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Annals of the „Constantin Brâncuşi” University of Târgu Jiu, Economy Series, Issue 2/2013
„ACADEMICA BRÂNCUŞI” PUBLISHER, ISSN 1844 – 7007
MARKETING PLANNING IN HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY
Bobeica Ana Amaria
PhD Student in Marketing
Academy of Economic Studies
e-mail: [email protected]
Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to develop a perspective on what is important or critical to the discipline
of healthcare marketing by analyzing the marketing plan from the institutional (or organizational) perspective.
This “salience issue” is complicated by the structural problems in healthcare such as new advertising programs,
advances in medical technology, and the escalating costs of care in the recent economic situation of world
economic crisis.
Reviewing a case study, the paper examines how marketing managers face increasingly difficult
management and it emphasizes one more time the importance of marketing in the internal organizational
structure. Also it shows the direct connection between the marketing strategy, the Quality of Healthcare and
marketing planning in the internal organization of Private Healthcare Practice in Romania.
Also it concludes that marketing planning in healthcare has to be very precised in order to achieve
some major objectives: customer care, financial stability, equilibrium between stakeholders and shareholders
and future improvement in communication to customers.
The marketing strategies and programs discussed in this paper follow the analysis of the 4Ps of
Healthcare Marketing Services and propose call to action plans and possibilities that might result in a more
particular case study analysis of the Romanian Healthcare Market.
Key words: marketing planning, healthcare marketing, quality healthcare, best practice in healthcare marketing
JEL Classification I, I11, M31, O10
Introduction
The hospital industry has taken some major changes in the last years according to some famous
researchers in the literature like Dawley et al. 1999 and Egger 1999[2]. All these changes since the 2000 faced
the latest economical crises, and the price paid by consumers in order to get access to the healthcare services on
for fee revenues. In the newly developed economies, attacked by economic crises, the hospitals had to undergo
major restructuring or even closure trying to survive by emerging, acquiring facilities or marketing planning.
In particular this paper analyses the marketing plan on healthcare markets in order to obtain better
results which may serve the stakeholders and shareholders’ interests.
It might be considered a base for a future analysis in healthcare marketing planning in quality of
services.
Reviewing a case study, the paper examines how marketing managers face increasingly difficult
management decisions and it emphasizes one more time the importance of marketing in the internal
organizational structure. Also shows the direct connection between the marketing strategy, the Quality of
Healthcare and marketing planning in the internal organization of Healthcare Hospital Practice in Romania. The
methodology used proposes a model of analysis between 4 selected variables (price strategy, promotion strategy,
quality of healthcare and marketing planning) and a structural equation model tested afterwards in Eviews
program. The results are concluding to the analysis and presented in the body of the paper.
The Marketing plan
Historically, the mission of many healthcare institutions is to provide a broad and general access to high
quality services based on: a form or subscription, fee per payment, or some kind of healthcare insurance
available also to US Markets and also European Ones.
The first step is the determination of the institution mission or purpose, whether that mission is still
valid and useful, and of how the institution is viewed by its various publics - contributors. Strategic Marketing
Healthcare planning must be approached with the idea that it is a dynamic process rather than a set of fixed of
increasing subscriptions. Its final goal for hospitals, are efficient healthcare services and quality at a justified
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