The New Role of Healthcare Marketing
Leadership in Marketing
Marketing deals with the essentials of strategy first followed by marketing tactics. Marketing is the means of putting forward the voice of the customers and should not be just a second thought. Every future campaign and program must be market driven and not just a gut feeling. In order to be a leading marketing organization one must possess the skills associated with building an effective customer- driven or market- driven organization.
Management of Patient Experience
Hospitals mostly make the mistake of putting their operations in charge of patient experience. The discharge process itself takes 3 to 4 hours. It would be ridiculous to expect them to manage patient experience along with their previous task. Patient experience implies a thorough understanding of what a patient experiences throughout all touch points.
Patient experience requires integration across an organization both internally and externally.
The Dynamics of Demand Management
Marketing needs to take into consideration the demand of healthcare services. The demand would need to be managed. This would make sure that the hospital or the healthcare system has the right resources, in the right place, at the right time to fulfill the demand.
Having Revenue Accountability
Return on Investment (ROI) is extremely important for any marketing practice irrespective of the means i.e. traditionally, socially or online. Marketers need to generate revenue and not consume resources. Marketing should have both Profit and Loss (P&L) statistics as well as a track of Selling, General and Administrative Expenses (SG&A) for all the services being offered by a healthcare organization.
Managing the change
One of the most controversial approaches to managing the marketing role is to look inwards within an organization. Those individuals that look internally at their organizations may not have the necessary skills, training or abilities to bring about a change in the strategies of an organization. Managing the change would require people with skills and understanding keeping in mind the complete functioning of the organization.
