The appropriate use of marketing techniques has proved effective in terms of influencing the public opinion multiple times. The healthcare industry is not an exception; a proper marketing plan allows to “dramatically improve” the chances for customer attraction as well as retention (Gandolf, n.d., para. 5). Thus, identifying the target audience, which is a critical stage of planning, enables understanding the needs of the customers and, subsequently, developing the most relevant strategies for satisfying those. For instance, a hospital should be aware of disease prevalence in the region where it operates to be able to meet the given demand rather than simply offer a fixed set of services. Approaches of such a kind allow not solely for additional profit, but for creating a so-called desire-driven healthcare system, where patient requirements are the main driver of the performance of medical facilities.
On the contrary, communicating certain ideas to the population may be necessary as well, in particular for improving public health. Vaccination, contraception, breaking harmful habits, tolerance of individuals with HIV or mental disabilities – these and many other topics need presenting on a regular basis, so that everybody understands what behavior is or is not reasonable. An effective way to reach that is public relations (PR), the technique whose essence and main function lie in persuasion (Wynne, 2016). The dominant method of PR is storytelling, as observing the situations that occur in reality or imitate it in a trustworthy manner makes people associate the characters with themselves. In other words, PR means influencing opinion through emotion, which may be more persuasive than reasoning. The real story of an obese patient, for instance, apparently will encourage more people to reframe their diets than theoretic materials will do. The probable reason is that the latter do not look realistic and, therefore, can hardly appeal to the emotional sphere.
References
Gandolf, S. (n.d.). What is a healthcare marketing plan? Healthcare Success. Web.
Wynne, R. (2016). Five things everyone should know about public relations. Forbes, Web.