Marketing Approaches - Term Paper Example

? Term Paper Affiliation: Marketing Approaches Marketing requires that the marketerunderstands the nature of products being dealt with and the trends exhibited in the targeted market. There are different variables to account for when it comes to marketing products and services. The first thing to consider is the ultimate goal or objective of undertaking marketing activities. The underlying primary objective is to capture and subsequently convince buyers that the product or service being offered is the best in the market. Over and above luring consumers into buying, the offered products and services must be competitive in terms of market prices and product quality. The nature of the products or services being marketed and the targeted markets are crucial to account for because they critically identify the different market segments that exist, and subsequently guide marketers in undertaking their respective duties and responsibilities. Although both health care and consumer goods markets deal with both products and services, the nature of marketing practices significantly vary due to product or service uniqueness and product or service differentiation in these markets. Marketers in both health care and consumer goods markets seek to capture a significant market share that maximizes market benefits in terms of sales, revenue generation, and profit making. Marketers in these two markets adopt different marketing approaches that work best in their respective markets. A health care marketer has to understand that health care products and services are characterized by derived demand rather than direct demand (Getzen, 2010). This implies that demand for health care is the outcome of the need for good health. Good health can be realized from both curative and preventative measures, both of which constitute demand for health care. On the same note, the spending decisions made by health care consumers are fundamental to consider. This is because health care financing is an expensive undertaking, and in most cases health care consumption factors in government involvement in the provision of healthcare (Cutler & Horwitz, 2000). Most importantly, health care insurance cannot be ignored in designing marketing approaches for health care markets. This is due to the concept of moral hazard when it comes to consuming health care products and services through insurance financing. Handling health care products and services in the health care markets must put into account all the aspects highlighted above. The spending decisions and buyer behaviors of consumers in health care markets are influenced by more variables compared to their counterparts in the consumer goods markets. Health care marketers must assess and evaluate the approaches that different consumers use to derive good health. Some opt for preventative measures, others choose curative or both. Therefore, the marketing approach chosen should critically identify the different markets segments that exist and the product or service differentiation variables employed. Marketing consumer goods and services focuses on the rationality of consumers. Consumers exhibit rationality in the sense that they prefer consumer baskets that are high in quality and cheap in terms of cost. The primary objective of a consumer in the consumer goods and services markets is to maximize utility. Consumers aim at getting more value than they actually pay for. To achieve this, the pricing policies adopted by sellers must favor consumption needs of consumers in order to maximize their welfare in buying goods and services bundles. Unlike in marketing health care products, consumer goods and services are not characterized by moral hazard due to the fact that consumers personally meet their expenditure. Consumption is purely based on the purchasing power of an individual consumer. Consumers with high purchasing power will ultimately buy more than those with lower purchasing power. On the same note, consumption of consumer goods depends on the disposable income of a consumer (Kessler & McClellan, 2002). A consumer with a higher the disposable income will probably consume more than a consumer with less disposable income. These aspects are crucial to consider in marketing consumer goods. The purchasing decisions and buyer behaviors of consumers in the goods market are highly influenced by the price level. Demand and supply conditions governed by the price level will affect buyers differently. This is more so due to the fact that their consumers who buy goods because they are cheap, others buy them because they are expensive (goods of ostentation), while other match quality and price level in order to buy. Combining these factors informs marketing practices in consumer goods markets, taking into consideration the various market segments that exist in such markets. The marketing approach employed by a marketer in such markets should focus on the rationality of consumers when it comes to buying behaviors. Health Care Climate in the State The health care climate in many states is characterized the need to achieve universal coverage for the benefit of the entire American population. Pricing objectives have been dynamic over time, resulting in diversified practices that are all tailored towards improving the quality of healthcare in America. In my state, the case is not different. Health care financing is an expensive undertaking, and the state has been advocating for health care insurance coverage as a means to ensure that the quality, access, and care in health care provision are improved. The health care system is defined and made up of various health care products, services, and programs. Each of these are priced differently depending on the relevant markets that each of them are accessed from. On same note, the application of health care laws vary across these markets, thereby influencing markets practices across these markets differently. However, the pricing objectives being pursued are primarily tailored towards enhancing health care affordability for the entire health care system. The underlying pricing objectives cut across the general health care financing objectives. Out-of-pocket health care financing ought to be reduced because it is an expensive means of meeting health care costs. There is need to increase financing of health care by the state in order to improve access and care of subsidized health care products and services. Insurance coverage under the various insurance provisions have to be increased and spread across the population in order to alleviate the disparities that exist in accessing health care and consuming quality health care services. The impact of these pricing objectives is that they are streamlining the health care system in the state. The implication of this is that enhancing health care affordability will generally raise the health care welfare of the people in the state and subsequently in the country. Having insurance to take care of most personal and private health care financing will shift cost burdens to the insurers for the benefit of the insured. Most importantly, the ability to pay for