Hospital Marketing Techniques

“Hospital marketing techniques and management towards the
successful process of hospital”

(1) (2)
Dr.J.Thirubhuvan , U. Ali Rahoma and (3) Dr.J.Kavitha
(1) Omer El- Mukhtar University, Faculty of Medical Technology, Tobruk, Libya. Tel: +218-91-
4706504, E-mail: profjthiru@gmail.com (2) Omer El- Mukhtar University, Faculty of Medical
Technology, Tobruk, Libya. Tel: +218-92-5358557, E-mail: Usama_rahoma@Yahoo.com,
Usama_rahoma@Yahoo.com, and (3)
kavijo@gmail.com, India.
Asst Professor- Physiotherapy, E-mail: kavijo@gmail.com,
Summary
Marketing can contribute to a service based organization to the

lead of successful path. Effective management principles coupled with
the marketing techniques like demonstration, public speech and
relations and advertisement of the hospital resources and doctors’
profile and media interview on hospital and healthcare would
administer any category of hospital into a successful process. This
article focuses on the initiatives to be taken for implementing the
modern psychological marketing techniques and management system
that is required for a hospital.
Key words: Marketing, Effective management and marketing

techniques.
Author Details: Omer El- Mukhtar University, Faculty of Medical Technology, Tobruk, Libya.
Tel: +218-91-4706504, E-mail: profjthiru@gmail.com
“Hospital marketing techniques and management towards the
successful process of hospital”
1.1 Introduction
In general management is the art of getting things done by

others. It involves administration of an organization that includes man,
materials and money. The 3M concept in services based organizations
like hospital requires an effective marketing techniques and
management system.
The management in hospital involves with proper planning,
investment, technology implementation and modern techniques,
organizing, motivating the people, controlling, centralization,
engineering and maintenance, hospitality, de- centralization,
marketing, recruiting, safety and security etc. In all the management
system marketing is the only instrument that can fetch business or
revenue to an organization. The effective marketing techniques once
assured are the basic instinct to earn revenue.
The implementation of automated marketing management
systems in hospitals can change dramatically the way in which a
hospital builds business by managing relationships with prospective
customers” (Anand, 2003). Several studies have measured the
effectiveness of hospital marketing activities by documenting, for
example, the percent response rate from direct mail campaigns and
the success rates associated with physician referral programs (Md.
Syed Hussain 2000). Nevertheless, the cause and effect of
relationship between marketing activities and subsequent hospital
utilization remains elusive largely because marketers have not been
able to eliminate from consideration of other factors that may prompt
a person to seek healthcare services.
Marketing management systems can demonstrate the effects of
marketing activities on patient revenues. For example, over a 12-
month period in 2005, a marketing management system implemented
at a 500-bed medical center of 150 hospitals of various management
in South India tracked more than Crore rupees in gross revenues per
month in incremental business attributable to marketing activities
(Robert louis et al 2007). This is because of the new patient’s entry
and the positive belief about the medication what is was inculcated in
their mind based on the marketing management.
Similary, A Pennsylvania hospital's marketing management

system found that of 1,000 individuals contacted for the first time
through hospital marketing activities, 250 became new patients during
a two-month period. In the same line marketing system used by an
Illinois medical center determined that approximately 225 new
patients and $200,000 in new patient business per month were related
to the activities of the marketing department (Joseph Kelviv 2006).
More importantly, marketing management systems can help

hospitals appreciate the larger role that marketing can play in
determining the needs of healthcare consumers, designing programs
to meet those needs, and directing consumers to those programs.
Such systems, in essence, can help manage relationships with existing
customers on a long-term basis.
1.2 Objectives of the study:
 To study the Hospital marketing techniques and management.

 To learn the concept of Hospital marketing.
 To ascertain how best the benefits can be obtained without much
investments through marketing concept and management
system.
 To assess the possibility of applying any other marketing
techniques and management system.
1.3 Scope of the study:
This article is a micro study on Hospital marketing techniques

and management towards the successful process of hospital. A primary
attempt has been made to apply this concept keeping in mind, most of
the successful hospital projects that are going on in India are due to
the effective marketing techniques and management system. The
benefits resulting from this study would yield various approaches to be
adopted in the field of hospital management. Certainly this would be a
basis for any private or governmental based hospitals.
1.4 Limitation of the study:

