AdventHealth is a healthcare system initially established in 1973 in Orlando, Florida. Before 2019, the organization was known as the Adventist health System, and the title changed due to the rapid expansion of the company’s functionality (“Mission and history,” n.d.). One of the most remarkable characteristics of the organization that should be addressed prior to the analysis of its strategic plan is the fact that AdventHealth is a faith-based entity that was initially established with support from the Seventh-day Adventist community. Hence, it is important to keep in mind that AdventHealth aims at providing simultaneously professional medical care and mindfulness among the patients and staff.
Healthcare organizations comprise fundamental parts of strategic planning such as mission, vision, objectives, detailed description of the chosen strategy, and assessment of the organization’s environment. Hence, as far as the AdventHealth is concerned, the primary mission of the organization is “extending the healing ministry of Christ” (“Mission and history,” n.d.). Thus, the core mission of an organization aims at embracing the values of the Christian community and quality medical care. The organization’s vision emphasizes the following endeavors:
- Holistic care to help people feel in harmony with their body, mind, and spirit;
- Exceptional care;
- Navigation of care for patients beyond the regular process of admitting and discharging from the hospital;
- Access to affordable care;
- Innovative and adaptive care development (“Who we are,” n.d.).
Finally, the values outlined by the organization comprise high ethical standards, wellbeing, community, stewardship, and quality (“Who we are,” n.d.). Regarding the strategic components above, it would be reasonable to assume that the organization itself justifies the obligation to secure quality care through the symbiosis of up-to-date clinical and spiritual practices.
Key Products and Services
AdventHealth provides more than forty various health services that tackle care for all the parts of the human body, rehabilitation care, home care, hospice, and emergency care (“Our services,” n.d.). Apart from clinical services, the AdventHealth system serves as a provider of various self-help publications and books. The system encompasses the operation of 173 hospitals, 126 nursing homes, 294 clinics around the world, and one university in Orlando, Florida (“About AHU,” 2021). The organization itself also deals with the process of community health assessment every three years in collaboration with the local hospitals in the area.
Products and Services’ Alignment with Strategic Plan
Since the mission of AdventHealth comprises the idea of complex care for one’s body, mind, and spirit, the products and services are closely correlated with quality medical intervention and enlightenment through patient education and support. Thus, the distribution of introductory literature assists patients in their journey towards holistic care. As far as exceptional care and professionalism are concerned, AdventHealth places major emphasis on their medical institute as a facility to prepare medical employees. Developing strategic interventions in community health within the area aligns with the system’s vision of affordable care for the patients. Hence, it may be concluded that the services and products provided by the organization correspond with their strategic intentions and mission to help people through physical and mental assistance.
Marketing Opportunities
Having investigated the current marketing tendencies of AdventHealth, it has become evident that the organization itself allocates many human and financial resources in order to remain relevant in the market. According to the researchers, the paradigm of healthcare marketing encompasses such fields as strategic plans, online marketing, physician referrals, traditional and internet media, public relations, employer marketing, and branding (Purcarea, 2019). In the context of AdventHealth, the primary emphasis will be placed on the implications of online marketing, as the organization obtains several social media accounts and does not pay enough attention to the potential advantages of active social media presence.
Thus, the first marketing opportunity for the organization would be the improvement of advertisement appearance by boosting the pay-per-click Google advertisement, as currently no AdventHealth advertisement is displayed when searching for keywords such as “hospital Orlando” or “hospital Florida” in the area. The second opportunity in terms of marketing is the creation of an extensive content plan for all the social media microblogs like Instagram and Twitter. Currently, AdventHealth social media platforms have no consistent and engaging marketing framework.
The third marketing opportunity concerns the introduction of YouTube production. As of today, the official AdventHealth website has a blog where relevant public health information is published. However, the modern audience is more likely to perceive information from short and catchy infographic videos than while reading a blog post. Thus, to increase the audience’s reach, the marketing team may consider creating a content plan to introduce animated video content for social media users. Finally, it would be of paramount success for the organization to secure media coverage of its community health endeavors. Currently, AdventHealth allocates many resources to improve the situation in the context of public health, but this information is not explicitly stated on their website. To promote the ideas of mindfulness and wellbeing among the population as stated in the organization’s mission, inviting media to shed light on community health initiatives would be an efficient marketing tool.
