As a Marketing Consultant for A Business Consultants Ltd., I would like to bring to your kind notice various marketing practices adopted by your organization Bupa over the past few years. This analysis will help you as a Marketing Director in eliminating the marketing planning gap and formulating the future strategies for the organization.
Bupa came into existence in the year 1947 in the United Kingdom. Joining of 17 provident associations led to the formation of Bupa. Bupa is a global healthcare group which was formed with a basic objective of providing healthcare services such that people are able to live a longer, improved and cheerful life. It aims at avoiding and curing diseases and ensuring the wellbeing of people by running dental hospitals, health centres, offering health insurance, providing health education and many more.
Marketing planning can be defined as development of a strategy after the analysis of market in order to be competitive in the marketplace. It involves setting up of marketing objectives along with the advertising and marketing efforts for the upcoming year with the objective of achieving the desired results. There is a mixture of factors by which a consumer is influenced to purchase a particular good or service and is under control of an organization. Such factors are considered as the elements of marketing mix and they are also known as the 4Ps of Marketing- product, price, place and promotion.
Product- Product can be defined as an item produced for the purpose of satisfaction of the demands of people. Therefore, it can be either tangible or intangible (service). This element of marketing requires extensive research to be done in terms of expectation of the user from such product or service, its uses, features, name, etc.
Price- The most important component of marketing mix is the price of the product or service. It is the amount required to be paid by the user in order to enjoy it. It has a big impact on the sales and profit of an organization therefore, must be carefully determined.
Place- Target market for product determines the place of distribution. The must be accessible by the potential buyers. Various strategies can be adopted for the purpose of distribution of the product such as intensive distribution, exclusive distribution, selective distribution, etc. It depends upon where the customers look for such product or service.
Promotion- Sales and brand recognition can be boosted with the help of promotion which comprise of various elements including advertising, sales promotion, public relations, sales organization, etc. Promotion strategy aims at conveying the messages to the ultimate customer in a way which is better than the competitors. These 4Ps of marketing must be taken into consideration for an effective strategy for attracting the customers.
Marketing planning gap is the deviation of the actual results from the anticipated results. It is figured out after the comparison of where we want to be and where are we now. The gap can be removed either by changing the whole objective or by making changes in the strategy which is being used to achieve the framed objectives (Oxford College of Marketing, 2013).
Several ways have been provided to fill such gaps: intensive growth (development opportunities are recognized within the same business); integrative growth (businesses related to the current business are acquired or built); and diversification growth (businesses not related with the current business are acquired) (Kowalik, 2011).
Few years ago, Bupa renovated a new strategy to endorse a larger range of activities. This helped in appealing to a larger number of audiences. Real Bupa customers of all ages were featured in the ad campaign in various situations highlighting the presence of Bupa for everyone in every situation. This advertisement featured the variety of services provided by Bupa to meet health needs of every individual along with their aim of handling challenging circumstances including cancer and dementia in an inspiring way (Brownsell, 2011).
The e-commerce growth of Bupa was supported by search engines proactively. As far as insurance industry is concerned, Bupa is one of the early adopter of online marketing. With the passage of time, many other insurance companies also entered into the digital marketing space which led to the increase in competition in the market. Suddenly the first- mover advantage started fading away and the ROI from such investment faced a downfall due to the increase in clicks on other insurance ads. In order to restore the ROI, it adopted a strategy using multi- digital channels with the objective of reaching larger audience and creates awareness and interest among them. This strategy helped Bupa in presenting tailor-made ad messages for users at the different stages of buying cycle and created a sense of trustworthiness over other similar commercials.
In the year 2015, a new advertising campaign was launched with a view to present healthcare expertise and spread awareness regarding the large range of products and services. This new campaign highlighted healthcare needs met by Bupa with the combination of expert advice along with emotional support. This TV advertisement also focused on cancer survivorship programme and support for elderly care. It emphasized on the fact that Bupa doesn’t stop supporting its customers with cancer even after the completion of treatment. It also offers a devoted cancer nurse to their customers for help and support to provide direction on the ways to improve recovery. Also, the advertisement features the importance of support line provided for elderly care which will enable people to make difficult decisions including finding details about a care home, gaining access to such care at home and details regarding the ways of making payment for availing such services. This advertisement helped in illustrating that Bupa is an expert in terms of providing healthcare services and offering a variety of products and services (Bupa, 2015). Effective content marketing provided real success to Bupa with its short animation video content. This video about a tooth fairy has over 1 million views on youtube (Simpson, 2015).
