Marketing Course

The Role of Marketing in the Healthcare Organization

Supervised By:
Prof. Dr. Abeer Saada

Prepared By:
Mona Hussein

2nd Semester / 2023-2024

Nursing Administration Department
Faculty Of Nursing
Cairo University
 OBJECTIVES

At the end of this lecture the candidate will be able to:

 Define Healthcare Marketing and it’s Strategy
 Enumerate the benefit of Healthcare Marketing
 list Creative Marketing Ideas for Healthcare Organizations
 Discuss the Unique Attributes of Healthcare
 Identify the Factors Affecting the Acceptance of Healthcare Marketing
 Discuss the Range of Marketing Experiences
 Explain Health Care Marketing Strategies to Attract Consumers
 OUTLINES

 Definition of Healthcare Marketing

 Marketing Strategy
 Benefit of Healthcare Marketing
 Creative Marketing Ideas for Healthcare Organizations
 Unique Attributes of Healthcare
 Factors Affecting the Acceptance of Healthcare Marketing
 Range of Marketing Experiences

 Introduction

Health Marketing in public health systems is gaining a lot of attention.

mainly used in the business sector and hence a new concept in the
field of public health systems, health marketing has become an
important tool for delivering healthcare services.
The marketing strategy is the way an organization acts under the
influence of environmental factors.
 What Is Healthcare Marketing?

Health Marketing
 Is an approach to public health advancement that appeals to traditional
marketing principles, theories and science-based strategies to protect and
promote the health of populations
 It means creating, communicating, and delivering messages for the public on
prevention, health promotion, and health protection.

 It is one of the ways advancements in medicine and health-protecting

services, such as HEALTH INSURANCE, are made widely known.
 Marketing Strategy

Contains the traditional "4ps" of marketing, namely:

 "PRODUCT" what the company is trying to sell to consumers?
 "PLACE" which refers to the access to this procedure.
 "PROMOTION" describe to creating awareness and hence demand.
 "PRICE" refers to the rate of the procedure e.g. money, time,
reputation.
 Benefits Of Healthcare Marketing

1. Increasing the patient base of the practice: -

 The objective of healthcare marketing is to inform and educate your

target patient base.
 Good healthcare marketing strategy will use digital marketing to
capture leads and patient information to develop drip campaigns to
stay in front of existing patients.
 Benefits Of Healthcare Marketing

2. Promote Important Medical Services

 Healthcare marketing systems like social media marketing, website,

content marketing, and digital advertising are fantastic tools to let
physicians feature and promote their medical services and
capabilities.
 Benefits Of Healthcare Marketing

3. Enhancing the Patient Experience at the Practice: -

 With the help of healthcare marketing systems patients receive the
top-quality medical care.
 Availability of continuing education resources, and patient portals.
 Patients are also able to quickly and efficiently communicate with
the medical practice and send and receive valuable information to
their care.
 Creative Marketing Ideas for Healthcare Organizations

1. Wellness challenge: -
 Start a wellness challenge among your patients and encourage them to share
their progress on social media, tagging your organization, and using a branded
hashtag.

2. Waiting Room Experience: -

 Patients waiting to be seen by a physician are a captive audience, perfectly
positioned to pay attention to any news or brand messaging you want to get
in front of them.
 Creative Marketing Ideas for Healthcare Organizations

3. Blogger Relations Campaign

 By joining up with strategic bloggers, you can work with them to
share your messaging in unique ways with their trusting audience.

4. New Patient Forms

 Consider promoting major services, events, or programs in your
new patient forms packet — this will ensure that new patients are
educated about your organization at the first visit.
 Unique Attributes of Healthcare

Several attributes of the healthcare industry complicate marketing

 First, healthcare organizations serve multiple markets and consumer groups.
 Traditional business focuses its marketing on prospective customers in the
general population, but healthcare marketers have to consider physicians,
nurses, patients, employee assistance personnel, managed care plans, and
regulators as well.
 For example: marketer for a sports medicine program might have to consider
employers, schools, and health plans among the potential customers, in
addition to individuals.
 Unique Attributes of Healthcare
 Second, healthcare organizations have to compete for employers’

business and must market to them accordingly.

