Every day, you get requests
Internal stakeholders from every corner of the organization sometimes make unexpected demands of marketing.
Digital ads. Social posts. Brochures. Indeed ads. Website content tweaks. Videos. Press Releases. And it’s hard to say no.
So consider the following 4 action steps to put a triage plan in place.
1. Have an overall strategy
Even if it’s a rough allocation of marketing resources by audience, you need a rationale for triage.
Example: A specialty medical practice might allocate 70% of its marketing resources to referral sources (such as other providers), and only 30% toward potential patients. So a request for a TV commercial or radio spot is not aligned with the strategy and is a misuse of resources.
Also, engage the person who submitted the request to see if there is a strategic goal that is being supported. Many times colleagues get fascinated with tactics at the expense of strategies, and having the conversation helps move the marketing message through the company.
2. Use a request submission tool to manage workflow
There are lots of good tools like Jira, Trello, or even Typeform that help manage the inflow, priority, and status of each request.
3. Use a creative brief
Use a simplified 3-question Creative Brief to help the requester organize the input. Use the aforementioned submission tool to smooth and document workflow. The Creative Brief should include:
- The Objective. What are we trying to accomplish? Should be specific and quantifiable.
- Target audiences. Age, gender, education, cultural background, attitudes, dispositions.
- Message. In plain English, what do we need to say to the targets?
Again, asking the requester to focus on the essentials builds a shared marketing frame of mind, and keeps rogue marketers from running loose, which brings us to:
4. Know your brand pillars
Marketing elements in any healthcare organization can produce content that is wildly out of sync with the main flow of branded content.
Be ready to identify your 3 dominant brand attributes. If renegade marketing doesn’t support them, say so.
When you’re ready to use data to solve healthcare communications problems, contact us.
