NEVER UNDERESTIMATE the importance of the "a-ha" factor. When you've pulled that now-I-get-it response from a prospective customer, chances are you've crossed a line that's critical to selling patient aids.

Potential clients can't clamor for products if they don't know they exist, marketing experts say, so making the shopper aware of accessories-and how they're used-is everything. It also can be everything to your bottom line, since the accessories are often non-reimbursable items, which translate directly into cash in the register.

Marketing patient aids, which can encompass anything from aids to daily living to ambulatory aids or bath safety devices, is a twofold process, providers and manufacturers say. First, you have to connect with the patients to make them aware of what you have to offer. Then, once they are in the store, you need to make it as easy as possible for them to come upon a plethora of products they can no longer live without.

"The No. 1 way to retail patient aids is to visually display them in use with the room settings," says Jack Evans, a Malibu, Calif.-based home medical equipment marketing consultant. "When the products are out there, the common response is, 'I didn't even know this was available.' "

After investing as little as an hour dressing up a bed in a provider's window, Evans often sees results. He'll add a bedside commode, an over-bed table, maybe some wide-handled silverware, then lean a cane next to the bed. Invariably, a customer is surprised that such a product is sold. "Patient aids don't sell in a box on the shelf," Evans says. "People have to see how they are used. They have to be demonstrated. That's how they sell."

Since many would-be clients aren't doing the shopping-their caregivers are-how do you make the connection between patient and need? Showering physicians with pamphlets delivered in person is a common way that providers connect with professional caregivers. Getting the message directly to the patient can be a bit harder, but providers and manufacturers have employed some creative ideas. Here are eight ways to get the word out about patient aids:

DID SOMEONE SAY 'FREE'? EVERYONE LIKE TO GET something for free, says Tracy Camparone, marketing specialist for Omron Healthcare,

Vernon Hills, Ill. About four years ago, the company came up with a "value-added" approach to marketing its digital blood-pressure monitors, which dominate the manufacturer's product line.

Last fall, customers who bought the monitors also got a card in the package that they could mail in to receive a free 20-minute prepaid phone card. In April, blood pressure log books, which enable users to track the results of their readings, will be packaged with the monitors.

To make purchasers aware of the added value, brochures are available for display at the counter and the promotion is advertised in the company's consumer marketing, Camparone says.

The value-added approach is a direct response to "the new face of the consumer, the baby boomers who are 50-plus," Camparone says. "The phone card is a good example of relationships being important to them. And the blood pressure log book is a way for boomers, who tend to be independent, to take care of themselves."

ALL WRAPPED UP SINCE GETTING POTENTIAL BUYERS in the door is more than half the battle, IHS Home Care, of Phoenix, had an idea that's literally in the bag. Since November 1998, the company has been buying the bags that the local pharmacy uses to package customer purchases. Right on the front is the IHS name, with a couple of bulleted points that emphasize that the provider sells home health aids.

"If we get one customer out of 100, it will be a lot for us," says Tom Maiefski, pharmacy manager for IHS, which has six branches in Arizona. "We just figured, 'Let's do it.' " The odds are on their side that, at the very least, consumer awareness will be raised-IHS had to agree to print 50,000 bags.

A LITTLE PLUG FOR THE DISCOUNT MENTALITY HILL CONTRY MEDICAL Equipment, Kerrville, Texas, zeroes in on its market by making sure everyone admitted to the local hospital receives a flier that also serves as a coupon. Across the bottom of the flier, it says, "Come in and get your free gift from Hill Country Medical Equipment," says Blas Sierra, retail sales supervisor. "On the flier, we make it clear we're a total home health care provider. We say we have it all from A to Z." The flier is usually good for 5 percent to 10 percent off the price of selected merchandise.

SINCE WHEN DO THE EXPERTS KNOW IT ALL? EDUCATING THE PROFESSIONAL CAREGIVERS is another way that Hill Country Medical Equipment spreads the word about patient aids. At a recent inservice for a home health agency, nurses with years of experience expressed surprise at the variety of patient aids available for home use, especially the bath equipment, Sierra says. "We start with our entry-level things, and go from there.

It goes over real well."

NO PROBLEM, GIVE 'EM A SOLUTION "PROVIDERS OFTEN FORGET that they're selling a benefit, not a product," Evans says. Instead of advertising a bath seat at a certain price, they should try to provide a solution. "The headlines have to sell the benefit," he advises. "They should ask, 'Do you have a problem standing in the shower? Or picking up something when you drop it?' "

In ads, providers often use a line drawing of a bath bench or reacher, fully expecting the caregiver to know why a patient would need the product, Evans says, instead of constructing an ad that lets them see how a patient could benefit from the device.

'MOM, WHEN IS GRANDMA GOING TO GET OFF THE INTERNET?' RESEARCH IS SHOWING that the over-50 population is turning to the Internet's World Wide Web to investigate their health care options as well as to shop, partly because they have the time to successfully navigate the information superhighway. "We sometimes underestimate the number of older people who are on the Internet," Elmsved says. "We have had older users contact us via the Internet."

Since putting its Internet address on company vans, Maiefski says, IHS Home Care also has noticed an increase in traffic on its Web site, (www.ihs-inc.com).

THAT'S WHY THEY'RE CALLED POSTCARDS YOU WON'T MIND THE MAIL CARRIER READING WHEN IT COMES TO direct marketing, postcards are "very, very" good," says Agneta Elmsved, vice president, of Samhall Inc., which makes ambulatory aids and bathroom safety products in Stratford, Conn. "Older people see them immediately. They have a harder time opening envelopes." Samhall has pre-printed postcards that providers can send out, as well as pamphlets that can be enclosed with invoices.

'SALESPEOPLE' MAKING A CUSTOMER AWARE of the accessories often amounts to teaching employees how to cross-sell. "They need to ask, 'Whom is the product for? Do they have other similar problems?' Then they'll start selling the patient aids," Evans says. "When someone comes in for a bed, you have all these related products you can show them. If they need an elevated toilet seat, you can talk about the bath bench."

Some providers who are schooled in cross-selling generate $1 million a year in cash sales, Evans says, mostly from patient aids.

Figures like that make it worth learning how to properly accessorize.