Marketing plan for the healthcare company (nursing home service) - Assignment Example

?Executive Summary  Marketing has always been the most essential functions for all types of businesses and industries including health care industry.World’s population is growing rapidly and so the number of older people. According to researches and studies, the fastest growing demographic are people aged above 80. At the economic level, every shift in demographics brings economic and social challenges with itself. Even in the healthcare systems, the concept of ageing population adds pressure and demands along with itself. At the level of an individual, increased life span brings several challenges with itself. Old aged people have to face certain types of problems when they are at home. At this crucial stage of life, where they need support from family members, they instead become a burden and hurdle for them in their busy life. People are often busy in their education and businesses and therefore no one has enough time to spend with the senior members of their home. For this purpose, old age nursing homes are established where old aged individuals can spend the rest of their life with proper care, medication and nutrition. This report analyzes the aspects related to the marketing and promotion of old age nursing homes. The current situation of majority of old age homes has been discussed, related SWOT and PEST analysis have been presented and the appropriate implementation plan has also been mentioned. Current Problems and Situation Demographic structure has always played substantial differences among countries. Current demographic structure consists of two major categories. First is the ageing population of the countries and second is the young population of countries. Many underdeveloped and developing countries are facing issues related to the sizes of demographics in their countries. Underdeveloped and developing countries generally do not have such infrastructure. Lack of education, inadequate healthcare services, lightning problems, destruction of natural resources, lack of means of up-to-date communication and deficiency of transportation systems are some major reasons which increase the problems of senior citizens of many developing countries. Increase in employment in urban areas lead the younger population to migrate from rural to urban areas in order to seek jobs. Parents of those young people do not feel easy in leaving the area of which they have been used to for a long period of time. This reason has lead to the concentration the population older people in rural areas. In rural areas, they have to face more problems than that of urban areas. Having no one to care for them is another issue. Many associations and acts for securing old age rights have been established but there seems very less implementation on them. Strategies and policies should be strictly followed in order to protect the rights of senior citizens in every country. Marketing Analysis In previous times, families used to take care of their parents and their problems related to ageing. But due to the changing trend, it is no longer applicable in today’s situation. NGOs and churches hardly take the complete responsibility and this leaves with a question that should happen now. The percentage of people above 75 is growing rapidly. At the same time, the increased needs of their healthcare, provides career opportunities to women for nursing. Nursing shortage can be another hurdle in taking better care of aged population. In general, people seeking for skilled nursing and assistance in living care have much similar needs, including: Treatment and plan of living To be taken care by skilled and knowledgeable nurses, clinicians. To be treated with dignity and respect. Getting actively engaged in activities like some kind of community Nowadays, it has become essentially necessary provide awareness to people regarding the benefits of health care centres and old age home services. By doing proper promotion and utilizing the sources of media, it can be done easily. Old aged population generally have to suffer a lot specially in developing and underdeveloped countries mainly due to lack of education. They even sometimes have to work at this age in order to feed themselves because they are left alone by their children. Such people need huge attention and care from government. But in some countries, even government is not willing to bear the cost and take their responsibility. Therefore, the role of private sector becomes very important. Non-governmental organization and private sectors can pressure the government to provide them grants so that they can establish good care centres and old age homes so that people at their 70s and 80s do not have to struggle for food and medicines which are the fundamental necessities of people at this age. Adequate promotion and marketing is essential to make people aware that these types of organizations are available which can take better care of old aged people. Every type of facility is generally available in care centres and senior citizens do not have to feel lonely or distressed. Being humans, it becomes our responsibility to take care of the needy people around us and by doing proper promotion and marketing people can get aware and utilize these benefits. SWOT Analysis Strengths Weaknesses Good strategies for supervision, training, recruitment and induction. Non-profit organization Services can be altered as per the changing requirements. Commitment and responsiveness of staff Low turnover of staff Public services employers which contributes with their time and money Positive views of general public towards public service organizations. Large bureaucratic organizations Inconsistent processes of businesses Complex pay structures Apparently high cost of services Lack of long term strategies Instable economic condition Lack of proper infrastructure in developing and underdeveloped countries Unawareness of general public about the benefits of old age homes. Opportunities Threats Investigation of services Private/ public ownership Fully qualified and trained workforce Changing image of public towards old age homes Grants from government Immense growth potential Development of caretaker services Pressure from government to develop non-residential care centres. Poor perception in some areas Vulnerable services due