Use competitive marketing entry strategies to suggest the action that Briarwood Hospital should undertake to counter the messages in the new Crestview Hospital Billboard postings. Read the case study titled “Missed Opportunities”, located in the online course shell.
Write a four to six (4-6) page paper in which you:
- Examine the pros and cons from the perspective of Crestview Hospital of the placement of its new billboard directly adjacent to Briarwood Medical Center. Interpret the reaction of customers and other community stakeholders to the billboard postings.
- Use competitive marketing entry strategies to suggest the action that Briarwood Hospital should undertake to counter the messages in the new Crestview Hospital Billboard postings.
- Recommend the marketing communication strategy or strategies that both Crestview and Briarwood Hospitals should employ. Justify why the Governing Board of both hospitals should take a proactive role in promoting and implementing effective marketing strategies.
- Assess the value of the various marketing research tool(s) that Briarwood and Crestview hospital could use to promote effective marketing communication strategies. Justify your response.
- Use at least five (5) quality academic resources. Note: Wikipedia and other Websites do not qualify as academic resources.
Missed Opportunities Case Study – Briarwood Hospital Countering Messages in the new Crestview Hospital Billboard Postings
Introduction
This paper examines the marketing strategies that Briarwood Medical Center should implement in order to maintain its market share as far as medical business is concerned in Oakland. In the course of this examination, the paper, also, analyzes the pros and cons in the perspective of Crestview Hospital of the placement of its new billboard next to Briarwood Medical Center. It is worth noting that marketing a medical facility is significant in a number of ways: it assists the medical center to expand its market share, and create a balance in the changing patient mix (Berkowitz, 2010). It builds the volume of patients, and this is essential in order to make additions of new physicians. It helps the medical facility to lower reimbursements. It necessitates the general improvement of patient care. Finally, it leads to the creations of new offices or branches of the facility in various regions (Berkowitz, 2010). Besides, it is worth noting that patients in the current times demand the best quality medical care, high level of satisfaction and timely services. This is because of the incredible changes that have occurred in the medical industry for the past three decades (Kotler, 2008). Medical facilities, therefore, no longer require relaxing and waiting for clients (patients) to come to them; instead, they need to look for them.
Pros and cons
Crestview Hospital enjoys several benefits for placing its billboards next to Briarwood Medical Center. The first one is that, since Briarwood Medical Center has been operating for more than seventy five years, it means that it has a long history of serving patients in Oakland and, therefore, has a large number of clients. The new billboards placed next to it by Crestview Hospital will divert the attention of many of its clients to the upcoming and equally competitive facility. Since it is human behaviour to want to try a new thing, Crestview Hospital will experience a high influx of patients following its placement of the billboards. The second advantage is that the billboards are informative enough to the patients; it allows them to know the kinds of services offered by Crestview Hospital, therefore, making it easy for them to make patronage decisions (Kotler, 2008). The third advantage is that the medical facilities are in close proximity of less than two miles away from each other; therefore, this will make it easy for patients to access Crestview Hospital. The fourth advantage is that the absence of Briarwood Medical Center’s billboards may create an impression to the clients that it might be closing its operations. This creates an upper hand for Crestview Hospital since its billboards will direct most clients to it.
However, there are various cons associated with Crestview Hospital’s billboards. The placement of the billboards next to Briarwood Medical Center might indicate an impression of unfair competition to some clients by Crestview Hospital. The second disadvantage is that, since Crestview Hospital works for profit, only a few wealthy clients will be willing to pay high charges for the same services they can easily obtain from Briarwood Medical Center. The third disadvantage is that most patients, especially the ones in critical conditions, may not be willing to cover another two miles to Crestview Hospital for treatment when they can obtain the same attention in Briarwood Medical Center.
Competitive Marketing Strategies
Employment of competitive marketing strategies by Briarwood Medical Center is an undertaking that should call for a holistic examination of the institutions vision and mission. Besides, such strategies can only become functionally effective if all other departments of the medical facility work hand in hand with Susan’s marketing department. In this case, the strategy should be to erect a billboard in the premises of Briarwood Medical Center to inform clients about their services. This should happen after consulting the facilities governing board for permission. The writings or the tag line on Briarwood’s billboard should be excellent enough to dilute the impression created by Crestview’s tagline ‘The Best Medical Care in Oakland’. The billboard belonging to Briarwood should bear the tagline such as ‘Historic Medical Care with the most Experienced Physicians in Oakland.’ The board should, also, instruct the management of Briarwood Medical Center to erect billboards in various parts of Oakland. This is significant in the sense that it would assist the medical facility to sell its brand to as many people as possible.
The Briarwood’s governing board should, also, contract the retiring Frank Miller (former Chief Executive Officer) to assist Michael Anderson (new Chief Executive Officer) to stabilize in his position before he retires completely. Besides, the management of Briarwood Medical Center should employ other methods of advertising. It can pass information to the client base through TV, radio and special occasion public gatherings. The message that should reach the client base through such advertisements should be informative about the quality medical care services that Briarwood Medical Center offers. Another action that Briarwood should take is for the governing board to consider opening new branches of the facility in various parts of Oakland. It would only be an expensive venture during the establishment, but in due course, it would remain the best strategy to serve more clients at closer distances.
Marketing Communication Strategies
Both Briarwood Medical Center and Crestview Hospital should employ effective marketing communication strategies in order to promote their brands. For instance; they should maximize and emphasize on marketing messages in which physicians appear (Kotler, 2008). This is because physicians are the most significant audience for marketers of the present times. It is true that whenever a medical facility acquires the best physicians, it is likely to attract more patients (clients) for specialized and high quality services. In turn, this would create increased level of customer satisfaction and, in the process, attach more clients to the facility. Another thing, also, is that both medical facilities require comprehending the experience of the patients, way beyond the normal survey (Blakeman, 2007).
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They should ensure that as they measure the satisfaction level among patients, they have a superior influence on the experience of the patients (clients). The governing board of both hospitals should take a proactive role in promoting and implementing effective marketing strategies because it helps in maintaining the image of the brand. Both hospital boards should never allow crisis situations to break their brands (Berkowitz, 2010). Besides, they should all promote their services through digital marketing. This will help to attract more clients even without much information.
Value of Market Research Tools
Both Briarwood Medical Center and Crestview Hospital should employ a number of market research tools in order to promote effective marketing communication strategies. They should be able conduct primary research on their own to acquire particular information regard the set of clients they hope to attract. Some of the most effective tools include focus groups, interviews, questionnaires and surveys that can assist in identifying specific information regarding the significance of price and various other features including the strength and weaknesses of the competitors (Bradley, 2010). They should, also, emphasize online and other forms of social media as a significant research tool. Online services are effective in the present times given the digital and technological advancements around the globe (Wells, 2012).
Conclusion
Marketing a medical facility is significant in a number of ways: it assists the medical center to expand its market share, and create a balance in the changing patient mix. It builds the volume of patients, and this is essential in order to make additions of new physicians. One of the advantages is that the new billboards placed next to Briarwood Medical Center by Crestview Hospital will divert the attention of many of its clients to the upcoming and equally competitive facility. The governing board of both hospitals should take a proactive role in promoting and implementing effective marketing strategies because it helps in maintaining the image of the brand. Both hospital boards should never allow crisis situations to break their brands.
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