пятница, 24 декабря 2010 г.

Marketing mix for plastic surgery

The point of marketing is to make masses ready to buy your product or leastwise to identify true product to sell. Marketing is all around models. Disregarding of what do you perform, selling goods and services, you need to know and use proper pattern

4P’s “Product, price, promotion and place” or marketing mix. The similar model is 4C- context, competition, customer, cost. It’s trendy also today to bring 5th component like “people”” to pattern to show “social responsibility”. These patterns are essence of marketing and applied to nearly to any activity, from preparing marketing plan to analysing sales resultants.

Product in theory is a real value for client. In reconstructive surgery the value can be youthful and athletic body, changes in vocation or intimate life, betterment of inbred flaws, etc. It's amusing, reconstructive surgery is an outstanding instance to show what is the Product in Marketing Mix framework. Numerous people do not realize this right and believe Product is a list of characteristics. And you can realise reconstructive surgery as a Product unquestionably can't be described as a listing suchlike : unproblematic procedure, progressive technique, or short convalescence . Scarcely somebody pays for operation exactly because it is pain-free or carries any other feature. Hence here we meet the requirement to understand the customer and his necessitates, but not to show product. That's why 4P is closely connected to 4 C with Customer as an integral component.

Promotion brings Product to the marketplace and supports it there. As it may be transparent, 'brings' relates to new products and 'keeps' - to present ones. Promotion is the most innovative component of marketing mix and may stick with another model : AIDA (Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action). This means, that promotion medium should :
- attention,
- create interest which transforms
- to desire to purchase and
- occurrent buy.
You may see Promotion in varied kinds :
- Coke strong promotion with ultimate goal to make mental image of this beverage as a default option;
- Cosmetics direct promotion with ultimate goal to form a net of allegiant buyers, without expending a cent for mass media advertisements;
- Food supplements quiet promotion by local MD with final goal to give this stuff to patients to the end of days.
In reconstructive surgery Promotion is closely attached to life style and may imply not just advertizing of clinic, but even founding of passion for perfection. The Like it may occur with many Goggle Box worshippers aft 'Extreme makeover'. Promotion in plastic surgery creates wide area of opportunities for smart and aspiring marketer. Obviously there’s divergence between ‘Drink Coca Cola’ advertise and advertising of breast enlargement technique. In the initial instance you figure out on how the goal would be accomplished, while at the 2nd, for instance, you should firstly convince potential client he needs lipo the least bit, the second that he needs to buy the most actual presents infrasonic Liposculpture, and the 3rd he will buy it from your company.

Price is about money customer is willing to give for your goods or services. Pricing mainly is the following:
- cost based, - customers are non price highly sensitive, there is rivalry on marketplace and it’s hard / expensive to define market value. Despite the fact that cost based pricing is verbally often resisted by marketers, really it comes out even more often than some other types of pricing: prices for food ( bakery, veggies, fruits), tools and instruments, home gadgets, etc.
- market based, thought to be accurate pricing, when seller looking at on price level of suchlike products, powers to create or promote extra economic values of product, position in product life cycle. Product life cycle is a diagram, consisting from product periods : institution, maturity and decline. In introductory period margins can be higher, during maturity - stable, and while decline- decreasing.
Plastic surgery is more about market based pricing, because masses rarely employ price as the single factor to select plastic surgeon. Yet, clinics may try to minimize costs and create locations in low cost countries like Thailand or Estonia, and nevertheless charge premium for supplementary benefits like placement in playgrounds or intimate aura far away from relatives or paparazzi.
If we apply concept of product lifecycle to plastic surgery, we may discover it in maturity phase with extensive competition and comparable pricing, even among various countries. When was introductory phase ? I would say, in sixties when one American operating surgeon 1st made suction lipectomy with scalpel to his wife. This fact made plastic surgery a consumer product, since liposuction is the most popular cosmetic surgery from all others: facelift, breast enlargement, tummy tuck, etc. However, some people may debate saying examples of plastic surgery in ancient Egypt or Rome. However this clause about marketing for plastic surgery, not for history, and I even was lazy to look for name of the 1st operating surgeon who produced lipo.

Place is how do you distribute the Product. In several instances it can be even more important than Promotion, Product or Price (all parts of marketing mix are equal, but several might be more equal than others). Illustration from my life is chain of bakeshops, producing terrible bread, but having kiosks on high traffic places crosswise city. Essentially people have choice to buy breadstuff elsewhere, but purchase rubbish from kiosk to save time. Other instance is soft drink you may got in McDonalds; at that place will be no surprise in any eating house worldwide. Distribution represents very important function in retail, particularly if vendor does not have space for inventory, or demand is high, like it occurs with breweries in summer time. Some companies, especially in Japan, do not have stock at all, leaving supply for distribution.
In plastic surgery Place is a really sensitive matter and closely linked to:
- your target patient base, which means clinics can not direct famous people if based in blue collar area;
- constructing trust to clients. Like in case with banking companies, which must demonstrate substantiality and stability to those who loan them money.