to lack of proper planning Difficulties in recruitment Services instability Different management organization for instance health Pooled budgets and partnerships Act of Care Standards New ways of providing services SWOT Analysis determines the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of an organization. Many experts say that strengths and weaknesses refer to the internal factors whereas opportunities and threats are external forces which affect the organization some way or other. Even for old age heath centres, there are certain strengths and weaknesses as well as opportunities and threats. In the above chart, each component has been briefly discussed. The above chart gives a clear viewpoint idea about all the aspects of SWOT that are faced by the old age homes. Overall, the industry of old age homes has stronger opportunities and strengths as compared to weaknesses and threats. There are many opportunities which can be availed by the old age home industry so that the better infrastructure can be established for old age homes. It can also be noticed that the governmental influence is also vital for establishment of old age homes. Grants from government are also necessary. Private and public organization can pursue and assist these sectors for old age home to protect the rights of senior citizens. PEST Analysis PEST Analysis refers to analyzing the external situation for an organization. Like every organization, Political, Economical, Social and Technological factors influence the old age nursing homes as well. Political Economical Modernization of social services Health care act 1999 Performance framework Grants allotted by government County council plans Human rights associations Mixed economy Minimum wage Job evaluation Competition Restructuring of organization Reduced working hours Ageing population Inspections Market share Specialist services Grants allotted by government Social Technological Best value Increasing number of older people Higher expectations Demography Higher dependence Core competencies Large rural areas High employment Older workforce Training needs Absence of necessary software and other systems Insufficient hardware Inadequate management of information Fewer communication aids PEST Analysis is essential to trace the Political, Social, Economic and Technological aspects. From the above chart, it can be observed that there are many social and economical problems that are concern for establishment of old age homes. By doing proper planning and making adequate strategies, due to certain extent these issues can be resolved. Establishment of old age nursing homes is essential for making the position of senior citizens stable in a country. Specially in developing and underdeveloped countries, where lack of education and inadequate supply of food are daily problems, private sectors, NGOs and government sector need to pay attention towards the better establishment of old age homes. Marketing Plan for Old Age Home Centres It is essential to anticipate the needs of customer in order to identify what exactly a customer is asking for. It helps the organization as well in developing its marketing plan. A good marketing plan should highlight the qualities and services which organization is offering. Marketing plan helps in establishing distribution channels and communicate attributes of the programs which are offered. In healthcare industry, while going to establish a nursing home, it is essential to include all the relevant information. It is important to consider all that which competitors are offering. In old age homes, if competitors are offering better services then it can be a threat for privately established old age centre. All the necessary facilities are included while developing an old age home so that family members of old people can rely on that specific rest home and can prefer that over another. It can be in terms of offering better facilities, having friendly, polite and caring caregivers, better location and other activities and programs. Anticipating the needs of customers or old aged people is another issue. Establishing and maintaining clean environment and place that seems to them as if it is their home is another issue. Special attention should be paid on this area as well. Staffs, nurses, doctors and other relevant members need to be very polite and warm with the old aged people. They should sense the feeling of being cared and pampered while being at that place and must not feel like finding a chance to escape from there. A good rest home makes its members feel so safe and comfortable that they don’t even want to go at their own home where no one has time to talk to them. Old age people’s needs must be matched with the benefits and services of the healthcare centre. It is a general image that nursing homes have a poor care system therefore this perception must be changed and elderly people should feel easy and reliable while being there. Those nursing homes which offer therapeutic programs, offer unique activities, extracurricular activities, has qualified staff and can also allow pets will be more appealing to its clients than any other ordinary nursing home. Doing advertising for nursing home is very essential. To identify and target the specific population is crucial to attract more clients. Advertising can be in form of appealing commercials, newspapers, flyers and handouts. Success stories of previous clients and their family members can be shared to obtain the trust of potential clients. Implementing marketing advertising means to put all the strategies into action. One can visit hospitals and welfare offices where elderly people might be in need of the services of healthcare centres. Flyers and brochures can be hung there to attract the old aged people’s family members. Relationships with local business partners, welfare centres, hospitals and other community centres should be built and maintained to improve the clientele. Challenges Encountered while Developing Marketing Plan At times, it is not easy to develop a marketing plan. For old age homes, the challenges which are faced by marketer while developing marketing plans are listed below: 1. Identifying Customer To attract maximum number of customer is important to generate higher revenues. Identifying correct customers which can boost sales is necessary. All the demographic features for potential customers should be taken into account while going ahead for this process. For old age homes, the demographic features are very simple, that all the customers would be elderly people. But to cater them is a big challenge as many elderly people are not willing to live in rest homes or health care centres. Community centres, hospitals, welfare offices and other local businesses can help in catering more customers. 