The influence of digital marketing on brand equity for private hospitals in Jordan

Abstract

Traditional marketing has shifted to digital marketing due to the highly competitive market and technological advancements with the internet. In today's digital age, where the majority of people are online, digital marketing has become essential for businesses to establish, maintain, and enhance their brand equity. Digital marketing is the most growing industry, with the high number of viewers increasing regularly; it has changed the way brands are managed and forced businesses to deal with customers in a new, more interactive way, as well as the Jordanian private hospitals which are commercialised as any other brands and need to shine in the digital world. This thesis aims to examine the influence of digital marketing and its main dimensions (User Generated Content and Firm Generated Content) on overall brand equity for private hospitals in Jordan to determine which brand equity dimensions are most influenced by digital marketing strategy from the perspectives of hospital marketing managers and potential customers. In addition, to assess the behaviour of hospitals' potential customers due to exposure to the hospitals' digital marketing activities (primarily social media platforms and website content). Furthermore, it provides empirically validated recommendations to improve the effectiveness of hospital brand equity through digital marketing. The impact of digital marketing on brand equity for private hospitals in Jordan yields novel insights. It contributes to advancing healthcare marketing, branding, digital marketing, and marketing research knowledge. The research can ultimately help improve Jordan's healthcare system by providing private hospitals with a better understanding of using digital marketing to build and maintain a strong brand. The study attempts to fill these gaps by utilizing two marketing theories: high-involvement decision-making for potential customers and integrated marketing communication (IMC) from the perspectives of hospitals as presented in the PESO Model (Paid, Earned, Shared and Owned). Therefore, the thesis follows a mixed methodology approach with the domination of the qualitative approach to answer the research questions and cover the thesis's three primary sources of data collection (Observation, Interviews and questionnaire) to get unbiased findings that can be generalised and comprehensively cover the sources. The need to have three studies in the thesis that one study will not cover the whole picture of the thesis objectives and answer the research questions, starting with the hospitals' social media platforms; 15 hospitals' digital marketing platforms were observed and analysed precisely using several analytical tools and presented as study one in the thesis to examine the real understand and involvement for the hospitals and their status quo. The findings of study one led to the second data source, interviews with 14 hospitals' marketing managers, which were analysed qualitatively using NVivo and presented as study two as a complement to the first study to enrich the qualitative approach with thorough datasets and findings via the hospitals. The final stage involved quantitative data collection from customers using a digital questionnaire, and 677 responses were recorded and analysed using SPSS 26 and displayed as the third study. This study assists in covering the potential customers' perspectives and allows the generalisation of the findings and obtaining objective results. Results extracted from the three studies generally showed that digital marketing dimensions (User-generated content and Firm- generated content) strongly influence the overall brand equity of Jordan's private hospitals. User-generated content has a greater influence on all brand equity dimensions, namely (brand association, perceived quality, brand reputation, and brand loyalty) except brand awareness which was strongly influenced by the firm-generated content. In contrast, User-generated content has the most decisive influence on overall brand equity than Firm-generated content. So, hospitals should keep working potently on their brand awareness using digital marketing tools and enhance their presence to build good relations with their customers. Results also showed that even hospital marketing managers rely on digital marketing but still lack the knowledge of using the best methods and techniques. Additionally, some challenges facing the marketing managers, such as lack of management support, lack of some resources and regulatory pressure, have been barriers to Jordan hospitals using digital marketing. As a result, today's standard digital marketing methods require adaptation to emphasise research content and consistently publish. Additionally, respondents pointed out that they use the Facebook platform as their primary social media channel, so managers are recommended to enhance their Facebook presence for their target customers. It is worth mentioning that video content has better engagement results than the other content types, as well as not forgetting the hospitals' websites' significant role in affecting their digital presence. Future studies could examine the doctor's point of view as they are considered significant influencers on patients' decisions to head to a specific hospital to get the best service. They could also examine the employee's loyalty impact on digital marketing reach, engagement, and brand equity, adding to the management's role in investing in digital marketing to enhance their brands.