Introduction
Marketing can be defined as the processes used by businesses to develop, supply, communicate and exchange products and services that have importance for consumers. The aim of marketing is to recognize the consumer, maintain customer and satisfy customer. According to marketing concept, attaining business objectives majorly depend on recognizing the needs and the wants of the desired market and satisfying the consumer. Also, it points out that in order to satisfy business goals, businesses should always foresee the desires of the customer and satisfy those needs more than the competitors. Marketing concept developed from the traditional meaning of buying and selling of products and services to modern approaches such as industrial or business marketing. Modern approaches use new methods like online marketing, desktop advertising or generally internet marketing. The aim of the modern approaches is to improve the traditional segmentation strategy of targeting the customers (Dhiman, 2006).
It is important for companies to create service marketing mix that is suitable for its consumers. For this to occur, marketing executives should use information from sales forecasting, marketing research and marketing information systems. The four traditional elements of business’s marketing mix include price, promotion, distribution and product. The elements are mixed together to form a final system that can satisfy the customers’ needs (Park, 2003).
The products shows the goods and services being sold in a business, therefore the marketing personnel must be aware of all the significant questions related to business’s products namely: features, packaging, models, quality brand, planning and other related policies. The distribution element addresses the delivery of products and services. In addition, the distribution is concern with the physical movement of goods and services (Parkin, 2003). The managers should always ensure that marketing arrangement is efficient. The third element is the price; this is what the customer is being charged for the goods and services.
There are various factors considered when pricing a product or a service namely; legal restrictions, expected profit, internal and external factors, actual costs and price of competing brands. The price should not exploit the consumer and should return on the business’s input. The last element is the promotion; it includes public relations, personal selling, advertising and sales promotion. The main function of this element is to inform the prospective consumers on the presence of the product or service (Kotler, 2000). It helps in persuading the customers to buy the product or service. However, the modern services marketing mix has three additional elements; physical appearance, people and processes. The people include the doctors, surgeons and the nurses, while the physical evidence is the physical environment of the hospital and the processes include the procedures and the systems used in the hospital.
Shouldice Hospital Limited
The service marketing mix includes; the appearance of the medical staff and other products like hospitals visits and the location of the hospital. In the objective elements the pricing is flexible and it has free arrangement which has quality service. The hospital has many beds and this helps the hospital to admit many patients. The hospital does various promotions through advertisements and writing of information brochures. The service marketing mixes main objective is to communicate with the consumers of the hospital products and services and satisfy the target customer and consumer needs. It is an important section of marketing policy that improves the hospital mission and corporate image. Therefore, the services marketing mix is the designed products and services the hospital offers to the market.
References
Dhiman, A. (2006). Information Technology and Marketing of Library Services. Library Progress. 26 (1), 29-38.
Kotler, P. (2000). Marketing Management. 10th Edition. Prentice Hall, London.
Park, K. (2003). The World Almanac and Book of Facts 2003. New York: Select Soft Publishing.
Parkin, M. (2003). Economics. 6th Edition. Boston: Addison-Wesley.