2. Creating Brand Particularly in old age homing industry, brand image is the most important and the most challenging issue. By showing unique and warm advertisements, publishing ads in newspapers can help in creating appositive image of health care centres. A new perception can be made of healthcare centres in the minds of customer which is appealing and bring them into a place which is friendly, warm, polite and comfortable. 3. Setting Price Break-even point must be calculated and a certain margin of profit should be set. Since operating in old age homing industry doesn’t mean to generate higher revenue therefore a specific amount of profit margin should be maintained for a longer period of time. Price must be set with the mutual consent of the organization as well as the customer. Family members mustn’t feel large amount of prices as burden. This might hamper the image of the healthcare centre as well. Industry average price should be determined and a little premium should be charged for better and quality services. If the brand image of the healthcare centre is to be created in a way which shows status and premium quality, than the prices can be a bit higher than general industry average in order to create a superior perceived value in the minds of customers. 4. Setting Goals Goals are needed to be set in order to determine how the organization is going to get funds. It should be identified whether the primary source of funding is donation, fees or government grants. If the healthcare centre focuses on offering quality and premium services then the prices can be higher as compared to competitors and customer will definitely pay that as they will see the results of those fees in better health and happy attitude of their senior family members. But if the objective is to offer mediocre services, then the prices can be the average of industry rates. Here, the responsiveness of customers cannot be so good due to similar services which every organization is offering. Marketing Strategy 4 Cs 4 Ps of marketing and 4 Cs of marketing are more or less same idea. In healthcare industry, these 4 Cs are important to be analyzed in order to measure the overall performance of the old age home centres.   Consumer needs and wants Customer needs and wants can also be said as Products. It is to be decided what products and services a company is going to offer. In old age homing centre, the products and services are all the healthcare facilities, extracurricular activities, homely environment, better treatment, pleasant atmosphere and social participation. Cost to satisfy Cost or in other words Price must be set. For this purpose, cost benefit analysis must be done. The cost that is being incurred by the organization and the price that they will be charging must have a substantial difference which can be count a profit. The price must not be too high that it gets out of the reach of majority of population. Convenience to buy In 4 Ps, it can be said as Place where the products and services be sold. The place must be convenient to cater the sub set of population. It can also incorporate the physical location of the old age homing centres. It must be in the centre of the city and should be convenient for majority of the family members to frequently visit their senior family members. Communication Communication requires a better deal of give and take between seller and buyer. By doing proper communication, many potential issues can be resolved. Family members can also ask the condition of their seniors. Better communication should be maintained before and after admitting new client. Budget Budget is the most important aspect of any business. It refers to the estimation of expenses and revenues which while will be earned and incurred over the future period of time. In healthcare industry, estimation of budget is vital as it tells at which stage the organization stands. Best organization is the one which offers quality services in an affordable price and generates higher revenues by retaining its old customers. Source: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/budget.asp#axzz1izwmRnPp Implementation/Action Plan  After doing a detailed analysis of the current situation of old age healthcare centres all over the world, an appropriate action plan has been composed so that the major problems can be overcome. These plans are mentioned in subsequent points. The human rights associations need to highlight and fight against discrimination that old aged people have to encounter. Their rights need to be fulfilled in full. Encouragement, acknowledgement and adequate support should be provided to elderly people in society by all the members of the society. Programs and opportunities should be devised for elderly people so that they can participate in social, political and cultural life. These activities can give access to old age people to social environment other than rest homes and nursing homes. Old aged people should be facilitated by providing them opportunities so that they can help each other and understand each other’s potential. By doing non-remunerated work old aged people can provide contribution to the society and can gain encouragement from this. Elderly people cannot contribute economically to the society but their other contributions must be admired and respected. All the needs of elderly people should be taken care of and they must be honoured and respected at all stages of their lives. Positive attitudes of employers should be developed in order to sustain the productive capabilities of elderly people. Their life time experience must be valued and encouraged. Supports should be provided in order to form Elder Labour Unions and other similar organization within the boundaries of legal requirements. Review Literature on Customer Relationship Marketing The review literature in respect of relationship marketing has many different dimensions especially in healthcare industry. Primarily, referrals are