 The article is based on the secondary data mostly and
observations made in the places visited.
 Time, disparity, diversity, accessibility, and connectivity in order
to collect data are major limiting factor.
 In most of the hospitals the marketing department is either not
there or merged with the administration or it is outsourced
entirely on a contractual basis. So the necessary data are not
found or not available or not revealed.
1.5 The Perfect healthcare market:
In its simplest form, marketing involves determination of

consumer needs and development of programs and services designed
to satisfy those needs. The marketer's job is to discover, using
demographics and other data, what products and services consumers
need and to formulate products and services consumers will buy to
satisfy their needs.
In the healthcare industry, the marketing process is complicated

by many unique variables: the wide variety of consumers of healthcare
services, such as the patient, the physician, the employer, and the
managed care entity; the conflicting roles of the physician, the
employer, and managed care plans in driving or containing healthcare
utilization; and consumers' lack of knowledge of the relationship
between many healthcare services and their personal needs.
Although the healthcare industry long has been recognized by

economists as an imperfect market, marketing has become an
important aspect of the healthcare business. Today, healthcare
organizations spend more than $2 billion a year on marketing, and
marketing continues to evolve with the changing dynamics of the
healthcare market (Arnold De Methogen 2006).
Healthcare marketing at the present time is moving away from

advertising and toward relationship building. For instance, in America,
the hospital marketing budgets have grown enormously every year,
rising from $385 million to the current level of $2.11 billion, the
advertising portion of the marketing budget has remained level for the
last three years since 1984. (www.chroniccare.org). A 1992 study
found that for every dollar spent on advertising, hospitals spend $1.45
on other marketing functions, including the implementation of
sophisticated databases to support strategies such as building
relationships. (www.dqeready.org).
Building relationships
Relationship management, the newest form of healthcare
marketing, borrows heavily from the retail industry, which employs
channeling mechanisms that enable consumers to contact retailers
directly to voice their concerns or criticisms and to ask questions or
request information that enable retailers to inform consumers directly
of new products and services.
Relationship management is based on the realization that it is

five times easier to obtain repeat business from an existing customer
than it is to get new business from a new customer. This form of
marketing involves the use of information and referral tele services;
the development of a comprehensive marketing database that
segments potential customers into groups with common interests or
needs not only on the basis of demographics but also on the basis of
anticipated demand; and the use of marketing information
management systems that track the effectiveness of and the return on
investment from marketing activities.
Relationship management acknowledges the increasing role

consumers play in the selection of healthcare providers. Prior to the
introduction of prospective payment in the 1980s, physicians chose
hospital providers more than 60 percent of the time. By 1991,
consumers were selecting hospital providers more than 50 percent of
the time.(d)
Using relationship management, hospital marketing departments

identify individual consumers with whom they may build a relationship.
Rather than adopting a reactive posture and waiting for consumers to
contact them, hospitals become proactive. Hospitals identify previous
users of the hospital and facilitate access for these users to programs
and services that are particularly suited to their individual needs.
Moreover the marketing system of a hospital is a sensitive process that
requires a lot of truth and selflessness on the patients. Few of the
following effective research based marketing techniques and
management would clarify how one could adopt for hospital
management.
They are as follows:
• Demonstration,
• Public speech and relations
• Advertisement of the hospital equipments and
• Doctors’ profile and
• Media interview on hospital and healthcare.
Demonstration
Demonstration of the hospital- its majestic view to the public
through news paper advertisement, television, radio, internet mode of
publicity, card board printing and circulation, pamphlet printing and
circulation, notice distribution, poster display and affixing etc can
concrete the inherency of the hospital in the mind set up of the people.
This effect brings the ‘Hospital for what popularity’ based on the
specialization what they have or familiar with that. The following table
about the hospitals is famous for the following specialization.
Source: Dept of Statistics, Govt of India. Chennai
S.No Name of the Hospital Specialization Since
1 CMC, Vellore Multispeciality. 100 years and
above
2. Apollo group of hospitals Multispeciality. 50 years and
above
3. Reddy laboratories Ayurveda and 50 years and
Siddha above
4. Malar Group of hospitals Multispeciality 50 years and
above
5. Miot Group of hospitals Ortho 10 years and
above
6. Life line groups Gastro 5 years and
above
7. Shri paramathi ayurveda Unnani and 50 years and
Ayurveda above
8 Sri Sankaranarayana Eye care 50 years and
Hospitals above
9 MMM Cardiovascular 30 years and
disease above
10 M.S Ramiah groups Cancer 50 years and
above
Public speech and relations:

Public speech and relations are the sides of a coin to a hospital
both internally and externally to develop the hospital economically.
This can be done through the expert committee consisting of the
doctor’s team or the team trained to explain the various updates and
treatments available in the hospital. This process would enhance the
relationships between the doctors, hospitals and the patients. This
further would enhance the rural based hospital marketing thereby
constituting the bridge between the doctors and the patients.
The public relations effectively happened in the Andhra
Pradesh’s private based hospitals in rural areas through the nurses and
medical officers has earned the positive revenue and made them
aware about the various specializations available in the hospital. For
example Kuppam Medical College and Hospital based in Andhra
Pradesh, based on this program has spent only merely about 10 million
rupees for receiving one million patients from 267 villages in and
around Tamilnadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka villages.
Advertisement of the hospital equipments

