Scarlet Hospital Offensive Marketing Plan

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Table of Contents

Current Marketing Situation
Opportunity and Issue Analysis
Objectives of Offensive Marketing Plan
Marketing Strategy
Action Programs
Financial Projections
Implementation Controls
References

Current Marketing Situation

As evidenced in chapter 32, Stopping Outshopping, Scarlet Hospital is considering the option of taking on its main rivals from Salem’s large metropolis merge. The hospitals CEO, Timothy Rogers, convened a meeting with senior management with the aim of assessing and making necessary improvements to its marketing plan (Fortenberry, 2014). At the end of the meeting, the team adopted defensive marketing techniques to help protect Scarlet’s market share before the highway is completed. Based on market research, the executive team is aware of the impact the competitors’ marketing strategies may have on its long-term patients. Fortenberry (2014) further notes that although marketers cannot control their competitors, they can still monitor closely there as well as focus on addressing emerging issues. From this, it is clear that the hospital is ready to compete aggressively because it has been providing high quality and safe patient care. Therefore, by competing aggressively, Scarlet hospital will manage to keep its market share since it is in a better position to provide high quality serves to patients in Walnut Grove compared other dispensaries within Salem.

Opportunity and Issue Analysis

Scarlet’s current marketing plan revolves around the impact of the already-adopted billboards and radio commercials. The billboards were strategically placed in Walnut Groove to ensure its clientele is aware of the quality of services they should expect from Scarlet Hospital. Similarly, these billboards helps ensure current and potential consumers understand the hospital’s presence and commitment to provide high quality and safe patient care (Elrod and Fortenberry, 2017). This means that the hospital cannot consider the option of introducing more billboards and radio commercials – they are less impactful at the moment. Therefore, the hospital should consider the option of implementing more aggressive marketing techniques to maintain current patients and, at the same time, gain new ones. In other words, Scarlet hospital should focus on other modes of communication as well as improve its marketing mix – this will help reduce outshopping.

Objectives of Offensive Marketing Plan

Organizations are increasingly considering the option of implementing offensive marketing plan to achieve specific objective. In the case of Scarlet Hospital, its objective is to gain market share from a target competitor. Heriyati et al. (2021) noted that offensive market could be adopted to obtain key customers. Scarlet’s decision to create an offensive marketing plan will help ensure gain a competitive advantage over rivals in Walnut Grove. The authors further argue that having an effective plan is critical to acquiring new customers, especially in more dynamic industries such as healthcare (Heriyati et al., 2021). It is necessary for Scarlet to focus on techniques such as market penetration and market development in order to achieve the desired outcome. The former will require Scarlet to improve quality of services offered by providing extensive training to its employees as well as encouraging individualized care. As for market development, Scarlet Hospital should consider introducing new services such as outpatient centers pharmacies that operate for 24 hours, telehealth and transportation services.

Marketing Strategy

Healthcare organizations must recognize the need to provide high quality and cost-effective treatment to patients. Today, many organizations are shifting their focus to providing acceptable treatment options at a pocket-friendly cost. Similarly, leaders within the healthcare industry are adopting new measures aimed at improving the quality of care, enhancing employee morale as well as creating value to organizations. Scarlet Hospital’s journey to meeting the needs of consumers should start with conducting market research on its competitors and making necessary changes (Nyukorong, 2017). This will be followed with an in-depth review of patient culture and administrative functions. The findings should then guide the hospital in creating a baseline for patient outcomes. Another step involves the creation of specific goals that align with the vision, mission and values of the organization.

In line with the above, the facility should include value-added services, upgrade processes and redesign workflow as part of its overall innovation strategy. According to Zayas-Cabán et al. (2021), redesigning workflow “allows secure electronic direct messaging among clinicians and between clinicians” (p. 681). This will help improve its competitive advantage by reducing patient appointment requests as well as improve chronic disease management. The deployment of value-added services is the best option for the organization to gain more its successes in healthcare. Furthermore, the distribution of more billboards and redesigning of website will help improve both communication and brand image. The website will be used to allow patients to access their electronic medical records – this helps reduce medical errors as well as improve patient care. Electronic medical records are a critical requirement especially since the facility is considering the option of expanding to cover more patients.

Action Programs

The recent expansion of the Salem Road to a four lane poses a huge risk to Scarlet Hospital’s ability to retain its clients. The road will contribute a lot to the reduction of commuting time and, at the same time, increase accessibility to healthcare services. To eschew losing clients, the hospital should focus more on expanding its physical infrastructure to accommodate more patients – the current capacity can easily be filled by community patients. Another action plan is to improve the quality of services by emphasizing more on patient-centered care. Lastly offensive marketing plan will help the facility identify areas of weaknesses of its competitors.

Financial Projections

The hospital, in an effort to improve the quality of healthcare services as per its offensive marketing plan, will require additional funds. Therefore, the central financial projections relate to increasing both the operational and payroll costs. Besides this, there will be an increase in revenue due to expected large consumer base than its current patient population. This increase is attributed to improved market share and offensive marketing plan.

Implementation Controls

Implementation controls play an important role of guiding the execution of the strategy. In essence, the implementation controls targeting Scarlet include reviewing the plan established by the marketing team to meet the needs of the organization. More specifically, the team must adopt effective communication channels to help maintain accuracy in information. Also since the facility’s intention is to increase capacity, it must organize a hiring process that lasts for two months followed by a six-month mandatory training program for all new employees.

References

Elrod, J. K., & Fortenberry, J. L. (2017). Billboard advertising: an avenue for communicating healthcare information and opportunities to disadvantaged populations. BMC health services research, 17(4), 23-27. Web.

Fortenberry, J. (2014). Case Health Care Marketing. London

Heriyati, P., Heruwasto, I., & Wahyuni, S. (2021). Offensive and defensive competitive marketing strategy: The development of construct & measurements. ASEAN Marketing Journal. Web.

Nyukorong, R. (2017). Conducting market research: An aid to organisational decision making. European Scientific Journal, 13(10), 1-17. Web.

Zayas-Cabán, T., Haque, S. N., & Kemper, N. (2021). Identifying opportunities for workflow automation in health care: lessons learned from other industries. Applied Clinical Informatics, 12(03), 686-697. Web.

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