highlighted as the key marketing activity used by the nursing homes. This review literature in general focuses on the overall marketing strategies adopted by the healthcare sector and in particular, emphasizes on the relationship marketing in the nursing home industry. Evidences of using traditional and conventional ways of marketing are not considered appropriate in the healthcare industry as word-of mouth based referral systems replaced the need of former activities. In the past, there observed a trend in respect of care with significant increase in the growth towards the use of marketing. Nevertheless, marketing efforts were not perceived as an effective strategy for nursing homes before the last decade because of certain restrictions in the payments and reimbursements, less competitive industry and non-availability of the beds. According to a report by Buss (1994), serious increment was observed in the strategy of nursing homes to deploy the marketing staff especially on the senior posts comprising of marketing chief etc. Likewise, many other nursing homes dramatically increased the marketing staff and arranged too many seminars related to marketing. However, in 90’s decade, very few nursing homes were observed which adopted marketing strategies or added up the marketing staff as compared to the previous decade (Pratt 2004). In past, the nursing homes used to focus on traditional marketing campaign to attract their customers which included marketing activities like word-of-mouth, tours, brochures, pamphlets to disseminate information, appearance facilities etc (Clarke 1991; Becker and Kaldenberg 2000). However, these marketing activities turned out to be short-sighted as these activities have very temporary results and failed to have an impact in the minds of customers for a longer period of time especially related to nursing home industry. On a differing perspective, the nursing home industry is rapidly becoming competitive as the community based companies began to evolve to participate in the growth of this sector (Bishop 1999). As a result, the relatively new marketing strategies should be more comprehensive in its dimensions as well as being multifaceted (Buss 1994). According to a study of Cheyne (1991), the element of both existing and potential consumer sophistication in respect of long term decision regarding care is recognized on a broader basis especially related to the upcoming challenges to be faced by the nursing home providers. In order to ensure a comprehensive marketing plan, dedicated professional marketing staff is required to ensure the effective marketing strategies which involve marketing research that contains collection of data and its analysis, marketing communication, advertisement, public relations, strategic planning, customer services, relationship marketing, and the delivery of actual services to the customers (Bowe 1990; Clarke 1991). Among all these marketing functions, customer services and relationship marketing have a key significance as these activities ensure the retention of satisfied customers who use word-of-mouth promotion activity to market the nursing home to other potential customers (AARP 2001; Contemporary Long-Term Care 1999). In nursing homes marketing, referrals from different people are highly used instead of traditional ways of marketing nursing homes which include print media, TV ads, hoardings, billboards, events etc. Nowadays, the most effective marketing strategy that replaced many other traditional marketing strategies is Customer Relationship Marketing (CRM) in many industries. Many industries which are placed in Fortune 500 companies as well as the healthcare industry are on an increasing trend towards focusing on customer relationship by making themselves more customer-driven, preferential relations with the customer, personal relations including services based on excellent quality. The study of Clarke (1991) suggests that there is an ongoing need to regularly research and analyze the relationship development, best level of communication which certainly includes the main activity of word-of-mouth referrals systems including the personnel involved in this marketing strategy. In order to construct different optimal market segments relating to healthcare marketing, the marketers should carefully analyze the attitudes, behaviours, needs, wants, desires, perceptions and preferences of different groups of customers. Therefore in order to ensure an effective profiling of specific target market, analysis of competitors, projection of forecasts and feasibility, development of an effective marketing plan, budgets, communication processes and advertising and branding activities, both quantitative researches based on empirical evidences and internal qualitative intelligence activities need to be performed by the marketing department of healthcare companies. Discussion and Conclusion  Providing quality services and gaining consumer satisfaction is imperative especially in the healthcare industry. In future marketing plans, this phenomenon must always be considered. Health and lives of customers must never be put at stake in a mania of generating higher revenues. Healthcare centre should maintain customer satisfaction and should fulfil higher customer needs. Without these aspects, there is no future of any organization in healthcare industry because none of a single family member can compromise on the healthcare facilities of their senior family members. References Bishop, C. E., 1999. Where are the Missing Elders? The Decline in Nursing Home Use, 1985 and 1995. Health Affairs, pp. 146-55. Buss, D. D., 1994. Marketing-Nursing Homes Learn the Rules to a Whole New Game. Contemporary Long Term Care, pp. 30-40. Burke, M. 1992. Issues and Answers: Reaching Out to Hospitals and Physicians. Contemporary Long-Term Care, 26, pp. 76-77. Clarke, L. 1991. Issues and Answers: Marketing to Attract Private-Pay Residents. Contemporary Long-Term Care, 28, pp. 72. Cheyne, L. W., 1991. Successful Marketing Program Requires Planning and Targeting. Provider, pp. 43. Campbell, S. 1997. Avoiding the Empty Bed Syndrome. Provider, pp. 63-66. Davis, M. A., 1991. On Nursing Home Quality: A Review and Analysis. Medical Care Review, 48 (2) pp. 129-66. Kotler, P., and G. Armstrong, 2006. Principles of Marketing,11th ed. New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc. Read More