MEDICAL TOURISM MARKETING MIX

By Anil Bankar, ICRI, Mumbai.

WHAT IS MARKETING Marketing is managing profitable customer relationship. The

aim of marketing is to create value for customers and to capture value in return.

Marketing is the social and managerial process by which individuals and organizations obtain what they need and want through creating and exchanging value with others.

MARKETING PROCESS Marketing as the process by which companies create value

for customers and build strong customer relationship in order to capture value from customers in return.

MARKETING PROCESS Understand the marketplace and customer needs and wants

Design a customer – driven marketing strategy

Construct an integrated marketing program that delivers superior value

Build profitable relationship and create customer delight

Capture value from customers to create profits and customer equity

Need : The most basic concept underlying marketing is that of human needs.

- Esteem need for Prestige's, recognition and fame

- When need is not satisfied ?

1. Look for an object that will satisfy their needs

2. Tyr to reduce the need

Want : The second basic concept of marketing

is of human wants.

- Wants are described in terms of objective that will satisfy needs

Demand : People have almost unlimited want but limited resources.

They choose Products that produce the most satisfaction for their money,

If marketers do good job of identifying

- Consumer needs.- Developing a good product - Pricing- Distributing

Promoting it effectively, the result will be attractive products and satisfied customers.

MARKETING MIX The Marketing Mix is the set of controllable,

tactical marketing tools that the firm blends to produce the response it want in the target market.

The Marketing Mix consists of everything the firm can do influence the demand for its product

Selling and Advertising are the only two Marketing functions.

Advertising and Sales are components of the promotional element of the Marketing Mix

Marketing Mix include Product, Price, and distribution

Marketing also includes Research, Information System an Planning.

PRODUCT: Product anything that can be offered to market attention, acquisition, use or consumption that might satisfy a want or need.

SERVICE : Any activity or benefit that one party can offer to another that is essentially intangible and does not result in the ownership.

04 C’S

PRODUCT PRICE

PLACE PROMOTION

CUSTOMER SOLUTION

CUSTOMER COST

CONVENIENCE

COMMUNICATION

04 P’S

MARKETING MIX

Product : The goods and services combination the company offers to the target market

Prices : The amount of money customers have to pay obtain the product

Place : Place includes company activates that make the product available to target consumers.

Promotion : Promotion means activities that communicate the merits of the product and persuade target customer to buy it.

Customer Value :Customer Value difference between the benefit the customer gain from owing and / or using a product and the cost of obtaining the product.

- One biggest challenges for Management is to increase the Value of their Product for their target market.

- Managers must know their customers and understand what creates value for them.

04 C’S

Curiosity

Courtesy

Cleanliness

Culture

05 A’S

TOURISM

AccessAttractions

Amenities

Accommodation

Activities

TOURISM MARKETING Tourism marketing is defined in a number of

ways.

1. It is defined as the “systematic and coordinated efforts exerted by the National Tourist Organizations and / or the tourist enterprises at international and local levels to optimize the satisfaction of tourists, groups and individuals, in view of the sustained tourism growth”

2. According to Krippendrof, J. marketing in tourism means “systematic and coordinated execution of business policy by tourist undertaking whether private or state owned at local, regional, national or international level to achieve the optimal satisfaction of the needs of identifiable consumer groups, and in doing so to achieve an appropriate return

SPECIAL FEATURES OF TOURISM MARKETING Tourism is an Intangible , Non Material

Product

Production and Consumption of Tourist Serives are Closely Interrelated

Multiplicity of Producers

Highly Unstable Demand

Motivations

MARKETING IN MEDICAL TOURISM Target your activities

There are many hospitals, clinics and medical tourism operators out there who don’t have a clearly defined service strategy.

What service am I selling, into what markets and to what demographics? Now is the time to think this through, and identify very clearly your market niche.

MAXIMIZE YOUR RETURN ON MARKETING INVESTMENT Measure your return on investment on

all marketing activities. And invest in those that deliver results:

Invest in the web, because it’s the one area of marketing expenditure where you can measure your return and control your budget easily.

Use PR. It’s a low cost and effective way of promoting your services to patients in other countries. (Become a Treatment Abroad client and we’ll give you our free guide to generating PR coverage!)

Take advantage of free web promotion. Send your news articles to Treatment Abroad (it’s a Google approved news feed for medical tourism – your news story will get indexed by Google within the hour, if published).

IMPROVE YOUR CONVERSION RATE Turn more web enquiries and leads into

paying patients and customers. If someone has bothered to complete an

enquiry form for your service, then they have probably done the same for some of your competitors.

Respond faster, and respond better with an informative, personalised and high quality response. (Become a Treatment Abroad client and we’ll give you our free guide to enquiry management!)

GENERATE REFERRAL BUSINESS Past patients are the one of the best sources

of future patients. 20% of medical tourists who travel for treatment have been recommended by a friend or relative.

Give a “Recommend a friend” discount voucher that your past patients can give to a friend or relative.

Generate word of mouth recommendations by encouraging patients to contribute to reviews sites such as Medical Tourism Ratings and Reviews.

BE BRAVE! Don’t cut back your marketing budget. In a

recession, the strong survive. Use the opportunity to take market share from competitors who are less well equipped, and ill prepared to deal with a downturn.

Don’t cut your prices because you think it will bring you more business. Think about where you can add value to your service offering to give yourself a competitive edge and concentrate on customer service and service quality.

Put the above into practice. Then, whether we see an upturn or a downturn.... you'll be on the winning side!

THANKS