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Truth #5: Healthcare marketing must become less of an art and more of a science

The Truths We Hold Self-Evident: Fifth in a Series

For years, when working collaboratively with hospital administrators, service line leaders or physicians, we’ve used the same quote to define marketing:

“Marketing is the art of finding, keeping and growing profitable customers.”

This definition from acclaimed marketing expert Philip Kotler does a great job of outlining the traditional scope of marketing. But the definition was chosen intentionally for these audiences because of the inclusion of the qualifying word “art.” The word “art” conveys the idea that, for various reasons, the application of marketing strategies and tactics is a very subjective practice. As we’ve noted previously, other experts like Clayton Christensen have also used similar terminology to describe the typical lack of precision when it comes to marketing (see post “The intuitive state of healthcare marketing.”) The concept of marketing as somewhat mystical is perhaps best captured by the quote from retailer John Wanamaker, who said:

“Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.”

By using a subjective description like “art,” it’s easier to mitigate the unrealistic expectations of those without marketing backgrounds for what the discipline can accomplish. The trouble with this approach, of course, is that until healthcare marketers stop thinking of their work as subjective guesswork (“art”) and move to a more scientific approach, it will be nearly impossible for our discipline to be valued appropriately within our organizations.

According to dictionary.com, “science” can be described as “knowledge gained by systemic study.” What marketers (and their bosses) crave is knowledge of which strategies are most effective in certain situations: What’s the best way to raise total joint volumes by 5%? What’s the best approach for increasing specialty referrals from independent primary care groups? Which brand value – “high tech” or “high touch” – will elicit the best response from consumers in a market?

In the absence of this knowledge, we follow the accepted principles, expertise, and, sometimes, the myths, that have grown over the years surrounding healthcare marketing. What’s often missing, what we need, however, is “systemic study.” Like scientists, we need to:

• Run an experiment (a campaign promoting heart care)
• Carefully measure results (5% increase in volumes and 10% increase in “willingness to recommend”)
• Track what worked and what didn’t (last time we achieved an increase of 6% in volumes)
• Account for possible variables (last time we spent 20% more in advertising)
• Learn from the results (a 20% increase in ad spending can increase volumes 1%)
• Adjust our approach accordingly in subsequent experiments (campaigns)

Of course this is a difficult process, and rarely as clear cut as this example, but to turn marketing from an art into a science, this process must be followed over and over and over again, until a body of understanding is built over time. Those who do follow this approach, those who build a marketing measurement discipline over time, can expect the following benefits:

Gaining the respect of leadership

It’s very difficult to prove the value of marketing to leaders when you aren’t demonstrating the impact of marketing efforts on the organization. That means more than talking theoretically about how marketing affects the business, it means showing empirically how marketing activities have an impact (or, in some cases, don’t).

Minimizing staff and budget cuts

Perhaps the best way to make your case for staving off staff and budget cuts (or to increase them) is to show how such cuts will directly impact business, and that can only be achieved by measuring results consistently over time.

Defending against political marketing requests

Consistently measuring your marketing results over time and learning what works and what doesn’t provides you with hard evidence to effectively combat many politically driven marketing requests.

Demonstrating that not “everyone can do marketing”

Measuring marketing results in an objective way across many efforts and involving dozens of variables shows that, while there is always an element of subjectivity to success, marketing is as much about science as art, and should be left to the “scientists” – those who have studied and gained experience applying marketing.

Achieving better results

In the end, perhaps the most compelling reason to approach marketing as a science is because it will lead to better results over time. This, after all, is why you’re there – to leverage marketing to help meet the business goals of the organization. Or, hopefully, to update Kotler’s definition, to apply the science of finding, keeping and growing profitable customers.”

The Truths We Hold Self-Evident

As immutable as the laws that rule nature (the sky is blue, the earth is round), are a set of guiding principles we at Interval refer to as the “Truths We Hold Self-Evident.” These “truths” influence pretty much everything we do. Our thinking. Our approaches to marketing and client challenges. Our recommendations for and execution of marketing strategies and tactics for our clients. This belief system springs directly from our experience marketing and branding hospital and healthcare systems exclusively over the past six years. We accept and believe these truths passionately, as do our clients. But every once in a while we encounter those that, for whatever reason, do not. Some are marketers stuck in the traditional approaches of the past. Others, skeptics looking for proof. Throughout the year, we are presenting a series of articles articulating these Truths, their implications, and why we consider them self-evident. That said, there is plenty of room for debate and controversy. Consider this a standing invitation to join what we hope is a lively and illuminating conversation. At the very least, these articles will clarify our biases while helping you better understand the issues and broaden your perspective on them.

Potentially-related posts:

1. Truth #4: If you want to know what will work in healthcare marketing, don’t ask your customers
2. Truth #2: Healthcare marketing needs a serious shake-up
3. Truth #3:
   Great healthcare marketing requires great healthcare leaders

This article was posted by Chris Bevolo on Tuesday, December 15th, 2009 at 9:02 am, and was filed under Marketing.

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