Recently, we received a request from the marketing director of a major network of clinics. We immediately clicked with Anna (fictional name). She told us about her work and how, in her opinion, her boss unwittingly set her up for failure. Understanding dawned from the first moment, and we were finishing each other's sentences; almost immediately, we understood Anna's main pain point...
Here's how our conversation went:
Us: "Your CEO expects you to be a graphic designer, writer, web developer, videographer, social media guru, internet advertising expert, SEO expert, media buying manager, content marketer, brand expert, physician communication specialist, and public relations specialist."
Anna: "Oh my, how did you guess?"
Us: "We hear similar stories almost every day."
Anna: "I'm an outstanding copywriter and brand creator. But I'm NOT an expert in everything else."
We told her, "Don't despair. Nobody is a true expert in all these areas at once."
Anna: "Guys, will you tell that to my director?"
Us: "Of course! And we'll even write an article about it on our blog."
Just as in medicine, successful marketing in healthcare requires a team of experienced specialists. To achieve a "winning edge" today, you need to rely on people with knowledge in various fields. Truly mastering each marketing specialty requires years, even decades, of education, training, and practice.
No matter how competent your marketing specialist is, you're setting them up for failure if you expect them to do everything on their own.
Marketing in healthcare is a "team sport."
Uninitiated managers and doctors think marketing is easy. Consequently, marketers often feel overwhelmed and undervalued.
We sympathize. The highly skilled specialist we spoke to understands that the demands are too high. She realizes that crafting a quality marketing strategy requires a wide range of knowledge from an experienced marketing team.
Your "treatment options"
By now, we hope we've convinced you to stop expecting your marketer to be an expert in everything. What now?
First, you can assemble a team in your clinic. While this option is quite common for large clinic chains, it may be economically unfeasible for most small clinics.
Another option is to hire several contractors for different tasks. This option rarely works successfully and is often suboptimal due to the complexity of coordinating multiple suppliers to achieve a common goal. Contractors, in turn, often start pulling the blanket in budget allocation issues or shifting blame onto others in case of failure.
Finally, you can consider hiring a full-service healthcare marketing agency. With this model, you don't need to hire a team of experts full-time. Instead, when you work with an agency, you can tap into the expertise of each team member as needed.
For example, our marketing agency invests annually in a team of healthcare marketing specialists. This includes marketing strategies, brand health research, SEO, social media marketing (SMM), reputation management, web design, programming, video and photo shooting and editing, scriptwriting, copywriting, art direction, graphic design, media buying, and more. We even have specialists who help our clients handle the phone calls we generate for them.
While you might assume that comprehensive marketing support is too expensive, it doesn't have to be. Thanks to scaling and efficient use of time, clients can leverage the talents of all these specialists for a fraction of the cost it would take to employ these skills in-house.
A simple marketing plan will bring about equally simple, insignificant results. But most clinics have higher demands and expectations. You'll need a higher level of knowledge when:
Many medical institutions we work with believe they deserve the best. They have top-notch equipment and the best staff. No halfway measures. No shortcuts. Their service standard is top-notch.
If your clinic shares this attitude, we recommend working diligently to persuade your colleagues and management to engage qualified marketing specialists.
And what happened with Anna?
By the end of the conversation, Anna was inspired. Her new fiscal year is approaching, and she asked us to provide a few recommendations for her management team. She also asked us to organize a conference with some of our specialists so her CEO could speak with them and understand the difference. How could we refuse?