Back to the basics: Health Care Marketing Revisited

Who do you believe?

If you’re involved in marketing communications at your organization, it’s no secret that everybody and anybody you work with has an opinion about the publicity, promotional, advertising, and other communications material for your company. Many of them are more than willing to share their opinions.

And offer advice on how to do your job better.

Are they right? Given the inherent subjectivity involved in an enterprise like marketing communications that’s as much art as science, as much ingenuity as analysis, as much skill as surety, it’s a question worth asking.

So, ask yourself—does this person have any expertise or experience in marketing communications? Does this person understand the objective behind the message? The strategy for communicating the message? The tactics for relaying the message?

Does this person understand the target market for the message? Is this person more, or less, involved with the product or service offered than the prospect? Chances are, this person lives with it every day, works at it every day, thinks about it every day. Your prospects do not, so their involvement with the message will be different.

In other words, take the advice with a grain of salt.

And, if it comes from a renown surgeon, you might repay the advice with your ideas about how a scalpel should be wielded. If from a financial officer, you might, in exchange, offer your opinion about how to balance the books. You might recommend to the head nurse ways to improve staffing as fair compensation for a proffered opinion about advertising.

Or, you could just thank them all for their input and go about your business.

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Next time: Why do people buy?