Market Demand and Target Market
When it comes to US health care, the market has been modified dramatically due to the digital revolution accelerated by the pandemic. According to Deloitte (2021), almost 30% of the patient visits are nowadays virtual, with more than 80% of people willing to continue virtual visits even once the pandemic is over. Although the target market for AdventHealth is not limited to a certain population segment, the major emphasis is naturally paid to the socially active and well-to-do patients who are willing to do regular check-ups and cooperate with the hospitals. One external threat affecting the market demand concerns the unstable socio-economic situation due to the COVID-19 pandemic, as many professionals are currently overwhelmed with the workload in terms of patient care, and there might be financial constraints during the development of a marketing strategy. An internal threat concerns staff members who are not skilled in virtual communication with patients, as they undermine the organization’s position in the local market replete with services such as Medically Home.
Key Competitors
According to the information found online, AdventHealth deals with three major competitors in the market: Tampa General Hospital, Orlando Health, and Healthfirst (“AdventHealth competitors,” 2021). As far as the customers’ perspective is concerned, the primary comparison metrics included product quality, net promoter, pricing, and customer service. Regarding the employees’ satisfaction rates compared to the organization’s competitors, it becomes evident that the organization draws more attention to the aspect of patient satisfaction.
Product Difference
According to the data found, AdventHealth is rated first when it comes to the matter of pricing (“AdventHealth competitors,” 2021). Thus, it may be concluded that the organization’s product is more affordable than others within the market. Another significant difference the AdventHealth is the fact that the organization is faith-based and provides patients with practices on mindfulness and spiritual wellbeing. This aspect may be both beneficial and disadvantageous regarding the target patients’ preferences.
Product in the Context of Strategic Plan
The services and products outlined by AdventHealth directly correspond to the strategy of the organization. Considering the vision and mission outlined by the company, one may assume that the organization’s primary strategy is to create a health care system that would encompass every single aspect of care while preparing employees with the help of their thoroughly planned academic curricula. Such services as home and emergency care and published materials for distribution are applicable to the organization’s strategic plan.
Marketing Plan
For the sake of objectivity, health care proper will be discussed as the central service offered and delivered by AdventHealth. Thus, as far as health services are concerned, it is necessary to outline two major types of communication with the customer: offline and online. In terms of the service offer, the primary attention should be drawn to the advertisement. The offline advertisement may concern printed promotional materials, billboards, leaflets, and the organization’s offline events aimed at raising awareness of community health. Online advertisement concerns pay-per-click ads and promotion on social media platforms.
When it comes to service delivery, it is important to differentiate between the in-patient treatment and telehealth and virtual visits. AdventHeakth currently provides patients with the ability to choose the most appropriate option, but the precedent of pandemic encourages people to opt for the online option.
Benefits and Constraints
The first and arguably the most significant benefit of the organization’s place of service is its ability to manage both virtual and real-life patient visits. The rapidly developing function of appointing video visits with a physician presents a considerable marketing advantage for the organization. Moreover, such appointments may be more time-efficient for the professionals and affordable for the consumers (“A look at the costs of virtual hospital care,” 2019). Another organization’s benefit is the already existing patient network and access to their data in order to calculate the precise demographics of the target customers. Having existed for decades, AdventHealth now has an extensive patient database that may be used to promote its services. Moreover, AdventHealth is a faith-based organization, which means that it has access to both financial and human capital within the religious community.
The last benefit is the functional and user-friendly website as a major communication channel with the customers. Since a website is the most expensive online platform in terms of investment, AdventHealth is currently at an advantage compared to its competitors, as it could allocate more finance on improving its social media presence on other platforms. When it comes to the constraints of AdventHealth’s place of service, it should be mentioned that existing as a faith-based organization is also a challenge for an organization because it must stipulate some of the values and messages it presents prior to launching marketing campaigns (Sheldon, 2020). Moreover, some customers may not be willing to use the service due to religious contradictions.
Current Trends
The most significant trend in the sphere of health care is the rapidly increasing demand for virtual interaction with patients, which means that the organization is to reconsider its resource allocation in terms of promoting online patient visits. When it comes to the channels of distribution, current digital trends promote short content to grasp the audience’s attention. Thus, embracing such tools as creating a TikTok account might be essential in order to attract new audiences and bridge the “provider-patient” communication gap. Finally, today’s digital environment has catalyzed some dramatic changes in customer behavior patterns. According to Deloitte (2021), marketing teams should no longer focus their action roadmaps on the consumer demographics and emphasize the values trending within the target population. The process is extremely relevant to the healthcare segment due to the demand for providing service compatible with the patients’ value compass.
