Development of an Online Business Expansion for Mercy Hospital in Miami, Florida Proposal

Viability of the Product

Healthcare is one of the most important aspects of the social life of a human being. Mercy Hospital in Miami, Florida offers a product that is considered a basic need in the lives of people who live around this place, as well as visitors coming from other parts of the world.

Given the fact that Catholic Church owns the hospital under the Augustinian mission, it is expected to serve various clients, some of whom may come from regions outside Florida. Healthcare is very important and various facilities offering this product have come out strongly to improve their services to customers. This product is very sensitive because any little mistake committed by the doctor or a nurse in charge may be fatal.

It is therefore very important for the concerned individuals to use appropriate equipments that would ensure that services delivered to customers are of high quality. This firm has a website that helps it reach out to clients both within Florida and abroad. This website helps in communicating with the clients in order to understand the status of the firm.

The website must reflect the current condition of the firm. It would be illogical for the firm to advance without showing the advancement on its website. It is therefore a necessity for the management to ensure that the website is changed regularly to reflect the status of the firm. According to Salehnia (2002), online business has gained a lot of popularity in the past one decade.

Firms have come to realize that the best way to reach out to customers is through online means. With the changes taking place in the social structure in most societies around the world, women are also becoming breadwinners in their families. This means that most families do not have time to go around shopping for items they need.

They prefer searching for the desired products online while at work or at home. They do not mind the distance because with improved transport means, geographical barriers have been eliminated. When Mercy Hospitals fails to go online, a patient in Florida may fly all the way to Illinois, Chicago, or Alabama for a treatment that would have been offered at this hospital.

Going online is therefore a move that any firm cannot ignore. Marketing is gaining a new approach in the current society. Immediately after the Second World War, most companies had huge markets in the developing countries. The level of competition was very low and firms only worried about production. Marketing was considered a unit in the production department.

Most firms used an inside out approach as a technique of marketing. However, this has changed with the changing environmental factors. Going online has its pros and cons. When a firm makes the decision to go online, there would be extra charges that the firm would have to meet in order to be successful in managing online business.

The cost of hosting and maintaining a website is an extra cost that would have been used elsewhere if this option were not considered. Cyber crimes are other challenges that Mercy Hospital must be ready to deal with. Cyber criminals are increasingly becoming sophisticated. They use advanced technology to hack into sensitive information belonging to the organization.

This can result to massive distortion of information belonging to the firm. They can also add or delete some information on the website, leading to miscommunication between the firm and the targeted audience. Depending on the magnitude of the distortion, the impact would vary. This may injure the image of the firm in the corporate world.

The firm would be tasked with the responsibility of ensuring that the website is protected from intruders. Despite these challenges, online business has become increasingly important to firms, especially in developed countries such as the United States. Most citizens in this country have internet connectivity through their phones or personal computers.

Going online would help a firm reach out to customers who are beyond their immediate environment. It helps in marketing products to individuals around the world. Online business also eliminates the need for a physical facility in every part of the city. Clients could easily communicate with the firm online and then fly to the firm’s facility. Alternatively, a doctor could be sent as may be appropriate.

Current Online Competitor Assessment

Baptist Health in South Florida is one of the rivals of Mercy Hospital. The market place has shifted attention to e-business as a way of expanding growth. Competition is so stiff in the market to an extent that any slight misstep may lead to a closure of a firm permanently. Firms are therefore forced to come up with mechanisms through which they could remain competitive in the market.

Just like Mercy Hospital, Baptist Health is sponsored by a church. This means that none of the two firms may claim to have a competitive edge over the other because of their sponsors. Other firms within this region boast of state-of-the-art facilities in their hospitals. The firms have gone online. In this regard, Baptist Health is keen on attracting online customers.

With a phone or a personal computer with internet connectivity, a customer could easily get in touch with a doctor and get his case resolved. Mercy Hospital enjoys the fact that there are no other major hospitals in Miami marketing themselves to international clients. Narrowing down the region to Miami area leaves Mercy Hospital with three closest competitors.

The competitors are Shiners International, International Florida Hospital, and International Program Broward Health. The main economic activity in Miami is tourism. International tourists from various corners of the world always visit this city throughout the year. It is common that weather changes always have an impact on the health of tourists.

They therefore always try to ensure that they get a hospital where they could be attended to when in this city. Mercy Hospital operates internationally. The hospital has travel specialists who coordinate the entry of visitors into the country, assist patients to make bookings, conduct interpretation if there is need, and ensure that patients get up to date services in this hospital.

