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Is Health Care "Marketing-Savvy" Enough?

A recent Linkedin query asked whether the healthcare industry is "marketing-savvy" enough?

My answer:
I agree that...compared to a decade ago, health care providers' marketing budgets are way up, but you shouldn't infer from that fact that marketing is getting savvier or more sophisticated.

From my experience (20+ years in the provider trenches) a huge obstacle to the more rapid diffusion of more sophisticated marketing approaches is pervasive CEO unwillingness to demand more of their marketing departments: more visible results, more accountability, more bang-for-the-buck, more customer engagement, more process improvements, more adoption of innovative approaches from other industries, etc.

If the CEO is not educated on what marketing CAN be and what it COULD do, it's difficult to set different and/or higher accountabilities for the marketing function. And, regrettably, hospital marketers are frequently content with the situation as it lets them off the hook in some ways, though at the same time it perpetuates the image of marketing as just a big "slush fund" for the Finance function to slash whenever another point or two of EBIDTA is needed.

I've encountered way too many (hospital) CEOs who considered their marketing functions "successful" if (a) their Board members liked their organization's TV ads better than the competition's, (b) the TV ads ran on shows the CEO watched, and (c) the ads kept a major referring physician or two happy. Why take on the aggravation of saying to that physician or board member "You won't see us on TV as much because we're moving in a more measurable direction?" Saying that poses a risk to that CEO especially if s/he may not understand or trust CRM techniques.

I'm not all doom and gloom though! It's starting to change, and, for you CRM vendors and marketers out there who understand the potential, I hope it changes quickly! Leading-edge provider organizations are rapidly gaining sophistication but the changes won't be widespread until the CEO truly drives the agenda.

There's a business idea in there somewhere...

See the entire discussion thread in Linkedin's Health 2.0 group.


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