Dr. Rosling and data collection

Dr. Rosling’s data collection and analysis is very important for analyzing the growth and progress of “civilization” and the developed world. The data displays how different geological areas have evolved in life expectancy, family size and ultimately family planning. His analysis displays the relationship between “long life” and “small family” and how historic events and trends have moved these traits in various areas.

The visual display makes complex data easier to comprehend and understand. It shows a great amount of information in a simple to digest format and displays how the information changes over a long period of time. This visualization makes it easier to spot trends and correlation between causes and effects.

Dr. Rosling gives a description of the “health and wealth of the world” in regards to well-being and income distribution. His results are a visual representation of quality of life throughout the world.

This type of information and these types of data banks are especially useful in marketing because it shows human behavior that can be tied to consumer needs and trends. This is the ultimate demographic tool that can be used for environmental scanning and marketing planning.

These types of resources are useful for beginning research for our marketing plans. By comparing raw data to various demographics and trends, we can begin to define our consumer and their behavior. This visual display is also helpful to provide insights to our client.

My company's "research"

The organization where I work (Indiana State Medical Association) maintains a sophisticated database of membership along with demographic and contact information. This is crucial to understanding the customers during marketing campaigns. The database allows us to target certain portions of membership by field:

• Do we want to market to older physicians? Residents? Students? The software can create lists based on age or years in practice.
• Do we have a special program for female physicians? The membership can easily create a list along with contact information.
• Do we want to focus on rural physicians? Indianapolis doctors? Those in the Chicago region? The member base can be compiled into lists by zip code.

While this isn't exactly “research,” many hours of research and development have gone into creating this wealth of data. This information serves as a good starting point for research – not only for demographics but other fields. Two characteristics of members the organization is especially interested in is whether the physician uses electronic medical records and whether the physician is employed or private practice. These fields are also part of the database and help to give the organization an idea of “customer behavior.” 

The database also contains information on each member about benefits sought (examples include coding/legal assistance and health/malpractice insurance).

This is a benefit of marketing events and benefits to those physicians who are already ISMA members. The organization also does traditional but less sophisticated research to learn about nonmember physicians, how to communicate and how to convince them to become members. 

Missions and the current situation

Marketing is about obsessing over the consumer. We learned last week in Theodore Levitt’s “Marketing Myopia” that marketing must be customer based rather than product based. The danger of being product based is a brand can die along with a product if it becomes obsolete.

A mission should reflect overall value of the brand and not just a product or specific service. A successful company and mission should be about the consumer/customer, fulfilling their needs and adapting to change.

The example mission statements from Chapter 2 of the text do not focus on a specific product and largely focus on goals and serving customers. The example of Target, which could easily fall into a product/retail mission, instead focuses on delivering value and a brand promise. Their mission statement also uses the welcoming term “guest” instead of customer.

I work in the communications department for the Indiana State Medical Association (ISMA). The ISMA is a nonprofit, physician membership organization. The “condensed” mission: The Indiana State Medical Association is dedicated to Indiana physicians and their efforts to provide the best possible health care for their patients. This mission is consumer/customer focused instead of product focused and the brand has adapted to climate change for over 165 years. The many benefits, medical field and technological advances have changed over time - but serving physicians and their patients has remained the same.

There are “products” and tangible benefits offered to members but the benefits are mostly services. The ISMA offers advocacy, continuing medical education, health and malpractice insurance, legal and practice management advice among many other benefits.

The marketing for the ISMA is targeted to a specific niche of Indiana physicians and is largely broken into two categories based on obvious “customer” of the organization: (1) to promote benefits/events and communicate important information to members and (2) to promote the organization to nonmember physicians and entice them to join.

The current situation of the marketing environment in healthcare is volatile to say the least. The macroenvironment factors that affect the ISMA include technological advances and integration of computer technology into medicine. Electronic health records and advanced communication methods change how a physician practices daily. In a sea of open communication and media, doctors are still required to put their patients’ care first and also respect privacy.

Politics is of course a major macroenvironment factor in the current medical world. Healthcare reform is on everyone’s minds – patients and physicians – and this is creating a large change in the environment. Doctors must always be aware of new legislation and requirements and how laws affect their practice, staff and patients. The ISMA has lobbyists to represent physicians on a state and national level, and also political action committees. Whether they like it or not, doctors must be involved in politics and government.