Currently, Bupa has appointed sales agency One to deliver a marketing campaign with a view to create awareness regarding its Health Assessment Service. This campaign will consist of direct mails, advertisement on radio and aims to inspire people across Midlands and central London to take a Health Assessment. This Health Assessment will provide general details about an individual’s health, help to figure out possible health risks and simultaneously offer advice improve the lifestyle (Austin, 2017).
The marketing strategies adopted by Bupa initially enjoyed the first- mover advantage but later on with the increasing awareness about emerging marketing tactics in the healthcare sector Bupa suffered a downfall. With the help of optimization partners like Webtrends, Bupa experienced a quality communication with its customers online. On the other hand, customer experience was enhanced along with increase in revenues (Webtrends, 2017). Furthermore, slowly and gradually it has now reached to 16.5 million health insurance customers, 10.6 million customers who are provided services in the clinics and hospitals and 25,000 aged residents who are unable to visit the clinics and therefore, services are provided at their residence. With the passage of time, it has reached to almost every part of the world including Australia, Chile, Hong Kong, New Zealand, India, Spain and many more with various branches in each of the countries. In every year, the data shows that the marketing costs are also increasing with the increase in revenue. Therefore, it can be concluded that the marketing tactics adopted by Bupa over the years were clearly a success.
There are a large number of options available for Bupa for improving the results derived from the marketing activities in future. The following tactics can also be adopted to be more successful and reduce the marketing planning gap over the next 5 years-
Public Relations- Public relations require a large amount of planning such that healthcare publicity can be created. This can be in the form of newspaper articles or broadcast interviews. It creates a very strong impact and influence but is not that easy as it appears. The free press exposure is not an easy task and requires cautious planning, efforts, and good timing.
Professional Referral Marketing- Referrals by the doctors can work as key to success as it appears to be a reliable source for most of the patients. Professional referral sources are hard to be taken for granted. It is lifeblood of many specialist providers and organizations (Gandolf, 2016). Therefore, Bupa must constitute a chain among the doctors such that every doctor recommends Bupa for healthcare services.
Branding- Branding helps an organization to be different from its competitors in a positive way. A brand must be capable of differentiating itself from others such that it is able to stand out from the crowd. Deliberate effort is essential for operative and meaningful branding.
Awareness Campaigns- Frequent awareness campaigns must be organized with a view to disseminate detailed information regarding various diseases and their available treatment options. Such programs will contribute in developing trust and expressing that the organization cares for their patients. The happiness of the patients depends on the transparency maintained by the organization in providing information (Johansson, 2016).
Moreover, the organization can derive inspiration from other industries in the way they reach their audience effectively and perform competitive research for marketing. Also, success stories of patients can be presented in the form of video testimonials and can be placed on the websites and youtube. Along with professional referral marketing, customer referral program can be created which will enable a patient to avail discounts (Referral md, 2017).
Digital marketing helps an organization to promote its products or services through electronic media (Dodson, 2016). It allows the customers to gain information regarding anything at any point of time. Soon after, Bupa stepped into various e-commerce platforms. Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter also began to be used by Bupa along with mobile applications. The links to Instagram, Linkedin, Twitter and Youtube have been provided on the website of the organization.
This was done after considering the increasing reliance of people on digital channels for obtaining health information and customer care services. Therefore, the business was transformed and digitalization was introduced in every service provided by them, selling, marketing and in providing information related to health (Parsons, 2011).
Internet is the most important channel which is closely linked with digital marketing along with other modes such as electronic billboards, mobile applications, radio channels, instant messengers, etc. It created its website on the internet where it provides details regarding its business model, purpose and values, corporate governance guidelines, their strategic framework and the background and history of their organization.
In the history section of the website, it highlights progress made in each decade in different countries from the commencement of the organization. Similarly, in purpose and values section, it provides further information like it has employed more than 80,000 people in various countries, it has 16.5 million health insurance customers and 10.6 million customers who are provided healthcare in hospitals and clinics. Their values have been specified in the way they behave with their customers and one another. They are open, courageous, extraordinary, passionate, accountable and a few more. While on the other side, Bupa’s strategic framework provides that its strategy has three pillars- clients, people and performance.
It is further explained that top most priority is given to its customers in today’s digital age. The service they provide is completely dependent upon their people which is when combined with risk and capital management helps to achieve a sustainable performance. Furthermore, in addition to these three pillars they have also specified a number of priorities one of which provides for digital transformation and constant improvement. The website also makes a country-wise classification for more particular details about the services. It also clearly specifies its performance by providing its financial results, full annual reports, borrowings, other regulatory reports, etc. Another section provides for the news where the latest press releases are published and also media enquires can made.
