Marketing in health care

Marketing in Non-Profit Organizations / Settings

Marketing for profit-making and non-profit organizations have certain similarities and differences. Similarities include the marketing of a commodity or service that an organization offers for the consumers. For example, profit-making organizations resort to marketing in order for consumers to be more informed and acquainted with the organization's wide range of products and services. Similarly, non-profit organizations like schools, religious institutions, and non-government and government agencies resort to marketing so that individuals and groups will be informed of the mission and objectives of the organization. This is important because most non-profit organizations are in a constant need to raise funds or money so that the organization's public service projects can be accomplished.

However, there is one apparent difference in the marketing objectives between profit-making and non-profit organizations. For profit-making organizations, marketing their products and services are primarily based on the motivation that the organization will earn profits out of their marketing strategies. Non-profit organizations, on the other hand, use marketing to gain financial grants and funds in supporting the organization's programs. For example, a school may be in need of financial funding for a school program that will support the school's scholars. In order to raise the amount of money needed for the program, the school may use marketing strategies so that people will be aware of the school's programs and objectives, and be able to raise funds for a program with a good or useful cause.

Non-profit organizations are now resorting to marketing because financial pressures and cutbacks are now becoming a main problem of most non-profit organizations. Therefore, in order to compensate for these cutbacks, organizations resort to marketing in informing interested parties about the programs that needed funding. Marketing the nature of a program and stating clearly its objectives avoids the problem that most non-profit organizations face, which is the appropriation of financial support that they receive to programs that the organization no longer implements or does not need to fund immediately. There are many ways in which non-profit organizations market their service and programs to the public, which includes the following: person marketing, place marketing, idea marketing, and organization marketing. True to the nature of its terms, person marketing is usually used during election campaigns for a candidate, while place marketing is often found in tourism programs. Idea marketing focuses on a public-service message by a government or non-government agency and organization marketing uses an organization's image (reputation or prestige) to raise funds for its programs (e.g. educational institutions).