Promotional Strategies and Retaining a Customer - Article Example

? Promotional Strategies Affiliation: Question Chapter 7 A website page refreshing every ten minutes to help practitionersfollow up with appointments is a strategy for the organization behind the website to maintain a certain level of relationship between service users and providers. According to Eric’s 2010 publication, Essentials of Health Care Marketing, customer relations are important variables that health care institutions and practitioners have to maintain for the sake of their businesses, reputation of the organization, and creation of loyalty. In this case, Eric (2010) showcases constructs of relationship marketing as it identifies with health care customers and practitioners. With regards to the website refreshing after every ten minutes to keep track of appointments, it is a strategy that aims at developing long-term, cost-effective link for a mutual benefit between the organization and the customer. While focusing on the relationship marketing, organizations shift their focus from individual transactions such as convincing a customer to make use of the clinic services, “to a long-term loyalty – identifying the institution as a regular health care provider” (Eric, 2010). Customers require high-quality services and retaining a customer requires strategy. Delayed, canceled, or unplanned appointment visits are areas that have, for a long time, been haunting customers and health care institutions as the result of these variables is loss of customers or flawed customer service. However, the invention of a service that enables tracking, observation, and keeping of appointments adapts the contemporary notion of shifting from the individual transaction (patient visit, referral, and sale) to the establishment of a longer-term relationship. The refreshing website is a marketing tool that specifically addresses customer satisfaction, service quality, time and resource management, and accomplishment of customer retention (Eric, 2010). Question 2: Chapter 8 “I’ve sold products all my life and have been successful. Marketing a food product is no different from marketing a hotel, airline, or hospital.” The above point is naive in all aspects. Firstly, marketing is a process through which a seller of a product or provider of a service uses promotional means and integrated marketing communication to convince customers into buying or using a product or a service. As pointed by the above quotation, the term sold is past tense for sell and means the ability to complete a single transaction by offering a product or service in exchange for money. The naivety of the above point starts with the confusion of selling and marketing. In addition, neither marketing nor selling is a skill (with regards to the question posed, the board expects understanding of selling and marketing concepts but the interviewee portrays selling as an event based on sheer luck) and neither can be measured through the consideration of periodic success. Moving on to the second part of the quotation; products differ from one another and comparing food products to hotels, airlines, or an hospital shows a high degree of naivety. Food products are mostly sold in food shops, restaurants, and/or grocery stores and capturing a market for these products depends on fewer variables than providing services in the health care sector (Berkowitz, 2010). Food products appeal to various people all the time and this industry does not necessarily require loyalty like the health care sector. Health care products depend on variables such as product positioning (drugs, machines), branding (machines, e.g. in radiology), and diffusion of innovation (rate of adoption of a product). Diffusion of innovation is determined by relative advantage (advantage of new product over existing ones), compatibility (compatibility with existing values and customs creates adoptability), complexity (affects adoption of products), divisibility (trial on a limited basis), and communicability (easy communication of benefits). Reflecting on the subject matter, the selling of food products and the marketing of health care services and products differ considerably as the rate of adapting ever changing services and products (within the health care sector) is different from selling ingredient-based food products. Question 3: Chapter 11 a) A busy hospital emergency room The use of premiums and cash rebates is a sustainable strategy to promote the services of a busy emergency room. With regards to being busy all the time, the likelihood of time wastage and customer decisions to move to a different hospital is high. However, with regards to premiums such as free t-shirts, safety gears, physical training tools; users of the service are more likely to use the services again unlike institutions that do not offer this privilege. In addition, for search of primary users, it is likely that this strategy would encourage other users to try the services. Like premiums, cash rebates are post-promotional tools that encourage continued use of the emergency room’s services. For users with initial or no insurance covers, cash rebates can be used as assistances to insurance copayments (Berkowitz, 2010). b) An executive fitness program that provides health screening and fitness evaluation Health care users adapt various ways of making use of the services and products offered by health care institutions. Many a times, users of health care take precautionary steps rather than reconstructive decisions. Therefore, for users of health screening and fitness evaluation programs can be channeled to one institution if the institution through the use of contests within the institution’s promotional strategy. Contests would engage users of the programs to participate in various games thus cultivating their loyalty and regular use of the institution’s services (Berkowitz, 2010). c) An occupational medicine program that contracts its services to companies With regards to the use of the integrated marketing communication, the presence of a program that contracts its services to companies is legible to use the push and pull strategies. Under the push strategy, the program can incorporate physicians and other practitioners to make referrals to the companies affiliated with the program therefore cultivating higher users of the services. Under the pull strategy, the program can advertise its services directly to customers therefore, provoking demand and recreating higher market share. Under the pull and the push strategies, the post-purchase promotion may involve more information about the programs, affiliate companies, and what incentives first user and repeat users are entitled (Berkowitz, 2010). Question 4: Chapter 12 “…based on what I’ve seen in the newspapers, St. Mary’s seems to be spending a little less than that ($5000).” With reference to the spending on advertising for physical rehabilitation program, different programs target different markets and variables such as cohorts are an example. Programs that target a large market invest more on ads and how much the competition spends should not be used to dictate the budget of another company’s promotional spending. In this case, without the consideration of newspaper reports and quotations on advertisement budgets of other companies, the best approach is to consider the steps of launching a successful advertising plan. In order to advertise successfully, St. Mary should determine its target audience, specify its objectives, determine budget, specify communication programs, and evaluate. In the development of an advertising campaign, how much to spend is determined through media plan as it “outlines the analysis and execution of the advertising campaign” (Berkowitz, 2010). To handle the situation at hand, budget of advertising should be arrived at through the consideration of advertising development steps. Customers do not buy products or use services as a result of one-time (event-based) advertising. The advertising is considered more of a process than an event – creating interest, evaluation, trial, and cultivating adoption are essential steps. St. Mary therefore should determine the target audience; the channels of communication; the period an advert will be on air/printed on print media, and on billboards; and the cost of putting up the ad on each selected channel. However, with consideration to target audience, current capabilities, and revenue generation; St. Mary may not actually need to invest on advertisements as other crucial areas such as service quality, customer relationships, and service accessibility may also have a role to play – hence, $5000 may not be needed in the first place (Berkowitz, 2010). Question 5: Chapter 14 “…there is no reason to change what we’re doing.” With revenue increase of 14%, a senior physician feels like establishing two primary care satellites in a growing suburb is a bad idea. However, with consideration to profitability analysis, it is evident from Berkowitz’s (2010) findings that large amounts of products are purchased by a small percentage of customers. With growing suburbs as the target market for care satellites, profitability analysis can show that the current 14% revenue growth is nothing to be comfortable with as a suburb would host more capable care users and the problem of “being so busy in this group” would be solved by limiting the number of easy and less profitable services. Currently the group is so busy because its salesmanship focuses on sales made rather than revenue gained per sale – the vice versa is a remedy to this problem and answers the senior physician (Berkowitz, 2010) Reference Berkowitz, Eric N. (2010). Essentials of Health Care Marketing, 3rd Edition. Jones & Bartlett Learning. Read More