Marketing is the management of the relationship between the organization
and the markets served. The relationship is critical to the on-going
success of the organization and the satisfaction of the markets
(both consumers and customers). Many healthcare and human services
organizations need to be more sensitive to the marketing relationship
as more options become available and as consumers and customers
become better informed. So we offer this diagnostic checklist. It's
not the be-all, but it provides a way of taking the measure of your
marketing health.
1. Positioning
How do you want your service to be thought of compared to your
competition; higher quality, higher price, low price but good
quality, warm friendly/family vs. formal/tasteful/elegant, etc?
Do you know how your competition is thought of? How are you different
than your competitor? Is this difference clear to the markets
you serve?
2. Competition
Do you know who it is? Are you sure? Could there be a new competitor
on the horizon ready to do it better than you? Do you know who
it will be in the near future? Do you know your competition's
positioning, pricing, capacity, marketing and sales tactics? Are
they getting the patients/customers you want? If so, why? What
are their strengths and weaknesses?
3. Pricing
Does your pricing translate into "good value" for your
consumers and customers or do you leave that up to your competition?
Even where the provider can do nothing to set the price, consumers
and customers have values expectations. Do you know what these
expectations are and how your service is perceived? Does your
pricing fit your market and positioning? Are you really high priced
and low quality and don't know it? Are you getting the price you
want/need?
4. Services & Consumer Mix
Are you offering what the consumer or customer wants and needs?
There are so many more choices today in most markets, and consumers
and customers are much more sophisticated shoppers. Are your services
in sync with the market you want to serve? Are you attracting
the consumers and customers you want to serve or is your mix unsatisfactory,
unprofitable or lopsided? Are your customers satisfied and likely
to return and or speak well of you?
5. Advertising, Promotion and Public
Relations
Do you know how your current consumers and customers learned about
your service? If not, how can you start to collect this information?
If you do know how you were "discovered" can you reach
those "customers" through advertising, or would special
events, direct mail or some other type of promotion be better?
A marketing promotion plan is not just advertising. Some advertising
may be necessary, but it will probably not get you to where you
want to go. Often your consumers and customers got to you through
formal and informal referral sources. Do you have this information
available to work with? Think about image and awareness. Because
word of mouth is so important in so many markets, think about
the level of current customer satisfaction. You know the old story
about how many more people will talk about a bad experience than
about a good experience.
The role of advertising is to create awareness for your services
and your expertise and thus to create "leads" or potential
consumers interested in your services. Advertising and public
relations can help you create a positive image and keep that image
in the mind of the prospective customer. When need arises for
your services, whoever comes to mind first is more likely to get
the business. But advertising is only a small piece of the marketing
puzzle.
6. Sales Process
Do you have one defined - even if it's labeled as "outreach"
or "community relations"? Hard sell with multi trial
closes probably won't be very successful. Try building trust and
a relationship first. Have you hired the right sales/marketing
people? Have you trained them in the sales process that will work
and that you believe in and want to represent your organization?
Do your sales people know how to be subtlety persuasive? This
effort is your face to your market. Does the market see and experience
what you want? What about managed care organizations? Do you rely
on them for business? Do you know how to maximize your relationship
with them?
Perhaps you don't have a formal sales process, but have you thought
about the impression your employees make on your consumers and
customers? Do you create a positive first impression when a prospective
consumer calls on the phone?
7. Brand
Does your market know about you? Do you understand what you stand
for? Do your employees? Do your customers get the correct picture?
Is your brand clearly expressed for all your markets? You can
also think of your brand as your reputation. Do you know what
your reputation is? Is it what you want it to be? Or, maybe you
don't have a reputation and are really invisible in the market
you want to serve! Does your brand project stability and consistency?
8. Employee/Provider Satisfaction
Do you know what your employees think about the services you deliver?
Your employees (all of them including providers of care) can make
or break your marketing plan and sales effort. Unhappy employees
will make their feelings known to your customers/patients either
directly or through less than quality service. Do you know where
your employees are? If you are dependent on providers for referring
or bringing patients to you, do you know how they feel about your
organization and the quality of services you provide? Also, good
employees are scarce. Do you know what it takes to keep them?
Good employees are less expensive to keep than to recruit!
9. Research
Consumers choices are changing rapidly and consumer wants/needs
are changing rapidly and your competitors are changing rapidly
to meet these changing consumer demands. What do you know? Are
your customers satisfied and likely to return and or speak well
of you? Research has shown that for every customer who complains,
20 - 30 others experience problems that you never hear about;
these 20-30 dissatisfied customers will complain to an average
of 18 others; and customers are 5 times more likely to switch
to a competitor because of problems with service than problems
with products or pricing and finally, it costs 5 times as much
to attract new customers as it does to keep an existing one. It
is very risky to assume that we know how our customers are thinking
based on "gut feel" or home grown statistically invalid
surveys. It is important to measure and analyze customer satisfaction
systematically and regularly.
10. Annual Plan
Do you have an annual written marketing plan? If you don't have
a plan any road will get you there. With a written plan for the
year that spells out how you intend to address the above issues,
you are much more likely to carry out the plan and be successful.
Well, how does your marketing plan/strategy stack up? Need some
work? Better get started. As you can see, putting together a sophisticated
and complete marketing plan is a lot more than just paying attention
to the "4P's of marketing" or fancy brochures and newspaper
ads. It is a whole new competitive world in health care and your
competitors are not waiting for you!
