The new facility should create a strong brand positioning in the market, which will enhance the reception by consumers of healthcare. Brand positioning will involve providing information to consumers of healthcare services, which determines the competitive position of the new facility (Ginter, Duncan, & Swayne, 2013). A research regarding the target market will help the new healthcare facility in understanding the market. The new healthcare has high expectations and must put more efforts in branding themselves. The brand positioning must be carefully researched to uniquely differentiate the new facility from other healthcare facilities, which are already in the market providing the same services (Ginter, Duncan, & Swayne, 2013). The new facility should determine a unique selling proposition, which will influence the consumers of healthcare.
Due to the competitors already in the market, this new facility must focus on becoming unique from the other health care facilities, as this is what will bring a difference in the mind of consumers (Ginter, Duncan, & Swayne, 2013). Strategic options available to marketers include advertising, which includes the development and distribution of the product and service through the media. The new facility can develop ads and together with advertising firms advertise their products to consumers of healthcare services (Moseley, 2018). The new facility can also set up a department concerned to design and develop ads. Another strategic option available to marketers as they consider the promotional approach for the new facility include maintaining a good will with the public which is an advantage for a long-term benefit for the new facility (Moseley, 2018). Due to the good public relation of the established hospital, it has enabled the organization to reach out to the public and a new healthcare facility under Tent healthcare system can take advantage of this and promote their services.
This is the best strategy as it is cheap and easy to use (Moseley, 2018). A brand is a firm’s most valuable asset as it builds a firm’s reputation and the new facility should develop a stronger brand to be successful in the healthcare market. The first step in establishing a strategy is aligning the marketing strategy with the business objectives (Moseley, 2018). The new facility main objective is providing healthcare services to the surrounding community. The second step involves developing the important tools required to communicate the brand to the public. This may involve a logo or a website (Moseley, 2018).
This is the most important step as it involves communicating to the consumers of healthcare services about the new facility, its mission, and services available to them. The last step involves strengthening the developed brand or updated brand. The new healthcare facility is a branch of the established Tenet healthcare and it should focus on strengthening the updated brand (Moseley, 2018). This strategy is different from the established hospital since the established hospital was not a branch but the first organization under the brand name Tenet Healthcare Corporation.
The established hospital had a more complex process in developing a branding strategy, as it had to develop a name, a logo, and a tagline (Ginter, Duncan, & Swayne, 2013). The new facility will employ associate branding, which involves association of a product, which is already known by consumers, which is different from the established branding, which involved providing information to consumers who were not aware of the brand. The new facility will use the name and logo of the established hospital (Ginter, Duncan, & Swayne, 2013). This will be easier for the new healthcare facility in its branding and marketing strategy as the established hospital has already a certain market share and known by the population.
The goals of the branding campaign will be to develop brand image and awareness to the consumers of healthcare services. A branding campaign to position the new facility in the eyes of service-area consumers will involve a research on competitors’ services, which will help in better decision-making process (Bayraktar ; Uslay, 2017). By analyzing other competitors, it will help the management in creating a unique brand with unique value propositions. This can involve determining specific attributes, which the competitors have failed to offer to the consumers. The healthcare service delivery is a diverse and complex system, which may leave a healthcare facility not able to serve the specific and diverse needs of the consumers sufficiently (Bayraktar ; Uslay, 2017). Analyzing the gaps left by the competitors, Tenet’s new healthcare facility will be able to have a competitive advantage over other competitors in the healthcare market.
This strategy will bring a differentiation between other services provided by the other players in the market. Another branding strategy helpful in positioning the new healthcare facility in the eyes of service-area consumers is improved communication between the consumers of healthcare services and the management of the new facility (Bayraktar & Uslay, 2017). Communication is the only process to communicate to consumers about the new healthcare facility and the differences in service delivery. Based on the previous research about the target market, the new facility can be able to understand their consumers better and the branding may be directed to the specific consumers (Bayraktar & Uslay, 2017).
Communication will enable the management of the new facility to understand the needs, which have not yet been addressed by other players in the market. The branding should be specific to certain target population. Having clearly defined target consumers will guarantee a high growth and a high profit margin since the new facility is a profit making organization (Bayraktar & Uslay, 2017). Techniques and Types One of the traditional marketing techniques includes the print media advertisements, which involve using newsletters, newspaper print advertisement, and billboards (Erickson, 2017). Some of the traditional marketing strategies have been integrated to today’s marketing, which include newspapers, magazines, and other printed media, which are distributed in order to inform consumers of certain products (Erickson, 2017).
