Healthcare marketing strategies and techniques are applied by a wide range of industries and companies. For instance, pharmaceutical companies use marketing approaches for promoting sales of medications. They are also concerned with introducing patient education about prescribed and over-the-counter medications.
Health insurance companies are more focused on using techniques to promote healthy lifestyle, including health food intake and physical exercises. Hence, various industries use television ads and internet sites either to prevent people from avoiding prescriptions and or to propagate healthy habits.
One way or another, there are certain current trends in this field that impel healthcare industries and organizations to be professional marketers to meet patients’ needs. As a result, advertising of health care products and services influences consumers’ attitudes, habits, and lifestyle.
One of the most effective marketing strategies that are used by the companies is online presentation of product and services. For instance, leading healthcare industries, such as American Medical Systems and American HomePatient, create their website for online consumers to learn innovative techniques and services the industries have recently introduce.
In addition, the presented websites provide detailed information about their value, strategies, and philosophy of consumers. Hence, due to the Fact the American Medical Systems is more focused on pelvic health, their leading marketing strategies involves the introduction of innovation and technologies insuring reliability (Innovation, 2010).
The website of the American HomePatient, Inc. also provides some important information and public survey to invite more customers and learn their opinion about the current state of healthcare services in the United States (About American HomePatient, 2001-2009).
I believe that the Internet has become the prevailing media platform for healthcare industries and companies to introduce their products and services and to engage consumers in online forums. More importantly, Internet coverage provides companies with greater opportunities to control and satisfy consumers’ demands.
As it has been mentioned previously, healthcare marketing strategies are directly related to consumers’ needs and demands. In this respect, the central task for healthcare companies is to understand how and why consumers make a decision to buy a particular product, to join a healthcare program, to select a doctor.
In order to change and affect consumers’ behavior, the healthcare producers are introducing the concepts of social marketing. In particular, social marketing can be defined as the application of justified theories and strategies derived from the commercial section for the purpose of promoting alterations to socially diverse behaviors such as smoking, sexual behavior, and drug use.
In my mind, the company use media, including radio, television, and e-commercial to influence their styles and impose the responsibility for their health and lifestyle. Besides, as the healthcare market segment is a person oriented, the industries have a great impact on the consumers’ decision-making. While buying the product or utilizing a service, consumers expect the company to provide them with high quality.
Therefore, in order to attract the consumer, producers invent and develop their brands for enhancing their competitive advantage. Such a vigorous competition provides the buyers with a wider range of choices, and, as a result, they become dependent from brands and quality.
For instance, TMS Health is a leading company whose primary purpose is to provide great healthcare industries with programs and support (Dialogue that Delivers, n. d.). I believe that a contemporary consumer is also greatly affected by the existing healthcare programs and training courses.
Aside from the consumers’ needs and demands, healthcare marketing trends and techniques have a huge impact on health care workers who should follow strictly the ethical codes and values established in a particular company.
Due to different innovative approaches to promoting and advertising products and services, healthcare workers should adjust to a constantly changing environment and invent new methods of researching and investigating consumers’ demands. However, the introduction of marketing and advertising campaigns may have either positive and or negative impact on healthcare workers.
On the one hand, nurse services and doctors should conduct in-depth researches on consumer behaviors and attitudes, which provide them with additional information about the marketing environment. In addition, this can also grant them with valuable experience because rapid development and advancement of healthcare sphere makes their employees develop constantly and immediately.
On the other hand, excessive attention to marketing trends, which include brand orientation and technological advancement, may prevent healthcare workers from comfortable adjustment to constantly changing environment. In particular, the nurses and doctors may face challenges when managing the digital information because they can lack computer skills.
In addition, leading healthcare industries provide their candidates with strict requirements in order to sustain a competitive advantage. This leads to recruitment of “fresh blood” and dismissal of the experienced staff whose ideas and conceptions about patients’ treatment have come out of date.
In conclusion, healthcare industry has now taking the course on technology and service modernization. Therefore, its marketing strategies are closely connected with the utilization of the World Wide Web as the dominant communication platform.
Being focused on direct interaction with consumers, the companies create official site and forums for mass and aggressive integration to the healthcare market. Such trends considerably affect consumers’ attitudes and conception about healthy lifestyle. More importantly, the healthcare marketing trends have a great impact on healthcare workers, particularly on the necessity to quickly adjust to changes and innovations.
Reference List
About American HomePatient. (2001-2009). American HomePatient. Web.
Dialogue That Delivers (n. d.). TMS Health. Web.
Innovation. (2010). AMS. Web.