MHA 626
March 14, 2011
A marketing plan is the written document that describes your advertising and marketing efforts for the coming year; it includes a statement of the marketing situation, a discussion of target markets and company positioning and a description of the marketing mix you intend to use to reach your marketing goals(entrepreneur.com, 2011). Another definition of a marketing plan to better understand it is a product specific, market specific or company wide plan that describes activities involved in achieving specific marketing objectives within a set timeframe. A market plan begins with the identification of specific customer needs and how the firm intends to fulfill them while generating an acceptable level of return(businessdictionary.com, 2011). In the video, Joel Ellis explains the importance and benefits of using a well-researched and defined marketing plan for healthcare practices, and some of the key considerations involved. In this assignment, I will briefly outline the key elements of the video, and give my thoughts on how I will apply the information in the video to a marketing plan. The main reason why healthcare practice need a marketing plan is because nothing will be accomplished. If you plan nothing, nothing will be accomplished. Three necessary considerations described in the video is to make an investment to properly executing on your marketing plan. Marketing has risks both financially and to your reputation if its not designed and executed properly. Marketing is not a sometime thing, it’s an everyday thing. Having a marketing plan have you focused daily on your goals. Three distinguished strategies presented in the video are Internal, external and professional referral marketing. In internal marketing it’s communicating with your current patients (a patient base). External marketing is promoting your practice to potential prospects (direct consumer). Professional referral marketing is a method of promoting