Case Study: Missed Opportunities

HSA 505

Examine the pros and cons from the perspective of Crestview Hospital of the placement of its new billboard directly adjacent to Briarwood Medical Center. Interpret the reaction of customers and other community stakeholders to the billboard postings.

Excellent marketing communications opportunity as billboard situated on the main traffic corridor of the Briarwood hospital as well as in close proximity to the Crestview Hospital. Briarwood’s patients will get to know of the presence of a big hospital nearby and the chances of dissatisfied patients visiting Crestview Hospital would be high. Any promotional offer by Crestview Hospital can be directly communicated through the billboard and will reach thousands of people without reaching them out individually.

Patients will see the billboard and may get attracted by the catchy tag line flashed there. A pull advertisement method which can save the big investments required in other means of advertisement.

Message to be showed on the billboard must be brief. Crestview Hospital will have to go for a long term expensive commitment by spending $2500 per month, for a total lease fee of $30,000 for minimum lease period of six months. There is no guarantee that the billboard advertising will work as the company which was advertising through the billboard earlier is going out of business, though the reason is not known here .Customers and other community stakeholders are likely to get surprised with the Crestview hoarding near Briarwood hospital. Some of them may think of it as an aggressive cut throat competition, some may take it as an additional option for healthcare and some may consider it as just an advertisement.

Use competitive marketing entry strategies to suggest the action that Briarwood Hospital should undertake to counter the messages in the new Crestview Hospital Billboard postings.

In this case, Crestview Hospital utilized the opportunity overlooked by the CEO of Briarwood Hospital. One advantage of the recent action by Crestview hospital is that they brought competition right at the doorstep of their rivals. This will in the long-run have the effect of diverting new potential clients to the Crestview hospital. Most of the clients who possibly relied on communications will have high probabilities of visiting Crestview hospital than Briarwood. According to Susan, forty two percent of their new patients relied on information received through advertisements and marketing campaigns. This will however, likely to change now in favor of Crestview Hospital.  In view of their message “the best medical care in Oakland”, it is likely that patients in the Briarwood hospital will have the notion that they could alternatively shift to Crestview hospital in order to get better medical service. In this perspective, they have established cutthroat marketing strategy directly to their rivals (Blakeman, 2014).One disadvantage involves the high cost of leasing the space for the billboards. This strategic position demands a hefty amount of money at the expense of the hospitals profitability. Cresentview has undertaken this risk in anticipation of winning added market share. However, this may not actually result to be the case in the long-run (Blakeman, 2014).

Recommend the marketing communication strategy or strategies that both Crestview and Briarwood Hospitals should employ. Justify why the Governing Board of both hospitals should take a proactive role in promoting and implementing effective marketing strategies.

The marketing Strategy which I would recommend for both hospitals is the DAGMAR Marketing Communication Spectrum. This is because nowadays the society has become more aware of the innovation and most of the times they are the ones expecting those innovations or changes especially in healthcare. Therefore, the extensive range of innovative healthcare goods and services is simply irresistible, from life-saving emergency medical services to life-enhancing pharmaceutical products, with new innovations constantly entering the marketplace. According to Fortenberry (2010), development of the new technologies and innovations in healthcare is not enough without communication to the target groups, customers or patients. If customers are not aware of new and improved products, one could hardly expect the healthcare offerings to achieve commercial success. Therefore, new and improved healthcare goods and services can and do fail, often if there is a failure in communications. Therefore, marketers must endeavor to use good communicative techniques in their attempts to build consumer awareness of their product offerings.

It is thus important for the Crestview and Briarwood Hospital to develop marketing communication strategies which will make their patients or customers aware of the Missed Opportunities services they provide. Apart from the medical emergencies, when consumers adopt new products, the act of adoption involves consumers’ familiarity to the product or services as well as knowing their benefits. Therefore, the two health care must make sure that they communicate with their consumers in progressive steps to increasing the adoption of their services and gain more customers who will be interested in purchasing their services. I would suggest the DAGMAR Marketing Communication Spectrum to be used by marketers in both hospitals into smoothing the process of adoption to the purchase of healthcare.

DAGMAR is an acronym for Defining Advertising Goals for Measured Advertising Results. DAGMAR Marketing Communications Spectrum divides the adoption process into five sequential levels or stages: unawareness, awareness, comprehension, conviction, and action. Each of these stages is influenced by marketing forces and countervailing forces. During the unawareness stage, consumers are unaware of the existence of news goods and services. Any promotional messages that will be disseminated will not successfully reach consumers.

Assess the value of the various marketing research tool(s) that Briarwood and Crestview hospital could use to promote effective marketing communication strategies. Justify your response.

