Discussion: Health Care Consumerism
When developing a marketing plan, it is important to understand that health care consumers differ from consumers in other markets. One of the greatest distinctions is that health care consumers are often not the ones to select the products or services they are purchasing. Instead, doctors or other health care providers decide what services or products consumers need. This means that when marketing in health care, organizations should consider both the consumer and the provider. For this Discussion, you examine buying behaviors of health care consumers in the following scenario and recommend strategies to market a drug product.
Scenario: A pharmaceutical company is going to be selling a new brand-name prescription drug to treat allergies. You have been hired to help them market this product to individual and industry consumers.
To prepare:
Review the provided scenario.
Identify individual and industry-based consumers for the prescription drug product in the scenario. Consider buying behaviors and characteristics of these consumers.
Describe one individual and one industry consumer for the prescription drug product in the provided scenario. Analyze buying behaviors and characteristics of these consumers. Then, recommend strategies to market this product to the consumers you identified. Include strategies for the different stages of the product’s life cycle. Defend or argue your recommendations. Support your response by identifying and explaining key points and/or examples presented in the Learning Resources.