Proposed Marketing Plan Process & Work Plan
Mario Drummonds, MS, LCSW, MBA
UCLA Anderson School of Business
CEO, Northern Manhattan Perinatal Partnership, Inc.
Creative Director, NMPP’s Social Health Marketing Group
July 18, 2004
Introduction:
NMPP and Harlem Hospital are responsible for developing a marketing plan for the new
Birthing Suite/Center at Harlem Hospital that will serve as a guide to locate, motivate, listen
to, support and enroll low-risk pregnant women enter our care system. We must
communicate the qualitative birthing experiences that will take place at the Birthing Center
that would motivate Harlem and South Bronx-based customers to utilize this new service.
Ten years ago many hospitals, clinics and social service agencies believed that marketing
was useless. These executives believed that good health care does not need to be sold.
Today, this is a false notion where the leadership of every social institution understands
the importance of marketing for the continued survival of the institution. To achieve the
business, clinical and marketing objectives of the Birthing Center, we have decided to be in
the business of social change. Our objective is to change the behaviors of various types of
pregnant women to select our service offering.
Social marketing is the business of creating, building and maintaining exchanges. For
example, I give you 89 cents and you give me a bar of sweet-smelling soap, or I walk two
hours to get to the doctor’s office, wait there three more hours, and worry that my house
and children are being neglected, and the doctor gives my baby an immunization which
protects her from measles. The ultimate goal of a social marketing campaign is to
influence behavior. Either we want to change our customer’s behavior (walk into our
Birthing Center and adopt new women’s health and well-baby care behaviors) or keep it
the same in the face of other pressures.
Social marketers have a unique mindset when they go about their work. That mindset is
best described as a customer-centered mindset. We must begin to answer the following
questions. To whom are we planning to market? Where do these customers live and what
are the characteristics that define them as a customer segment? What are their current
positive and negative perceptions about service quality at Harlem Hospital? What
messages would motivate a particular segment to utilize the Birthing Center?
Will these perceptions, needs and wants be different in the future when our marketing
strategy is implemented? How satisfied are our customers with Harlem Hospital’s current
service mix? Why don’t high-risk and low-risk pregnant women utilize Harlem Hospital’s
birthing services more often? How can Harlem Hospital change the nature of their
services and treatment processes to influence the behaviors of our target audience
segments?
Marketing is the business of offering benefits people want; reducing barriers people face,
and using persuasion not just information. We are in the business of creating a better
birthing experience for targeted women and their families and therefore we have to modify
what we offer to our customers (CHANGE) in order to get the people we’re trying to serve
to change and utilize our service.
Strategic Social Marketing Planning Process (SSMPP)
1. Birthing Center Mission Statement & Business Definition:
In three paragraphs, what is the mission and unique business definition of the Birthing
Center? How does this mission relate to the mission of Harlem Hospital and NMPP?
What unique birthing experience are we selling to Harlem and South Bronx women that
differentiate our business from the competition? What are the unique value propositions
that will motivate women of childbearing age to utilize our service? What are the
differences in service offerings between a Birthing Center/Suite and a regular OB/GYN
ward? The mission and business definition should be brief, feasible, motivating and
distinctive.
2. Analysis of External Environment-Marketing Research:
The team must develop an up-to-date picture of the various forces that can influence
whether we achieve our marketing objectives. The plan must sum up the status of our
target customers now and possibly in the future. Reviewing available statistics and
organizing a few focus groups can tell us more about our potential customers as well
as how well the hospital is serving its current patient base.
CUSTOMER PROFILE:
*Demographic and socio-economic data on women of childbearing age
in Harlem and the South Bronx-examining 2000 Census data
*# of immigrant women living in our target area who need services
*Health status of teenagers who decided to have a child
*Status of women in our target area who are over 35 who decide to have a child
*Class and race analysis of differences in perinatal health
*Perinatal needs of substance abusing women
*Low birth rate and infant mortality data for Harlem & South Bronx
*Health access roadblocks for various target customer groups
*Review data on late/no prenatal care by race of mother
*Examine birth rate data sets by class and ethnic groups in target areas
3. Internal Audit of Harlem Hospital’s System of Care:
Marketing is not only concerned about what is happening externally to our customers but
it must critically examine how we function as a system of care in meeting our customers’
needs. Completing this audit will help the planning team identify actions, policies and
structures that produce results.
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Also, we can begin to make the tough decisions to abandon strategies, policies, programs
and interventions that have failed to motivate our customers to utilize Harlem Hospital for
pregnancy services:
*examine current appointment system at labor & delivery suite
*examine how intake staff interacts with patients at front door of system
*talk to patients about the quality of clinic care received on L&D suite
*examine discharge system and aftercare interventions for pregnant women
*examine current marketing efforts to motivate women to use existing service
*examine physical environment on 4th floor to see if it is patient friendly
*Why has the number of births at Harlem Hospital declined over the last ten years?
*What are some of the strengths about Harlem Hospital’s service system?
4. Marketing/Customer Definitions:
NMPP has researched and defined four distinct customer segments that the marketing
plan will reach. What will be the unique value propositions offered to each segment?
