United Healthcare organization is one of the leading healthcare providers in the United States. The company maintains its prominent industry position by implementing unique marketing campaigns. The purpose of this essay is to discuss the direct impact of marketing for United Healthcare Organization. The paper outlines a strategy for United Healthcare to determine the utilization of its products or services. Then, the essay will outline a marketing strategy for this health care provider. Finally, the essay will recommend at least three (3) separate ways the health care provider could shape the buying decisions of its customers.
Determine the Direct Impact of Marketing for United Healthcare
The direct impact of marketing for United Healthcare is its competitive advantage and increased brand awareness (Shalowitz et al. 2013). Marketing is an integral element of sustainable growth for this organization. It has enabled United Healthcare to experience influx of new customers and current customers have remained loyal. The company is operating in a rapidly changing environment. Previously, the healthcare industry was a volume-centered industry centering on the physician. But, today, it is a quality based industry, centering on the patient. Multiple providers in this industry deliver the same or relatively similar products and services like those offered by United Healthcare. Through marketing, United Healthcare has demonstrated to customers and potential customers that not only its products and services are different from the rivals, but it is also the best option in the industry.
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Another direct impact of marketing is increased brand awareness (Shalowitz et al. 2013). It all started with understanding the potential consumers and creating a need. One common marketing mistake that most companies make is failure to understand consumer backgrounds. Successful marketing campaigns must create a need besides creating an awareness and desirability of a brand. United Healthcare understands that awareness creates consumer need. Some strategies that the company uses to create awareness of its offerings and give it a context to stimulate desire to the offerings include developing a “we” relationship between the company’s offerings and the consumers (Shalowitz et al. 2013). The company achieves this through launching its products and services to a selected audience and then inviting the public to participate in the product or service launch. Another way the company uses to create awareness is through social media interactions like responding to public comments, whether positive or negative.
Marketing has helped United Healthcare increase sales (Shalowitz et al. 2013). Typically, this derives from high rates of customer traffic. Since the organization also uses digital marketing tools, this traffic comes from both online and offline marketing efforts. In terms of online, the company generates traffic from online campaigns such as product launches, social media forums and search engines. As for the offline traffic, the organization has sales and marketing representatives that work to promote its products and services. In addition, the company uses special discount offers and coupons to increase sales through increasing public interest in its offerings (Shalowitz et al. 2013).
A Strategy for United Healthcare to Determine the Utilization of its Products or Services
The best way for United Healthcare to determine the utilization of its products and services is by looking at the frequency of visits to its facilities or the use of its products (Shalowitz et al. 2013). There are numerous properties associated with utilization indicators. These include the care setting (outpatient or office), who provided the service or product, the purpose of the visit and finally, the continuity and frequency of the use of the organization’s products and services. United Healthcare must capture all these dimensions of its product and service utilization. These utilization indicators entail the services and products provided by the organization in different settings including primary and specialty physician settings.
A Marketing Strategy for United Healthcare
United Healthcare is operating in an always changing healthcare industry. Also, customers are seeking new facilities and healthcare providers. Therefore, it is important that United Healthcare find new ways to meet its customers where they are (on the web) by using search engines strategy (Pride & Ferrell, 2010). This is the main reason why the company must consider an online healthcare marketing strategy. If the organization wants to reach and engage more customers, it needs to adopt a pay-per-click (PPC) marketing with paid search advertisements (Pride & Ferrell, 2010). In today’s digital world, many people are spending more time on the web, looking for more than just consumer products. Normally, if they are looking for a new healthcare provider, they will go to the search engines to find if there is one near their location. If United Healthcare wants to capture these potential customers, it must increase its visibility on the search engines (Shalowitz et al. 2013). The best way to achieve immediate results on search engines is to include PPC advertisements as part of the company’s marketing tactic. When people type in any name associated with the company’s practice, these ads will appear at the top part of the search engine results page. Unlike other approaches such as Search Engine Optimization (SEO), which tend to take time to generate results, PPC ads bring results instantly (Shalowitz et al. 2013). Another benefit of using PPC marketing strategy is that it enables the organization to target its ideal customers. United Healthcare can use the sophisticated targeting capabilities presented by PPC marketing to reach consumer segments that are most likely to be a good fit for the company’s practice. This guarantees that the organization is generating quality leads, which have the potential to maximize the return on investment (Shalowitz et al. 2013).
Three (3) Separate Ways United Healthcare Could Shape the Buying Decisions of its Customers
Human beings go through a process of decision making when looking for a health care products and services (Luce et al. 2001). To influence their buying decisions and increase the chances of them becoming loyal customers, United Healthcare can use these three methods.
One of the most important ways to influence consumers’ buying decisions is to use color in advertising campaigns (Luce et al. 2001). United Healthcare should spice up its marketing initiatives by adding colorful slashes to its advertising campaigns. Psychologists have discovered that mostly, people do not purchase because of logical reasons, instead, they buy based on their emotional response to the organization’s use of color (Luce et al. 2001). However, it is important to understand that color in advertising does not translate to the same feelings for all people. Actually, different people have differing perceptions of color depending on their personal experiences. Particularly, this is important when United Healthcare is developing its branding technique, which coordinates with color associations. A good example is the color red. This color is widely used to reflect feelings of excitement and boldness.
Just as color, United Healthcare can apply emotional images to make its advertising more appealing to the public hence influence their buying decisions (Luce et al. 2001). In marketing and advertising, there are six basic universal emotions. These are surprise, fear, sadness, disgust, anger and happiness. United Healthcare should develop advertisements that make consumers feel either one or more of these universal emotions hence react to their thoughts by buying from the organization. For example, United Healthcare can create an advertisement that contains images of the excitement associated with using its products and services. This will likely make some people happy and will be motivated to seek the products and services offered by this organization.
Another way to influence consumers’ buying decision is to apply aesthetics in its marketing campaigns through imagery such as texture, form and composition (Pride & Ferrell, 2010). By doing this, United Healthcare will channel all the key aspects of psychology in its advertisements. To capture consumers’ attention, aesthetics concentrate on the content and form of the ad, both print and digital. By focusing on stylized advertising imagery, United Healthcare is likely to experience the benefits of artistic expression.
Conclusion
Established in 1977, the United Healthcare Group remains to be the leading wellness and insurance management company in the US. As the needs and demands of consumers within the healthcare industry continue to change, marketing has played a critical role for the success of this company. This essay focused on the direct impact of marketing for United Healthcare Organization. The paper presented a strategy for United Healthcare to determine the utilization of its products or services. Then, the essay discussed a marketing strategy for this health care provider. Finally, it recommended at least three (3) separate ways the health care provider could shape the buying decisions of its customers.
References
Luce, M. F., Bettman, J. R., & Payne, J. W. (2001). Emotional decisions: tradeoff difficulty and coping in consumer choice .Chicago, IL, University of Chicago Press.
Pride, W. M., & Ferrell, O. C. (2010). Marketing .Mason, OH: South Western/ Cengage Learning.
Shalowitz, J., Stevens, R. J., &Kotler, P. (2013). Strategic marketing for health care organizations: building a customer-driven health system .San Francisco, Calif, Jossey-Bass. http://rbdigital.oneclickdigital.com.
