Perspectives

The Chief Marketing Officer: New Roles and Opportunities in 2016

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The role of healthcare chief marketing officers (CMOs) is changing due to shifts in consumer behavior, increased public and media scrutiny and more diverse target markets and segments. As strategic activists within healthcare C-Suites and boards, CMOs must lead enterprise-wide change, shape reputation and image and develop fresh marketing capabilities throughout the healthcare organization (HCO).

CMO as Consumer Guru: CMOs are naturals for leading HCOs in changes that reflect consumers’ evolving health and lifestyle needs. Consumers increasingly seek healthcare information, engagement, convenience, transparency, and higher levels of service over brand recognition, according to consumer 2015 surveys released by Deloitte and National Research Corporation.

Experienced CMOs are perfect candidates to orchestrate research into consumers’ evolving needs and preferences. The process is invaluable in creating or re-engineering services like precision medicine, urgent care, behavioral health, home care and insurance.  

CMO as Image Architect: Healthcare CMOs also have the power to sustain the HCO’s image and reputation among diverse constituencies--from consumers, providers, vendors and media, to payers, employers, government and community leaders.  

Intense consumer interest and expanded media coverage of healthcare demand that C-Suite and board members adopt an attitude of hypervigilance. Attacks on HCO image and reputation come from all sides. Consider the following headlines, which surfaced within the business and consumer press in 2015:

• Questioning a health system’s expansion  
• Hospital settles patient data breach case
• Ninth infection case possible at hospital

Headlines like these require detailed crisis communication planning and response. They also demand the presence of seasoned CMOs with the clout and savvy to shape public attitudes, beliefs, values and actions.    

The CMO as Builder: Healthcare’s changing environment calls for fresh marketing capabilities. Among the core responsibilities of healthcare CMOs:

• Build health system, hospital and service brands across a growing number of media.
• Forge relationships with multiple professionals and agencies to access expertise in integrated messaging.  
• Tap data and analytics to evaluate and predict the impact of investments in print, broadcast, online and social media.

Expertise in the business use of social networking and digital media are a perfect complement to more traditional healthcare marketing knowledge, skill and experience. Larger HCOs may want to create discrete marketing centers of excellence or outsource marketing activities and functions that require specialized expertise. Mayo, for example, launched the Mayo Center for Social Media, while Arch Care, the continuing care community of the Archdiocese of New York, invited Reputation Architects to create a video showcasing the special qualities of religious care.

CMOs may also want to develop employees, managers, and fellow C-Suite executives into co-marketers or members of interdisciplinary marketing teams. An expanded program of consumer research, for example could cover demographics and purchase patterns as well as the following issues:  

• What features do you look for in a healthcare service?
• What benefits do you seek?
• What motivated you to seek this service?
• How do you hope this service will make your life better?

Help from the C-Suite

CMOs are invaluable in meeting healthcare’s evolving challenges—from patient engagement, value-based care and population health, to clinical integration, performance management and personalized medicine. Every member of the healthcare C-Suite and board must join in the quest for HCO marketing excellence by taking the following actions:

• Investigate customers’ behavior and response. Instead of zeroing in on brand or ROI, take time to uncover the evolving needs of your customers—patients, donors, employees, clinicians, employers, payers and community advocates. Among the issues: Who is saying what to your customers, when and how? Who are the key social influencers of your services? How will customers sustain or change their approach to healthcare decision making and purchasing in the years ahead?
• Build bridges between the CMO and other HCO functions. CMOs will move the needle on strategy and performance only if they can fully connect with their clinical, financial and operational colleagues. Absent strong, sustainable relationships, HCO executives and managers will view marketing as an “add-on” and delegate marketing projects and tasks to lower-level employees.
   

C-Suite and board executives can break down barriers and infuse the HCO with marketing spirit through two actions:

• Periodically move senior marketing executives and CMOs into important line management positions.
• Arrange for executives from throughout the HCO to participate in extended marketing programs and projects, ideally working alongside CMOs or senior marketing executives.
• Partner on marketing thought leadership. All too often, C-Suite and board executives wait for marketing executives to deliver programs and projects in marketing, public relations, social media and advertising. A better approach is to partner with CMOs to develop strategies designed to fulfill HCO imperatives related to quality, access, cost, efficiency   outcomes and equity.

More disruption is ahead. HCOs will still wrestle with bundled payment, interoperability, chronic disease and digital transformation. The accelerated pace of change will continue to transform the healthcare CMOs and their relationship to C-Suites and boards. Challenges are on the horizon, but so are opportunities for creativity and innovation.