They are as follows:
1. African-American Working Class/Medicaid Segment
2. South Harlem/South Bronx (SoHa) West African Population
3. Strivers Row Segment of Urban Settlers or Pioneers of Various Ethnicities
4. Growing Latina (Mama) Segment: Mexicans, Dominicans and Puerto Ricans
Our review of statistics and focus group results will help us define the nuances of the
above market segments or decide on some new ones that are not mentioned above.
5. Competitive Analysis:
No marketing plan would be complete without an assessment of Harlem Hospital’s
competition. We need to examine the service offerings of St. Luke’s Hospital Center
and the larger Continuum Health Partners network the hospital is apart of. We need
to closely examine the growth of this competitor’s outpatient clinic expansion in
Harlem, which is their main strategy to capture market share (women of childbearing
age and pregnant women) from Harlem Hospital. The Presbyterian Hospital System
Allen Pavilion midwifery practice marketing efforts to convince patients to travel from
Harlem to Washington Heights to deliver their babies must be studied. Why are
Harlem-based pregnant women traveling to Washington Heights or Bellevue Hospital
in lower Manhattan to receive prenatal and pregnancy services instead of Harlem
Hospital? What are Mount Sinai Hospital’s and Cornell’s plans for Harlem when it
comes to serving pregnant and parenting women? This analysis should communicate
in a grid format the differences between Harlem Hospital and its competitors on:
*front door contact with patients during intake and triage
*time it takes to obtain an appointment for pregnancy testing and ongoing treatment
*quality, levels and intensity of care by midwives, nurses and obstetricians
*status of home-like nature of each facility’s birthing rooms
*quality and extent of pre-pregnancy counseling, childbirth classes and prenatal care
*review how family members are integrated into the treatment process
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*quality of discharge plans and follow-up post-natal and well baby visits
*status of midwife clinical and business practice development at each site
6. Set Quantitative and Qualitative Marketing Objectives by Quarter & Segment
7. Develop Marketing Strategies & Messages for Each Customer Segment
8. Set Marketing Tactics, Timeframes and Team Members
e.g., direct mail, print & electronic media work, flyer distribution work, poster work, beauty
parlor activities, door-to-door outreach, public speaking engagements, health fair
organizing, website development, blast fax activity, radio talk show circuit, mobilize
maternal and child health organizations to steer potential patients, complete Pathmark
and other neighborhood supermarket package stuffing work, develop brochure for
upscale market segment, develop unique church and teen marketing strategies,
coordinate e-mail blast work, use mapping software to target flyer distribution sites,
organize grand opening ceremony, saturate West African and Dominican civic
institutions with Birthing Center marketing materials in their language, etc.
9. Implement Strategies and Tactics and Evaluate Results-Begin Process Again
10. Target Population: Marketing Demographics
The target population for this assignment will include women in Harlem Hospital’s
primary and secondary service areas. Zip codes: 10027, 10030, 10031, 10037 and 10039
define the primary service area.
These zip codes comprise what we call Central Harlem. Central Harlem’s main ethnic
groups are poor and working class African Americans and West African women plus a
burgeoning cohort of women of various ethnicities who are defined by their middle class
and upper class economic status, home ownership rates and lifestyle needs (Clintonian
Moms/Strivers/Pioneers). Harlem Hospital has captured the African-American poor and
working class sectors in the service area and must do a better job convincing more of the
West African and Clintonian Moms to do business with our service structure.
Zip codes: 10025, 10026, 10029, 10032, 10033, 10034, 10035, 10040 comprise the
communities of East Harlem and Washington Heights. Zip codes 10452, 10453 and
10456 comprise the community called Morrisania in the South Bronx. The above zip
codes and communities define Harlem Hospital’s secondary service area. These
communities have large numbers of Puerto Rican, Mexican, West African and
Dominican women of childbearing age. Harlem Hospital has not captured a sizable share
of this market.
Live Births in Primary & Secondary Service Areas 2002 Vital Statistics NYCDOH:
Central Harlem/CH:
East Harlem/EH:
Washington Heights/WH:
Morrisania/M:
1,934
2,042
4,313
3,410
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Age Range
Women in Primary
Service Area
15-24
24-44
Total Women of Childbearing Age
13,901
33,259
47,160
Women in Secondary
Service Area
45,204
125,976
171,189
Total
59,105
159,235
218,340
Live Births by Hospital & Service Area 2002
Market Share
Harlem Hospital Center/CH-EH-M
St. Luke’s Hospital/CH-EH-WH-M
Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center/Allen Pavilion/WH-CH-citywide
Bellevue Hospital Center-Lower Manhattan/CH-citywide
Metropolitan Hospital Center/EH-CH
Mount Sinai Hospital/EH-CH-citywide
Bronx Lebanon Hospital Center-M-and other area of the Bronx
1,014
3,907
6,430
2,100
1,908
4,621
2,638
Situational Analysis
Our CHIP placed the strategic alliance between NMPP and Harlem
Hospital in the turnaround quadrant. As a separate entity, NMPP is
the market leader among the other 15 Perinatal Networks in New
York State. To achieve our mission, our new competitors and
collaborators are hospitals. NMPP has led a campaign over the last
14 years that reduced infant mortality from 27.7 deaths per 1,000
live births in 1990 to 6.2 deaths in 2002.
