Current Scenario of Marketing for Hospitals

I was sitting in a meeting with the MD of a Hospital, he was trying to figure out why his marketing strategy for attracting patients not working. 

This is not something new today in our healthcare industry, but why today specifically it made me think a lot about it was the fact that even though the MD was so concerned about marketing , his marketing manager was clueless what he is suppose to do, he was just having one point:

"sir give me funds i will do some camps and marketing activities" 

True for marketing anyone need fund, but does only fund the main driving source of marketing ??? 

Looks like they have forgotten that unless u have a fixed calculated plan even for marketing then only you can utilize the funds properly.

Crafting any hospital marketing plan is a near-impossible task. The principal challenge is to satisfy the numerous and diverse internal demands, and to do so with finite (often shrinking) resources.

It needs to be a cohesive and coordinated plan that effectively reaches various audiences and serves or supports a range of service lines in a variety of service areas.

What’s more, there are the needs, interests and influences of—and the consensus among—internal voices of administrators, directors, medical staff, employees and many others.

Moreover the hospital can see themselves as a single unit , but from patient point of view they just think about the specific department they need let it be Orthopedic, Neuro, Cardio, Nephro, Dental,ENT, Opthal etc. So it become important that the marketing department keep this in mind and give equal importance to all departments.

Forgot to mention patient experience/satisfaction, institution branding and messaging, professional reputation, wellness initiatives, community relations, cultural imperatives and government regulations 

Looks like its not gonna be a easy task for any one to just put funds and achieve all without a proper planning.

A marketing plan is a strategic document
to achieve specific business goals and objectives
over a specific time period.

The critical elements of a hospital marketing plan are :

• Target Marketing – Establishing Target Customers
• Competition Analysis
• (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats)SWOT Analysis 
• SMART Goals
• Strategies and Tactics
• Marketing Budgets
• Marketing System

With so many If's & But's its really difficult to please everyone and that is one of the main reasons that most of the CEO/COO do not trust the marketing team.

80 percent of CEOs believe that “marketers are too disconnected from the short-, medium- and long-term financial realities of companies.

“And that’s because 78 percent of these CEOs think marketers too often lose sight of what the real job is: to generate more customer demand for their products/services in a business-quantifiable and business-measurable way.”

The real scoreboard of success is to create a marketing plan that is carefully aligned with — your hospital’s business objectives.

Even the TOP MANAGEMENT should keep in mind that unrealistic targets to marketing guys will just lead to over stress to them and loss to organisation, as these marketing people will be always under pressure of performing and achieving number which tend them to deviate from the plans and strategies and ultimately loss for organisation on long term. 

So to sum up what can be said is that yes marketing is important but a planned one which has the support of top management and not just the money game that you throw money without a plan and u will get results.