Month: April 2020

MARKETING AUDIT

Healthcare in general and hospital branding & marketing in particular has as greatest of challenges these days in India.

How do you move forward in spite of the competitive environment ?

How do you minimize your advertisement budget, looking at high operational cost and low price line?

How do you shift from “High cost marketing” to “efficient marketing at low cost”?

How can we increase revenue to maintain quality care and service expansion?

How can we improvise on tracking & reporting system?

How to cope up with impact of Covid19 on Healthcare Industry?

The constant change in healthcare scenario sustainability of healthcare business is a Big challenge particularly with the challenges like increase quality maintenance cost, increase man power cost & operational costs, decreased margins over medicines & consumable products, high competition, prize / package war, professional fee sharing etc.

Hospital Branding & Marketing : It’s rarely simple or easy it`s required well planned, well calculated & well thoughtful strategy for short term and long term goal achievement. One need to plan branding & marketing strategies and tactics that increase revenue and profitability.

Solution: Start with Marketing Audit of your organization Irrespective of how well you think you’re doing, a marketing reality check / Audit is a useful tool to start with.

1. Check whether you are using evidence based marketing approach?

Does your branding & marketing planning include proven strategies, a well-designed Marketing Plan, Effective Implementation and evaluation of results? Remember the basics of marketing which start with need identification, service designing, pricing, packaging, branding, communication, advertisement, exchange of value and satisfaction of customer`s need. All these components drive the process. If you’re missing one or more you are not operating at full strength.

2. What’s the timeline of your marketing plan?

Even well planned marketing plan resulted in to failure if there is no timeline mentioned for each process in it.

3. Do you have clear, specific and measurable goals?

Branding and Marketing Plan should have clear, specific and most importantly measurable goals defined. Many of the time organization missed out one of the component while deciding the goals for the plan. One should audit the plan considering goal in mind.

4. Right Marketing Budget

There are various methodology for setting a marketing budget. How did you set your budget? Does it support marketing team to achieve goal? Does your budget sufficient for 360-degree marketing plan?

5. Does your communication clearly convey your USPs ?

In increased competition and various channels of communication you need to be very clear on communication part of your marketing plan. Check does your communication message convey it right or not? Are you communicating your USPs in right wording and thru right channel?

6. Has your marketing plan is made with 360 degree approach of communication ?

In recent ear of marketing, check whether your marketing includes all channels of communication? Does your marketing collobrating / including all stakeholders of the society ? Does your marketing reaches to all corner of the society?

7. What`s your measurement tool to measure ROI & conversion?

Often many organization don`t have a reliable tracking mechanism to track effort or result of marketing plan. Without having results measurement tool marketing cannot be completed. One should have all records such as patient source of reference, demographic details of the patients, source of influence, what make patient to choose your organization for treatment etc.

8. Just one more thing to add…

Branding and Marketing is a continuous process, if you want your organization to become marketing leader you have to continuously do marketing check and on the basis of that audit one should have to change their branding & marketing strategy on right time.

As I always says “Knowing is Knowing and Doing is Doing” so knowing that marketing budgeting, planning, reporting & auditing is very essential part of any businesses and not doing is brings great challenges in any businesses.

So .. Doing is Doing..

Building Profitable Business through world-class marketing

There are three kinds of organizations; those who make things happened; those who watch things happen; and those who wonder what`s happened.

If we do not change our direction, we are likely to end up where we are headed.

As the world spins into the challenging phase of economy, both citizen and business wonder what is ahead. There is not only change, but the rate of change is accelerating. A twelve-year old girl said of her ten year old sister, “She is of a different generation.” Her younger sister listens to difference music, plays different videos, knows different movie stars, has different heroes.

Organisation or companies often fail to recognize that their marketplace changes years to year. Last year winning marketing strategy may become today`s losing strategy. As someone observed, there are two kinds of companies: those who change and those who disappear.

Today`s economic landscape is being shaped by two powerful forces- Digitalization & Globalization. The Digitalization landscape today is dotted with new products & services offering, one would not have thought that one day world will be lockdown and everyone shall work from home, using various digital platforms. Making marketing & sales call through video calling, taking meeting through video conferencing, government will run their cabinet meetings through video conferencing digital platforms. Technology drives the second major force, globalization.

Besides digitalization & globalization, other forces are reshaping the economy e.g. deregulation, privatization, etc. As the pace of change accelerates, companies can no longer rely on their former business practices to sustain prosperity. Few point below compares business assumptions and practices that were practiced then with the one is being practiced now.

Earlier companies use to make & manage everything inside the company, Now companies buy more things from outside or outsource.

Earlier companies are product centric, now they are market and / or customer centric

Earlier practices mass marketing now practices target marketing

Earlier business was managing from top now manage up and down and across

Earlier operate in the marketplace no operate also in the marketspace

Earlier focus on the product now focus on value for the product and feedback on the product

And their earlier approaches and practices that were practiced then, which are not practiced now. Those who have not changed their business practices is locked in traditional practices.

