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.