Mercy Hospital faces a challenge from three competitors who have developed their websites and can now reach out to the online clients. The firms include Shiners International, International Florida Hospital, and International Program Broward Health. International Florida Hospital has a website that explains various facts about the firm. Moreover, the customer could access the facility through the help of professionals.

However, it lacks a number of important ingredients. The website lacks enough graphics that could help convince clients to make the hospital their preferred choice. The case is the same with International Program Broward Health. However, Shiners international has made an effort to develop a good website that could attract clients. However, the facility only serves children.

The competitors of Mercy Hospitals are health facilities within the entire Florida, and more specifically in Miami. These firms share some the general objectives concerning conducting business online. The following are some of these objectives.

1. Ability to develop a strong social media marketing techniques
2. Ability of customers to pay for the products they plan to purchase online
3. Ability to have a system that is interactive with the customers
4. The need to grow and capture international markets

Online Marketing Suggestions and Strategies

The target market for Mercy Hospital varies in their demographic qualities. Although the hospital has a large customer base from local residents of Miami and the larger Florida, a good number of customers of this hospital are travelers. The hospital receives a high number of travelers who come from various regions around the world and need medical attention while on vacation.

These clients are international patients who require care in the United States. Some of the areas where this firm has received a large number of international patients include cardiac complications, orthopedics, cancer, rehabilitation, and behavioral health. The firm has received an influx of international clients who believe that the hospital has the best capacity to offer them solutions to their problems.

This hospital has decided to take care of patients in this area because they are the main customers of this facility. The services can also be marketed in the international market easily. Cardiac complication is very sensitive and various hospitals around the world have shied away from offering its treatment. It requires state-of-the-art machines in order to be successful.

This makes Mercy Hospital one of the few hospitals that offer this service. Cancer infections are also on the rise globally. Treatment of cancer is also delicate and very expensive. The management decided to focus on these complex diseases because of the limited facilities that offer its treatment. Most of the travelers who come to Miami have the capacity to pay for the expensive cost of treating these complex diseases.

Developing a competitive advantage is one of the important achievements in a business setting. It helps a business unit to show up above others implying that it would be perceived as an organization that has the capability to provide customers with pleasure in the best way possible. As stated above, the target audiences are travelers who come to Miami as travelers, as well as the residents of Florida.

The hospital targets the middle and upper class individuals who have the capacity to afford the high cost that the firm charges. Mercy Hospital has made an effort to ensure that it can attract potential clients from various regions across the world. Product proposition is always the best way that a firm could acquire a special niche in the market and stand out as the best firm.

To manage this, Mercy Hospital should focus on the quality of the services they provide other than the cost. It should use social media alongside mass media in reaching out to the customers. This way, it would be appealing to the middle and upper class clients who could pay premium prices for better healthcare. To improve customer experience, the management should consider offering recreational services to both the patients and their families when they visit the facility.

Miami is one of the most preferred recreational centers in the world. Patients and their families should experience this even when under medication. When making changes on the website, it is important to let customers and even non-customers know about it. They should be informed about the added quality following the changes made.

A number of online strategies that a firm could use to let customers know about these changes exist (Salehnia, 2002). Search engine optimization is one of the best online strategies that a firm could use to reach out to the customers with this news. In this strategy, the firm will need to create product-specific page with all the new features and the desired communication to the target audience.

The page should have necessary photos and various other features that are distinct from the previous website. The firm should ensure that the page is coded appropriately for search, with key words, header text, title tags, and unique URL. This would benefit the firm because those who would key-in the key words would be directed to this site, and this would be a form of advertisement.

To the customers, it would easily allow them access to important information about their firm without struggling to look for the changes. Another good approach is by using e-mail marketing. This strategy is appropriate when dealing with customers that have close relationship with the firm. In this strategy, the firm would develop appropriate messages concerning the changes made on the product.

The firm would then select customers and other specific individuals who should be receiving the message. The firm would then send a message to these individuals via their e-mails over the changes made on the website. This strategy is very beneficial to both the firm and the customers. To the firm, the management would be assured that the message would reach the target audience.

It also helps the firm assure its customers that it cares about them by sending them a message about changes made. The customer will benefit from the fact that the message will reach him or her promptly. Online advertising is another strategy that can be used to inform the target audience of the changes that could have taken place within the firm.

Such tools as Google Ad Words could be useful in reaching out to the target audience directly. This strategy is always very useful when the firm targets a large target audience. The marketing department should conduct a research and determine blogs, which are most widely read in that particular industry. The firm would benefit from this move because it would not only be developing a relationship with the customers, but also helping the firm develop a close relationship with the bloggers.