Towards countering the messages passed by the new Crestview Hospital Billboard postings, the Briarwood Medical Center should employ very explicit competitive marketing entry strategies as this highlights. The decision to enter into the market competitively is offering a number of options which vary in terms of risk, cost and the degree of control (Sternkopf, 2005). This entails the concept of market entry strategies with the view of choosing an appropriate marketing mix of “countertrade.” Entering into a joint venture with an already established business may be a very effective strategy to gain an entry into the market. The Briarwood Medical Center should find a strongly established healthcare providing entity which already have the knowledge of the market, possess distribution framework, and thus less capital is required. Pricing becomes another strategy in which Briarwood Medical Center should employ to ensure that they counter the message of the Crestview Hospital. This competitive market entry strategy ensures that a viable level of price is charged for the services and products provided by the center (Mooiji, 2004).

Both the healthcare service providers should ensure that they apply specific marketing communication strategies which help in development of the brand awareness by making the consumers translate the information of the services and products into perceptions about their attributes and the positions of the hospitals within the larger market as deduced by Haywood, Haywood and Chartered Institute of Marketing (2005). That is, marketing communication that the Crestview and Briarwood Hospitals should use strategies which are highly positioned to capture a greater market value and forge a very competitive edge within the healthcare industry with the broad popularity of the video sites, such as, You Tube, may be a convenient strategy of communicating the hospitals services and products to the clients. Additionally, the hospitals can develop videos for themselves to target various market segments hence increasing leads and grow sales. The banging of various entities on the mobile drum for the past periods don’t mean such significance has ceased already but waning yet. Individuals constantly use their smart phones and tablets and they have mobile-optimized content for various enterprises (Lefebvre, 2013). For instance, use of branded app renders important data or services to prospective customers.

The ability to use mobile payment systems at points of sales makes the marketing communication a convenient and reliable one. According to Harner & Zimmerman (2002), effective marketing strategies enable critical identification of a well-defined target audience. The effectiveness of a marketing content is to be sharply focused. It is impossible to virtually advertise to everyone successfully, but an effective marketing strategy concentrates on the direction of the audience it is needed most. Irrespective of the hospitals’ target customers, it is virtually unrealistic to develop a content that resonates every party until an understanding of the unique context of the situation is achieved. An effective marketing strategy enables identification of the customers’ tastes and preferences, behavioral trends and expectations from the healthcare provider (Shankar & Carpenter 2012). This becomes significant as the customers are attaining their utmost level of utility and satisfaction as a result of the services and products an effective marketing strategy helps in gaining knowledge by identifying the hospital’s best customer profile, thereby creating a marketing message that will differentiate the hospital from its competitors.

Once the hospital formulates a way to speak to its customers in their language, but not in your industry jargon, then a great distance will kept from it and its competitors which positively unveil an advantageous competitive edge within the industry. Towards the promotion of the marketing communication strategies, marketing research tools are employed within this context. This research paper give insight of the few marketing research tools that the Briarwood and Crestview Hospital should use to promote effective marketing communication strategies. An effective marketing strategy helps in gaining knowledge by identifying the hospital’s best customer profile, thereby creating a marketing message that will differentiate the hospital from its competitors. Once the hospital formulates a way to speak to its customers in their language, but not in your industry jargon, then a great distance will kept from it and its competitors which positively unveils an advantageous competitive edge within the industry.

Towards the promotion of the marketing communication strategies, marketing research tools are employed within this context. This research paper give insight of the few marketing research tools that the Briarwood and Crestview Hospital should use to promote effective marketing communication strategies. This relates to the short-term incentives or activities geared to encourage the sale or purchase of the hospitals’ products and services. These sale promotions initiative usually known as the “below the line” activities creates customers loyalty and drive the usage of the services of the particular organization (Paley, 2006). This is a form of communication that is designed with motive to persuade potential clients to choose the hospitals’ products and services over those of the competitors. It involves making the services and the products positively known to the specific section of the public that is most likely to purchase them. This is the deliberate and sustained efforts to maintain and establish mutual understanding between the healthcare institutions and the public.

References

Harner, S. W., & Zimmerman, T. G. (2002). Technical marketing communication. New York: Longman.

Haywood, R., Haywood, R., & Chartered Institute of Marketing. (2005). Corporate reputation, the brand & the bottom line: Powerful proven communication strategies for maximizing value. London: Kogan Page. 

Lefebvre, R. C. (2013). Social marketing and social change: Strategies and tools for health, wel being, and the environment. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, Wiley. 

Paley, N. (2006). The manager’s guide to competitive marketing strategies. London: Thorogood.

Shankar, V., & Carpenter, G. S. (2012). Handbook of Marketing Strategy. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Pub.

Sternkopf, S.-M. (2005). English in marketing: International communication strategies in small and medium-sized enterprises. Berlin: Frank & Timme.

Mooij, M. K. (2004). Consumer behavior and culture: Consequences for global marketing and advertising. Thousand Oaks, Calif: Sage Publications.