPs).