Introduction
The progress of medical technologies, the increased financial pressure within the industry, and different reforms affect the fundamental changes in the work of health care organizations. Therefore, various medical organizations have to develop new differentiation and branding strategies to increase their competitive advantage. These strategies can strengthen the organizations’ relationship with clients oriented to meeting their needs effectively. From this point, branding strategies are relevant to achieve the goals of health care organizations. However, there can be many challenges experienced by health care organizations while promoting their services with references to branding. In spite of the fact that the focus on branding can result in such consequences as the increase in financial spendings and service prices, it is important to state that the use of branding is mostly beneficial for health care organizations because the branding strategies contribute to improving the organization’s competitive advantage within the industry and to increase the services’ quality; but it is necessary to refer to such aspects as trust and quality because they are important conditions to affect the organization’s success.
Circumstances and Conditions to Support the Importance of Branding
The competitive advantage of health care organizations depends on the ability to find ways to attract and satisfy the clients and to develop the existing relations while focusing on differentiating from competitors. From this point, there should be a correlation between the brand’s objectives and patients’ requirements. Thus, the development of a branding strategy in the health care industry is based on the principles of trust and quality along with brand awareness and patients’ loyalty. That is why the concentration on promoting trust and quality is the necessary circumstance and condition to rely on the branding strategy as a beneficial one for the health care industry. In this case, the developed branding strategy offers guidelines to improve the quality of services (Snihurowych, Cornelius, & Amelung, 2009, p. 126). This fact also contributes to the sustainability of the health care organization’s brand.
The importance of using the branding strategy is in improving the organization’s competitive advantage within the industry because the quality of the services increases along with developing the clients’ trust toward the organization or company. Strong brands create financial and strategic value because they foster the relationship between health care organizations and clients (Dumovic & Knowles, 2008, p. 5). Thus, the use of a strong brand has positive effects on various aspects of the organization’s performance. These aspects include increased employee motivation and increased patient acquisition. Strong brands attract more patients, but the effect is based not only on brand awareness and loyalty principles but also on the quality of the provided services. The use of branding changes the perception of the consumer about the health care organization, and this fact contributes to developing the organization’s existing identity and increasing the competitive advantage (Dumovic & Knowles, 2008, p. 6; Spur Interactive, 2009). From this point, the branding strategy can offer a new direction for an organization to increase the quality of services.
Negative Consequences of Branding
It is also important to note that there are situations when the focus on the use of branding can have negative consequences for the development of health care organizations. Thus, organizations can spend a lot of money to increase public awareness of the brand. Any mistake in the branding strategy can lead to general strategical loss. As a result, the organization will experience a loss because of the improper development of the health care brand. In addition, ineffective branding in the health care industry can result in liabilities because of the services’ low quality. In addition, if the value of the brand exceeds the value of the organization’s tangible assets, the organization’s competitive advantage decreases (Schmidt & Pioch, 2005, p. 494). Furthermore, the ineffective branding strategy can also lead to an increase in the services’ prices, and this situation can influence the patients’ interest in the definite health care organization negatively.
Moreover, it is also important to refer to the interests of the staff along with the focus on the interests of patients because all the stakeholders play an equal role in influencing the health care organization’s development. There are situations when branding strategies are oriented predominately on patients, and employees become less involved in the organization’s work (Gapp & Merilees, 2006, p. 162). As a result, the quality of the services decreases.
Conclusion
Health care organizations try to increase their competitiveness within the industry using branding strategies. Thus, companies can utilize any opportunity to differentiate their strategies. The use of branding increases the company’s competitive advantage and the customers’ interest in the organization’s services. However, the ineffective use of branding and inadequate development of strategies can result in definite negative consequences. Therefore, health care organizations should orient to receiving adequate knowledge about their target audience and the quality of products and services provided in order to use branding as an advantageous strategy which can affect the customer’s interest in the health care provider.
References
Dumovic, P., & Knowles, D. (2008). Marketing Masterclass: Product differentiation for competitive advantage. Journal of Medical Marketing, 8(1), 5-8.
Gapp, R., & Merilees, B. (2006). Important factors to consider when using internal branding as a management strategy: A healthcare case study. Journal of Brand Management, 14(1/2), 162-176.
Schmidt, R., & Pioch, E. (2005). Community pharmacies under pressure – can branding help? International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, 33(6/7), 494-504.
Snihurowych, R. R., Cornelius, F., & Amelung, V. E. (2009). Can branding by healthcare provider organizations drive the delivery of higher technical and service quality? Quality Management in Healthcare, 18(2), 126-134.
Spur Interactive. (2009). Online Marketing for Health Care. Web.