Besides winning business practices, is there a set of winning marketing practices? Are there winning marketing practices?

Answer is Yes according to Kotler on Marketing there are nine one liner formulas of winning marketing practices.

  1. Win Through Higher Quality
  2. Win Through Better Service
  3. Win Through Lower Prices
  4. Win Through High Market Share
  5. Win Through Adaptation And Customization
  6. Win Through Continuous Product Improvement
  7. Win Through Product Innovation
  8. Win Through entering High-Growth Markets
  9. Win Through Exceeding Customer Expectations

So out of above What Constitutes a Winning Marketing Strategy?

Clearly there is no on marketing road to riches. Instead of relying on one major differentiations or thrust, a company needs to make their own unique strategy of marketing activities.

Remember Knowing is Knowing and Doing is Doing, it is not enough to do most things a little better than the competitors.  We at Trizone assist businesses to weave its own unique tapestry of marketing qualities and activities.

www.linkedin.com/company/trizone-healthcare-consultants

#Trizone #TrizoneHealthcare #HospitalMarketing #HospitalBranding #MarketingStrategy #WinningStrategy #MarketingConsultancy #MarketingConsultant

Hospital Internal Marketing

http://www.trizonehealthcare.com/

There are three kinds of organizations; those who make things happened; those who watch things happen; and those who wonder what`s happened.

If we do not change our direction, we are likely to end up where we are headed.

As the world spins into the challenging phase of economy, both citizen and business wonder what is ahead. There is not only change, but the rate of change is accelerating. A twelve-year old girl said of her ten year old sister, “She is of a different generation.” Her younger sister listens to difference music, plays different videos, knows different movie stars, has different heroes.

Organisation or companies often fail to recognize that their marketplace changes years to year. Last year winning marketing strategy may become today`s losing strategy. As someone observed, there are two kinds of companies: those who change and those who disappear.

We at Trizone always believe in Knowing is Knowing & Doing is Doing, hence we keep on inventing new strategies which really works for our healthcare clients.

In this blog you will know more about Internal Marketing & how to create brand ambassadors. In a competitive and dynamic environment, healthcare organizations need to continuously revolutionize their business practices so as to deliver better value for their patients. The healthcare sector is subject to transformation and advancement; and in order to sustain their business performance, these organizations need to be well informed about the present market trends and formulate strategies in accordance. While facing the various challenges of marketing strategy development and implementation, branding, positioning and assessment of the market and ever changing clinical demands, these organizations also has to uphold their performance amidst uncertain market behavior.

Objective:

  • Create Your Brand Ambassadors
  • Create positive attitude & ownership towards Organization
  • Engage Maximum Footfall & capture their eyeballs on your Brand
  • Cross Selling of offered services
  • Word of Mouth
  • Engagement in social media
  • Utilization of Existing workforce & footfalls to increase business

Step involved in Internal Marketing

Phase 1:

  1. Articulate Vision & Mission
  2. Gauge the existing scenario
  3. Segmentation of existing workforce
  4. Communication Plan
  5. Execution of communication Plan
  6. Internal Events
  7. Measure impact & re-planning accordingly

Phase 2:

  1. Feedback [Patient, Relative & Visitors]
  2. Cross Selling
  3. Social Media Engagement
  4. “Thanks for Trust on Us”
  5. Patient Welfare Officers /Floor Managers
  6. Delight Team
  7. In-house referral scheme
  8. Data Collection

PHASE 1:

  1. Articulate Vision & Mission

For Example: Some Hospital has following:

Vision

Striving with excellence to create world-class integrated healthcare delivery system, entailing finest medical skills to fulfill the needs of the community in its chosen field of medical treatment

Mission

To become a global healthcare institution, which encompasses latest technology and best medical practices with an emphasis on ethical principles, in a caring environment, to preserve and enrich the quality of life with a respect for human dignity

Values

Setting the best practice standards in services, continuously improving performance and exceeding the expectations of patients as well as their families.

Believe in building and maintaining long-term patient relationships, so as to become an essential resource for their well being.

We believe in:

Training and developing the best medical practices as the key to deliver superior service.

Consistently investing in technology and infrastructure to match international benchmarks.

Continuously educating the community in the context of women and children welfare

  • Gauge the existing scenario [internal Customers]:

One can do the Gap Analysis between Vision, Mission & actual practices on the basis of following parameters:

  • Ownership
  • Commitment
  • Opinion Poll
  • Word of Mouth
  • Segmentation of existing workforce:

Understand the existing Gossip centers in and Around hospital thru Identification of common gossip topics & gossip mongers, Corrective steps & policy

Healthcare organizations must have defined their SOPs for each process, It should also well communicated amongst the team members so that they will understand work segmentation and their individual roles & responsibility for the particular task. Following are the few points on which organization can do segmentation of existing workforce:

  • Understand the existing patient, relative visitors flow
  • Segmentation of workforce according to their skills & ability
  • Medical & Non Medical
  • Creation of Communication Plan:

Identification & creation of various groups & align communication strategy accordingly

In today`s world communication is very easy but at the same time right communication at right time is also very important aspect of the communication. Healthcare organizations must create their master plan for various communications. 

