Healthcare is a booming industry, with a tremendous predicted growth in the coming years. According to Forbes, it is a “trillion dollar industry in the making”. Healthcare is a field which needs extensive amounts of research before a product or service can be offered. Customers are the core target of any marketing campaign and companies are putting large investments in medical market research to ensure each and every launch is a success. The healthcare market is flooded with products, competition is high and it truly is a survival of the fittest environment. But before you venture out into the industry battlefield with a new or existing innovation, you must do your research and do it well.
We have put together the three main reasons that medical market research is crucial to the success of your business.
Equip yourself – Knowledge really is power
Arm yourself with the right information to make better business decisions. This is the first aim of medical market research. It is conducted to make calculated decisions on your healthcare marketing P’s – product, price, placement and promotion.
By utilizing various medical market research methods, you get to understand your customers and their preferences, which is the key to determining what products to create, which products to innovate on and which ones to pull out of, fast. You’ll get a handle on some pretty big decisions like;
Price
Market research helps you to find the right price for your product. Are your prices too high or low? Good products are sought after by consumers, but unreasonable price may hinder this behaviour. The idea of market research is for you to strike a balance with regards to price, between market competition, your financing choices, profit margins and your customers’ willingness to pay.
Target Market: Location and characteristics
Medical market research will also help you determine the best locations to sell your products or services. You can take a profile of potential locations and compare their characteristics. Are they accessible? Is there a target market concentration there? These are crucial things you have to consider before making any placement decisions.
Promotion techniques: How to market
Lastly, market research is crucial for determining the best promotion technique. When you have identified the prices and location for your products, market research gives you the real answers as to reaching your market. It answers questions like: What medium should I use? Your market is divided into segments- the old and young, women and men, etc. How should I create branding? Should you go for more advanced or stick with traditional advertising methods? Thorough medical market research is the only way to get answers to these questions.
Get on the front foot
Every day, consumer preferences are changing. Demands are shifting. What may be a sought-after product now may not be as much sought after one year. One main purpose of conducting medical market research in healthcare is to recognise this shift. And when you’ve recognised it, you adjust. In this shift or die market, knowing where to shift is essential.
Through regular market research, companies can know when the demand is shifting before it actually happens. At economic shifts, they learn to recognise opportunities to create profits by offering new products that fit what the market needs.
With an industry like healthcare, where advancements are being shown every day, being able to predict economic shifts will get you ahead of the game. In short, it makes your business survive.
Monitor competition
Monitoring the market as well as competitors is as important as forecasting. Despite your efforts to give the best products to your target consumers, stiff market competition lowers the rate of your advertising campaigns’ sales conversions.
For healthcare, medical market research will help you get information about what your counterparts are up to. Get up to date with their methods of advertising, so that you can compare your own.
Any business has the potential to grow given sound and reliable marketing strategies. This is less likely to happen without the help of market research. So start right, conduct market research before you take any un-calculated risks.