Impact of Technology
The adoption of technological tools within the organization inevitably impacts both service delivery and offer. Thus, for example, the application of virtual reality (VR) tools as means of diagnostics may change the approach to prescribing medications and managing chronic conditions. Another example of technological impact concerns the adoption of a virtual visit network that will reduce both travel and waiting time for the visit, focusing on efficient care instead. As far as offer is concerned, the application of digital tools like social media platforms may serve as means of bringing the service closer to the customer through beneficial and informal communication of services and values cherished by the organization.
Relation to the Strategic Plan
AdventHealth’s decision to embrace the existing digital approaches to diagnostics explicitly aligns with the organization’s strategy to secure efficient around-the-clock care for patients within the community. Moreover, AdventHealth’s mission to secure patients’ harmony in terms of taking care of body, mind, and spirit may be accomplished through interaction with customers via social platforms. For example, current social media platforms of the organization include the information revolving around mindfulness and spiritual integrity. However, there is no organized content plan on how this information may be interrelated with the services presented by AdventHealth. Thus, it may be concluded that the current place of service and channels of service distribution explicitly relate to the organization’s strategic plan, yet they need a more detailed marketing strategy in order to succeed and convey the message to the customers.
Pricing and Contracting Strategies
AdventHealth’s primary value of securing affordable care is generally achieved through the organization’s meticulous evaluation of pricing for every patient. According to the organization’s available information, the payments vary greatly regarding one’s insurance status and the health service required. The piecing strategies include the cooperation with various external stakeholders and investors capable of partly covering charges for uninsured and underinsured patients. Another pricing strategy concerns the development of an extensive model of advantage care plans for individuals who are willing to participate in a specific program supported by the organization’s partners (“AdventHealth advantage plans,” 2020). As far as contractors are concerned, the organization has developed a model of supply chain management that looks for vendors and suppliers for the local medical facilities in order to secure profitable partnerships (“AdventHealth business services,” n.d.).
Strategic Issues
In the context of US health care, the notion of medical billing has always been one of the most challenging aspects in terms of patient satisfaction, as in the majority of cases, patients feel rather unsafe when they see the reports of how medical facilities profit from the current prices on health care (Gee, 2019). Thus, the first strategic issue for the organization is the customers’ insecurity and vulnerability in terms of pricing. Undeniably, AdventHealth has developed a pricing calculator that may guide the patients, but they are still prone to face significantly higher medical charges due to surprise billing. On the other hand, the significant price reduction may also become a threat to the organization’s image, as customers tend to value their health to such an extent that they are not willing to opt for the cheapest possible option because they perceive it as lacking in service quality. Hence, the organization constantly faces a choice of balancing pricing policy according to the customer demographic.
Current Trends in Pricing
The first trend that will, by all means, affect the pricing strategies is the shift to digital care. Thus, while it has been estimated that virtual care is cheaper for the consumer, the service providers have to reconsider their pricing patterns in order to adjust spending costs according to the estimated revenues. Another trend concerns the expected boost in demand for elective care that was referred during the pandemic. Hence, with approximately 15% of patients postponing care in 2020, healthcare organizations will have to reconsider their pricing for elective procedures due to an expected increase in spending costs in 2020 (PwC Health Research Institute, 2021). The last trend is socio-economic and concerns the increasing unemployment rates catalyzed by the pandemic, which means the rapid shortage in insurance coverage rates for the population.
Competition Impact
There are two major effects of the competition on pricing policies. On the one hand, the competition may catalyze the rapid decrease in the cost for services in order for the organization to reach more cost-sensitive patients in the short-term perspective. However, while it may seem like a reasonable option, such an approach does not work for organizations that are willing to attract more suppliers. Thus, another effect of competition may be the increase in prices and quality of service in order to ensure potential vendors and suppliers in the organizations’ financial stability and ability to bring revenue.
