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Marketing Research and Segmentation problem
May 28, 2012

Abstract
The health care sector is the fastest growing part of the modern economy. It is also a challenging field for the policy makers and private sector. The cost of the healthcare is on the increase every year. In recent years all the healthcare foundations are trying to focus on the consumer. I am the market representative of Dean healthcare foundation in Dane County, Madison, Wisconsin. Marketing research helps to find the consumer interest and needs and help the organization to develop the right strategy. I will discuss the research on the consumers in the area using lifestyle analysis and marketing research databases. This research will provide the information on the lifestyle profile of the neighborhood of the St Mary. St Mary Hospital

Serving South Central Wisconsin since 1912, St. Mary’s Hospital offers a wide variety of health and wellness services (“St. Mary’s Hospital”, 2011). St. Mary’s hospital is a nonprofit 501 (c) (3) organization that raises philanthropic dollars for items like these and programs that reach the heart of the communities served by St. Mary’s. St Mary foundation is governed by volunteer, uncompensated board of members (“St. Mary’s Hospital”, 2011). With 5,400 physicians and 22,000 employees (6,600 of them nurses) in four states, St. Mary is one of the largest employers in every community it serves (“St. Mary’s Hospital”, 2011). This hospital is the largest concentration of medical facilities. The hospital hosts one of the most respected emergence rooms in the whole country, on top of trauma center which is categorized as being on level one. The main street layout of the hospital provides more room that provides lodgings patients, doctors and the staff as a whole. St. Mary’s also offer services in perinatology, cardiovascular care, neurosciences and geriatrics as well as education and support groups for the community.

Demographic information
Demographics is the statistical study of population tendencies based upon market research data such as housing age and size, family size and age distribution of residents, and income (“Trade Area Demographic And Lifestyle Characteristics”, 2007). “Demographic and lifestyle characteristics are derived from a variety of public and private datasets, including ESRI Business Information Solutions (ESRI BIS) and the 2000 Decennial Census (“Trade Area Demographic And Lifestyle Characteristics”, 2007). Lifestyle profile tells how people cope with their physical, psychological, social, and economic environment. Market segmentation

Segmenting the market into manageable groups is necessary to reach to the consumers in a way that they respond back. Segmenting means you can tailor the plan to have more accomplishment. “By limiting who you are approaching and focusing on some core commonalities, you can get closer to satisfying your customers’ needs” (“Healthcare Marketing (the Basics): Market Segmentation”, 2010). There are some tradition ways to segment the market. These are geographically, demographically, and psycho-graphically. Market research might forecast demand and increase market share in a time when marketing dough need to have high impact on the consumers. Market segmentation allows organizations to target consumers who will value a particular service based on common features. The two ways St Mary hospital could segment its market.

The technique to be used during segmentation depends on several factors, like the cost, other than that of carrying out the research, but also the costs of strategy implementation. (Charlie 2010). St Mary hospital can use a priori (pre-existing) Segmentation. This is the best method of segmenting markets. Under this method, St Mary hospital will just split the market according to the already existing demographic criterion like age, sex, gender among other factors. The version that is seen to be much classy is the life stage. Segments created by a pre-existing method are defined easily as well as targeting them with advertising is also easy. A priori segmentations are very stress-free and simplest division to apply and use. However in other parts like smoking, is much difficult to associate pre-existing restrictions for segmentation. Amongst all segmentations methods, A priori segments are the simplest to use and apply. Sorting of database might be done while still on pre- existing information. The other side even the most suave versions under these segmentations, are in one way or the other crude, (Admin, 2010). Psychographic information

St Mary hospital can make use of can that psychographics. This involves attitudes, traits, thoughts as well as lifestyle to segment its markets. These personalities used are in one way or the other related to behavior. They also provide the insight into how communication is to be made to different segments. Reaching the subdivision that is selected is then the issue. This is reached by the use of large-scale single source survey. The arranged lifestyle offers inner perception of neighborhood on the St. Mary’s hospital. This is done by looking at the amount of individuals in the region who have cooperated at the time of writing the profile. Their perception will be termed optimistic, if and only if a huge number of individuals participated freely in the exercise.

The quality and accuracy of the information provided is another factor. When people are ready to provide precise information about them, then the perception is constructive and the contrary is true. Another way that shows insight perception of neighborhood from the lifestyle profile is by assessing whether the neighbors do follow given instructions. After visiting the facility, customers are given certain instructions to follow, for instance, a client might be instructed by the doctor to stop eating certain kinds of food. If neighbors are ready to follow the doctor’s descriptions, and then indicate them on the lifestyle profile, the perception is positive, while the vice versa is true, (Charlie, 2010). The information collected from demographic and psychographic ways might not be accurate. This is based on the fact that, they all depend on the information that is self-reported. In most cases, individuals give answers that they believe is most anticipated, for instance overdoing the size of their wages. In association to that, most cases, people might deceit. It is a fact that, mostly people do not provide the correct information regarding them. This is created on a quantity of reasons like being embarrassed and even confidentiality. In most cases, individuals tend to hesitant when asked to reveal their personal information. If it needs to downloads, individuals might enter inadequate data.

Conclusion

The way of living of individual and families is very important for the healthcare industry. In terms of total population growth, Dane County was one of the nation’s 125 fastest growing counties between 2000 and 2006 (“Trade Area Demographic And Lifestyle Characteristics”, 2007). This growing population is growing the consumer demand. The demographic and psychographic life analysis helps St. Mary hospital to target their market and helps to provide better service to their clients.

References:
http://fortepartnersllc.com/2010/03/healthcare-marketing-the-basics/ Healthcare Marketing (The Basics): Market Segmentation. (2010). Retrieved from http://fortepartnersllc.com/2010/03/healthcare-marketing-the-basics/ St. Mary’s Hospital. (2011). Retrieved from http://www.stmarysmadison.com/ Trade Area Demographic and Lifestyle Characteristics. (2007). Retrieved from http://www.uwex.edu/ces/cced/downtowns/Madison/documents/madison_DMA_Section3_final.pdf

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