Building a Healthcare Marketing Dream Team

Thirty-six billion dollars.

If you’re wondering just how much of an influence marketing has in shaping the patient experience, consider that very healthy number. It represents how much the U.S. healthcare industry spent on marketing last year alone.

With the healthcare industry smack in the middle of a digital transformation and healthcare consumerism the new normal, healthcare organizations don’t need a digital marketing specialist. They need an entire team of them. So let’s draft the key players.

Assembling a Winning Roster

Today, more and more consumers are taking ownership of their health, and they’re looking for a provider they can count on throughout their healthcare journey. To foster strong patient relationships, healthcare organizations need a diverse team of digital-minded, patient-centric marketers. We’re talking about the kind of pros who can cultivate — and sustain — long-term relationships by understanding the patient experience and marketing simultaneously.

Here’s a preview of the players with whom you could build a dream healthcare marketing team:

Position: Marketing Account Manager

Roles: Tactical and conceptual, they orchestrate the planning, development and management of your organization’s digital marketing campaigns and programs. They collaborate with everyone who has a hand in creating, distributing and analyzing each marketing initiative.

Key Skills: Campaign planning and execution, digital marketing strategy, project management

Position: Creative Director

Roles: A creative visionary, this versatile individual is instrumental in fusing strategy and creative elements — namely digital content and design — to shape effective marketing campaigns. They oversee UX/UI and visual designers, content specialists and strategists, and editors.

Key Skills: An eye for digital design and strategy, critical thinking, problem-solving, and inbound marketing principles

Position: Visual Designer

Roles: Visually driven and digitally savvy, this pro is responsible for creating engaging digital assets that are designed to help nurture healthy patient relationships. Landing pages, logos, infographics, illustrations, animations, HTML5 ads, email templates, blogs, e-books and treatment guides are all part of a designer’s portfolio.

Key Skills: Creativity, visual design techniques, color theory, typography, design software (e.g., Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Sketch), HTML, CSS, UX and project management

Position: Content Strategist

Roles: They work to understand not only the healthcare organization’s needs but also the needs of its patients. Equipped with these insights, they play a critical role in determining the creation and delivery of useful content that converts. This all begins with establishing the organization’s voice and tone. A content strategist is responsible for making a connection with patients by relating to them — not selling to them.

Key Skills: Writing, storytelling, inbound marketing (especially content marketing and SEO), content auditing, developing patient personas, patient journey mapping and creative conceptualization

Position: Content Writer

Roles: A research hound with exceptional writing skills, this expert communicator creates content for email campaigns, e-books, podcasts, webinars, treatment guides, landing pages, infographics, social media, blog posts and video scriptwriting. They work closely with visual designers and the content editor, as well as working with the marketing account manager and creative director.

Key Skills: Research, inbound marketing, copywriting, editing, proofreading and creative conceptualization

Position: Content Editor

Roles: Wielding a blend of creativity and critical thinking, this individual has a knack for shaping content that’s clear, concise and powerfully engaging. Content editors drive the development of content through collaboration with account managers, content writers, visual designers and content strategists.

Key Skills: Research, copywriting, copy editing, content marketing, proofreading and creative conceptualization

Position: Front-End Developer

Roles: This person’s responsible for how a website looks and functions. They translate concepts and designs to lines of code using a variety of programming languages. This pro builds a website’s layout and integrates graphics, content and applications — from site navigation to physician and location finders.

Key Skills: Problem-solving, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Photoshop, WordPress, technical SEO and responsive design

Position: Back-End Web Developer

Roles: This individual focuses on server-side programming, which includes integrating the work of the front-end developer. The back-end developer focuses on databases, scripting and website architecture.

Key Skills: Server-side programming languages like Microsoft.NET Java, Python and Ruby, as well as knowledge of databases, integrations, caching mechanisms (e.g., Varnish, Memcached and Redis) that help speed up the delivery of data within an application

Position: Digital Media Planner

Roles: Another research hound, they identify which digital media platforms best promote an organization’s brand and campaign. Guided by data, they recommend and implement strategies for using owned (e.g., website and social media profiles) and paid media (e.g., Google Ads) to attract patients, increase brand recognition, and improve patient satisfaction and loyalty.

Key Skills: Digital marketing strategy, planning, budgeting, SEO, inbound marketing, client service and data analysis

Position: Digital Media Buyer

Roles: Understanding the science of marketing and the art of negotiation, a media buyer is responsible for getting an organization’s brand in front of its target audience. They take the media planner’s strategy and put it into action by purchasing ad space on platforms like search engines and social media. A good buyer can evaluate the competition, stay within budget, and track and optimize every campaign’s performance.

Key Skills: Research, digital marketing strategy, interpersonal communication, programmatic advertising, media buying, rate negotiation and analytics

Position: Marketing Operations Manager

Roles: They’re well-versed in digital marketing strategy, marketing automation and CRM systems. They orchestrate the design, execution and operation of an organization’s lead-management processes, marketing databases, marketing automation and campaign tracking.

Key Skills: Proficient with CRM platforms, marketing automation software, database management, lead scoring and marketing analytics

Position: Email Marketing Specialist

Roles: This individual focuses on building and segmenting email lists, designing emails, optimizing content, and A/B testing emails to nurture leads and driving sales. In addition to developing and testing email campaigns, they track and analyze the results.

Key Skills: Brand management, lead generation, data-driven marketing, inbound marketing, SEO, digital media writing, and web and marketing analytics

Position: Social Media Marketing Specialist

Roles: As the voice of the brand, this individual drives patient engagement and acquisition by delivering engaging, relevant content across social media channels. They work to optimize brand awareness, increase website traffic and raise conversion rates.

Key Skills: Digital engagement and conversion strategy, keyword research and SEO, content creation, campaign tracking, and marketing analytics

Position: Marketing Analyst

Roles: Adept at turning data into actionable insights, this individual is responsible for analyzing data from marketing activities to determine how an organization can optimize its digital marketing efforts. This includes top-of-the-funnel acquisition tactics, middle-of-the-funnel qualification and bottom-of-the-funnel conversion.

Key Skills: Defining and implementing data measurement strategies, establishing metrics and KPIs, and delivering monthly, cross-channel performance reports with recommendations

Position: Compliance Manager

Roles: This legal expert works to ensure that all marketing messaging and behavior are in line with industry-wide rules and regulations — even if that means holding back a campaign from launch. For example, as part of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), the HIPAA Privacy Rule “gives individuals important controls over whether and how their protected health information is used and disclosed for marketing purposes.” A compliance expert can protect you from costly litigation and fractured relationships.

Key Skills: Risk assessment, compliance auditing, conflict management, problem-solving, developing risk management strategies and processes

Working Together to Create Marketing that Works

Orchestrating a digital marketing campaign is anything but a one-person job. There are too many moving pieces for one marketer to manage alone.

If you don’t have the time or budget to recruit an entire team of marketing pros, partner with an experienced full-service healthcare marketer like Hileman Group. Contact us to find out how we can help your organization nurture lasting relationships with your current and future patients.