Ratan Jalan, Founder and Prinicipal Consultant, Medium Healthcare conducted a one-day marketing masterclass in Bengaluru recently with the stated objective that ‘marketing is all about topline and bottomline’. On whether we should market healthcare, most of the participants agreed on the same.
The session began with an understanding of the 4Ps of marketing- Product, Price Promotion and Place. To help the participants relate to this concept and bring in fresh perspective, a case study on Nano formed a part of the first opening session on marketing, essentially talking about the reasons for the not so successful Nano case study.
Product branding and pricing
A session focussed on how critical it is to understand product attributes and positioning. Positioning is all about some of the fundamental attributes of the business model, which would differentiate it from others and which have an inherent service delivery model built into it. Indigo for instance, is positioned as an on time carrier. This attribute is the key differentiator of the model, a promise that is delivered across the organisation. In healthcare, most of the providers talk about care and compassion which is hardly reflected in the overall service delivery and which is quite subjective. Some of the newer hospitals project themselves as a ‘new dimension in healthcare’ or ‘redefining healthcare’ which to a consumer practically means nothing. As per Jim Collins, ‘Positioning is all about what you decide not to do’. It starts with identifying an opportunity area and creating a precise solution for it. The opportunity area could be anything – right from a specialisation to a softer aspect such as patient centricity.
Brand is not a logo or a colour, but a promise the firm makes to the customers. It is formed by what the firm does rather than what it says. Finally, the session talked about pricing and creating value to the patients in a healthcare facility. It is about managing costs, managing perceptions and creating value surplus.
Public relations
Another session focussed on Narayana Hrudyalaya as a case study and the way it has built credibility over time apart from establishing its reputation. This session discussed at length on the seven tenets of the PR strategy, starting all the way from determining a theme, deciding the face, staying consistent, building credibility, choosing the right media and the right language and creating a story. Managing and handling crisis at healthcare facilities was discussed with the participants taking the fire incident at AMRI hospital, Kolkata into account. Finally it is about leveraging opportunities in the right sense. Case in point could be the Uttarakhand example. None of the organised healthcare providers came forward to help people in the state during need. Had someone looked at this as an opportunity to help people, build relations and establish credibility in the market, it would have meant a lot for everyone
Advertising
The session on advertised gave insights on how any advertising essentially starts with the communication objective of the provider and the target segment for the intended communication. The communication message should be specific, credible, engaging and more importantly, simple to understand. In today’s context, a lot of people talk about revolutionary technologies, for instance ‘CyberKnife’ or ‘The world’s first non invasive whole body robotic radiosurgery system’ which the patient does not even understand. It should be kept in mind that a good ad and a bad ad cost the same. It is for the hospital to think of an ad, which people could relate to. Setting communication budgets and evaluating media options is critical to the success of any marketing campaign, depending on the nature of the hospital. A television commercial for instance may work better in a high-involved category, which has a severe compromise on life for instance an obesity facility rather than an outdoor. A careful evaluation of shelf life of the ad is also critical. For instance a print ad in a leading newspaper could be expensive with a shelf life of a single day.
Sales force effectiveness
This session was on how pertinent it is to understand the question: ‘whom to sell’. Selling to everyone never yields expected results. A hospital targetted towards relatively underprivileged segment of the population would need to target patients covered under government health insurance schemes whereas a hospital for relatively affluent people need not necessarily worry about insurance patients. Another area which more often than not has always been compromised is the quality of sales team. Unfortunately the only topic, which is invariably discussed, is the contacts with physicians and the compensation. Issues such as domain/product knowledge, or even questions like ‘how to sell’ are never discussed. Further, the performance-based incentives are far too less than the actual contribution by value by the sales team. Last but not the least, monitoring productivity is invariably linked to the conversion of cases by number. Contrary to this, productivity is measured on different parameters such as Productivity cannot be just measured on the increase in footfalls, it is measured on different parameters, for instance, Increase in number of cases from the target group, Leakage of cases, Increase in the number of high margin cases and new relationships developed and market potential of these relationships
 |
Social media
Healthcare as a sector is largely driven by ‘word of mouth’ which is nothing but conversations. Taking the logic further, Social media is all about conversations. In fact a closer look at Facebook would show communities such as pregnancy, infertility, obesity, osteoarthritis, asthma among others where patients continuously engage with each other. However just creating a Facebook profile does not serve any purpose. Hospitals could target patients based on the user info. It could be age, gender, geography, work, education, common interests or some support groups. For instance, a birthing facility could customise the Facebook search to married women who attend prenatal yoga or who stay in a specific locality. Unlike other marketing activities, social media activities and platforms such as Facebook do not involve exorbitant spending and can be monitored precisely. However, it has to be highly involved relationship with the hospital. Finally contrary to the common perception, negative comments are a blessing in disguise. They help the hospital understand their problems and to help patients who have complaints about any service.
| Quote Unquote |
| “Healthcare industry suffers from an institutionalised myth that long gestation period for a hospital is inevitable. Mr Jalan firmly believes that this is largely a consequence of lack of strategic focus while deciding what the product should be and also inadequate and delayed marketing.”
– Ratan Jalan, Founder, Medium Healthcare “People often get misled by their over-simplified notions about synergy and, in the process, lose the focus. Companies, which ignore ‘the factor, which got them the success in the first place’ usually suffer and then, a long time to recover the lost ground.” – Prof Mithileshwar Jha, Professor of Marketing, IIM, Bangalore The hospital needs to proactively engage media during the good times in creative goodwill for the institution. Credit points earned during the good period’ can really help, when you get into a crisis situation. McDonald’s, as an example, handles the PR being in a sensitive business like food & beverages and a somewhat hostile environment faced by MNCs. – Dilip Yadav, Deputy Managing Director, Weber Shandwick “The sessions made me realize that marketing healthcare and hospitals is much more than sales and referral network. We identified with a lot of case studies presented during the session and realise that we need to think beyond the obvious” – Tarun K, promoter of a leading multispecialty hospital in Andhra Pradesh “The contents of the MasterClass were very well structured and relevant to the current marketing challenges. The session on Digital and Social media, in particular, I am sure will help me immensely in marketing my facility” – Dr Lalita Delima, Head – Medical Services, Fortis Hospital “The simple and effective two way communication” – Raghvendra Bagla. MediCounsel “The way the things were explained was excellent” – Divya Jain, MediCounsel “Excellent use of examples to explain concepts” – Praveen Venkatagiri, NCRI “I liked the fact that it was interactive and the points were communicated quite clearly.” – Nikhil Poddar, Iris Hospital “Very Contextual and Relevant. Marketeers always talk about target group focus, I think this masterclass achieved just that!” – Zeeshan Basu, Columbia Asia Hospitals |
- Advertisement -