There are two major types of marketing and each impacts a business differently. Regardless of whether the tactics of business-to-business or business-to-consumer are being employed, Westlink Business Solutions, an expert in the medical marketing field, thought it relevant to speak about why healthcare can’t market itself. Because, rest assured, it can’t.
Marketing is an art which encompasses all the activities undertaken by a business to promote their product or service to the end consumer.
Healthcare is a discipline that covers many complex areas which are concerned with providing medical services to people who need it.
Healthcare must be inflexible because it is literally a matter of life and death. The standards of compliance that healthcare servants must adhere to before information reaches the end consumer is more uncompromising than a mule.
It’s not a secret that being inflexible is boring – but that’s where the art of marketing comes in.
Healthcare marketing is the colourful expression of a rigid sector that leaves no room for error in its efforts to save lives through the information it provides. Healthcare gives marketing a reputation for professionalism that is not often found in the other sectors. The marriage of these two concepts provides a way for their strengths to be highlighted as they interact. As a concept, healthcare marketing itself is simply one way of saying that medical information is coming from sources that exclude the input of medical professionals. Medical professionals are those people who have endured over a decade of rigorous learning to become expert individuals in their fields. They have toiled tirelessly to become trustworthy sources of information and reliable pillars of perseverance when it comes to improving and saving lives.
But with the rise of technology and the convenience it provides, many people are falling prey to misinformation that spreads like wildfire and is even harder to extinguish. Consider Ozempic, natural remedies that fail to remedy anything, and azithromycin. The misinformation and unethical use of these medications resulting from healthcare marketing itself are all prime examples of why healthcare information found on the internet should always be consumed with a high level of caution. Remember that patient reviews do not count as reliable and objective sources for any types of healthcare information.
Let’s bring this conversation back home for a minute. Living in South Africa, you’ve most likely heard:
“Don’t go outside with wet hair or you’ll catch a cold!” or “Don’t eat too much sugar or you’ll become hyper!”
While these things are said with good intentions, they are good examples of misinformation that stems from when healthcare markets itself.
If we asked a medical professional (who we’ve established has poured decades of their life into their craft and took the time to peruse through the multitude of research papers approved by the scientific community), we would find out that it’s only ever viruses that cause colds, not the cold itself. And it is the belief that sugar ‘causes’ hyperactivity that makes it so, not the sugar itself.
The greatest weapon that is wielded when healthcare markets itself is that of correlation over causation. Think about it – just because you have a headache doesn’t automatically mean that you have brain cancer. Right?
Healthcare marketing ensures that the hours of research spent finding answers to advance medicine and the years spent by those researchers aren’t wasted. Healthcare marketers see that this information is communicated to the end user in an informative and interesting way. The point at which the expertise of medical professionals and strategic efforts of marketing professionals meet is where medical marketers are found. That’s Westlink Business Solutions, by the way!
Both spheres influence the information and inform the strategies that are used to educate or update the end user in an accurate and effective way that ultimately serves to improve and save the lives of the people around us.
References
Alfred L. How Ozempic Ushered In the Next Wave of Wellness Marketing. Hubspot. 2023. https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/ozempic-weight-loss-marketing?utm_campaign=Marketing %20Blog%20Weekly%20Email%20Sends&utm_medium=email&utm_content=262361595&utm _source=hs_email [Accessed 20 June 2023].
America A, Milling LS. The efficacy of vitamins for reducing or preventing depression symptoms in healthy individuals: natural remedy or placebo? Journal of Behavioral Medicine. 2007; (31):157-167.
Butler CC, Dorward J, Yu L, Gbinigie O, Hayward G, Saville BR, et al. Azithromycin for community treatment of suspected COVID-19 in people at increased risk of an adverse clinical course in the UK (PRINCIPLE): a randomised, controlled, open-label, adaptive platform trial. The Lancet. 2021; (397):1063-1074
Eccles R. Acute cooling of the body surface and the common cold. Cardiff University. 2002; (40):109-114.
Wolraich ML, Lindgren SD, Stumbo PJ, Stegink LD, Appelbaum MI, Kiritsy MC. Effects of Diets High in Sucrose or Aspartame on The Behavior and Cognitive Performance of Children. The New England Journal of Medicine. 1994; (330):301-307.
Hoover DW, Milich R. Effects of sugar ingestion expectancies on mother-child interactions. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology. 1994; (22):501-515.
Krummel DA, Seligson FH, Guthrie HA, Gans DA. Hyperactivity: Is candy causal? Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition. 1996; (36):31-47.
