Health Services Marketing (eBook)

Richard K. Thomas is Vice President of the Health Management Associates, Memphis, TN. He is also Associate Professor at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center. Thomas has authored a recent academic treatment of marketing and healthcare: Marketing Health Services (2004, Health Administration Press). He is also author of Health Communication and several other books on health administration published by Springer.

Preface 5
Contents 7
Introduction to Healthcare Marketing 12
What Marketing Is and Isn’t 12
Why Marketing is the Hardest Job in Healthcare 13
Why Marketing is the Best Job in Healthcare 13
Who Should Market? 15
Why Healthcare is Different 15
Why Healthcare Marketing is Different 17
Justifications for Healthcare Marketing 19
The Basics of Marketing 22
Basic Concepts 22
“Levels” of Marketing 24
The Nature of Healthcare Products 25
Healthcare Consumers and Other Target Audiences 27
The Four Ps of Marketing 29
The Marketing Process 32
Steps in the Process 32
Implementing the Marketing Campaign 38
Marketing Research 42
The Importance of Research 42
When to Do Marketing Research 42
Data Dimensions in Marketing Research 43
Dimensions of Marketing Research 48
Sources of Data 48
Profiling the Market 52
Primary Research 54
Sources of Data 58
Marketing Planning 63
Planning for Marketing 63
The Marketing Planning Process 65
Implementing the Marketing Plan 72
Evaluating the Marketing Plan 75
Healthcare Products and Customers 76
Products and Customers 76
The Product Mix 77
Elective and Nonelective Procedures 77
Packaging the Product 79
Healthcare Customers 81
Segmenting Healthcare Customers 88
Paying the Marketing Freight 92
Marketing “Sticker Shock” 92
Marketing as an Investment 93
Rethinking Marketing Costs 94
Marketing Expenditures in Healthcare 94
Paying for Marketing Expertise 95
Investing in Marketing Resources 97
Getting the Most Bang for the Buck 98
Reference 101
Market Positioning and Strategy Development 102
Positioning the Organization 102
Determining Your Position 104
Strategy Development 105
Strategic Options 106
Strategy and the Four Ps 109
Choosing Among Promotional Options 113
Promotion: The Business End of Marketing 113
Standard Promotional Techniques 114
Selecting Among Media Options 121
Criteria for Selecting Promotional Techniques 126
Social Marketing 129
What is Social Marketing? 129
The Four P’s and Social Marketing 130
Steps in the Social Marketing Process 131
Health Communication 133
References 136
The New Healthcare Marketing 137
Trends Driving the New Marketing 137
Emerging Marketing Techniques 138
Limitations to Contemporary Marketing Techniques 145
Measuring the Effectiveness of Marketing 148
What is Evaluation and Why is it Important? 148
Why It’s Harder in Healthcare 149
Misconceptions About Evaluation 150
Types of Evaluation 151
Cost Analysis 154
Collecting Evaluation Data 158
How to Be a Healthcare Marketing “Hero” 162
The Effective Healthcare Marketer Should… 162
Index 167