Promotional Strategies and Techniques
Considering the high levels of competition in today’s healthcare market, it would be crucial for AdventHelth’s management to place a major emphasis on both patient loyalty and customer acquisition. The first strategy to employ in this case would be to create a series of sponsored events in order to secure a trusting relationship with the customers. An example of such an inbound sponsorship may refer to the organization of community health awareness events, as they will help the organization demonstrate care for their customers. Another strategy is the introduction of referral networks. Nowadays, customers rely heavily on reviews when choosing a service. Thus, when introducing customer incentives in exchange for giving feedback, AdventHealth may acquire more patients. The third promotional option refers to the creation of customer loyalty programs in the form of discounts and certificates. Finally, the strategy of email marketing may be adopted by the organization, as AdventHealth already deals with sending a newsletter to the patients, which means that there is no need to create an email database from scratch.
Advantages and Disadvantages
To begin with, it is necessary to outline that each of the aforementioned strategies obtains the benefit of securing a long-term relationship with the customer. When speaking of email marketing as an already existing promotional model, one may assume that it has a series of advantages, such as cost-efficiency, low intrusiveness, time-efficiency, easy conversion measurability, design flexibility, and rapid customization. However, as far as the drawbacks are concerned, a major disadvantage concerns the lack of customers’ interaction with email newsletters, as the modern customers are overwhelmed with the amount of information and marketing campaigns they are emailed daily.
When it comes to referral marketing, it becomes evident that such an approach increases both existing customers’ interaction rate and loyalty, as they feel like contributing to the service and the attraction of new customers. Moreover, such a strategy is relatively cheap and easy to implement. However, the organization will not be willing to track the customer profiles that come from referrals. Additionally, there is a great risk that new customers refer to the service with a set number of expectations, and they may leave as soon as they do not feel like these expectations could be met in a constantly developing organization. As a result, the conversion rates may be low in the context of long-term commitment to the service.
Participation in sponsored events, such as sponsoring a community health initiative with a certain NGO, may be extremely beneficial for one’s reputation among potential customers. Moreover, the events that provide customers with information contribute to the establishment of a credible image of the organization and its expertise in the field. However, such a strategy is uncertain in terms of conversion and returns. Finally, the creation of customer loyalty programs contributes to the creation of a customer network with high retention rates and higher probabilities of repurchase. However, the strategy itself is also hard to measure and predict the long-terms behavioral patterns of the customer.
Social Media Strategies
As it was discussed previously in the paper, one of the major drawbacks of AdventHealth’s marketing strategy concerns the lack of engagement with the existing social media platforms. For this reason, the first social media strategy would be the development of a long-term content plan that would focus on engagement with the audience, especially when it comes to Instagram. The next social media strategy relates to the creation of beneficial content to raise customers’ awareness about the brand through video content production for YouTube. AdventHealth may create a collaboration with public health initiatives and create a series of videos to raise public awareness on certain health issues. In such a way, the organization will attract new customers, increase brand recognition, improve its reputation, and create a platform for potential revenues.
The next social media strategy would concern the increase of social media presence on TikTok as one of the most widely used content creation platforms in the state. If previously, the platform was not regarded as beneficial in terms of the target audience’s mean age, today’s unprecedented reach rates encourage the most famous companies to start a TikTok blog. Finally, it would be crucial for the organization to develop an advertisement strategy for social media platforms that would include some infographics and invitation to use AdventHealth services both online and offline.
Marketing Budget
The first marketing strategy to be categorized in terms of the budget will be the organization of sponsorship events. Thus, the categories associated with event management concerns venue expenses, staffing expenses, printing expenses (advertisement, agendas), branded gifts, speakers, equipment, and emergency fund. Such a budget allocation pattern concerns educational events aimed at drawing customers’ attention to both the brand and its expertise in public health care.
The second marketing strategy concerns referral marketing. Thus, depending on the type of referral tools, the budget should account for the development of referral templates with basic inquiries concerning one’s experience. Ideally, this will include both the creation of an online template and a print-out of the questionnaires to place them across the facilities. Another important constituent of the budget will be the cost of reward that stands for the amount of money lost on the referral discounts.
The strategy of online advertisement includes expenses on the advertisement with high conversion rates. Thus, the marketing budget should account for the categories of pay-per-click advertisement placement and search engine optimization. Finally, as far as social media content creation is concerned, is it necessary to account for such categories as product development (including content, design, and promotion), equipment procurement, and product advertisement after the launch. There are options of outsourcing and hiring a full-time creator team, and choosing one of them depends highly on the content plan and social media presence consistency.