Dave Cheffy developed the 5Ss of digital marketing which allows to check that all the points related to digital marketing are covered. 5Ss can be understood as a complete set of principles which must be considered before finalizing a digital marketing strategy. These 5S are- sell, speak, serve, save and sizzle.
Sell- It relates to taking the full advantage of internet to enhance the financial success of the organization. It means making profit with the help of online platform by ‘selling’. As far as Bupa is concerned, it does not sell its services directly from the internet through its website. But the website provides information related to every service offered, other information regarding their purpose and values which somewhere influences an individual to purchase their services.
Speak- This phase allows an organization to maintain stronger relationship with its customers and provides a way to stay in contact with them 24/7 (My Social Agency, 2016). Digital channels offer a perfect platform for building up faith in the minds of the customers. Bupa adds this element in its digital marketing strategy and make sure that updates are posted on the website and also on the social media sites for the knowledge of their customers.
Serve- ‘Serve’ is basically concerned with adding value to the online journey of the customer. The website of the company can play an important role in addressing all the grievances of the customers, their queries and providing any further information required by the customer. For this, Bupa provides a ‘Contact Us’ section in its website where it provides all the helpline numbers for care homes, health assessments, travel insurance for individuals. Helpline numbers for new customers along with the existing customers have been provided and separate helpline number is available for updating the contact details of the existing customers. Moreover, feedback and complaint forms are available for making improvements in the services in future (Bupa, 2017).
Save- This element is of extreme importance as it emphasizes on reducing the organizational expenses by making the use of particular technology (Smith, 2003). It means internet is used in a way such that efficiency is increased and the costs are reduced (Chaffey and Smith, 2017). Bupa is able to cut its overhead costs by switching to the digital marketing as now it is engaged in online press release, email marketing, etc.
Sizzle- ‘Sizzle’ seeks to create a brand to establish the online presence and make a progressive online brand experience. In short, this element is about making the use of internet as a tool for brand-building for increasing the awareness about the brand and allowing interaction with it (Chaffey and Smith, 2013). Sizzle is achieved when the introduction of new features to the digital presence are provided with added value and are of importance to the customer.
Bupa is a healthcare specialist having customers in around 190 countries with approximately 52,000 employees and aims to adopt digitalization as the base of the business. It developed and introduced BupaLive as a social media platform with an aim to provide single place for communication, collaboration and sharing.
Bupa wanted to entirely reform their user experience and readjust the opinion of Bupa as a healthcare provider. Their aim was to be ‘Digitally Famous’ in their sector i.e. healthcare sector such that they can be easily differentiated from other organizations along with being a visionary and capable of providing a supportive environment (Neale, 2017).
Customer choice is achieving new standards in the digital age as it requires more personalization with comfort in accessibility. Consumer’s now demand quality services which provide value for their money and such standards continue to rise over time. The digital transformation and innovation provided best services to their customers such as GP referral was not required for accessing diagnosis.
Moreover, it helped Bupa in achieving success in three ways- firstly, Bupa became capable of managing customer relations across both digital and traditional channels. Secondly, it became easier to answer back and start dynamic customer interactions and lastly, it became easier to draw conclusions which lead to better decision making by Bupa (SAS, 2017).
However, Bupa can engage in different range of digital marketing activities such as affiliate marketing, e-mail marketing, display advertising and many more.
Affiliate marketing- Affiliate marketing is a marketing which is completely performance based. The goods and services can be easily marketed by the affiliate website owners in exchange of a small percentage of profits (Anderson, 2015). It is the most cost effective way of advertising as the brand is advertised for free and the cost is incurred only when the advertisement is clicked by a user, or when the user registers on the website, or when the user uses that link to purchase any goods or services.
E-mail Marketing- E-mail marketing is an effective way for the marketing of goods and services via e-mail (Butler, 2009). The relationship a business has with its existing customers can be improved with the use of this way of marketing. Moreover, stronger relations can be developed with the new customers as the customers will come across a sense of responsibility the business has towards the better future of its customers. This kind of marketing can be very useful for an organization like Bupa as it belongs to the healthcare sector. E-mail marketing will allow Bupa to intimate its new and existing customers regarding the new services introduced and modifications made in the provision of existing services.
Display Advertising- Display advertising involves placing of graphical advertisements next to the content on the websites, instant messaging and e-mails. The advertisement can be in any form i.e. text, audio, video, images or any other kind of content which attracts the attention of the user. Display advertising is considered to be successful on the basis of calculation made in respect of the number of times the advertisement is clicked by the user in comparison with the number of times the advertisement is displayed to the user (Digital Doughnut, 2014).
Therefore, it can be concluded that Bupa has achieved success in every strategy it has adopted and its continuous efforts will make it make successful and popular in future.
References
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