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Many specialists consider that one of the reasons for the low level of health services in various countries is the lack of use of the term health marketing, which works to achieve public health by creating a climate for it and preventing or reducing health problems, in addition to preserving a healthy environment by educating individuals and urging them to stay away from consumption patterns. Which is incompatible with a healthy environment.
Definition of health marketing:
It is defined as ((a group of activities and events that aim to achieve contact with the target audience, collect information about them, and determine their needs with the aim of forming healthy behavior among individuals)).
This behavior requires health marketing professionals to:
Collect information and data about the target market and determine the actual needs of health services.
Determine the type of health and pharmaceutical services that each target market needs.
Forming voluntary healthy behavior among individuals of all genders and spreading health awareness contributes to directing this behavior.
Determine the effectiveness and success of health marketing activities.
Determine the effectiveness of health and pharmaceutical services in reducing diseases and making individuals more capable of preventing them
So health marketing is:
(The process of analyzing the integrated and interconnected activities carried out by health organizations to provide the most appropriate services required, proper planning for them, and monitoring their proper implementation and promotion in order to enhance the process of voluntary exchange of benefits with their target markets, enabling them to achieve their set goals with high effectiveness and efficiency)
The importance of health marketing:
The importance of marketing in health organizations is highlighted by the advantages and benefits achieved from its use, which can be limited to:
Improving the efficiency of marketing activities by focusing on a rational management style and coordination for product development, pricing, distribution and promotion. Marketing equips management with a scientific approach that makes it implement the highest level of efficiency and effectiveness in marketing activities as well as continuous coordination between them.
Making health organizations more sensitive to the community's health needs through their integration with the public, as the process of surveying patients' opinions and measuring their degree of satisfaction is at the heart of the work of the marketing function, as it is the main element of the process of managing feedback between patients and health organizations.
Improving the image of the health organization and putting it in a distinguished and decent position in the health market. Introducing the concept of marketing into the work of health organizations makes it completely direct its thoughts towards all individuals in an effort to search for what will help them provide the best services to those in need.
Empowering the management of health organizations by creating more effective systems in providing and distributing services and setting the appropriate price policy for the health services they provide.
Developing health awareness and medical education among beneficiaries of health services.
Marketing completes exchanges between patients and the health organization by managing the purchase and sale of services performed.
Stages of the health marketing process:
The first stage: It is a stage of analysis and understanding of the organization’s position in both the competitive environment and the extent to which the needs and expectations of patients and the public are met.
The second stage: Planning to research patients’ current and future needs and setting goals and standards.
The third stage: It includes the evaluation of managing the healthy marketing mix, i.e. what is the best or optimal way to achieve marketing objectives and who will be responsible for implementation issues.
The fourth stage: Feedback and control includes the measures taken to verify that the plan is being conducted in the correct manner and corrective operations in order to modify and correct errors and deviations, if any.
Health marketing foundations:
Achieving contact with the beneficiaries of the health service and those who will benefit from it in the future.
Information that constitutes the basic pillar in determining and directing health marketing activities, through conducting the necessary research, studies and surveys to determine the activities through which workers can be enabled to identify needs and activities through which successful health campaigns can be directed.
The customer or beneficiary of health services represents the focus of activities in health marketing, as specialists seek to motivate them and teach them how to obtain and benefit from health services by creating health awareness.
Health marketing strategy planning is based on creating voluntary behavior for individuals who constitute the target market with these marketing strategies and activities, as creating health awareness and voluntary behavior for individuals can only be achieved through successful promotional activities and broad awareness campaigns that work to develop voluntary health behavior.
Analysis of health service consumer behavior is:
((The pattern followed by the patient in his behavior to search, purchase, use or evaluate services that are expected to satisfy his needs and desires))
The study of patient behavior is a broad and highly complex field, so the marketer must make every effort to identify the various factors that affect the health service consumer market.
Factors affecting the patient's purchasing behavior:
1- Situational factors: These are factors that occur within a specific time and period that affect the patient’s behavior and fall into five groups: -
The patient's decision when purchasing a health service is affected by the environmental variables of the health organization's physical surroundings, such as location, sounds, noise, etc. (the physical surroundings).
Purchasing behavior is also influenced by the characteristics shown by friends, relatives and medical bodies at the moment of purchasing the health service. (external Ocean).
The timing of service provision, whether it is in the morning, evening, or during a weekday, affects the patient’s decision to purchase the medical service or not. (Time perspective).
The reason for purchasing a health service is obligatory because it is related to a health condition that requires treatment and taking the appropriate decision to deal with it, as it cannot be postponed or searched for elsewhere. (Definition of task).
The patient's mood affects his desire to receive healthy information