Marketing strategies of Healthcare At Home Limited

Introduction

In this report, Healthcare At Home Limited was considered. It is one of the biggest healthcare providers in the UK who provide home services. It is also one of the companies that showed the highest sales last year. They have a variety of products in the healthcare industry. Their products include sale and delivery of pharmaceutical products, treatment and prescription of drugs and other healthcare services.

Unlike other healthcare companies, Healthcare At Home offer their services differently. This way they are able to develop competitive advantage. Competitive advantage is the advantage that one business exercises against its competition within the same industry. This keeps Healthcare At Home in a stronger position within the UK business environment. This is done though several ways.

First, Healthcare at Home exercises staged release of products into the market. This means holding back some of the developments to a product so that the company releases the improvements periodically. This makes other products from competitors seem static while those of Healthcare At home seem exciting and dynamic.

Healthcare At home uses a method known as differentiation and positioning to make their products more attractive. This is the differentiation of their products from those of their competitors thereby positioning themselves well in the market. Those customers that are made are thereby made royal to the company.

The company also researches and markets extensively. This is good for the market as it ensures that those products that are provided by them are those that are most required by the market. Market research is done before product is produced so as to find if there exist a demand in the market for that product. It also enables the producer to know where there is a market gap.

To ensure customer convenience, Healthcare At Home they make it easier on the consumers by ensuring the consumers by ensuring the clients get their services at the place most convenient to them. This is done by delivering products to patents to homes and to hosting hospitals. Also, consumers can have their medication delivered to their homes or work-place. They also keep a database of their customers to make service easy and to follow up with their customers.

The prices of a product are determined by several factors in order to reflect an organisation’s objectives and market conditions. First, the time taken to make a product and the hourly rate for its production need to be considered. The cost of raw materials also needs to be accounted for so that the business does not work at a loss. The company also needs to take into account a secure profit. To decide how much should be charged for a product and taking all this into account is best done using past patterns and future projections.

Preferably, when getting into a market, it is best to start with higher prices so as to set a standard. The high price tag does not prevent new customers from buying a product. Instead, some will just choose the specific product due to its cost. As the consumers increase, it is advisable to lower the price to a more competitive one. This is because if a product is innovative, other producers will emerge and start competing in your market. It is, however, important not to compromise the ideals of the company. For example, if a specific market is being targeted, it is good to reflect this using your price.

To achieve marketing objectives requires adoption of a variety of strategies. Promotional activity is vital in that mix. Promotion concentrates on the strategies a business can adopt to market its products. Promotional activity comprises personal selling, advertising, sales promotion and public relations. In public relations, a product is promoted in an informal sense. A good example of how this could be done is by associating a company with a charity endeavour. Sales promotions are provisional enticements that make a product more appealing for the consumer. There are many forms of sales promotions including; coupons, sales, discounts and bulk pricing. Advertising is also done to promote a product. The advertisement integrates different strategies such as place, convenience and low prices to ensure all strategies work towards the central organisational goals and objectives. Personal selling is used to persuade consumers to buy products and services by skilled sales people. Pricing strategies are chiefly used by sales people to persuade their customer. The pricing strategy and the sales strategy are thereby integrated.

The extended market mix comprise of price, product, place, promotion, physical presence, provision of services and processes. The additional elements of the marketing mix are therefore provision of services, physical presence and processes. They were introduced into the mix since marketing has become more customer-oriented and the service sector now dominates economic activities of today. The elements are therefore relevant to the new services that have been added to the economy.