The 4Ps of Marketing
| 4Ps | Description | Describe the marketing strategy that applies to this element. |
| Product | Mental health service provision offered at UMC, ranging from a dedicated psychiatric department and mental health professionals to an established community hotline call center specialized in mental health needs. There is a severe shortage of inpatient care for patient with mental illnesses in the community leading a public health crisis. With the disappearance of long-term care facilities and psychiatric beds since in the last 10-15 years, there is a significant need and demand for such facilities and services offered (Raphelson, 2017). As an innovative and high-quality medical facility, UMC can develop a program and facilities to serve as a regional center for mental health and psychiatric illnesses. Using its technological and research capacities, UMC can combine modern technologies and techniques in devising new treatments and methods that would not be possible in stand-alone psychiatric hospitals. | The marketing strategy most fitting would be filling in a gap in the market. As mentioned, there is a significant deficit of dedicated inpatient mental-health facilities in the U.S. There is expected demand as 3.4% or 8 million people suffer from serious psychological issues, with the number only increasing post-pandemic (Raphelson, 2017). Another market which is rapidly developing and where UMC could be a leading service provider, is the use of technology for both self-management and inpatient treatment of mental health issues. Everything from mobile health apps to complex studies of the brain is technology-based and can lead to improve outcomes for many patients (Anthes, 2016). By taking advantage of rapidly developing technology, and adding the science to it (which has traditionally struggled behind technological innovation), UPC can fill a vital market gap for healthcare provision regionally and nationally. |
| Price | Similar to its traditional and more innovative healthcare services, UMC will maintain the approach of accessibility to as many patients as possible. The program will work with patients and families individually to determine the pricing. Given the lack of insurance coverage for many mental health services, it is possible that UMC will have to subsidize many spots. Therefore, pricing will be with the realm of reason and accessibility, but likely that the patient spots will be limited at first. | The marketing strategy used here is accessibility combined with scarcity. UMC seeks to be a community integrated hospital with a good reputation. It strives to be accessible to the general population despite its highly expensive and innovative services. This creates a sense of relatability for the organization, drawing in consumers. At the same time, it is using the concept of scarcity, due to the limited spots available. Scarcity is a commonly utilized market technique which can generate interest and the market performance of the offered service. Scarcity-based strategies are effective if marketed appropriately and those who are interested eventually do have an opportunity to participate (Shi et al., 2020). |
| Place | Mental health services and treatment will be offered either inpatient at the UMC campus or virtually through telehealth when appropriate. It is likely that UMC would strive to do both, studying serious cases in-house while contributing to mental health treatments remotely in less severe cases, particularly in the context of the pandemic. UMC campus is extensive, holding the available facilities as well as technologies necessary. It is also a well-developed, central, and publicly known location. In addition to mental-health illnesses, the patients may receive help with other co-morbidities if necessary. There are facilities for patients and families as well as a highly developed infrastructure to offer all these services to the regional population. | The best fitting marketing strategy here is convenience. There are multiple elements of convenience of maintaining the new program and services in the central UMC campus. These include the central regional location, developed urban, housing, and transportation infrastructure. The availability of space, funding, and technology necessary at the UMC campus as well as a range of other beneficial factors in terms of healthcare promotion, provision, and research |
| Promotion | Marketing the new mental health services and inpatient facilities offered by UMC would have to be highly targeted. It would be a combination of social media, public advertising, and highly specialized marketing towards mental health-related organizations, website, and professionals that can refer patients to UNC. Some of the marketing, such as on social media can be broad, simply announcing the addition of these services and making it available through major platform and search engine searches. However, targeted advertising of this nature will have to require collaboration with organizations both nonprofits and paid specialists in mental health that can direct patients towards UMC services. It is important to target those patients and family members that are actively seeking medical help for their problems to generate the biggest return from a marketing perspective. | This marketing strategy is known as targeted advertising. It is a well-known and sensible strategy necessary to match the service or product which is offered to the consumer that is needing it or may be interested in it. The principle applies to anything, even a relatively abstract concept such as innovative healthcare mental health services and treatment. Using popular online and social media platforms, there are widely available tools for targeted advertising using specific themes, keywords, and necessary demographics (Choi et al., 2017). Attracting and recruiting patients is easier if marketing professional utilize the targeting schematics, increasing the likelihood that those who are need of these services and are within the serving area of UMC, will be likely to respond. |
References
Anthes, E. (2016). Mental health: There’s an app for that. Nature, 532, 20-23. Web.
Choi, I., Milne, D. N., Glozier, N., Peters, D., Harvey, S. B., & Calvo, R. A. (2017). Using different Facebook advertisements to recruit men for an online mental health study: Engagement and selection bias. Internet Interventions, 8, 27–34. Web.
Raphelson, S. (2017). How the loss of U.S. psychiatric hospitals led to a mental health crisis. NPR. Web.
Shi, X., Li, F., & Chumnumpan, P. (2020). The use of product scarcity in marketing. European Journal of Marketing, 54(2), 380–418. Web.