Marketing in the News

One of the articles I found was on Inc.com, a website which focuses primarily on business and marketing news. The article was about telehealth business startups and how they are growing exponentially and earning thousands of dollars. A telehealth company, in the context of this article, is applications which allow for long distance patient and clinician contact, advice, and mointoring.

I was interested because coronavirus is a virus which is impacting the entire world, so I wanted to see how businesses were trying to cope and adjust their business and marketing plans in order to make the best of the pandemic. The three things I took away is that many companies are now starting virtual doctor appointments as the lockdown and social distancing procedures persist. Many people believe that with the success people are seeing with these virtual telehealth, the industry will start to shift more towards the virtual diagnosis side. Another unfortunate thing I saw is that there are a lot of people who are now making millions of dollars from the coronavirus scare. It makes sense from a business standpoint, but from a social standpoint it would be nice to see these things coming from a social equality standpoint.

The value proposition of the companies involved is that they are promising quick and cheap diagnosis over the social distance benefit of the internet or phone call.

I think this article and startup businesses involved are happening at a very crucial time. As I outlined before, they are creating a health service when health is on everyone’s mind, particularly coronavirus.

I think the major challenge that these companies face is technological literacy. The majority of people aren’t very good when it comes to working apps and computers, so it might be hard to teach both employees and customers how to use the user side of the company.

I don’t believe the marketing approach is extremely new. When a business opportunity presents itself, many entrepreneurs will step forward and try to make a profit off of. At least telehealth is something that can be potentially positive and helpful, while many people are trying to take advantage of others and sell fake and phony coronavirus curing kits.

If I was the product manager, I would try and push the fact that you can be diagnosed from the comfort of your home. Many people are afraid to go to a hospital because of the coronavirus concern. If people know that they can be given instructions or diagnosed at home is something that many people may be interested in. I’m just unsure whether the diagnosis they are giving is up to the standard of a doctor. They said in the article they were doing survey types of diagnosis, where you would fill out some questions and see if you had coronavirus from the “CDC’s guidelines.” I don’t believe that can be entirely accurate, and might scare people more. Many people face this problem with WebMD.

In conclusion, this is a business which is going to bloom during COVID-19. Many investment companies are pumping upwards of $50 million dollars per company to try and start making a profit off of the telehealths. However, these companies and applications are gaining ten to fifteen thousand new users per day. It’s important to know that given the right circumstances in the world, nearly any type of business can be successful given the right type of marketing.