A social network form is another attractive strategy through which this firm could reach out to the target audience. The world is changing very fast due to the changes brought about by advanced technologies. Smartphone and personal computers have become basic items in the lives of many youths. Many youths visit various social sites on a daily basis.

Facebook has a fan base of more than one billion people. This cuts across various demographic spaces, with a majority being youths from various social statuses. YouTube has almost a similar number of users, with over eight hundred others on Tweeter. Various individuals use other social sites.

When a firm makes a decision to use this site, it would be certain that it would be in a position to reach out to a large number of people through these networks. Customers would also be able to reach out to this information with a lot of ease. They could get the message from friends who are also on Facebook.

Search Engine Consideration and Optimization Strategies

Building of links is very important. According to Kidd and Stanford (2000), it is always important to understand the concept of link building in order to ensure that popularity of a link is upgraded instead of being degraded. It is important to ensure that the number and quality of links pointing towards the website are highly maintained.

The ultimate aim is to ensure that the traffic into the website is kept as high as could be possible. In order to increase popularity of a webpage, it would be important to consider raising the graph with the relevant search engine. Search engine optimization is very important. The ultimate aim of any firm across the world is to ensure that it is able to develop a webpage that could be accessed by a large number of people.

However, it is important to appreciate the fact that firms find it extremely difficult to obtain this attention on their website. For instance, the key word for this firm is Mercy Hospital. When an individual searches this key word through Google, various hospitals with the Name Mercy Hospital appears, including Mercy Medical Center in Springfield, Massachusetts.

Mercy Hospital in Miami, Florida would be concerned about the fact that Mercy Medical Center is given priority when one uses the key word Mercy Hospital. Using the key word Mercy Hospital would not direct an individual to the web page of this firm easily, unless one adds the word ‘Miami’. The question that concerned individuals at Mercy Hospital in Miami is how Mercy Medical Center has come to dominate the search engine.

By answering this question, it becomes easy for the firm to consider coming up with strategies for optimization of the search engine. The first strategy is to improve the suitability of the stuff that is directed to the readers. It is important to appreciate the fact that there are millions of websites available through various search engines.

The first determinant of whether or not there would be traffic to a certain website is the popularity of the stuff directed to the readers. The readers must find the stuff attractive to them in order to ignore other sites and visit this particular site. This means that the firm must first ensure that the product targeted to customers is attractive.

The firm should then use attractive key words to direct customers to their websites. Such words for Mercy Hospital may include ‘the best healthcare’, ‘world class treatment’ and many others. This would help in ensuring that that the firm’s website would always be found on the first or second page of search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing. Once on the website, an individual should be able to find attractive content on the website.

This should include graphics that show the facilities and the team in this firm. To the company, the strategy would increase traffic on the site, making the firm known widely. To the customer, they would benefit from the fact that they would be able to access their desired site without having to navigate a large volume of irrelevant materials.

Another strategy would be to use social media websites to promote a firm’s own website. The ultimate aim of this firm is to ensure that as many people as possible will access the website. A potential client may not have the slightest idea that there is an excellent hospital in Miami called Mercy Hospital. Social media will provide an opportunity for the firm to make the name of the hospital be known.

Such social media websites as Facebook, YouTube, and Tweeter will provide the best opportunity for the firm to popularize itself to the target audience. Through these sites, it is possible for the firm to give the readers direct link to its website. The strategy is beneficial to the firm because it allows it to reach over one billion individuals who are on Facebook.

A client who was wondering where he or she could get the best treatment will be relieved when given the details of where to get the service. Using the referral strategy can also help a firm to get the attention needed in the search engines. The value of the referrals cannot be ignored if a firm expects success in drawing attention of viewers. Cyber crime has made people very weary of the information that is available in the search engines.

When a friend or a family member recommends a site, an individual will have a strong trust on the site. Such an individual will ignore any other sites, and focus on the specific site, which was recommended. Viral marketing is an important strategy that various firms have found to be relevant in the market today. This will allow the firm to get individuals who have a purpose of visiting the site.

Turning them into potential clients is easier than those who accidentally bumped into the site. To the firm, this strategy will have a direct bearing on increasing the number of customers. To the customers, the strategy is always trustworthy because a trusted individual has recommended it.

Social Media Integration

Social media has become an important tool in marketing a brand and products of a firm. When Facebook was launched about six years ago, many corporate leaders never imagined that it could turn out to be of massive importance in the corporate sector. It was considered as a social network for youths, specifically those who had time to waste in the internet.

