Branding and Marketing Melissa Swan HCS/567 April 24th, 2013 Harley Smith MBA/HCM

Branding and Marketing Introduction Health care is an ever changing and ever evolving entity. As health care grows, the marketing and positive branding for health care must also grow. In order for a health care organization to survive, the organization must work diligently not only to ensure marketing and positive branding is done but must also ensure the organization is keeping up with other potential competitors. The Cleveland Clinic, located in Cleveland, Ohio, is one such health care organization that has to market and create positive branding for their health care organization. Target Market A target market is a specific group of people or businesses an organization tries to sell their product or service to. It is important for an organization to choose their target market wisely and ensure the target market they are going after is appropriate for their service or product. If the target market is not appropriate, the company may fail because their product or service will not be purchased. In an article written by Comer, 2006, Comer said it best, “By focusing your marketing efforts on target clients you can surface in the middle of the convoy and acquire the best, most important clients.” (p. 19). What Comer’s statement boils down to is that by choosing a correct target market and focusing on that target market, the business will only acquire customers who are suited for the product or business (Barringer and Ireland, 2010). For example, if a company that sold purses only targeted men, they may be disappointed in the amount of customers they get, because the correct target market would be for women. It is important for businesses to complete research on the target market they