Pathways abound for reaching desired audiences, with one in particular, known as direct marketing, effectively delivering messages from given healthcare institutions directly to sought audiences, typically via mail, telephone, or Internet communications tools. Ultimately, this yields all-important patient volume and institutional market share. In pursuing viable patient streams, communication proficiencies are essential, affording health and medical establishments with the ability to engage, inform, and attract current and prospective customers. This fact, of course, provides significant motivation, compelling many healthcare providers to direct intensive efforts toward ensuring that ongoing streams of patients are secured, fostering viability that affords mutual benefits. Seen in this light, inabilities to attract and retain patients carry consequences well beyond the walls of given healthcare establishments, extending deeply into markets and even impacting community health. Without consistent and, ideally, growing patient volume, institutional viability becomes uncertain, potentially threatening the very existence of given medical providers and, in turn, the livelihoods of their employees and the health status of the people they serve. Patient acquisition and retention activities constitute some of the most important tasks conducted by health and medical establishments. If well designed and respectfully implemented, direct marketing affords significant communications utility, earning a valued place in the marketing communications arsenals of healthcare establishments. Given instances of overuse and misuse by organizations, however, great care must be taken to design and deploy direct marketing initiatives inoffensively. ConclusionsÄirect marketing provides a useful communications pathway, permitting health and medical institutions to educate and enlighten desired audiences. To aid others in understanding this particular conveyance method, this article presents an overview of direct marketing and shares deployment insights and experiences from Willis-Knighton Health System. While some applications clearly have the potential to irritate consumers (e.g., junk mail in post boxes, spam in email inboxes), direct marketing can be deployed in manners respectful of recipients and, in such cases, it can prove to be a helpful communications asset. DiscussionÄirect marketing is one of the most recognized forms of marketing communication, thanks in large part to its widespread use and direct engagement of consumers. The various avenues offered by direct marketing afford options to address most any sought group. Examples of direct marketing include direct-mail marketing, telemarketing, and Internet marketing, with routes being selected on the basis of their ability to reach desired audiences. Direct marketing-the delivery of messages via mail, the Internet, and similar routes directly to consumers-is used extensively by healthcare organizations to attract and inform current and prospective patients of health and medical offerings and opportunities.
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