health care will be harmonized between the rich and the poor. Through taxation and subsequent involvement of state government in pricing and financing health care, the gap between the poor and the rich is being bridged, thereby improving the social and health welfare of the masses. However, this does not factor in cosmetic health care attention because it is purely private. Communication in the Company Critical decision making must be informed by effective commutation strategies that for all stakeholders on board. To communicate effectively, the roles, duties and responsibilities played by stakeholder group should be assessed and subsequently fitted into the operations run by the firm. Distribution strategies are fundamental for any health care firm and the communication plan adopted should be two-sided. That is, it should move to and from the management, and generally include all influential stakeholders within and without the firm. Reaching the main stakeholder groups in communicating changes to the distribution strategies for a health care firm should employ both transformational and transactional aspects of leadership. The communication strategy adopted should be inspirational and result-oriented at the same time. The inspirational aspect would seek to make all stakeholders in that system feel part and parcel of the system, as well crucial movers the underlying activities. On the other hand, the transactional aspect is tailored towards achieving the set goals and objectives of introducing change to the distribution operations of the firm. The flow of communication events cut across the strategic distribution team in the firm, the management and leadership of the firm, the employees within the firm, and the external environment in the health care sector. The external environment herein refers to the health care observers and regulators in health care markets, consumers of health care products and services, suppliers of health care products and other players like insurance firms (Beardwell & Claydon, 2010). The formulated and implemented communication plan should take communication flow from either side and from any of the highlighted stakeholders to the relevant department in the firm. Combining transformational and transactional interests in communicating change to the distribution strategies would ensure that the interests of interacting stakeholders are met alongside those of the firm. Advertising Classification Advertisements are classified according to the specific market segments being targeted. Health care products and services are differentiated in accordance to the target consumers. Due to the different purchasing decisions and buyer behaviors exhibited by different consumers of health care products and services, advertising classification is critical to consider along this line. The advantage of doing this is that the advertising activities will focus on each market segment as an individual unit, making the process effective and highly likely to achieve the desired outcome. Consumer exhibit different behaviors and consumption trends based on the actual market they buy and consume goods and services. Advertising classification enables marketers to focus on market-specific variables that critically influence consumption trends of the consumers in the various targeted markets. With that, the advertisers become well-equipped with the means that can best lure and convince consumers to buy. In other words, the nature of consumer behavior and response to marketed products and services informs the classification of advertising for the benefit of both the consumers and the selling firm. The nature of products being advertised in terms of quality and pricing also matters when it comes to advertising classification. Product prices should match their respective qualities, having in mind that consumers are rational and they aim at maximizing their welfare through consumption. Classifying advertising in markets that are sensitive to these issues has to consider the purchasing power and the underlying disparities in that power for all consumer groups that make up the target markets. The advantage of this is that understanding these issues makes it easy to formulate, design, and implement advertising strategic plans that account for the differences exhibited by consumers in terms of tastes, preferences, and purchasing power (Goetsch & Davis, 2010). Policy for Health Care Marketing Pricing, service, and advertising practices are from time to time characterized by ethical violations along the operations undertaken by health care firms (Sultz & Young, 2010). Marketing firms have to critically account for the highlighted variables in striving to ensure that their products and services capture the attention of consumers and subsequently sell. In so doing, it is essential that these firms craft mechanisms to deal with emerging challenges such as ethical violation in their operations. A recommended crafted policy in this line relates to the observance of regulatory procedures in pricing, service, and advertising. Ethics of pricing primarily concern fair and appropriate pricing for the various products and services offered. The marketing firm should ensure that the pricing policies adopted at par with legal, ethical and state provisions for the welfare of the consumers and the firm at large. Disregarding legal and ethical provisions violates operational provisions that guide the operations of health care firms. Service delivery is another aspect that experiences ethical violations. The firm should be morally responsible for its decisions, practices, and operations. The crafted policy should encompass programs that are designed to collect feedback at both the firm and the target markets in relation to service delivery. Doing so would ensure that ethical violations in service delivery are captured within and without the firm, allowing for responsive measures to be taken in time and preventative policies implemented to avoid such violation in future. In marketing practices, fair and responsible marketing should be adopted at all levels of the firm’s operations (Berkowitz, 2011). References Beardwell, J. & Claydon, T. (2010). Human Resource Management: a contemporary approach. New York: Pearson Education. Berkowitz, E. N. (2011). Essentials of health care marketing (3rd ed.). Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett. Cutler, D. & Horwitz, J. (2000). Converting hospitals from not-for-profit to for-profit status, why and what effects? The Changing Hospital Industry: Comparing Not-for-Profit and For- Profit Institutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Getzen, T. (2010). Health Economics and Financing (4th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons. Goetsch, D. L. & Davis, S. B. (2010). Quality management for organizational excellence: Introduction to total quality. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Kessler, D. & McClellan, M. (2002). The effects of hospital ownership on medical productivity. RAND Journal of Economics, 33(3): 488-506. Sultz, H. & Young, K. (2010). Health Care USA. New York: Jones & Bartlett Publishers. Read More