Response to discussion post…
I dont know how to handle this Health & Medical question and need guidance.
1. The key difference between marketing healthcare services and marketing tangibles/services provided to consumers is the human factor. Marketing services is about building relationships and trust with consumers for such life decisions as purchasing a home where you continue to see and benefit from the property value. As regards tangible products, e.g., clothing, food, cars, computers and telephones, theyre expendable. Many businesses need to provide attractive packaging, a fair price and promises to project an image, whereas humans require a different and more important level of invested care.
For healthcare administrators and marketers, quality of care and cost is the vital key to healthcare because it determines whether hospitals and primary-care facilities close or merge with other companies which put quality care first. Aside from economics, a balance must be struck given the context of the healthcare facility in question.
References
6 Key Differences Between Services and Products. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.infosurv.com/6-key-differences-between…
Klein, M. (n.d.). A New Brand For a New Era. Retrieved from ezproxy.umuc.edu/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=tru…
2.Marketing is a key function of a healthcare institution.
What do you think are the key differences between marketing healthcare services and marketing a tangible product like food, computers, etc.?
Healthcare marketing and commercial marketing have a variety of differences. A Healthcare Admin/Marketer must know the differences in order to best market their medical facility. It is important that the administrator knows and understands these differences.
One main difference is the approach. In her article, Kiara Low Dog explains that using traditional marketing techniques for healthcare is like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole, it is just that different (Low Dog, 2016). She goes on explaining that the biggest difference between traditional marketing and healthcare marketing is the way healthcare administrators connect with the clients. When people are searching a healthcare provider, clinic, hospital, etc. it is likely that the individual is anxious, afraid, worried, and just trying to find the right place to get the proper care. Therefore, Low Dog emphasizes that a healthcare administrator/marketer must approach from the heart in order to gain the trust of the patient/client (Low Dog, 2016).
Secondly, the concept of exchange is very different. In health care marketing, it is the exchange of time and effort for a product. For example, a clinic can market a free BP screening, but it is up to the patient to take the time to get the screening completed. On the other hand, in commercial marketing, you have the exchange of a product for money. Furthermore, health care marketing targets the intangible things such as better health, whereas commercial marketing targets tangible things such as shoes, phones, cars, homes, you name it.
It is the job of the healthcare administrator/marketer to understand that they are working to gain the publics trust and to work for their benefit. A patient wants to feel like the provider genuinely cares, understands, listens and wants the best for their health. It is obvious that any traditional commercial marketer does not have this mindset; they work to benefit the company financially. Therefore, health care marketing and traditional commercial marketing need to be approached differently.
3. There is a difference between healthcare services and marketing a tangible product. tangible products are ” often thought to be easier to market as they can be shown, demonstrated, touched, displayed and are easier for your audience to understand in terms of value or whether they are needed” marketing strategy should include finding the right market for your product and promote it in a way that gets the best response from your target audience. Healthcare services are “intangible, can be harder to show value. You cant see or touch a service. Often, then, the goal of marketing services is to create good relationships with your target audience, developing and building trust(Reilly et., 2019). For a healthcare administrator/marketer it is important to build up loyal relationships because we are not selling products. This will deal more with customer services and how a customer is treated and having a good loyal relationship will be the biggest obstacle for any healthcare administrator/marketer.
References:
Reilly, S., Reilly, S., Stephen, Stephen, Rooke, M., & Wright, C. (2019, November 14). The Difference Between Product Marketing and Service Marketing. Retrieved from https://www.fiftyfiveandfive.com/difference-between-product-and-service-marketing/.
