Orienting Marketing

OD_20210607M_HSM322_1AssignmentsWeek 1 Assignment – Orienting Marketing

Career Relevancy
The start of any marketing plan begins with the companys mission and goals, as these establish how an organization will ultimately market itself. Keep in mind, that the first principle is that organizations need to know what their customers want and need. By developing an understanding of the needs of a market, coupled with how it can work within the mission and vision of an organization, you can create a solid foundation for any form of healthcare marketing.
Background
Building On Realistic Wants
The healthcare industry is unique in that it is one of the only markets where the consumer may not know their own wants and needs. Insurance companies and doctors, combined with medical testing, will impact any healthcare decisions that the consumer ultimately makes. Importantly, satisfying a customers wants must be a medically appropriate decisionfor example, a customer may want to lose weight or grow hair, and a marketer would want to satisfy those wants. However, there is not a medically appropriate magic pill that will achieve either of those desires, so someone in medical marketing must find a different way to approach the customers needs.
Marketers understand the need to identify aspects within the industry that can be changed to the consumers benefit. For example, for years, to-be fathers were not allowed in the delivery room when their significant other was actively delivering the baby. There was a myth that, somehow, the standards of medical care would be compromised. Over time, this protocol has changed based on the desires of the customerit proved nearly instantly popular in the hospitals that began the practice, and it was quickly picked up across the nation.
Mission Control
As part of addressing the needs of its market, the organization also has to understand healthcare trends and the state of the industry as well as what its competitors are doing. By identifying trends within the market and understanding what local opposition they are facing, a medical organization should be fully capable of building a successful form of healthcare marketing. The most successful form of marketing is always built around a marketing mix, sometimes called the four Ps: product, price, place, and promotion.
Take, for example, this marketing mix presented by the CDC (CDC, 2011):
Product: new HIV testing kit; released by a credible research agency
Price: free for trial use
Place: widely and evenly distributed throughout states using state and local health departments
Promotion: national media publicizes to the public; journals inform the medical community
Youll notice that each element of the marketing mix is tailored to the needs of the market. In this example, the price is thankfully free, allowing the marketer to focus more fully on where it will be distributed and how it will be promoted. This is actually a surprisingly common practice within the healthcare industry, given how competitive the market is.
Finding a balance between the price point for a product or service and paying for its promotion is a struggle that must be carefully met. In addition, it is important that a healthcare marketer carefully define the market by targeting who they are selling to, segment the market by determining any key demographics within that market, and carefully analyze the needs of those demographics to ensure effective marketing. (CDC, 2011). In preparation for this week’s assignment, read through the “15 Healthcare Marketing Strategies That Deliver More Healthcare Patients”
(Links to an external site.)
(4,738 words) to view how healthcare facilities plan their healthcare marketing strategy.
References
CDC. 2011, February 24. Health Marketing Basics. Retrieved On July 16, 2020. https://www.cdc.gov/healthcommunication/toolstemplates/Basics.html
(Links to an external site.)
Healthcare Success. 2020. 15 Healthcare Marketing Strategies That Deliver More Healthcare Patients. Retrieved on September 8, 2020. 16, 2020. https://healthcaresuccess.com/blog/healthcare-marketing/healthcare-marketing-strategy.html
(Links to an external site.)
Prompt
Select an organization of your choice in the healthcare field. Research the organization and summarize the firms mission and values in 500 words on a Word document. Explain whether the company has a marketing orientation. If they dont, explain how the organization needs to change. Analyze how the company is providing value to its customers now and how it can continue to do that in the future.
Use at least 2 references as citations.

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