  • Identification of communication channels
  • Maximum utilization of Social Media Platform
  • Merchandise
  • Whatsapp Groups, Social Medias, E-mail [Education, motivation, promotions]
  • Execution of communication Plan:

To connect with internal customers effectively, organization should be more careful while executing the communication plan.

  • Work Station Posters
  • Workforce Education & Training on Who, Why, For What, When, How etc.
  • Social Media Platform
  • Merchandise
  • Whatsapp & E-mail [Education, motivation, promotions]
  • Events:

Internal events are essential for any healthcare organization, as we all know healthcare workers are in tremendous work pressure and stress, to feel them happy at work place, organizations must plan yearly event calendar for internal customers:

  • To create employee ownership & transform them in to Brand Ambassador
  • To increase synergy between internal & inter department functions
  • To increase bounding between all stake holders
  • Increase Brand ownership & loyalty
  • Events like Director`s Day, CEO`s Day etc to interact with all levels of internal customers, Team Building, Quiz, Get together, birthday celebration
  • Measure impact & re-planning accordingly:

Healthcare Organisation should measure impact periodically to understand strategy impact on business. On the basis of impact measures one should always re-plan the strategy acoordingly:

  • Feedback Overview
  • Result Overview

To measure the impact thru interview, observation, feedback, spy etc. & act accordingly

PHASE – 2:

  1. Feedback [Patient, Relative & Visitors]:

In today`s healthcare organizations, many of them are practicing patient’s feedback capturing practices at various level like OPD, IPD, Billing, discharge etc. but organization must follow the right way of taking feedbacks. Few points are:

  • Who is filling it
  • Who get it filled
  • Consideration of last few experience
  • Mental Status
  • How many forms
  • Satisfaction v/s Delight
  • Follow up Action
  • Feedback Process analysis
  • Cross Selling:

Cross selling means attract existing patient or attender to avail other available facilities at hospital like health check ups, package booking, etc.

  • Cross Department Selling
  • Create service awareness
  • Brochures
  • Digital / interactive signages
  • SMS, Emailer, Posters, Merchandise
  • Promotional Scheme
  • Package Scheme
  • To engage & convert existing customers for various other offered services
  • Social Media Engagement:

In today`s world of digitalization, organization must practice tactics to connect internal & existing customers to their social media platforms:

  • Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, Linkedin, Instagram, Google+, blog etc
  • To connect with patients & Visitors
  • Free internet access to main foyer
  • Kiosk to “connect with us”
  • Membership scheme
  • “Thanks for Trust on Us”:

Once patient or attender or internal customer depart or leave the organization after availing your services, one should always greet them:

  • Message card to each patient by consultant after consultation, on discharge, during ward visit etc.
  • Carry Bag / special bag
  • Souvenir
  • Create positive bonding between patient & consultant
  • Unique way to connect with patients emotions
  • Patient Welfare Officers / Floor Managers:

Healthcare service providers have to practice like hospitality industry does for their customers, on each contact point in healthcare organization there should be someone to assist patient and attenders e.g. patient welfare officers / floor managers who take care of:

  • For coordination between doctor and patient`s relative
  • Coordination between relative and hospital administration
  • Coordination between internal and external doctors
  • Patient`s support service monitoring
  • Delight Team:

To achieve higher success in healthcare businesses one should understand customer delight and monitor delight experience of each and every customer by appointing Delight Team:

  • Patients satisfaction v/s delight experience monitoring
  • To provide customized support services to patients
  • In-house referral scheme:

As we discuss in starting internal customers are best brand ambassadors for any organization, to motivate them one should start internal referral schemes:

  • Incentive scheme for employees on patient refer by them
  • Incentive scheme for clinical team on inter department patient referral
  • ‘Health Referral” Free/discount Health Check Up coupons to existing HCP clientele
  • Data Collection:

Last but not least, organization must emphasize on data collection tools and technologies.

  • Identification of available opportunities for data collection
  • Process establishment of Data Collection
  • Periodical updation
  • Utilization of Data
  • Dala Analysis for various schemes
  • Clinical Research

Hope this article must have given you the complete knowing on Internal Marketing and how one can utilize this for their business success.

Do Remember Knowing is Knowing & Doing is Doing.

#Hospital #HospitalMarketing #HospitalBranding #InternalMarketing #HospitalInternalMarketing #HealthcareMarketing #InternalCustomers #Trizonehealthcare #TrizoneIndia #Trizone