BUSI 528 Week 1 Marketing Strategy Paper Example

Marketing a Women's Heart Program When Most Women No Longer Know Heart Disease Is Their Leading Killer: A Strategic Overview

Introduction

A 240-bed suburban hospital plans to open a women's heart program staffed by two cardiologists, a nurse practitioner and a cardiac rehabilitation team, in a market where two larger health systems already advertise heart care. Leaders want to know how to market the program. Berkowitz (2017) describes marketing as a strategic process that begins with the organization's mission and the needs of the people it serves, then moves to selecting target markets, defining a position and setting objectives before choosing tactics. This paper follows that process.

Situation Analysis

The hospital's strengths are convenient locations, short wait times for appointments and a strong reputation in obstetrics, which means many local women already trust it. Its weaknesses are a smaller cardiology department and lower name recognition in heart care than its competitors. The most important finding about the market concerns the customers themselves. Cushman et al. (2021) compared national surveys of U.S. women in 2009 and 2019 and found that awareness of heart disease as women's leading cause of death fell from 65% to 44%, and the drop was steepest for Hispanic and Black women and for women in their late twenties and early thirties. In 2019, women were also more likely than in 2009 to name breast cancer as their leading cause of death. Competitors advertise heart care to people who already know they need it. The opportunity is to reach women who do not. Research on women's cardiac care adds a second gap: women's heart attack symptoms are more often missed or attributed to other causes, so a program that promises attention to women's symptoms answers a real problem rather than inventing a slogan. The hospital's obstetric relationships give it an advantage here, since conditions such as preeclampsia and gestational diabetes signal higher heart risk later in life and the hospital already holds those records.

Target Audience and Position

The primary target is women aged 40 to 65 in the hospital's service area, especially those with high blood pressure, diabetes, a history of pregnancy complications or a family history of heart disease. The secondary target is the primary care physicians and obstetricians who refer them. The program's position is "heart care that listens to women": a program that takes women's symptoms seriously, connects pregnancy history to later heart risk and coordinates with the obstetric practices women already use.

Objectives and Channels

In the first year, the program aims to complete 1,200 heart risk assessments, enroll 300 women in follow-up care and raise local awareness of heart disease as women's leading cause of death to 60%, measured by a community survey. Channels must fit how women choose care. Hanauer et al. (2014) found that 74% of parents in a national survey knew about online physician rating sites and 28% had used them to choose a primary care physician, and positive online ratings increased willingness to choose a physician. The program should therefore ask satisfied patients to post reviews, keep physician profiles current and pair online outreach with talks at obstetric practices and community health fairs.

Biblical Integration

When a woman who had suffered for twelve years touched the edge of Jesus's garment in a crowd, he stopped and asked who had touched him, and he would not move on until she had told her story (English Standard Version Bible, 2001/2016, Luke 8:43-48). A women's heart program is worth marketing only if it is built to stop and ask the question others in the crowd never asked. That purpose should guide the strategy: the program's promise to listen must be true in the exam room before it is printed in an advertisement.

Conclusion

The program's marketing should begin with education, not promotion, because the market's real gap is awareness. Leaders should track risk assessments completed, women enrolled and community awareness at the end of the first year.

References

Berkowitz, E. N. (2017). Essentials of health care marketing (4th ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning.

Cushman, M., Shay, C. M., Howard, V. J., Jimenez, M. C., Lewey, J., McSweeney, J. C., Newby, L. K., Poudel, R., Reynolds, H. R., Rexrode, K. M., Sims, M., & Mosca, L. J. (2021). Ten-year differences in women's awareness related to coronary heart disease: Results of the 2019 American Heart Association national survey: A special report from the American Heart Association. Circulation, 143(7), e239-e248. https://doi.org/10.1161/CIR.0000000000000907

English Standard Version Bible. (2016). Crossway. (Original work published 2001)

Hanauer, D. A., Zheng, K., Singer, D. C., Gebremariam, A., & Davis, M. M. (2014). Parental awareness and use of online physician rating sites. Pediatrics, 134(4), e966-e975. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2014-0681