As early as the first half of the twentieth century, the marketing industry solely relied on intuitions and personal experiences when designing a marketing campaign. Thanks to Charles Coolidge Parlin, that marketing professionals began considering the data-based decision making for designing the campaigns.
Parlin was a school teacher before he was hired by Curtis Publishing Company back in 1911. With no experience in the marketing field, he was no more than just another addition to the company, until he started to gather information and data. Remarkably, he was soon regarded as the father of the marketing research industry when he created it out of thin air. By interviewing the peers and collecting data on buying behaviours, he formed the basis of the data analytics for the modern marketing industry.
It is quite understandable that modern marketing considers the buying behaviour of the consumer as a key index of success. Notably, every product observes different preferences from different buyer groups. For example, before buying a t-shirt a buyer would consider the cost, the design, and most importantly the need to buy. When all of these factors incline together, a purchase is successfully made.
Determining buying behaviour for healthcare products…
Unlike other consumer goods, where users can differentiate between luxury and necessity healthcare products does not come with such a choice. In fact, the purchase is born out of necessity. That being said, this does not imply that a consumer would buy just about anything that a pharmacy or a healthcare practitioner sells. This is the reason, the healthcare industry relies (to a large extent) on accurate market research for making their sales and growing their business.
How can market research help the healthcare industry?
Fundamentally, the healthcare industry is all about helping people live better lives by improving their physical as well as mental health. On the contrary, the increasing competition and growing dissatisfaction amongst the consumers are becoming a huge challenge for the industry to make progress.
Using a qualitative approach to meet the market needs is perhaps the most effective way that these businesses can thrive. To understand this better, you may need to understand what is qualitative marketing all about? So, let us learn about this technique first, before moving on to learning more about market research and its benefits to the healthcare industry.
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What is qualitative marketing?
In simple words, a marketing plan that is based on extensive data accumulation and information thus derived is known as qualitative marketing. For example, simply for converting a lead into a sale, the marketing research may include conversion rate study, potential outreach, and most importantly the buying capacity of the leads on target. Using these simple yet effective insights, the marketing strategy is more likely to bring successful results, which are necessary for revenue generation.
Now, it will be easier for you to understand how this innovative marketing tactic can help your healthcare business grow.
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Understanding the current and future market potential
Market research can provide you with legitimate information about how your products are currently being perceived by your target audience. And accordingly, you can also plan for future market potential.
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Growth in brand recognition for the healthcare industry
When you prepare you are better aware of the current and future market potential for your business, you can expect better brand awareness from your marketing campaigns. Consider this as an added benefit of the researched marketing plan, since the customers who actually are happy with your products will propagate your brand through word of mouth marketing.
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Product development for the target market
Another interesting benefit of market research is that you can design the products that will sell. The healthcare industry is no longer about making products only but also includes delivering them to the right consumer at the right time. Good research can perhaps provide you with significant insights into these areas so that you can design only the products that are sure to bring in ROI.
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Using customer feedback for improvements
For your research to be valuable for your marketing goals, you probably would seek insights from your existing or target customers. In the process, you may possibly get some valuable feedback which you can eventually use to improve your product. And subsequently can earn your customers’ loyalty.
To sum it up, marketing research can help your healthcare business acquire a sustainable market share. And if done the right way and at the right time, the information thus gathered can also help your business follow the upward trend.