Advertisement is a part of marketing techniques. Developments
in the technology and art have easened the task of the advertising and
marketing through various means. With regards to the hospital
equipments marketing and advertising, it is important to explain the
public or make them to aware that the concerned hospital is equipped
with modern equipments and technology in order to ensure that they
are better than the competitors and on par with the international
standards and quality consciousness.
For example Proper advertisement on the purchase of latest
medical equipments in Kovai Medical centre, Coimbatore for Ortho and
Chest scanning; Cadiovascular bypass surgery medical equipments in
MMM, Chennai and Narayana Irudalaya, Bangalore; and Madras
Government Hospital, Central, Chennai have received good number of
patients for the cure of their diseases. This has resulted as an effective
marketing techniques and management system.
Doctors’ profile
Only in the medical profession the name and the fame of the
doctors profile is considered as equivalency of the God’s grace. For
example a well educated heart patients wants himself to be operated
from Dr.Cherian and Gastro disorder patients wants treatment only
Dr.Cynthia from M.G.R Medical college and hospital. Similarly for eye
treatment from Dr.Agarwal, for Ortho in Miot Hospital Dr. Vaidyanathan
etc.
The case to deal with the doctor’s profile exhibits not only their
efficiency; it is mainly their international psychological approach
towards the patient’s treatment. It becomes immaterial among the
patients what ever the money they charge or personal behavior that
such doctors have. It is all on the basis of the profile of the doctors.
Hence it is important to note the doctor’s profile as marketing
technique to be followed in the hospitals.
Media interview on hospital and healthcare

Media Interviews are the primary concern about the medical
care’s marketing system and technique. This involves large number of
people watching all over the world and clarifying their doubts
irrespective of the doctors and the patients especially. This is the basic
step to drive any patient by endorsing the type of treatments available
in the hospitals through the media. Out of 10 hospitals undertaken
their marketing techniques through the media, the revenue and the
patients care have also shown the positive growth over a period of
time. For example Life line hospital in Jaya T.V, Miot Hospital in SUN
TV, Sankara Nethralaya in Rural based local TV, Dr.Kamala Devi Gemini
Ganesan for Raj TV etc have had a good result of patients
management through media interviews and concerns.
Therfore it is rest assured that the media interview can also be
one of the best marketing technique and management system.
1.6 Conclusion:
What ever may be the organization, the economic conditions of
any organization depends largely on the system of marketing
techniques. Proper marketing techniques and management systems
are like an engine to an hospital what so ever the medications and
infrastructure that the hospital have. Therefore it is important and
inevitable for revenue generation, the various techniques to be
followed for the successful process of a hospital.
1.7 Reference:
1. Dr.Anand Kumar (2003): ‘Hospital patients importance’- an
exclusive interview in the daily news paper ’The Hindu’, on
August 25th, 2003
2. Dr.Arnold De Methogen (2006): Customer relationship in
Hospital, Mc grawth publications, New York
3. Dr.Joseph Kelviv (2006): Hospital network and e-medicine;
An exclusive interview in Bangalore Mirror, Pg 36.
4. Dr.Md. Syed Hussain (2000) : Medical theraphy and
implications,
5. Dr.Robert louis, Dr.John Abraham and Dr.Shalini et al
(2007): Medical treatments availability
6. (www.chroniccare.org
7. www.dqeready.org

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Hospital Marketing Techniques

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“Hospital marketing techniques and management towards the

successful process of hospital”

Marketing can contribute to a service based organization to the

Key words: Marketing, Effective management and marketing

In general management is the art of getting things done by

Similary, A Pennsylvania hospital's marketing management

More importantly, marketing management systems can help

1.2 Objectives of the study:

 To study the Hospital marketing techniques and management.

1.3 Scope of the study:

This article is a micro study on Hospital marketing techniques

1.4 Limitation of the study:

1.5 The Perfect healthcare market:

In its simplest form, marketing involves determination of

In the healthcare industry, the marketing process is complicated

Although the healthcare industry long has been recognized by

Healthcare marketing at the present time is moving away from

Relationship management is based on the realization that it is

Relationship management acknowledges the increasing role

Using relationship management, hospital marketing departments

They are as follows:

Public speech and relations:

Advertisement of the hospital equipments

Media interview on hospital and healthcare

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