One challenge in the microenvironment is competition from specialty organizations that provide doctors with similar benefits to those of the ISMA. The largest recent change in the microenvironment is competing with the benefits and security offered by large hospitals and healthcare conglomerates that employ physicians. The ISMA is struggling to market additional benefits to these doctors that feel their employer offers everything they need.

  

The ISMA provides benefits to serve the needs of every physician – whether it is the simple tangible benefits offered to members, advocacy and representation for the profession or just the camaraderie and prestige of belonging to a large professional organization.

Final thoughts from Week One

I compared my initial definition of marketing with the content in Chapter One of The Marketing Plan Handbook. According to the text, “marketing is about creating, communicating, delivering and exchanging offerings that provide value. My preconceived notions of marketing weren't too far off. It also adds “profitably acquire, retain and satisfy customers in a competitively superior way.” This involves customers, price and competition. A successful marketing plan involves initial (market) research, segmentation, strategies and the four marketing mix tools – product, pricing, place and promotion (4 P's). I hope to go into greater detail on the 4 P's in the future.

Theodore Levitt’s “Marketing Myopia” reaffirms the need to research and know your market/consumers’ needs. Don’t become too comfortable with your product even if it is successful. Don’t believe that your growth is inevitable and that your success will grow along with the population. Don’t define your business around a product. He used the example of railroad vs. transportation. At this point in time, the example is relevant, especially dealing with transportation and alternative fuels. To be successful, you can no longer be a "gas station" or even "filling station" - but perhaps an "energy station."

One of my takeaways from Levitt is to always realize that tomorrow your product or service might become outdated or obsolete. Anticipate a paradigm shift. Better yet, CREATE a paradigm shift. Anticipate what products or service consumers will need. Steve Jobs sensed consumers’ needs and created inventions based on those needs. He took it one step further and created inventions before consumers even realized they needed them.

Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com boils marketing into these thoughts:

• Obsess over the consumer – Regardless of the product or service, there is no value without someone to give it value. Consumers and their needs drive marketing.
• Invent on behalf of the consumer – The best inventions are the result of a problem in need of a solution. Customers don’t always invent so we must invent what they need or want – and market the invention to them.
• Think long term – Long term initiatives often result in better products and more loyal customers. Think long term to establish a brand – and create a unique culture. Zappos pushes their culture and family core values.
• Every day is day one – Never be satisfied. There is always a new solution and a new adventure around the bend.

Where do we begin?

I suppose to evaluate what I learn in this class, I need to establish a benchmark – so I can compare what I know about marketing now – to what I know by the end of this course. I will start off by answering the question “What is marketing?” without any research other than my 29 years of life experiences and pop culture.

My initial thoughts are to define marketing as: 

• Convincing consumers they need/want your product or service
• Convincing consumers that your product or service is better than that of the competition

After getting that idea on paper, what is the next step? Scour the internet and see what other people think.  Let’s start with this blog post from today (March 11) from a marketing blog with the title “They Never Taught this in Marketing Class” (how appropriate). The author underlines the importance of “valuing your network” and as a PR guy, he is speaking my language. He goes on to say that marketing is nothing without an audience or community. In PR, we call this a key public. In marketing, I believe this is called a market (customer or consumer) Again, I will come back to this at the end of the C570 course and see how far off I am.

After seeing the word cloud provided by my colleagues in C570, I don’t feel so bad about my initial thoughts. Some of the more popular terms were “product” “service” “customer” “consumer” “value” and creating value for consumers. I’m still a little confused whether marketing is about creating value - or communicating and displaying value that someone else created? Hopefully this will clear up in my mind soon.

Welcome - About me

Hi! My name is Nicholas Peetz. It has been quite awhile since I have composed a blog so it is time to dust off the keyboard! This entry will serve as an introduction and test run to the new blog for C570. 

I have a background and B.A. in visual communication (graphic) design and currently work as a designer in the communications department of the Indiana State Medical Association. My main responsibilities are creating graphics for print and web publications. Occasionally I am involved in public relations initiatives and marketing for events. I am currently pursuing a graduate degree in public relations. Strategic marketing falls right into my professional interests and long term goals. I am looking forward to the content of this class and new opportunities!