We achieved this objective by designing the war plan for other
social service agencies, clinics and hospitals to follow and saturated
the Harlem community with over seven perinatal case management
programs that located high-risk pregnant women and encouraged
them to enter prenatal care early while establishing for them a
medical home. We simply have to focus more of our resources on
meeting the needs of the West African pregnant woman, addressing
the Perinatal needs of women over 35 years of age and increase our
work to address the needs of women with perinatal mood disorders.
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Harlem Hospital, as a separate entity four months ago received a
score of 98 on their JCAHO review. During the month of April
2004, Mayor Bloomberg awarded Harlem Hospital with a capital
grant of 225 million dollars to build a new hospital over the next
five years. Harlem Hospital also has one of the busiest emergency
rooms in the nation. On September 7, 2003, NMPP and Harlem
Hospital opened our Birthing Suites project on the fourth floor of
the hospital. It took about five years to raise two million dollars and
build the facility. Currently, this facility has no equal in New York
City in terms of the size (800 square feet each) of the five birthing
rooms and the equipment and ambiance. This advantage won’t last
forever!
However, Harlem Hospital operates each year with a sizable deficit.
The number of deliveries declined from over 4,000 a year in 1992 to
1,104 deliveries in 2002. The hospital also has a reputation for poor
quality care delivered to the residents of Central Harlem. This
reality is part perception and part reality. Finally, Harlem Hospital
has not responded to the new market realities and competitors who
have cut into their market share by developing and implementing a
professional marketing plan to recapture market share.
To reduce the infant mortality rate below six deaths per one
thousand live births over the next three years, NMPP and Harlem
Hospital developed a strategic alliance to transform some of our
weaknesses into strengthens.
St. Luke's Hospital Center is our main competitor in the industry.
They have built about seven outpatient clinics along the 125th street
corridor and throughout Central Harlem in an attempt to attract
women of childbearing age into these clinics. Once the staff
determines that a woman is pregnant, she is immediately referred to
their birthing suite for triage. St. Luke's does not carry out much
advertising. They use their clinic infrastructure to capture market
share.
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However, their birthing suites are located on 57th Street several
miles from Central Harlem. While Harlem-based pregnant women
have been known to travel to distant facilities to get the best quality
service, we must convince these women to utilize Harlem Hospital
to meet their need for quality care and respect.
The Columbia Presbyterian Hospital Center/Allen Pavilion has
about 30 midwives and since 1955, they have provided birthing
services to the women of Northern Manhattan. Research has
revealed to us that large numbers of Central Harlem-based women
have traveled north to their facility in Washington Heights for
prenatal care as well as delivered at the Allen Pavilion. Our task, if
we choose to accept it, is to cut off the corridor north to this facility
by better understanding and meeting the needs of Harlem-based
pregnant women at Harlem Hospital. Recently, Presbyterian
administrators decided to only allow obstetricians to deliver babies
at their facility taking away the competitive advantage of midwife
deliveries. We plan to take advantage of this new policy change
once we roll out our market program.
Morris Heights Birthing Center is the only free- standing birthing
center in New York City. This fact provides them a competitive
advantage versus hospital-based birthing suites. Due to the fact
that our target market moves to obtain prenatal care in one borough
and then deliver their child in another, Morris Heights is a strong
competitor that we must keep our eyes on! Morris Heights has a
business relationship with Bronx Lebanon Hospital. While
we don't see this facility as a major market threat, we plan to
watch their behavior because together they can make a
serious push to capture market share in Harlem although they are
both based in the South Bronx. Harlem Hospital has a sizable
number of West African women obtaining prenatal care and
delivering their children at Harlem Hospital who come from the
Morrisania section of the Bronx. We plan to expand our share
along this corridor in the near future.
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To conclude, we are now positioned to take advantage of the
opportunities in the external environment by utilizing the combined
resources of NMPP and Harlem Hospital to reduce infant mortality
a few more percentage points. To achieve our objectives, we also
must be mindful of our internal organizational weaknesses and
transform them into strengths over the next three years or we will
go out of business.
We are very concerned about the rapid economic development that
is taking place in Central Harlem that has displaced the historic
poor and working class base in Harlem. Examining 2000 census
data reveals 10% of our Medicaid population moved from Central
Harlem from 1990 to 2000. While this is a major concern, we
strongly believe that the economic development has also played a
role in neighborhood stabilization which has decreased the infant
mortality rate in Harlem because a new patient population has
moved in with better birth outcomes.
Intense competition in the NYC healthcare market has closed
several facilities and forced others to consolidate within larger
hospital networks or systems. The fog that sometimes defines our
industry’s market landscape is getting clearer. We now have a clear
picture of the competitors left standing, their weaknesses, strengths
and their marketing objectives. It is now time to make our move. It
is time to take the lead!
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