Marketing Mix Assessment Report: Royal Children's Hospital - Australia

This report provides a comprehensive marketing mix analysis of the Royal Children's Hospital in Australia. It begins with a situational analysis, identifying the hospital's strengths (strong brand, infrastructure), weaknesses (limited branch, expensive services), opportunities (social media, funding), and thr...Read More

Running head: Marketing mix
Marketing assignment
Marketing mix

Marketing mix 1
Assessment 1
Question 1. Conduct a situational analysis for a company from your research and identify its SWOT.
Company chosen: Royal Children’s hospital, Australia
There are various internal and external factors that affect the performance of the hospital. In any healthcare
industry, internal factors comprise of qualifications of doctors, infrastructure of the hospital, efficiency of their
service and the number of patients the hospital can accommodate. On the other hand, the external factors throw
light on factors which are not in control of the hospital. This refers to the existing competition in the industry,
the political and economic status of the country and its impact on the hospital and the social or cultural habits of
people that affect their behavior (Huang, 2014).
Strengths Weaknesses
1. Strong brand name.
2. State of the art infrastructure
3. Qualified doctors
4. Impeccable work record and history
5. 334 beds
1. Predominant focus only on children
2. Only one branch of the hospital in entire
Australia
3. Lack of exposure through marketing efforts
4. Expensive services
Opportunities Threats
1. Social media can be used as a tool for better
promotions
2. Funding campaigns to increase flow of money
3. Facilities could be expanded in order to
increase more services.
1. Privately practicing pediatricians are
increasing
2. General physicians can be consulted for small
issues and they charge much lesser.
Question 2: Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning of Royal children’s hospital
Segmentation: Market segments would be divided demographically and geographically
Targeting: Children under the age of 15 are target customers who stay in and around Melbourne.

Marketing mix 2
Positioning: the hospital has positioned itself as a one stop shop for all children’s needs.
Question 3: Pricing is one of the most important aspects of any business. Pricing the products or services
correctly is very crucial (Armstrong, 2015). For my own practice, I would start with a market penetration
pricing strategy where I would be keeping the prices low to attract customers. This market penetration strategy
involves pricing the products really low initially to attract customers and then slowly increasing prices to make
profits.
Question 4 (A): Distribution channels:
Distribution channels are the ways in which the product reaches from the manufacturer to the consumer
(Hollensen, 2015). There are three distribution channels of the healthcare center which are as below:
1. Promotions: The advertisements on television, social media and billboards on the roads will be the tools
used for promotion and this promotion would be an efficient distribution channel to reach out to
customers (Mintz, 2013).
2. Sales team: The center would also hire a sales team who would be tying up with corporates to insure
their employees with the hospital
3. Pricing: The market penetration pricing strategy would also be used as a tool to reach out to more
customers.
Question 4 (B): The three distribution channels were chosen because each of them have their own pros.
1. Promotions: This would help build a brand image for the hospital and attract more customers. Today
everyone is reading newspapers, travelling by roads and is an active social media user. Hence these
promotion tools will help reach out to a larger audience (Buil, 2013).
2. Sales Team: This distribution channel is used because all the patients who visit the hospital are not
fixed. Whereas if tie ups can be done with corporates then it would be a fixed source of income.
3. Pricing: This distribution channel would be effective because a quality service offered at a lower price
will begin a chain reaction and the hospital would become famous by word of mouth (Khan, 2014).
Question 5: Changing the “Product” component of the marketing mix
Recently, after coming in contact with a group of oncologists, it has been decided that the center would also
open a wing of oncology and expand their services to cancer patients. This change is product has been a part of
the hospital’s expansion plan. It has impacted other components of marketing mix as given below (Hamzah,
2016):

Marketing mix 3
Price: The price would be increased as oncology is a more expensive department. Cancer treatments require
chemotherapy and radiation therapy which cost a lot more to the hospital
Promotion: Promotions would be done focusing on cancer patients. Blogs and social media can be used as
promotion tools by sharing stories of cancer survivors.
Physical evidence: The hospital would place various billboards, posters and AVs across to spread awareness
about cancer in general.
People: The new bunch of doctors would be oncologists and the patients would be cancer patients (Hanssens,
2014).
Rest of the marketing mix components would be the same.

