MHA 626 Strategic Planning & Marketing in Health Care

Instructor Guidance Week 4

Discussion Posting for Week Four:

When providing definitions, be sure to also include examples. It is through the inclusion of

examples that you demonstrate to your instructor a level of understanding. By showing your

ability to apply definitions to real world situations you will be emphasizing your true

understanding of the course material. If you have any questions please let me know as I am here

to help.

Discussion Forum Grading Rubrics

Please see the discussion forum grading rubric hyperlinks that have been placed in each of the

discussion forums 1 & 2. These rubrics will provide you with information regarding discussion

question expectations. If you have any questions please let me know.

Instructor’s Intellectual Elaboration/ References:

During Week Four, students will focus on developing a marketing mix through the identification

of marketing opportunities and strategies as well as the application of market demand analysis,

target market, market segmentation, and database marketing practices.

Marketing Opportunities and Strategies

Opportunity assessment processes and derived strategies often center around four major

categories: market penetration, simply providing a service or product to a larger customer base

(Stamatis, 1996). Market development, servicing or providing a product line to a newly acquired

customer base or target segment. Product development, this can be done by adding amenities

within a service, or improving upon a given product, changing its appearance, action, or even

quantity. Lastly, diversification, providing a new service, something completely unrelated to the

original service or product line offered. Stevens & Silver (2015) suggest that marketing

opportunities promote grown and longevity within the strategic plan; therefore, adding value, or

improving upon a given service or product ensures that the health care organization has an

unlimited capacity to sustain improved brand identification and service/product satisfaction

among their customer base.

Market Segmentation and Target Markets

Market segmentation provides health care organizations the ability to focus their service or

product line within a defined market population. Therefore, broad markets are often segmented,

or broken into smaller, more defined and manageable sectors consisting of customers possessing

very specific needs and characteristics. As indicated by Stevens & Silver (2015), health care

organizations should: identify specific segments, and then choose specific segments based on the

health care organizations strategic goals, and lastly; draft and implement a marketing strategy

that best fits within the identified “target market.” If a target market is too small to warrant the

development of a specific strategy, over-lapping target markets may need to be considered as an

alternative to a singular action plan, the process of assessing and re-defining should be an

ongoing and fluid process that highlights the need for consistent monitoring programs.

Database Marketing

Database marketing centers on obtaining and consolidating customer information such as gender,

demographics, age, preferences, names, addresses, emails, and purchase history as a means to

develop market segmentation and target markets. Database marketing is a growing industry that

aides marketing team in the development of segmentation and target market success; however,

concerns regarding ethical and legal issues such as patient privacy/HIPAA regulations have been

debated. While the implementation and wide spread use of database marketing tactics vary

among health care organizatio ns, database marketing continues to contribute in the identification

of target markets such as customers using similar products/services. Knowing the needs and

expectations of patients/customers provides the marketing team continuity among their customer

base. As described by Griffith & White (2011), health care organizations should implement

multiple promotional tactics to understand and reach their customer base and be actively

involved building a culture centered on service excellence.

References:

Griffith, J.R., & White, K.R., (2011). The Well Managed Health Care Organization. Washington,

D.C. Health Administration Press.

Stamatis, D.H. (1996). Total quality service, principles, practices, and implementation. Boca

Raton, Florida. CRC Press LLC.

Stevens, R., & Silver, L. S. (2015). Strategic planning and marketing in healthcare organizations.