When we speak about marketing we know that there’s no possibility of generalizing main concepts on all Sectors especially at the current time when we can find organizations from all around of our life are using marketing communications to reach their potential clients (if a profit is an aim) or even supporters (if controlling opinion is the aim).
Several years ago when we were speaking about marketing for a non-profit organization it was still an idea to be discussed nowadays even charities are depending heavily on marketing to increase people’s interactions with their cause.
One of the most important sectors that Experienced a major increase of their marketing efforts during last 10 years is healthcare organizations starting from several success stories that happened in the USA and Australian Markets Major Hospitals and clinics chains started to adopt Marketing concepts extensively, however, the challenge is how can we make marketing adjustable to the special characteristics of this sector?
First of all, as mentioned earlier all Marketing concepts that we have been working on since more than 50 years Ago was highlighting that Marketing should be Agile to each sector and situation, Second Marketing is about consumer behavior and how to satisfy the needs of these consumers so whether the consumer is someone who wants to buy shoes or a patient who wants to remove his painful tooth for marketing both are consumers and should be studied to know their needs and preferences.
Going further with this matter nowadays we’re hearing from some people that Healthcare marketing should be ethical; I strictly don’t agree with such statement as marketing itself starts from being ethical in generating a profit and to say such statement it means it’s not for other business and this can’t be true even though I understand that some people are miss using the power of marketing communication in changing the opinion of consumers and manipulating their feelings but this is an action of a certain people not the action of the subject.
The main question that most Medical field decision-makers are asking us all the time how can we help them? and is it different than any other business or no?
The first question is answered simply by introducing the benefits of understanding the patient’s character and needs which can allow them to position their brand at the right time and place with the right message. Five important points that Marketing can help health care facilities
Building a brand identity that reflects the facility values and their practitioner’s skills
Reaching more Potential patients within their Geo coverage
Delivering the patient care message that each facility have
Helping each facility patients reach the useful health information they want without the hassle of searching for.
Design Patient-centered service scope
The second question is about the complexity of the healthcare market and how the patient decides to go for a certain facility have a relatively dangerous impact on his/her health or their families which will require from the marketers to focus more on meeting the service quality promises and avoid any bad experience results as the impact of such events is far more than the impact that could happen from the unsatisfied client in other sectors like retail or communication sectors, Avoiding such events is not easy and should have a strong interfere from the marketing team to coordinate with other professionals at the facility spreading the Patient service quality culture and these efforts can be summarized in the following dimensions:
- Healthcare marketing should Focus more on daily activities done by every single activity starting with the cleansers to reach the medical director
- Digital Media is about being useful for people providing them with the information they may require and not about sending advertising messages
- Social Media Channels should be more informative than ever with patient-friendly content
- Customer service is more important than ever a lot of efforts and training is required here for this sector
- Combining medical experience within marketing research is essential for giving desired results
- Budget for Healthcare marketing is relatively higher than in other sectors
- Healthcare Marketing communication is unique and vast (referrals, Patients)
Integration of marketing with other departments is more important than ever in Healthcare facilities as a Marketing strategy should be related to the facility strategy taking consideration of each department’s Goals and unique characters for example In a single hospital we have medical departments such as emergency, Cardiology, intensive care, Neurology……. ETC and non-medical Like front office, HR, Housekeeping…. ETC, Each one of these departments has its own goals and requirements and should be working with the cooperation of Marketing efforts achieving the integration of communication and efforts internally and externally which makes the marketing operations more complex in our case.
At the end of this article, we gave a general Look Of Healthcare marketing explaining the unique factor for Healthcare sectors and how marketing efforts can help Healthcare facilities to strengthen their brand identity and reach their patient care goals.
Published By Ameer Almasry
Director of The summit consultancy / Dubai
MSC Marketing
ameer@thesummituae.com