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Executive Summary
The comprehensive market plan for St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital entails several strategies to achieve the set targets. Marketing plans require an analysis of the current marketing situation, SWOT analysis, and planning for the marketing strategy with consideration of the campaign expenses. A comprehensive marketing plan must ensure that the market achieves the set objectives and issues. A good marketing plan provides that all the business’s risks benefit its purpose. The marketing strategy must be tailored to the organization’s needs to consider the company’s long and short-term objectives. Additionally, the market plan needs to address the audience with relatable approaches to the marketing channels. St Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital focuses on marketing to drive their goals since they depend on donors to fund their programs.
Current Marketing Situation
St Jude’s Children’s Research hospital focuses on improving the well-being of childhood-related illnesses. The organization is dedicated to improving patient outcomes through research that helps provide information on care enhancement. In doing so, the organization focuses on alleviating families’ huge burdens by ensuring affordable healthcare costs. St. Jude’s unique operating model distinguishes them from other similar organizations in the industry. The company’s current marketing situation involves using the American Lebanese Syrian Associated Charities (ALSAC), whose primary purpose is to ensure the necessary funds are available. ALSAC is used to increase awareness of St. Jude and ensure it has the funds required for its sustenance and growth (St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, 2022). The organization uses a high expenditure involved in providing pediatric care to patients. It uses funds from investment returns, insurance recoveries, research grants, and donations channelled to save children’s lives. St Jude covers all the expenses like food credit, housing facilities, patient travel, and treatment (St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, 2022). Generally, the current marketing situation addresses today’s and tomorrow’s needs for the organization.
St. Jude has a strategic plan to ensure they manage to run the organization effectively each year. To run St Jude has been estimated to cost $2 billion annually, which is expected to hike to $2.2 billion annually in five years (St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, 2022). In the 2021 fiscal year, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, through ALSAC, managed to raise $2 billion in donations that funded its operations (Setiawan et al., 2020). The projects and research of the organization typically involve vast amounts of money and therefore require proper planning. The current strategic investment is known as the Six-Year Strategic plan and focuses on laboratory and clinical-based research to improve patient care in catastrophic pediatric situations. Looking at St. Jude’s unique operation strategy, it’s clear that its marketing approach aims at increasing the number of donors to fund its projects. Some techniques used to pull the donations included modifying their fundraising approaches (Setiawan et al., 2020). Some new strategies included inspiration4, which is scheduled for, and a collaboration with the first orbital magazine.
These core strategies help St Jude have a strong pivot on generating the funds required for the successful run of the organization. Therefore, the system aims to increase awareness and raise revenue for the organization’s sustenance. Besides, the organization focuses on striking, unconventional partnerships and reaching out to different people that can support the organization’s mission. Raising funds has been improved through digital fundraising activities that ensure all potential supporters get the message being spread by the organization. Strategies in place for marketing in St Jude included working with developers and influencers since the targeted audience relates to them well. Additionally, the strategic plan will enable the hospital to treat more cancer patients. The integrated marketing approach is the top concern for the organization and involves the use of communication approaches that ensure the customers are well targeted (St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, 2022). With this strategic approach, the organization is set to ensure that they create massive opportunities for them in the market. St Jude Children’s Research hospital’s marketing team is therefore keen to acknowledge that they must actively devise ways to achieve their goals.
SWOT Analysis
St Jude Children’s Research hospital’s SWOT analysis evaluates the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. The SWOT analysis looks at the external forces and weaknesses and the internal opportunities and threats business environment. The SWOT analysis allows the managers to evaluate their performance in the industry to come up with effective measures that can be used for improvement. St Jude Children’s Research Hospital is in the healthcare industry and aims to integrate technologies to improve patient outcomes for children. Additionally, the SWOT analysis is usually used to ensure the organizations can neutralize the threats and weaknesses while capitalizing on their strengths and opportunities (Setiawan et al., 2020). Looking at the organization, some of its significant strengths include those unique to the organization and give it a better competitive advantage over the major players in the industry. Some notable elements of the strengths are the brand value, the product and service uniqueness, experienced personnel, and its financial position (Stevens et al., 2021). The company has been able to sell its products to a wide variety of customers by having many operational facilities in many countries.
Other strengths of the organization are the recognition by the U.S fortune magazine among the most admired organizations for six years consecutively. St Jude Children’s Research Hospital collaborates with Abbott Laboratories and enjoys strong brand identification among the consumers (Stevens et al., 2021). St Jude has several weaknesses that are not looked at on time and are likely to make the organization vulnerable. The organization can improve its competitive position by focusing on neutralizing its shortcomings. Weaknesses show the attributes in the industry that other competitors are doing better or the aspects of business that the organization may be lacking. The SWOT analysis shows the weaknesses in St Jude, like financial and employment problems characterized by turnover of the international workforce (Stevens et al., 2021). Besides, the company faced negative publicity caused by product recalls and had a higher expenditure than other major players in the industry. The organization is not very good at forecasting the product demand, and this causes a miss of opportunities.
St Jude Children’s Research Hospital has several opportunities like lower inflation rates, increased customer base due to online activity, consumer spending, and market development. Other possibilities are related to the reduction of the cost of transport and the green government initiative that provides an area for the organization to boost its revenue generation and easy procurement. The organization has an opportunity due to the new environmental policies that are good actors to ensure no market disparities favouring some industry players. The organizations face several threats that can hinder the organization’s growth. Significant hazards include the company facing lawsuits due to varying product standards and liability laws, intense competition in the industry, customer purchase behaviour changes, and the growth of other local competitors (Stevens et al., 2021). The consideration of the SWOT analysis is vital as it guides the organization’s major stakeholders in the right move to make in marketing. Organizations, therefore, consider the internal and external factors to see how they impact the company’s performance.
