In the last two issues of Insights, we examined the critical role of strategic planning and a defined brand positioning in driving market success. Based on a 2009 survey of 66 executives with HealthStream Research, we saw that a lack of financial backing for strategic initiatives, a dearth of market research, and a gap in marketing expertise can limit or even divorce organizations’ marketing function from strategic planning – a critical mistake. We then saw how these gaps inhibit defined brand positioning.
To affect positive change, marketing must be elevated from the tactical to the strategic. Here, we will seek to get a pulse on marketing’s role today, and how it might be recast by many organizations for maximum impact. Elevating marketing to focus on research, brand strategy, and service line development can create a true strategic advantage.
Where does marketing stand?
In our research, we first sought a baseline on marketers’ strengths. Encouragingly, 60% of executives favorably rated the ability to assess the market’s health and information needs, serve as a communications liaison with former patients, and proactively support strategic initiatives. Yet only 39% rated marketing as “very” or “extremely” innovative. The difference in response to these two ostensibly related questions is worth analyzing. The former, more favorable review centers on tactical aspects of the marketing function. Innovation, however, by its nature takes place in a more strategic realm.
Interestingly, innovation ratings improve for those that use a brand marketing agency (52%) or have conducted market research in the last two years (49%) – tendencies shared by organizations that also report greater success in achieving strategic aims.
The impact of expertise and research was even greater when respondents rated skill:
- 84% that conduct research view marketing as highly skilled (vs. 56% of others)
- 92% that use a marketing agency view marketing as highly skilled (vs. 55%)
Consider what all of this suggests about a vital marketing function and strategic success. Organizations that value strategy and research exhibit deeper understanding of marketing’s role, rooted in research and product development. In elevating that role, they are positioned for success, and indeed seem to find it: in the first part of this series, we saw that organizations that conducted research were three times more likely to have achieved all of their key strategic objectives.
The takeaway: when marketing is integrated into your organization as a strategic function – rather than one that merely executes strategies – results improve. However, there’s still work to be done: 27% have not conducted market research in the last two years and 37% do not use a marketing agency.
Do you have sufficient C-Suite buy-in to make a change?
Too often, marketing is confined to product promotion. Yet product/service line development is marketing’s lifeblood – an elevated role can align product development, capacity, and branding initiatives for synergistic impact. To re-imagine marketing’s role, however, change must start at the top.
Just as in our survey, the CEO view of marketing in a separate 2009 HealthLeaders study* was mixed: only 41% viewed marketing as “slightly” or “very” strong. In tandem, only 30% of marketers saw themselves as valued CEO advisors. This is a key finding. Marketers without easy access to the C-Suite are limited in what they can contribute.
“Hospital CEO’s must become better educated about what constitutes strategic marketing. While they are counting on it as a key business driver, they nonetheless have low expectations as to what the function can deliver. They expect tactical because that has been their orientation. To demand strategic requires looking at the function with a critical eye and understanding the skill sets needed for success,” says strategic marketing consultant Anthony Cirillo, FACHE, whose firm Fast Forward Consulting also contributed to the research design.
If your hospital leadership is not empowering marketing – an organizational philosophy that starts in the C-Suite – it may be time for change. An empowered marketing function helps you listen to your market, develop hard-hitting solutions and build a brand, grounded in strategy, that your organization can live and breathe every day. Are you up for it? It could be the most powerful decision you make in 2010.
This is the final article in a three-part series exploring the importance of strategic planning and the role of marketing in building a powerful healthcare brand. We invite you to explore our research and join the conversation about marketing’s role in developing a vital, strategically grounded healthcare brand.
* “Marketing Leaders See Change Ahead,” Gienna Shaw, HealthLeaders Media Industry Survey 2009, HealthLeaders Media, Marblehead, MA