Want to reach pediatric patients, their parents, and their therapists? Therapy Supplies and Rental Ltd, Toronto, has found a way to do just that without sinking a fortune into traditional marketing methods, such as mailings, flyers, and advertisements. The company’s secret is simple: Go direct to the source.

At Therapy Supplies—a four-location HME company with 120 employees—that means participating in a pediatric wheelchair camp, organizing a youth power chair hockey league, and developing an equipment information resource center at a local sports center.

“[The employees] love it,” says Kathy Fisher, occupational therapist and assistive technology supplier for Therapy Supplies. “I think it is an opportunity for them to see that we are not just working. We are actually doing something for somebody and they are benefiting from what we do.”

A good example of this benefit is how Therapy Supplies became involved with the day camp organized by the Bloorview MacMillan Children’s Center, Toronto, for children aged 5 to 15 who use wheelchairs. Held at the Children’s Center for 5 days during spring vacation, the camp helped attendees become more independent and build self-esteem by increasing wheelchair mobility. The organizers focused each day of the camp on different skills, such as equipment maintenance, personal health, and mobility. But it was not just boring lectures.

For $150 Canadian, children from all over the province of Ontario got to meet wheelchair sport athletes, try out a variety of wheelchair sports (such as wheelchair basketball), and test drive lighter, more mobile sport wheelchairs. “The kids were really, really excited,” says Marilyn Ross, physical therapist, physiotherapist, spina bifida/spinal cord team coordinator, and professional advisor for physiotherapy at the Children’s Center. “They were very motivated by having somebody in a wheelchair showing them all the neat things they could do in their own wheelchairs.”

The camp also benefited the children socially. “It was good to see the friendships that evolved from the camp,” says Stacey Rumble, OTA/PTA, who was one of the coordinators of the first camp prior to joining Therapy Supplies as a sales associate.

For Rumble, however, one of the best things about the camp was watching the children achieve the goals set for them. “When they reached that goal, just to see the smiles on their faces—wow!” she says.

Empowering Children and Parents
Therapy Supplies became involved with the camp because of its relationship as a vendor to the center. “This was a way to get our name out there...for us to come to the kids themselves, and to work with the families,” Fisher says. “We see kids as a long-term marketing project....Our philosophy is to keep clients for life.”

During the camp a Therapy Supplies technician showed the children how to maintain their chairs. This service was not only an independence issue, but an economic one as well. “We are trying to empower the parents [and children] by telling them not to always count on the therapists or us to suggest that they have a repair done; that they keep on top of things because their equipment will last longer,” Fisher says. “[One of our technicians] did a session on how the kids can get involved in maintaining their chairs, doing small repairs, and trouble-shooting if something is going wrong. Just basic yearly and monthly maintenance on their chair to get the kids to take some responsibility for their equipment.”

If the camp participants learn better wheelchair maintenance, Therapy Supplies may also benefit from lower service costs.

In addition to participating in the wheelchair camp, Therapy Supplies has organized a youth power chair hockey league. It started as a way to reach out to parents and children, but it ended up producing an interesting side benefit by attracting children who had never considered using self-propelled chairs. “It gives them an opportunity to see that other kids are in power wheelchairs and that it is not a bad thing.” Fisher says.

Players can borrow the league’s donated power chairs to use during practices and games. This ability to test drive the power chairs in extreme conditions has been a marketing boon for Therapy Supplies and an educational boon for the parents of participating children. “It has been a good opportunity for parents who are hesitant [about getting] a power chair...to talk to other parents about how they cope with the equipment and maintain it and get it in and out of the van and the house,” Fisher says. “It is good marketing for us without doing the marketing.”

When the league started, Fisher says attending games proved exciting because parents would besiege her with questions about products.

Therapy Supplies also reaches out to the community by providing information at a resource center in a Toronto-area sports facility, Variety Village, which is geared toward people with disabilities. Therapy Supplies also hosts in-services at Variety Village to reach more children, parents, and referral sources.

For all these programs’ social and goodwill value, the biggest benefit is that they have helped Therapy Supplies establish market position. “It gave us an edge over the other companies in that we were doing [these projects] and it gave us exposure to clients who were not necessarily in our database already,” Fisher says.

In addition, the people who have come to know Therapy Supplies through their fun outreach efforts have come to respect the company. “I think it gives us some credibility. [People know] that we are not just money grabbers and that we are here for the long haul,” Fisher says.

And that is an image money alone cannot buy.

C.A. Wolski is associate editor of Dealer/ Provider.