Objectives and Issues
St Jude’s Children’s Research hospital’s main objectives for sustenance involve articulating the funds from all donors. The generous donors ensure the organization’s budget is catered for, and all are focused on saving children by finding cures. In years to come, ALSAC is supposed to generate 89% of the funds required for the sustenance and growth of the organization (St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, 2022). The objectives address what the organization needs to do to cater to its needs. The organization’s primary purpose is to provide the essential services required to save the lives of children worldwide, and most of its activities are aligned with its primary mission. Their main objective is to save the lives of children with catastrophic diseases. Therefore, St. Jude Research hospital focuses on using its marketing team to develop and implement strategies that could be used to meet the objectives and goals of the corporate partners (St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, 2022). Setiawan et al. (2020) outline that the organization’s objectives have been laid in terms of the $12.9 billion commitment to opening new research locations, addressing capital and renovation needs, and creating 2300 jobs.
The six-year plan entails a lot of objectives that allow the organization to influence the worldwide understanding of childhood catastrophic diseases like infectious diseases, neurological disorders, sickle cell disease, and cancer. The plan aims to change how people resonate with childhood fatal diseases and accelerate its awareness internationally. Other objectives included enhancing the organization’s brand awareness and increasing the support it gets from donors. All of the marketing approaches employed by the organization operate on the same kind of ideology and focus. Therefore, all aim to improve the well-being of children with catastrophic illnesses and save their lives in the process (St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, 2022). The research done by the organization focuses on understanding the chemical, genetic and molecular nature of catastrophic illnesses in children. Therefore, St Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital is on a mission to become a global leader in preventing and treating life-threatening diseases among children.
Marketing Strategy
St Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital can implement a marketing strategy focusing on traditional and modern marketing approaches. The conventional marketing approaches could be used to increase the awareness of the products they offer and, at the same time, increase donors and revenue generated. The marketing strategy implemented can focus on aligning the direct response model with the digitalized global economy, using machine learning to increase brand awareness, and looking at ways to improve the impact of innovation. Additionally, the organization can strengthen its traditional methods of raising money through television, direct response toll line, live events, and mail (Setiyawati et al., 2021). This move will allow the organization to be ahead of its competitors and ensure they are in line with the newest technologies. The use of machine learning can help ensure the organization reaches a larger audience. The brand can implement intelligent technologies that can get potential donors and increase awareness about the brand. Using social media sites like YouTube can enable the organization to share effective content that helps it engage newer potential donors to attain their objectives.
The use of televisions and other media can involve celebrities that help push the agenda more and relate with the people. Additionally, the organization can invest in transparency among its staff to ensure everyone is on the same page and uses the same approach in all marketing aspects. When the organization provides an adapted common framework, it can easily measure its innovation performance and develop improved methods. Besides, an increase in collaborations with organizations with different cultures can help the organization develop approaches that could be used to reach the set goals (Setiyawati et al., 2021). In addition, integrated communications plans can be implemented using channels known in the standard framework adopted by all aspects of the marketing approach. Event fundraisers and collaborations with charity foundations will help the organization create the required awareness and attain the set goals and objectives (Setiyawati et al., 2021). Principally, an action program such as the one outlined in Table 1 can be beneficial in boosting the effectiveness of the hospital’s marketing plan.
Action Programs
Table 1. Action Program for St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital
Budgets
The budgetary allocation of the marketing plan details the financial arrangement of all the aspects of the marketing approach. Grabeel et al. (2019) suggest St Jude has been known to spend a lot on marketing. The funds allocated for online and digital marketing will be $5 million, which will be used for YouTube and site ads on the internet (Grabeel et al., 2019). The above amount will cater to Search Engine Optimization and marketing. An additional $100,000 will be used to upgrade the computer systems to ensure they are up to date with the current trends (Grabeel et al., 2019). Additionally, Setiawan et al. (2020) point out that for an integrated communications approach, an additional $2 million will be used to ensure all work environments are taught with practical measures.
Television ads and the use of celebrities for content on social media platforms are allocated an additional $3 million. Fundraisers and other traditional marketing approaches will be given $2 million with an expected 100% return on investment (Grabeel et al., 2019). Funds will be channelled to virtual and real-world awareness creation events, estimated to cost about $1 million (Grabeel et al., 2019). Money used in creating collaborations and partnerships with other organizations is $1 million (Grabeel et al., 2019). The total expenditure of the marketing strategy is approximately fourteen million one hundred thousand dollars.
References
Grabeel, K. L., Luhrs, J., Roberts, R. E., & Earl, M. (2019). How one library’s health information centre expanded its marketing plan. Medical Reference Services Quarterly, 38(3), 218-227.
Setiawan, H., Hasyim, H., & Mutiara, R. (2020). Marketing Mix and Trust as A Visiting Intention Factors. Journal of Multidisciplinary Academic, 4(6), 373-380.
Setiyawati, E., Indradewa, R., Syah, T. Y. R., & Fajarwati, D. (2021). Marketing Plan for Business Startups’ Jamu Partnership’in Indonesia. International Journal of Research and Review, 8(08), 327-333.
St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. (2022). Our unique operating model. Stjude.org.
Stevens, R. E., Loudon, D. L., Wrenn, B., & Warren, W. E. (2021). Marketing planning guide. CRC Press.
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