Marketing Mix
Set of controllable variables a firm uses to create value and influence demand:
4Ps:
Product, Price, Place, Promotion.
Product
What you offer
Includes core benefit, actual product, and augmented features such as branding, packaging, quality, guarantees, delivery, and after-sales support
Marketing Mix extra 3Ps for Services and Healthcare
Expands to
People, Process, and Physical evidence
because the customer experience depends heavily on delivery, staff, and the environment.
Price
What it costs
Also a signal of value, quality, and market position; can support premium, penetration, or value-based strategies
Place
Where it’s available
Promotion
How you promote it
Using advertising, PR, sales promotion, direct marketing, digital media, and personal communication
People
Who delivers it
Everyone involved in delivery, especially staff and clinicians, because customers often judge the service through the people providing it
Process
How it’s delivered
Booking, waiting times, information, and service consistency
Physical Evidence
What proves it exists
Tangible cues that reduce uncertainty in an intangible service, such as a clean clinic, professional website, testimonials, and environment.
Why extra 3Ps matter in Healthcare
Healthcare sells a service, not just a physical product, so trust, delivery, staff behavior, and the service environment are central to value creation.
Delivery is inseparable from value.
Customer
Buys
The person or organization that buys the product or service
Consumer
User
The end user of the product or service, whether or not they paid for it.
Patient
Receives Care
A person receiving, or registered to receive, medical treatment.
Relevance for customer, consumer vs patient in healthcare and why its different
These three roles can be the same person or three different people. That is why this distinction matters so much in marketing.
Such as an adult buying and using their own OTC medicine and also receiving care
Not ordinary retail because the patient is often vulnerable, may not be making a free-market choice in the usual sense, and may rely on professional advice. The healthcare relationship is therefore more complex than simple buyer-seller logic. Many organizations still use “patient” because it sounds more appropriate and less commercial, even when they are trying to improve customer-style service.
Segmentation
Dividing a broad market into smaller groups that share similar needs, behaviors, or characteristics.
Find meaningful differences so marketing can be more relevant and efficient.
Targeting
Selecting which segment or segments the organization will focus on.
Not every segment is equally attractive, so firms look at size, profitability, accessibility, competition, and fit with their capabilities.
Positioning
Creating a clear place for the product or brand in the customer’s mind.
It is about how the brand should be perceived relative to competitors, based on value, quality, benefits, and emotional appeal.
STP Framework
Helps firms stop treating the market as one mass and instead focus on the most valuable customers with the right offer
STP in Healthcare
The market can include patients, customers, clinicians, pharmacists, and payers
Classical Product Life Cycle
The pattern a product follows from introduction through growth and maturity to decline, with marketing strategy changing at each stage
Development (launch)
Growth (Adoption)
Maturity
Decline
Development/Launch
Create awareness and trial launch
Product researched, designed, tested, and launched
Promotion leads
Growth/Adoption
Demand rises, sales accelerate, and competitors begin to appear.
Expanding distribution, and differentiating the product
Place leads
Maturity
Defend market share and maximize profit
product Leads
Decline
Maintain, harvest, rejuvenate, or withdraw
Price Leads
