Strategic marketing in health care

Healthcare Strategic Marketing

Marketing in the healthcare sector is an interesting endeavor to engage in, given that healthcare is considered an integral part of an individual's daily maintenance of his/her well-being. Because healthcare is imperative and needed, it could be assumed that it does not require the same level of effort and creativity when it comes to developing marketing strategies that would increase preference and loyalty of the clients/patients to the healthcare organization.

Healthcare strategic marketing can be likened to a telecommunications company's marketing strategy: from the moment a product or service is bought up to providing after-service care to consumers/clients, telecommunications companies are involved ('high touch' involvement) with them. This same strategy must be adopted by the healthcare sector. In a healthcare organization, such as a hospital or clinic, medical and healthcare services would be its core offering. However, marketing to the general public does not begin once a patient or client approaches the hospital or clinic. Marketing starts by reaching out to the target markets of the hospital or clinic, and from there, a marketing strategy must be developed to ensure that clients/patients remain loyal to the hospital or clinic, the immediate "first choice" when it comes to availing of healthcare services.

In the discussion that follows, a marketing strategy is developed appropriate to the nature of operations and type of service offered by healthcare organizations such as a hospital or clinic. To have a further understanding of the customers' needs and wants as primary consumers of healthcare, there is a need to conduct a situational analysis that would provide a more specific background about the hospital/clinic, including its current situation and way forward. To cull out market-related information about the hospital/clinic, Porter's Five Forces Analysis will be used as a tool for evaluation. Within each component of this framework, an analysis will be conducted, exploring the hospital's market and performance and future directions through the following: threat of a new competition, threat of substitute products or services, bargaining power of customers (buyers), bargaining power of suppliers, and intensity of competitive rivalry.

Threat of a new competition

In a hospital/clinic providing healthcare services, the establishment of a competing (new) hospital or clinic is considered the new competition in the market. However, a hospital would be just as vulnerable if a new form of healthcare-related service becomes available through an individual or small group or organization. A wellness center, for example, is also considered a competition if it takes away a significant portion of the total target market of the hospital.

It is with the emergence of new competition that the hospital/clinic should make itself more "visible" to the target market. In fact, even in the absence of a competition, a hospital/clinic must already be salient in the minds of its customers so it would only need to reinforce the hospital's/clinic's 'brand' or name when there is a need to do "push" marketing in the event that a new competition comes in. Salience can be achieved through 'high-touch' strategies such as launching an information dissemination campaign that provides health information to communities that the hospital targets. This information can be released on a weekly basis and circulated in public areas for everyone to read/see. This is one way that salience can be achieved without directly talking about the hospital and its healthcare services.

Threat of substitute products or services

Health and wellness products and services almost always pose a threat to the healthcare services that a hospital provides. Perhaps a new wellness center would offer products that help relieve specific ailments or illnesses, or a new service that promises to ease the pain felt in a particular area of the body. These products and services, then, offer clients/patients with alternatives that ultimately require them to change their lifestyle, including their subsistence to medical or health care.

To counter this detrimental effects of substitute products and services that "promise" wellness and health of the body, the hospital must develop a "credibility campaign" in which both doctors and patients must become advocates for the hospital and medical/health care in general. Doctors will be advised to remind their patients always, during check-ups, to be more scrutinizing and only subsist to products and services that are scientifically proven to be effective.

Bargaining power of customers (buyers)

Healthcare organizations such as hospitals must always work hard at maintaining its clientele. Retention in patients/clients is a feat for hospitals, since when they start losing trust in their doctor or the organization, it would be easy to just switch doctors and hospitals, thereby losing a specific percentage of the hospital's target market.

Almost always, it is the price of the healthcare service provided that makes clients/patients move from one hospital or doctor to another. If the hospital is not in the position and decided it is not economically feasible to lower its healthcare fees, it should then develop programs that would make clients/patients feel that they are getting value for their money. Thus, establishment of health clubs or community of learners is an effective way to not only keep the clients satisfied with the hospital's healthcare services, but it also strengthens patients' loyalty through the creation of a small community within the hospital that patients/clients can relate to.

Bargaining power of suppliers

Suppliers can also determine the marketing direction of a hospital, especially when it starts to increase prices of their products or services. In the event that this happens, the hospital must be knowledgeable enough about the products and services it buys and about the network of suppliers/distributors of these products/services that it would be easy for the hospital to request for discounts or easy payment schemes so that the increase in prices would be felt gradually only. Alternatively, the hospital could decide to switch suppliers if its management is informed about alternative suppliers and their performance in the market.