 In the past, major employers were not considered an important
market for healthcare organizations, even though companies
typically bore their employees’ healthcare costs.
 Today, however, major employers often attempt to control rising
healthcare costs by dealing directly with providers to meet their
employees’ healthcare needs.
 Unique Attributes of Healthcare
 Third, health insurance plans are likely to influence members’ or
enrollees’ choice of medical facilities.
 Health plans may make allowances for using out-of-network
practitioners (or provide the option of paying higher out-of-
pocket costs for that privilege), most health plans specify which
facilities and practitioners their insured population can use.
Factors Affecting the Acceptance of Healthcare Marketing

1. From Inpatient Care to Outpatient Care

 At one time, medical care was synonymous with inpatient care, and
hospitalization was often a prerequisite before insurance coverage kicked in.
 By the 1980s, numerous factors discouraged the use of inpatient care.
 The outpatient market was growing, physician referrals to inpatient care were
being deemphasized.
 Hospitals had to rapidly adjust to these market conditions and change their
approach to marketing.
Factors Affecting the Acceptance of Healthcare Marketing

2. From Specialty Care to Primary Care

 In the past, hospitals relied on the specialists on their medical staffs to admit
patients and generate revenue.
 By the late 1980s, the use of specialists gave way to the use of primary care
physicians.
 Hospitals and health systems had to examine their referral patterns and
began to actively court family practitioners, internists, and pediatricians.
 Marketers had to develop ways to showcase the primary care capabilities of
their healthcare organizations to customers, consumers, and health plans.
Factors Affecting the Acceptance of Healthcare Marketing

3. Employers as Major Customers

 After World War II, employers began offering health insurance to their
employees, passively footing the bill for their medical expenses.
 By the mid-1980s, employers were taking a more active role in managing
their employees’ health benefits.
 Business coalitions formed to negotiate with healthcare providers from a
position of strength, and the health benefit costs borne by employers
became a major driver of healthcare reform.
Factors Affecting the Acceptance of Healthcare Marketing

4. The Increased Consumer Focus

 Until the healthcare industry became market driven in the 1980s,
patients’ opinions were seldom considered important.
 Patient satisfaction surveys became common place, and report cards
became a tool by which patients rated the performance of providers
and health plans.
 Report Card A mechanism for comparing the performance and
outcomes of providers and health plans.
Factors Affecting the Acceptance of Healthcare Marketing

 Marketers had to not only identify the needs and wants of

consumers but also recommend ways to improve customer
satisfaction.
 Need A condition objectively determined as requiring a health
service.
 Want A consumer’s desire (rather than a need) for a health
service.
Factors Affecting the Acceptance of Healthcare Marketing

5. The Dominance of Managed Care

 The patient was transformed into a plan member.
 Instead of searching for sick patients who required health services,
marketers were encouraged to identify healthy people who would
not run up costs by using a lot of services.
 Healthcare providers participating in managed care plans had to
shift their focus from treatment and cure to health maintenance
Factors Affecting the Acceptance of Healthcare Marketing

6. The Changing Decision Maker

 Before marketing took hold in healthcare, physicians made most clinical
decisions, and patients had limited control over their medical care.
 Health plans began exercising more influence over the use of health services,
directing their enrollees to specific provider networks.
 This shift has ushered in a new set of decision makers, forcing healthcare
organizations to research the characteristics of existing and potential
customers and determine their needs and wants.
 The Range of Marketing Experiences
The marketing experiences and activities of a broad range of healthcare
organizations, including:
 Providers
 Suppliers
 Consumer health product companies
 Pharmaceutical companies
 Insurance companies
 Support services vendors.
 Providers

 Defined as a health professional or an organization that provides

direct patient care or related support services.
 The term provider, originally defined by health insurance
companies, refers both to health professionals (e.g., medical
doctors, nurses, behavioral and mental health practitioners) and to
organizations that provide healthcare and related services to
patients.
 Providers

 The Categories of Providers are:

1. Hospitals
2. Nursing Homes and Assisted Living Facilities
3. Other Residential and Inpatient Facilities
4. Physicians and Other Clinicians
5. Behavioral Health Providers
6. Providers of Specialized Services
7. Public Health Agencies
 Suppliers

 In healthcare, suppliers include a wide range of organizations that provide

goods and equipment to support the clinical, business, and other operations
of a hospital, health system, physician practice, or other facility.
 Healthcare organizations use an extensive range of supplies, including office
supplies (e.g., paper, pens, clipboards), cloth products (e.g., linens, gowns),
medical disposables (e.g., gloves, syringes, gauze), and machinery (e.g., MRI, X-
ray).
 In addition, facilities use patient care equipment (e.g., sterilizers, blood pressure
machines, scales, stethoscopes, lab microscopes) and durable medical
 Consumer Health Product Companies

 Some of the best-known early consumer brands are associated with

health-related products. Bayer, Johnson & Johnson, and Ex-Lax were
household brand names before the modern healthcare system
emerged
 Today, pharmacy shelves are filled with consumer health products
such as headache remedies, cold and cough medicines, adhesive
bandages, heating pads, hand hygiene products, and baby teething
gels, among many other household and personal items.
 Pharmaceutical Companies