Trends in Marketing Budgets
For many years, the idea of investing in marketing was not explicitly popular with healthcare organizations, as they saw no potential benefit of turning essential care into a profit-oriented business endeavor. However, over the past years, the processes of marketing and business competition have become crucial to the organization’s relevance in the market. Essentially, the process of healthcare marketing is divided into professional recruitment and customer acquisition. According to the latest reports, the vast majority of the marketing budget within the organization is spent on attracting healthcare professionals (approximately 50%) and consumers (nearly 30%) (Mahoney, 2020). As far trends in channels are concerned, it should be noted that the most evident increase has been recorded in using social media platforms and paid digital advertisement: 41.5% and 39.5% increase, respectively (Mahoney, 2020). Thus, it may be concluded that the process of shifting the marketing focus towards customer-oriented digital endeavors significantly impacts the healthcare organizations’ decision-making process and budget allocation patterns.
Another significant trend that is applicable to the healthcare sector concerns the traditional-to-digital marketing ratio. While many companies conduct a complete reassessment of marketing budgets in favor of digital tools, healthcare organizations deal with such a diverse target population that they should not eliminate conventional marketing approaches from their agenda. According to the research, the vast majority of healthcare marketers who employ digital marketing strategies spend almost the same amount of money on traditional tactics like outdoor advertisement and TV and radio appearances (Del Gigante, 2019). Moreover, when it comes to consumer marketing tactics, more resources are allocated to radio and TV compared to VR and content marketing (Del Gigante, 2019). Such a picture means that while there is a demand for a social media marketing budget, the target market for healthcare organizations still pays significant attention to the non-digital marketing tools, securing an impressive conversion rate.
Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Marketing Plan
When evaluating the efficiency of a marketing plan, it is crucial to define the variables or notions, and processes that may be affected by the strategy. Thus, the first significant variable in terms of evaluation is the market’s response. Essentially, the extent to which the organization’s competitors feel challenged or intimidated by a marketing endeavor matters to the efficiency evaluation. If the chosen strategy began to serve as a blueprint for fellow companies, or there are any discussions revolving around the strategy, the organization moves in the right direction of recognition and leadership in the market.
Another important variable is the customer response, as customers serve as primary stakeholders and end-users of the organization’s product. Although there exist a variety of ways to calculate the retention and acquisition rates, the positive impact on the target market will be visible even without meticulous calculations, as the organization’s management will be able to notice a rapid engagement boost and user reach. Moreover, the more customers are interested in the organization’s service, the more diverse feedback may be obtained in the long-term perspective, which would be beneficial for the evaluation. The third and arguably the most significant variable for the organization is sales performance. This variable serves as an explicit success indicator, as the gradually increasing revenue rates manifest a proportional increase in customers’ engagement with the market.
Efficiency Measurements
The first type of specific measurement is explicitly correlated with the organization’s profitability from the marketing strategy. Undeniably, every marketing endeavor may be regarded as an investment. For this reason, it is of paramount importance to calculate the so-called “cost per acquisition” (CPA) metric that defines the approximate cost of attracting a unique customer with the help of a certain marketing tool. A similar profitability tool is known as the “revenue on investment” (ROI) metric that aims at defining the net income to investment ratio in order to estimate the efficiency of the marketing investment.
When speaking of the customer response to the strategy, it is also vital to define whether the newly acquired customers tend to become long-term service users. Such a prediction could be made with the help of a customer lifetime value (CLV) metric and average retention rates of the company or the average percentage of customers the organization could keep during the previous marketing endeavors.
Data Sources
Some of the most widespread marketing data analytical tools include Google Analytics, BuzzSumo, and MixPanel (Samuel, 2020). Google Analytics is a fundamental data source that shows a website’s demographics, including age, location, gender, and time spent on the website. With the help of this tool, the marketing team may define the current trends in terms of target audience and the most beneficial time to engage with the audience. MixPanel is a similar tool that assists marketers with the relevant information on what users usually do on the website or app. Finally, BuzzSumo is a content-oriented analytical tool that generates media precedents that attract users’ attention on social media. These topics might be used to generate social media content and secure steady user traffic. When comparing these tools, it may be concluded that while these three data sources are different in their initial purpose, all of them may be extremely beneficial for better marketing strategy outcomes.
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