TARGETED MARKETING IN HEALTHCARE

Recognizing & classifying a target market by the marketing leaders of a healthcare centre is fundamental in putting the hospital brand within the accurate market segment with high sales conversion possibilities; it helps the hospital to explore and develop decent marketing communication plans. The target market segment always refers to a group of people having related desires, demands or characteristics that the hospital hopes to translate into a customer. The identified group are forecasted to be the highest sales conversion potential chances. At a glance, an effective marketing strategy won’t initiate any campaign by talking to public at large; a ‘short-gun approach with unmeasurable conversion success. Imprecise and universal marketing content are having less possibility to create impression and purchase intention from the audiences compared to targeted, precise, straight message and this is why targeting in marketing is so significant in achieving the hospital’s desired objectives.

Targeted market initiatives or plans always been perceived as a strategic approach in classifying a huge market and categorised it into few smaller sections and to focus each group within their uniqueness. It defines a segment of customers based on their inimitable features and focuses solely on serving their needs and demand. Instead of trying to reach an entire market, a brand uses target marketing to put their energy into connecting with a specific, defined group within that market. There are four most common market segment categories for each hospital’s marketing leader to consider and look into prior to initiating any specific campaign. Those are:

1. Demographic segmentation; Segments that based on factors of age group, gender category, education background, marital status, race, religion, and others.
2. Psychographic segmentation; Segments that relates to the common community values, beliefs, interests, personality, lifestyle and others. It divides the market according to what they believe, feel, and or think. For an healthcare centre, being able to target a person with a marketing campaign that is tailored to what they believe, what they like, or what they are passionate about increases the opportunity for a positive reaction to the hospital services or product being push to the targeted market. Positive responses to marketing campaigns have the potential to translate into sales and engagement with the business
3. Behavioral segmentation; segments that referring to the purchasing power hint or spending habits, common community status, brand interactions and awareness and others.
4. Geographical segmentation; segment that been created based on neighborhood or locality, city, region, country or even specific needs of a specific continent. This could often involve a radius around the business, locating the customers that live and work closest to the hospital.

Each healthcare player, the hospital management and the marketing frontrunner should leverage each business segmentation by taking into consideration of every detail of segment’s uniqueness in putting a product, campaign or brand positioning with the desire of getting a huge positive return of investment in stipulated period. The tiniest detail such as choices of language to be used or choices of color for the product’s promo materials might be the reason for a successful marketing campaign. Through market segmentation, brands get more specific about their target market. They can focus on a small group of customers who will be most likely to benefit from and enjoy their products and resulted to enhanced brand exposure and visibility.

On the other hand, Social media such as Facebook has made targeted marketing easier and more accessible for hospitals by providing businesses with incredibly detailed and segmented demographic information on a familiar platform. Social media platforms give the hospital ability to easily implement targeted marketing campaigns by enabling them to sort through all of the registered users to the platform, using a variety of available demographic, geographic, psychological, and behavioral data. Hence, almost every tools and info needed by the marketing leader to initiate a successful targeted marketing is just a click away! It’s the matter of the hospital’s market sensitivity, preferred objective and the motivation to be the market leader.

‘In marketing, if you’re trying to talk to everybody, you’re not reaching anybody’

Faizuddin Yusof

Marketing Manager

KPJ Klang Specialist Hospital