Question

. Describe two marketing challenges and two marketing opportunities that particularly impact public health organizations.

Answer 1

Social marketing offers a planning tool based on the use of marketing research to define targets,specific desired behavioral outcomes, an increase in benefits that reinforce self interest, and a way to decrease the barriers that inhibit behavior. Commercial marketers are adamant about focus-
ing on behavior, on setting specific goals, and on measuring results. These can offer potentially major contributionsto a public health practice, which often neglects each of these. Marketing works as a result of listening carefully to what consumers say, but too often public health efforts are
paternalistic in telling consumers what they ought to do,ratherthan first listening to what people want for themselves.The marketing model can work well in combination with the epidemiologic model of public health. While epidemiologic research is well suited to defining health problems and broad classes of affected people,
marketing research provides insights on how the environment needs to be changed so that behavior can follow. While epidemiologic research gives insight to a top-down model of soliciting behavior, marketing research gives insights for a bottom-up participative perspective.
The current definition of marketing is based on creating, communicating, and delivering value to the target while developing long-term relationships. Creating deals with the development of desired benefits; delivering concerns the reduction of the barriers that keep people from behaving; communicating concerns informing and persuading in the in-
terests of motivating behavior.

Challenges include:

1. Rapid Changes in Healthcare Marketing
   Traditional marketing in healthcare is rapidly being pushed aside by inbound marketing tactics like blogging and social media. It is the major challenge that a public health organization facing.
2. Targeting the Hospital’s Prime Audience
   Buyer personals help healthcare marketers to make the critical connection with the hospital’s targeted community. Use this free, online template and instructions for developing these personas to ensure that your efforts are actually meeting the needs of your patients.