Introduction
Marketing has become an integral part of many spheres of life in the modern world. Nowadays, it is setting a significant benchmark for public sector agencies enforcing their development. It is essential for every type of organization to utilize some core marketing techniques to obtain a wide range of consumers for profit-making. In spite of the previously mentioned fact, marketing tools are also applicable to nursing as a medical sector because they allow expending nursing practice in different fields (Hanson & Philips, 2014).
It is crucial to employ marketing techniques to advance this sphere. Within the framework of advanced practice nursing (APN), nursing practitioners might use marketing for both, promoting themselves as specialists in the area and creating a high-quality environment in business for the provision of excellent services. The application of the four Ps of marketing, namely product, price, place, and promotion, to nursing makes its development possible.
Product
The first P in the four Ps of marketing (sometimes referred to as marketing mix) stands for the product. In the case of ANP, the concept of the product might be applied to medical services provided by the healthcare workers, the practitioners themselves, or medications. The health service as a product must be addressed from the perspective of customer orientation and patient safety (Weng, Chen, Pong, Chen, & Lin, 2016).
APN performance should be of high quality and competitiveness to be able to meet the requirements and expectations of the customers (patients). When a concept of the product is applied to nursing practitioners, it “helps establish the value of APNs to the consumers” (Hanson & Philips, 2014, p. 540). Also, some other elements of nursing work might be categorized as marketing products. These might be goods, events, places, properties, ideas, information, or even organizations in general (Hanson & Philips, 2014). Thus, the quality of the product, either it is a service or a nurse as an individual who provides the service, predominantly determines the success of the organization’s performance and its ability to guarantee patients’ safety.
Price
The second P in the four Ps of marketing represents price. It is “an amount of money that an individual will be asked to pay for the product being offered” (Hanson & Philips, 2014, p. 540). The price for a particular product or service is formed by the predicted costs for the delivery of a service, salary payments, as well as the direct expenses on its production. Profit-making is an influential factor in the modern world economy. Marketing techniques and strategies include this idea and regard price as a decisive element in the performance of any organization that aims at satisfying consumers’ interest.
Nursing utilizes the concept of price from the perspective of cost-effectiveness that allows preserving finances by providing preventive interventions (Hanson & Philips, 2014). At the same time, the cost of medications and services should also be viewed within the marketing strategy to remain affordable for patients. Form the point of view that a nurse is a product, the concept of price should be applied to the cost of their employment in a hospital.
Place
Place as a location is represented by the third P of marketing. The location of medical institutions is essential because medicine, as well as other public sector units, is an influential participant of the state economy. Its development and local expansion are the core determinants of the national well-being (Serrat, 2017). The concept of place as addressed in marketing embraces the accessibility and availability of the product on the market (Hanson & Philips, 2014). In nursing, medical institutions and facilities such as clinics, hospitals, operating rooms or medical centers are the marketing places. Their accessibility for patients influences the overall availability of the products and services introduced at these facilities and impact the effectiveness of the organization.
Promotion
The last P stands for one of the most influential constituents in the market strategy which is the promotion. It is a set of actions aimed at popularization of the product or service among potential consumers which are carried out through communication with a purpose of selling the product. Medical services provided by nurses are the product from the marketing point of view. That is why the promotion of APN services lies in the set of activities that inform the patients about the possible services they can receive in medical facilities (Hanson & Philips, 2014). A correctly planned marketing promotion campaign might be an effective tool for the implementation of the marketing plan as a whole.
Conclusion
Concluding the discussion, the four Ps of marketing are to be applied to advanced practice nursing in the modern world where only strategic planning is capable of guaranteeing competitiveness and performance excellence. Introducing medical services and specialists as a product to the market, it is essential to incorporate the factors of price and place to promote the product and raise awareness of the patients about the available medical assistance. Thus, when employing the four Ps of marketing, the healthcare organizations are to orient on the patient safety and the quality of the specialists’ work as the priority throughout the marketing plan.
References
Hanson, C. M., & Philips, B. C. (2014) Marketing and negotiation. In A.B. Hamric, C. M. Hanson, M. F. Tracy, & E. T. O’Grady (Eds.), Advanced nursing practice: An integrative approach (5th ed.), (pp. 538-557). St. Louis, MO: Elsevier Health Sciences.
Serrat, O. (2017) Marketing in the public sector. In O. Serrat (Ed.), Knowledge solutions: Tools, methods, and approaches to drive organizational performance (pp. 111-118). Singapore, Springer.
Weng, R. H., Chen, J. C., Pong, L. J., Chen, L. M., & Lin, T. C. (2016). The impact of market orientation on patient safety climate among hospital nurses. Evaluation and the Health Professions, 39(1), 65-86.