Abstract
The field of healthcare is widening on a daily basis with a corresponding increase in the number of stakeholders who run the sector. The viability and significance of the sector are so pronounced that the government cannot afford complete control of its spheres of influence. Therefore, the healthcare services market is composed of common consumers with a divergent array of service providers, a factor that makes marketing strategy a crucial part of organizational undertakings. It is a fundamental aspect that each stakeholder in the healthcare market develop acute knowledge of the market it serves to give it an upper hand in competitive coexistence.
The significance of formulation of strategies cannot be undermined as far as the competitive characteristic of contemporary business markets is concerned. As a matter of fact, strategies like market segmentation not only award a business service provider huge profits but also guarantees a place in the ever-changing waveform in the market supply and demand curves.
Marketing Strategy in Healthcare Nursing Homes
Healthcare nursing homes are becoming a significant service that serves every population with respect to age disparity and deteriorating health conditions of the population. Health care provision has so far evolved to take various forms in a matter to convenience the customer and maintain excellent quality of care. As far as quality in care is concerned, the trend in this sector has amassed large competitive fronts in which each service provider seeks to announce his/her ground through divergent marketing strategy. It is important that the service provider surveys the market his or her business unit serves to come up with the most rewarding business strategy. There are different forms of business strategy that a business unit can adopt depending on the manner it serves its customers with respect to that of competing firms. Market segmentation happens to be one important strategy that can be tailored to suit any service and any market proportion.
Market Segmentation
Segmentation in essence means the classification of fractions of the market business unit serves with respect to shared characteristics of its consumers (Goldstein, 2013). A business unit can make a market survey and obtain relevant information that can help classify its customers with respect to their needs and preferences. For instance, the field of healthcare is vast enough to cover the extreme ends of the market demand. Logically, each market is composed of customers with different needs and to different extents. Therefore, the business corporation, through market segmentation as the principle marketing strategy can identify one of the numerous segmentation bases and use it in characterizing and classifying its consumers.
There are a number of segmentation bases a business unit can choose. Fundamentally, the market can be segmented with respect to demographic, geographic, behavioral, and psychological characteristics (Leigh, 2014). Demographic segmentation classifies the market with respect to demographic characteristics like age and income of the consumers while geographic segmentation classifies the market with respect to region, country and state or even city depending on the scale of operation of the health facility. On the other hand, behavioral segmentation classifies the market with respect to how the customers make use of the services the business provides like amount and frequency of demand with respect to a specific health service. Finally, psychological segmentation is centered on the social perceptions of the customers that shape how much they buy or use services offered by the health facility.
Target Markets
The segmentation results of a particular market will outline distinct targets in the market. Demographic segmentation will alienate the young population from the elderly. This will depict a difference in the use of health services by both populations (Reid & Bojanic, 2009). Additionally, the health facility through the market research and segmentation will make a distinct boundary (maybe through pricing) between the rich and the poor. On the other hand, geographical segmentation will automatically reveal the characteristics of a specific region and help the health facility in the best way to serve them. Moreover, behavioral segmentation will give the health facility the chance of identifying its most frequent customers or those who buy large tokens of their products for that matter. Furthermore, psychological segmentation will give definite social patterns in the way the customers influence the supply of the health facility’s products and services. Market, market segmentation will make distinct spheres in the market for the health facility or business to exploit.
Analysis of Competitors
It is a fundamental characteristic that a monopoly is no longer practiced in most markets with respect to significant needs like healthcare. Take a case study of two dependent competitors, each of which will present a different degree of influence of how the business dissipates its services. It is a logical fact that one of the competitors will adopt a different market strategy from market segmentation. What matters is how these strategies measure up in terms of the influence they have on the customers in the market and the demand curve of that specific business unit. On the other hand, the other competitor might use the same market strategy; in this case, the distinguishing factor is the extent or exhaustiveness of the strategy. Fundamentally, these differences in the degree of exploitation will determine which business unit excels most in a common market.
Competitive Advantage
Market segmentation guarantees a competitive advantage for the business unit in a variety of ways depending on the extent the business exploits it. For instance, it helps the business to develop more knowledge on certain patterns exhibited by its customers, the performance of its services in the market and consumer preferences and patterns in the market. These are all aspects of the market the business unit can exploit to its advantage.
Significance of Market Strategy
The significance of market strategies cannot be undermined in a market demand curve affected by more than one stakeholder. Therefore, the marketing strategy used by a specific business unit determines the amount of influence it has on the market.
Conclusion
The degree or extent a business uses a particular marketing strategy with respect to other competing firms determines its performance as well as the significance in that particular market. The example provided about market segmentation provides a clear distinction of the benefits a business unit is bound to enjoy with the use of an appropriate market strategy. In fact, the study of strategies in the market will only provide basic loopholes for customization by the business unit.
References
Goldstein, D. (2013). What is customer segmentation? Retrieved 02 21, 2014, from Mind of Marketing: http://www.mindofmarketing.net/2007/05/customer-segmentation-why exactly-does.html#.Uwek5KJrHDd
Leigh, R. (2014). What Are the Basis of Segmenting Consumer Markets? Retrieved 02 21, 2014, from Small Businesses: http://smallbusiness.chron.com/basis-segmenting-consumer markets-1417.html
Reid, R., & Bojanic, D. (2009). Hospitality Marketing Management. New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons.
