With increased competition in marketing, healthcare providers recognize the significance of marketing in the industry. Healthcare providers are emphasizing on educating and engaging patients through marketing on their growing function as health care clients. Marketing impacts are only achieved if the right marketing strategy and channel are used. This paper analyzes the direct impact of marketing to an elderly care facility, the strategy the health care provider will use to ensure their products and services are used and finally the marketing strategy that will be effective for the organization.
Marketing in health care organizations has led to various benefits that are both direct and indirect. The direct impact of marketing to an elderly care facilities is marketing leads to increased number of clients. According to Cernohorsky and Voracek (2012), marketing will create awareness of the services available and hence the organizations will receive new customers. The increase in customers will translate to increased sales that in return will mean improved profits. It leads to maximization of shareholders wealth. The avenues used for marketing should ensure they reach a wide range of clients for the above impact to be experienced. With increased customers, the facility may be able to gain a competitive advantage over other facilities in the industry.
The health care provider needs to learn whether the consumers are using their products and their experiences. A healthcare system comes in handy to assist the health care provider in monitoring the progress in utilizing the products offered by the facility. Elderly care provider should ensure they have an information and technology system that has an ability to take record of the daily routine of the elders. In the system, there should be questions that are related to the product and services that the consumers are using. With the help of nurses, elders can respond to the questions that help in understanding how they are fairing in using the products and services. This system will not only help the health care organization to know how the patients are using the products but also help them in receiving customer feedback on the products and services.
A marketing strategy enables an organization to reach its target consumers. When selecting a strategy, it is essential to ensure whether the medium of communication can reach the target group. External marketing is an effective way to reach the elderly. External marketing includes the use of newspaper, television, radio and billboards to advertise the services offered. Elderly people spend much of their time following the radio and television programs and therefore it would be a nice avenue to reach them (Buccoliero et al., 2015, p. 30). In this case, the documentaries will be aired with elders sharing their experience with the services provided by the facility. The documentaries will be aired immediately after prime news in one of the favorite television channel and one favorite radio channel. The elderly are expected to follow news and hence this will be the right timing to ensure their attention is captured. A message to stress on the advantages of visiting the elderly care will be included. Different health professions will have a minute to emphasize on the quality of services the facility offers.
Health care provider should ensure that they influence the purchasing decision-making choice of consumers by implementing the following strategies. The elderly health care provider should create and test various mechanisms that help the patient to navigate the health care process smoothly across the continuation of healthcare provision and the sessions of healthcare. They should then evaluate how effective the strategies are in increasing the satisfaction, quality and lowering the cost of health care. An example of a mechanism they can develop is the introduction of telemedicine aimed at reminding the patients on how to take medicines. The other way health care providers could shape the purchase decision-making power of clients is through educating the professions on how to ensure the patients are ready, able, and willing to take part in self-management of their medical conditions. Many of the patients avoid certain health services when they are faced with the decision to take part of self-managing their conditions. They feel it should be the responsibility of the health care providers. Healthcare providers should ensure they listen to the customer feedbacks and consider them while offering services (Cohn, Allyn and Reid, 2008, p. 265). They can do this through continued collection of data on the patient experience while receiving the services. In result, the services are developed in a way they attract customers because their needs have been incorporated.
In conclusion, marketing is essential for an elderly care facility since it leads to increased number of customers visiting the clinic. For an elderly care facility, external marketing which includes the use of mass media platforms especially television and radio will be effective to reach the customers. However, it is important to monitor the intake and utilization of services, and therefore, the organization will develop an information and technology system that will have the ability to record both the experiences and feedback from the customers.
References
Buccoliero, L., Bellio, E., Mazzola, M. and Solinas, E. (2015). A marketing perspective to “delight” the “patient 2.0”: new and challenging expectations for the healthcare provider. BMC Health Services Research, 16(1).
Cernohorsky, P. and Voracek, J. (2012). Value of information in health services market. Measuring Business Excellence, 16(4), pp.42-53.
Cohn, K., Allyn, T. and Reid, R. (2008). A strategy for engaging healthcare professionals: Moving from me to we. Journal of Management & Marketing in Healthcare, 1(3), pp.262-272.