Marketing mix 4
Assessment 2
Question 1: Three possible marketing objectives
Objective 1: Attract customers using promotions with the help of social media and newspaper advertisement
tools. Target to serve 1 million customers within 18 months of service.
Objective 2: Ensure break even in the first two years of service.
Objective 3: Target a profit after tax of AUD 20 million within 5 years of service.
Question 2. Customer service standards or levels recommended for a newly launched medical center
1. Service standards for telephone operator (Solomon, 2014)
a. be polite and welcoming
b. be alert
c. be available
d. Thank customers for calling
e. Do not keep customers waiting
2. Service standards for doctors
a. Be available for patients
b. Treat them well
c. Guide them properly
d. Answer their doubts with integrity
3. Service standards for pharmacy employees
a. Be polite and soft spoken (Ritter, 2014)
b. Be quick and active
c. Be assisting If the medicine is unavailable
d. Guide patients about how to take medicine
4. Service standards for infrastructure
a. Hospital must remain clean
b. Beds must be comfortable
c. All machines should be regularly checked
d. Waiting areas should also be comfortable

Marketing mix 5
Question 3 (A): Link one component of marketing mix
The medical center’s component of marketing mix chosen is ‘Price’. The center will use premium pricing
strategy (Nagle, 2016). This will ensure that the brand name of Dr. John is valued highly and the objective of
achieving break even within 2 years of service can be achieved.
Target market: The target market will be high income groups of all age groups.
Positioning: The medical center will be positioned as a premium brand. Customers will realize that they will get
the best services here after paying a premium. The state of art infrastructure will also add on to this positioning.
Question 3 (B): This link of price with positioning is extremely crucial as it will make sure that the target
market does not visit any other competing centers in the area. The marketing objective is to gain more
customers and make profits for the medical centers by providing best quality service at a high price.
It meets the strategic objectives as it is crucial that the center makes profits by maintaining very high quality of
service. This would require hiring world class doctors who are brands on their own.
Objective Component Target Market Positioning
Break even within 2
years of service and a
PAT of AUD 20 million
after 5 years of service
Price – Premium pricing High income segment of
all age groups
Premium services offered
at a premium price
Question 4 (A): Two promotion strategies
1. Billboards across the country: The biggest advantage of this strategy would be that it target many people
on a daily basis unlike newspaper advertisements have to be placed every day. Secondly every time
there is an accident on road and if the medical center’s billboard is on the same road then the possibility
of getting the patients to the center will be increased (Percival, 2016).

Marketing mix 6
2. Tying up with healthcare apps: Today most people use mobile apps to book appointments with doctors.
If the center and all its doctors tie up with these applications then the app will automatically send details
of person looking for doctors and also smoothen the process of booking and appointment.
Question 4 (B) Factors affecting the selection of promotional mix
1. Increasing use of technology has enabled usage of mobile applications with ease and hence tying up
with healthcare apps would help increase visibility among customers.
2. Targeted market is high income group of the country. They have their own cars and hence would be
travelling by road on a daily basis. Therefore billboards will help them gain awareness about the center.
Question 5: Monitoring one component of marketing mix
The most important component of marketing mix will be the product. This is because the medical center must
provide the best quality service in order to retain high end customers. To monitor the same, an effective
feedback system will be put in place which will measure two things.
1. Balanced score card for all doctors based upon the feedback form filled by customers. This would
ensure the doctors are on their toes and doing their jobs well.
2. Turnaround time for patients – the time between the patient first arriving the hospital and his complete
recovery. Lower turnaround time will indicate better performance of the doctor.

Marketing mix 7
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