However, this perception changed as Facebook continued attractive massive number of people from all corners of the world. With the increased sophistication in the field of technology, most phones became internet enabled just to allow users to access Facebook. Personal computers also became cheaper. Other social media such of YouTube and Tweeter also became common and very popular.

Corporate leaders realized that they could no longer ignore the potential of the social media. They realized that the best way they could reach out for the customers would be through social media. Large multinational corporations such as Coca Cola and Apple moved with speed to reach out for the customers through social media. Social media has found new role other than the initial role it had.

Besides the role of social networking, social media has become a vital tool for firms to market their brands and products. It has enhanced viral marketing as a strategy of increasing customer base of a firm. Currently, a number of social media that firms use as a way of reaching out for the customers exist. They include Facebook, YouTube Tweeter, and MySpace among others.

Facebook has the highest number of subscribers of all the social networks. According to (Holden & Gulbrandsen, 2009), Facebook has attracted massive number of youths, especially given the fact that it allows an individual to reach out for friends or family members whose contacts could have disappeared. Facebook is estimated to have a fan base of about one billion people.

This media allows users to send and receive messages from ‘friends’ using a specified number of characters. The fact that an individual can chat with two or more friends simultaneously has made it very popular. An individual can also send a message to the intended recipient if the recipient is not online. Facebook has become very popular as a way of creating awareness about a product and promoting a brand.

Market segmentation is one of the most important activities that marketers undertake to ensure that they can formulate policies to reach out for the right customers. Youths have become important market segment for many firms due to their spending habits. It may be true that youths do not have high disposable income to spend as compared to the middle-aged individuals.

However, they readily spend the little income they get as compared with the middle-aged group and the aging population. Given the fact that a majority of youths has Facebook accounts and access it frequently through their mobile phones or personal computers, firms can reach out for them through a vital channel. Apple is one of the firms that have realized the importance of promoting its brand and products through Facebook.

Pepsi Cola manager was once quoted saying that a time had come when firms realized that mass media marketing might not be the best approach in the current society. This was after its drastic shift from mass media marketing to social media marketing. Many other firms have also signed up their own pages on Facebook and invited as many friends as possible.

This way, they can easily post important information on their wall for the customers. This also allows them to receive communication from their customers about their products or market strategies for adjusting their system for the better. YouTube is another very popular social media to both firms and the public. Like Facebook, YouTube allows users to share information online.

The main difference between Facebook and YouTube is that through YouTube, an individual can share heavy graphics such as a video. Facebook and Tweeter cannot support audiovisuals. However, YouTube offers its users ability to share or watch video or songs online. Another advantage that YouTube has over other types of social media is that one can access a video or any information on YouTube without having an account with it.

In various countries around the world, YouTube is growing in popularity as way in which firms can advertise to the target audience. Mercy Hospital should therefore, consider using this media because of this growing popularity. It is advantageous to firms because they can develop television commercials showing the beauty of their products to attract customers. To the customers, YouTube is one of the best sites for entertainment.

Online Customer Relationship Management

Organizations are constantly concerned with how best they could control their links with consumers. This is because of a number of factors. Managing an online customer may not be as easy as managing a customer in brick-and-moter markets (customers physically coming to the stores). This is because it is not easy to determine the exact taste of a customer through online means (Lehman & DuFrene, 2008).

However, this is a challenge that a firm must always be ready to face given the growing popularity of the online market. Customer relationship management always involves a number of activities. One such activity includes keeping connection with customers before and after the purchase of a product. This will involve tracking online activities of such a customer from time to time.

The ultimate aim of this strategy is to ensure that such a customer is constantly engaged by the firm in order to increase chances of him or her making repeat purchase. This will require special software that will make this possible. It s important to connect with customers who have visited a firm’s website (either as buyers or just passers-by) in order to make them consider revisiting the site.

One of the best ways of doing this is to make the experience of the viewers memorable. This way, it would be easy to create a need for them to revisit the website. Another strategy would be to trace these individuals through their e-mail or any other address they could have used while on the website. Using these contact details, a firm can send relevant message to these customers urging them to revisit the website for new and improved products.

Given the fact that a firm would need to keep in touch with the customer after the visit, some pieces of information that would be very important to the company are to be considered. The most important information that a company may need is direct contact of the customer. This can be the e-mail address, Facebook account, phone number, or any other information, which would enable the firm to reach out for the customers.

The firm will also be interested in understanding the demographic information of the customer such as gender, age, and social status. This way, it will be easy to formulate the right information about appropriate products. For new visitors, it would be important for the firm to determine such factors as how long the potential client was on the website, the areas that were visited, and whether or not a product was ordered.

