HEALTH CARE MARKETING MIX

Health Care Marketing Mix

Health Care Marketing Mix

Introduction

Marketing is the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion, and distribution of ideas, goods, and services to create exchanges that will satisfy individual and organizational objectives. Marketing is about connecting with customers, serving the needs of society, and accomplishing the goals of the organization. Through customer satisfaction marketing creates the customer loyalty necessary to reach an organization's objectives. Marketing works by creating valuable exchanges that provide utility (Peter and Donnely 2001). The marketing strategy process has four steps - situation analysis, targeting, positioning, and marketing mix decisions. By blending the marketing mix (product, price, promotion, and place) marketing decisions are made to support the positioning strategy.

Discussion

Marketing is a vital part of any business and is an integral component of selling any product. Whether the business is a small mom and pop operation or a world leader, marketing is a part of the business. Because there are many ways to fulfill the needs of the customer, a straight-forward approach is to consider the four "Ps" of the marketing mix. This paper will examine the marketing mix and give examples of the marketing mix as it pertains to Southwest Health care.

The four elements of the marketing mix are product, place, promotion and price. Product is the good or service sold to satisfy a customer's needs. Place involves all of the decisions required to make the product or service available in the target market, or customers, place. Promotion is the process of informing the target market of the product. Finally, the fourth element of the marketing mix is price. Price setting includes components such as analysis of price setting by the competition as well as analysis regarding acceptance or rejection of prices by the identified market (Anderson and Julian 2000).

The United States health care industry is very competitive. Following the attacks on September 11th, there have been several health care that have gone out of business or have filed bankruptcy. Southwest Health care has been able to stay in business and out of bankruptcy, "southwest Health care is the only major health care to be profitable for the past 20 years" (Perreault & McCarthy 2004). This level of success has been achieved in part because of their tremendous marketing efforts. Southwest Health care is an health care with a creative marketing department.

The health care industry in the United States has seen many changes in the past years. In the early days of health issue, only the wealthy could afford to fly. Flying to a destination was a luxury and not a part of everyday life. Today there is a wide variety of health care and appeals to a wide variety of patients. Southwest Health care distinguishes its products and services from the competition through its marketing campaigns. The Dallas-based health care carved its niche in short-haul flights with low prices, reliable service, and a healthy sense of humor (Timmons 2004). This humor is a major theme in the marketing ...