Marketing using broadcasting platforms, which include the radio and television, which have been around from the early times, are also used today. Although there have been rapid technology advancements, radios and televisions are still used today as marketing platforms (Erickson, 2017). The new environment has a population, which is so much involved in the media, and the new healthcare facility can use this marketing technique to advertise and promote its healthcare services (Erickson, 2017). A traditional marketing technique of using the telephone might not be a viable technique in the current generation. Telephone marketing involved using the phone to convince customers to buy a product or a service in the earlier times (Erickson, 2017).
This technique was criticized for invading privacy and the United States government has enacted laws and regulations governing this marketing technique, which has led to marketers using other marketing techniques (Erickson, 2017). The traditional marketing techniques may be more suited to the existing hospital rather than the planned one because technology had not developed compared to the current times (Ghorbani, 2014). A majority of the older generation used newspapers and other print media as the major sources of information unlike today where there are complex and diverse sources of acquiring information (Ghorbani, 2014). Few marketing platforms enabled the marketers to reach a large population, which is different in today’s current population.
Due to the diverse media platforms available today, marketers must also diversify their marketing strategies to cater for the specific target population using the diverse media platforms (Ghorbani, 2014). During the earlier times, the telephone was the most advanced digital platform across the United States making it the most easy to use marketing platform to get to a large number of consumers. The most useful media option for promoting the new facility is the electronic media, which involves the radio, television, the internet, telephones, and the social media (Ghorbani, 2014). This type of media involves any media that requires an electronic device to access the content. Due to the advancement in technology, a majority of the population are able to access electronic gadgets, which allow them to access information from all over the globe (Ghorbani, 2014).
This type of media is also easy to use by the current population and marketers can take advantage of this platform since it is also less expensive to use and access. Most of the healthcare service delivery systems have also been integrated into the electronic media which can be used to better demonstrate to consumers the services offered by the new healthcare facility (Ghorbani, 2014). The other media option according to its usefulness is the print media. This involves typed messages distributed to consumers. This includes newspaper advertisements, magazines, business cards, and brochures (Erickson, 2017). This type of media is also an effective marketing strategy as it is less expensive and able to cover a large population percentage.
This media is also useful in providing detailed information regarding the new facility’s services. This platform is beneficial as the written media can be stored or transferred to other individuals, which can enhance the distribution of information regarding the new healthcare facility’s services (Erickson, 2017). Social marketing involves developing activities aimed at changing people’s behaviors and is a common marketing strategy in health care services (French, 2017). Social marketing is an effective strategy in changing consumers of healthcare services behavior, which can be determined by the interaction between the provider and the consumer, or the behavior of the provider (French, 2017).
The Affordable Care Act requires that all the citizens of the United States to acquire healthcare insurance. This impacts the consumers of healthcare services as well as the providers of healthcare services. This has led to consumers of healthcare services shopping for healthcare insurance instead of the marketers looking for them (French, 2017). The availability of diverse choices has also enabled consumers to have control on which plans they choose (French, 2017). This can be applied by the new facility by their unique branding and positioning of their services, which will enable customers to look for them reducing the marketing duties by the marketing department (French, 2017).
By large diversification of their services, consumers of healthcare services are able to choose from a wide variety of services. By focusing on the needs of the consumers of healthcare, social marketing can be applied by the new healthcare facility in achieving a large customer base (French, 2017). Elements of an integrated marketing campaign include public relations, which are important in creating a relationship with the public who are the major consumers of healthcare services (Bayraktar ; Uslay, 2017). A relationship with the target population is important in building a good reputation as well as a good image for an organization’s product or service.
These relations also help in responding to the needs of consumers easily and adequately (Bayraktar & Uslay, 2017). The second element of an integrated marketing campaign is advertising which involves connecting with the consumers of the product or service through different Media platforms. This can be done through the radio, television, and the internet and is meant to direct consumers on how to access the products or services of an organization and the reasons to acquire the product or the service (Bayraktar & Uslay, 2017). A third element of an integrated marketing campaign is branding and product positioning.
This involves determining which market to serve through market segmentation process and the analysis of the competitors in the market (Bayraktar & Uslay, 2017). This will help the new facility to understand the consumers and the market, which will help the management in making informed decisions regarding their product and service (Bayraktar & Uslay, 2017).
References
- Bayraktar, A., & Uslay, C. (2017).
- Global place branding campaigns across cities, regions, and nations.Hershey PA: Business Science Reference. Erickson, G. S. (2017).
- New methods of market research and analysis.Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing. French, J. (2017).
- Social marketing and public health: Theory and practice. Oxford Oxford University Press.Ghorbani, A. (2014).
- Marketing in the cyber era: Strategies and emerging trends. Hershey, PA : Business Science Reference.Ginter, P. M., Duncan, W. J., & Swayne, L. E. (2013).
- Strategic management of health care organizations. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, Wiley. Moseley, G. B.(2018).
- Managing healthcare business strategy. Sudbury: Jones & Bartlett Learning.