The duration of the visit will help determine the interest of the customer on the products. Areas visited will help the firm to know specific products that the customer desires. In order to achieve this, the firm should come up with appropriate CRM software that will enable the firm tract all the online movements of the target audience. B-kin CRM software is one of the best software that can help achieve the desired result in this field.

B-kin CRM is one of the emerging tools used in e-mail marketing campaign in the current competitive market. This software aids a firm in realizing a number of goals, including:

• Designing personalized messages.
• Making database segmentation
• Sending of the e-mail marketing campaign.
• For each user, it will show if the e-mail was opened or declined.
• Help avoid duplication of information in the campaigns.
• Helps statistically is determining the success of a campaign.

This information can be used to better customer experience. The management should use this information to reach out for the customers with products that best meets their needs. The information should also help the firm determine how to adjust the quality of its products in order to improve customer experience when using the product.

E-commerce solution

Brick-and-moter market is fast being replaced by the click market. The number of firms going online is on the rise. The biggest challenge has been the ability of the customers to pay for the products they purchase online. Mercy Hospitals would need to find the best strategy to ensure that it could pay for the products online.

This would mean that this firm would have to find the best vendor to enable it conduct successful online marketing. PayPal has been one of the most preferred online money transfer system because it operates globally. The public also trusts it and therefore customers would have no problem using it.

To the company, the vendor would be helpful in receiving payments from the customer and transferring it to the firm’s bank accounts. The firm shall have eliminated the need to have a cashier in the firm. To the customer, the vendor would eliminate the need to carry money from the bank to pay for the products purchased.

International Consideration

The world has been reduced into a small global village. However, operating globally is still posing serious challenges to various firms. Although the world is becoming integrated, various distinct factors exist in some regions. The main aim of a firm operating globally is to ensure that the website is globally friendly. This would force the firm to understand what would be pleasing to individuals in various regions.

To achieve this, a number of factors should be integrated into the system to give the desired result. The firm should first understand the demographical factors of the market, including culture and language spoken in a particular region. The website should be designed with this in mind. The firm should then ensure that its organizational strategy in each region matches the needs of the people in that region.

This means that the website must be multilingual. The search word should automatically help determine the language of the visitor (Imparato, 2000). Infrastructural development in each region would help determine the logistics to be used. The firm should be smart enough to avoid committing itself to delivering products in regions with poor infrastructure. The firm should also accept different currencies, depending on the region.

Project Web Development and Maintenance Cost

When developing a project, care should always be taken to ensure that the right information reaches the target audience. A good website should be interactive. A customer should be able to get all the needed information and graphics. Moreover, it should be able to communicate with the relevant department.

The cost of developing a website and maintaining it will vary based on the size of the firm and the software used. In this project, B-kin CRM software would be used. It is relatively cheap and easy to use. It is expected that the firm would be growing. The table below shows the average cost of developing and maintaining the right website.

Cost of Developing and Hosting a Website

The above table shows the estimated cost of hosting a website. The value given in the table could be reviewed upwards as the firm grows. The cost of maintaining the website depends on a number of factors. As the firm grows, the management would be forced to improve the website in order to convince the viewers that there has been a positive change that has taken place in the firm.

As Cruz-Cunha and Varajao (2011) state, the main challenge of operating an online business is that a customer may not be in a position to witness positive changes taking place in the firm. The firm would therefore have to find mechanisms through which they could make online viewers witness the growth and development that has taken place in the firm.

At the beginning when a firm is relatively small, it is always advisable to use software that is available freely on the internet to cut down on the costs. As the firm grows, the management would be forced to buy some of the sophisticated software that would be able to handle the increased capacity. This would inflate the cost of hosting and maintaining the website.

A Website Index for The Online Expansion Proposed

Website Mockup Page

References

Cruz-Cunha, M. M., & Varajao, J. (2011). Innovations in SMEs and conducting e-business: Technologies, trends and solutions. Hershey: Business Science Reference.

Holden, G., & Gulbrandsen, D. (2009). E-business. New York: John Wiley & Sons.

Imparato, N. (2000). Public policy and the Internet: Privacy, taxes, and contract. Stanford: Hoover Institution Press.

Kidd, P. T., & Stanford, B. (2000). E-business: Key issues, applications and technologies. Amsterdam: IOS Press.

Lehman, C. M., & DuFrene, D. D. (2008). Business communication. Mason: South-Western.

Salehnia, A. (2002). Ethical issues of information systems. Hershey: IRM Press.