Health care marketing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Health care marketing - Essay Example In addition to that, consumers’ needs, their preferences, and behaviors toward breast cancer need to be observed and studied in detail in order develop such programs of treatment for breast cancer that would appeal to the consumers the most in terms of cost, convenience, and quality of service. In a vast majority of cases, patients tend to seek medical help only when the cancer has developed to a dangerous extent. Very few patients target the disease in its very initial stages because of lack of awareness of the gravity of the issue. This imparts the need to not only conduct a lot of research to gain information from the consumers related to the aforementioned aspects, but also develop programs directed at creating awareness among them about the pains, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of breast cancer. Target Market The target market of breast cancer is women in a vast majority of cases, though some men particularly with a condition called as gynecomastia in which the brea st enlarges are also vulnerable to breast cancer. Participants in the movements related to breast cancer as well as the target audience of the advertisers of products and services related to breast cancer have typically been white middle-aged women that are well-educated and belong to the middle class (King, 2006, p. 110-111). Although it is a deadly disease, yet at least 2.5 million patients of breast cancer have survived the disease in the US as a result of early detection methods and cutting-edge treatments that have been made available to the patients today (phillymag.com, 2012). For the marketing of products and services about breast cancer, unique marketing strategies have been used. Some marketing has blurred the distinction between events and advertisements e.g. guerrilla marketing and flash mobs. Campaigns of advertisement run on the social media websites like Facebook have motivated the target audiences to make use of double entendres and sexual innuendo in the status upda tes so that the readers can be reminded of breast cancer. In the year 2009, women were asked in the campaign to post their brassieres’ color whereas in the year 2010, women are asked to post the location of their purses in the campaign as a result of which, some women posted such statements as â€Å"I like it on the floor† (Kingston, 2010). Such campaigns have acquired a lot of criticism for trying to sexualize the disease. Market Segmentation Since the middle-aged women are the most vulnerable to breast cancer while the population of men with breast cancer is very small, the target consumers of the services of the Women’s Clinic would primarily be women, though the clinic would also render the services for men who suffer from breast cancer. In fact, there is a lot of need to educate people in general and men in particular about the risk factors that increase their vulnerability to breast cancer because the disease is normally associated with women alone. People do not even know about gynecomastia, while knowing about breast cancer in men is a step next to that. In fact, creating awareness among the masses about the risk factors and the need to take medical help in time is one of the factors that provides Women’s Clinic with a competitive advantage. Understanding the fact