 Pharmaceutical companies used traditional marketing techniques

within the limits required by ethical and regulatory considerations.
 Pharmaceutical industry spending as much as 30 percent of revenue
on marketing, many of these techniques are still used today, with
heavy investments in conventional marketing techniques.
 One of the ways pharmaceutical companies promote themselves is
by disseminating medical information in medical journals, industry-
oriented newsletters and newspapers, research compendia, and
other publications.
 Insurance Companies

 Health insurance companies were among the earliest healthcare

organizations to develop marketing strategies after World War II.
 In the early days of health insurance, policies were generally sold to
individuals or families, and health insurance plans were marketed in the
same manner as other types of insurance.
 By the 1960s, health insurance was predominantly sold wholesale through
employers that purchased group plans on behalf of their employees.
 Group plans were advertised by insurance companies (e.g., through print,
radio, television)
 Support Services Vendors

 Since the 1980s, healthcare organizations have been outsourcing an

increasing number of services to specialized service providers.
 Among the support services that hospitals require are transcription services,
billing and collections services, utilization review, recruitment and staffing
services, hazardous waste disposal, laboratory services, and information
technology.
 Vendors that provide these services typically market via direct sales and often
sponsor community events.
 They may also advertise in print or electronic media or use direct mail to
maintain visibility.
 Health Care Marketing Strategies to Attract Consumers

1. Use Messaging Apps

 Messaging apps are effective tools for healthcare marketing.
 They can be used to connect with potential and existing patients, providing
them with the information they need to make informed healthcare decisions.
 Allow for real-time two-way communication.
 You can provide patients with answers to their health-related questions,
schedule appointments, and share educational content.
 Health Care Marketing Strategies To Attract Consumers

2. Use Email Marketing

 Healthcare email marketing allows you to connect, reach and engage with
patients.
 Email marketing allows you to segment your email list and send targeted emails
to specific groups of patients. This list can be based on their health conditions,
age groups, gender, etc.
 For example, doctors can create different email lists for new patients, existing
patients, and patients who have shown interest in a specific service or
treatment. This allows you to send targeted messages relevant to each group
 Health Care Marketing Strategies To Attract Consumers

3. Referral Programs
 A healthcare referral program is a marketing strategy where patients are
encouraged to recommend a healthcare provider or facility to their friends
and family.
 An effective referral program is designed to build trust and establish a sense
of community among patients.
 You can offer incentives such as discounts or rewards to patients who refer
new clients.
 Health Care Marketing Strategies To Attract Consumers

4. Use Paid advertisement

 Paid advertising is a powerful tool to reach a larger audience and
promote healthcare services.
 This can be a cost-effective way to drive traffic to your website and
increase conversions.
 Health Care Marketing Strategies To Attract Consumers

5. Always be Responsive on Social Media and ask for Reviews

 Another excellent healthcare marketing tip is to stay active on various social
media platforms can help you attract more consumers.
 Be active on social media and respond promptly to any comments or
questions that you receive.
 If your hospital or clinic is quite popular on social media, hiring a special
media manager who can handle your accounts can be helpful.
 Further, be sure to post relevant content according to different social media
platforms
 Health Care Marketing Strategies To Attract Consumers

6. Follow up with Consumers and ask for Feedback

 Your patients and consumers are the most important part of your healthcare
business.
 Thus, keeping them happy and satisfied should be at the top of your priority
list.
 One of the best ways to do this is through consistent communication.
 Make it easy for your patients to reach out to you and discuss any issue they
might be facing. Show your patients that you care about their experiences by
following up and asking for feedback after providing your services.
 Health Care Marketing Strategies To Attract Consumers

7. Use Video Marketing to make your content more attractive

 Video marketing is growing rapidly in the healthcare industry.
 Studies have estimated that 80% of internet users will watch a video while
only 20% of them will read a blog post thoroughly.
 Videos allow you to share your content in an interesting and engaging
manner.
 The audio-visual combination makes it easier for the audience to understand
and remember the information.
 Thomas, R. K. (2020). Marketing Health Services. Health Administration Press.
 Singhania, S. (N.D.). The Role Of Marketing In Healthcare Sector. Webceartify.
Https://Webcreatify.Com/Blog/?The-role-of-marketing-in-healthcare-sector.-&id=65
 Sharjeel. (2023, July 10). How to attract modern patients: 11 effective healthcare
marketing ideas. EngageBay.
https://www.engagebay.com/blog/healthcare-marketing-ideas/
 Jensen, M. (n.d.). Healthcare Marketing Strategies. DemandHub Customer Interaction
Platform. https://www.demandhub.co/articles/healthcare-marketing-strategies/