It is no secret that due to the pronounced specifics of the medical field medical marketing is also different from the promotion of any other business, and sometimes quite strongly.
The medical business is both the most customer-oriented and at the same time the highest risks, because medical errors can sometimes cost not only reputation, but even human life. But at the same time, if you obey only the logic and standard methods of advertising, you can forever stay behind the more daring competitors.
How to be? How to understand the peculiarities of medical marketing and learn how to apply them to your business for the good? Look for answers in the article estet-portal.com!
Medical Marketing – differences from the classic
Many features of classical marketing are present in its medical branch – for example, the criterion of purchasing power and technology for evaluating competitors to adjust their own development strategy.
However, there are even more differences in classical and medical marketing. The most obvious of them – competition between private and public medical institutions. Because of this, it is not possible to build a clear map of the services market. After all, private traders have to compete both with each other and with public hospitals, which deprives the marketing analysis methods of clarity and precision.
Comparing customers, as in conventional marketing, with patients is often incorrect for several reasons.
Firstly, unlike clients in other types of business , people turn to medical clinics driven by fear for their health, and sometimes even their lives. Agree, their motivation is fundamentally different from the requirements of a picky customer who, for example, chooses a new TV and compares prices for it in different stores.
In medicine, patients are forced to trust doctors because of the limited conditions for choosing a clinic due to their own incompetence. And the high authority of the doctor and the clinic, formed, including by marketing methods, significantly influences the decisive choice and the treatment process itself (the more the patient trusts the doctor, the easier the unpleasant process goes).
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Of course, any business must solve a customer's problem or satisfy a need – many marketers will exclaim. However, in the medical business, one cannot resort to any means to restore a person's health – there are clear medical standards, treatment protocols in specific situations. And the doctor cannot deviate from them even under the temptation of easy and quick results.
Besides, if in another type of business an incorrectly constructed development strategy will cost, at most, money and customers, then in medicine an incorrectly diagnosed diagnosis or treatment regimen – health and life. Quite a different level of values, isn't it?
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Therefore, in no case should doctors be compared with sellers of services. He solves the problem within the framework clearly defined by medical regulations. And if he consistently does it successfully and efficiently, then his job itself – already an advertisement for the clinic, since word of mouth in medicine has always been (and remains) the engine of progress.
How to build a medical marketing strategy
Many modern experts believe that medical marketing of the XXI century should be directed, first of all, to active and conscious prevention, and not to "putting out fires". Accordingly, representatives of any clinic should think about the introduction of just this kind of service, in addition to the usual spectrum.
An analysis of competitors in the market will still have to be carried out – to build a development strategy, even in medical marketing, without this foundation, nowhere. Only by taking into account the mistakes of others and adopting successful "chips", you can build a strategy for effectively promoting your own clinic.
Most likely, you will have not one marketing strategy, but at least two – improvement of services and economic development of the institution.
Service improvements may include:
- Delimitation of competition. That is, you need to come up with "chips" that will distinguish your clinic from competing institutions. This can be a flexible system of discounts, a special approach to service, unique promotions, a highly specialized service that is not provided anywhere else but your clinic, etc.
- Improving the quality of medical care in the clinic. Here we can not do without constant advanced training of doctors and timely maintenance and updating of equipment in the institution.
- Improving the quality of patient care in the clinic. Attention to every detail – a guarantee of the high reputation of the clinic, which will subsequently work for you.
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Analysis of the market situation will help to develop a strategy for the economic development of the clinic.
It can include:
- Entering a new market. This item can be interpreted broadly – from the opening of a new clinic in a neighboring region to the introduction of innovative services for the market. In any case, this process has certain risks (in the case of opening a new center - considerable risks) and is costly. But with the right approach, "going beyond the comfort zone" will pay off.
- Expansion of the range of services provided – this is a classic of the genre that does not need additional comments.
- Collaboration with other medical centers and doctors. Of course, there is no point in cooperating with direct competitors.
Here we are talking about uniting with related structures or specialists, cooperation with which will be mutually beneficial. For example, the benefits of collaboration between a plastic surgeon and a psychologist who can consult patients in an aesthetic medicine clinic are obvious.
When building your own medical marketing strategy, remember to set realistic, achievable, specific goals, breaking them down into small steps and putting down dates for the expected achievement. And, of course, in the process of implementing the strategy, you should always monitor intermediate results in parallel so that, if necessary, you have time to correct the plan before you incur big losses.
And remember the main thing: the one who does nothing is not mistaken. Don't be afraid of mistakes – be afraid of inaction!
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