Healthcare marketing
This discussion is multifaceted: You will introduce yourself and start to explore important ideas in healthcare marketing, such as target audiences and effective strategies to reach those markets.
To begin, review the module resources, and reflect on a time when you were the target of a healthcare organization’s marketing efforts. This could be a print, online (social media), or radio advertisement, a TV commercial, or even a billboard.
Then, in an initial thread, introduce yourself and share your experience as a target for healthcare marketing. You can use the explanation of the experience as a way to introduce yourself and why you are taking this course. Be sure to consider these questions in your initial thread:
Do you believe the marketing effort used was appropriate for your particular demographics as the target audience? Why or why not?
What recommendations would you make to improve the messaging/communication strategies of the marketing effort/advertisement?
Sample Solution
I recently encountered a healthcare organization’s marketing effort when I received an email about their upcoming health fair. This event was using the strategic marketing tool of “targeting” to reach out to people who fit its target market: specifically, young adults from 18-25 living in my area. The email detailed what services would be available at the fair and mentioned that there would be free snacks and activities for attendees.
This example illustrates how effective targeting can be in healthcare marketing. By recognizing that my age group is likely not as familiar with traditional healthcare options, the organization was able to tailor its outreach strategies accordingly by offering incentives that were more relevant and appealing to us (free snacks, etc.). This type of audience segmentation is especially important in order to effectively reach different demographics with varying needs, interests, and lifestyles (Shah et al., 2017).
The healthcare organization also used additional methods of promotion such as social media advertising on platforms like Facebook and Instagram to further advertise their health fair. While these platforms are well-suited for engaging younger audiences due to their high level of user engagement (Dugan & Hartley, 2015), it is still important for marketers to measure success through customer surveys or other data metrics so they know what worked best and where improvement may be needed (Shah et al., 2017).
Overall then, this example demonstrates how essential it is for healthcare organizations have a well thought-out strategy when it comes to targeting specific markets – whether through print ads or digital ones – in order achieve maximum success in reaching those markets.
