Living inside Healthcare Marketing - Bridging the Gap

One of my favorite books for healthcare and marketing is Chris Bevolo's book, Joe Public Doesn't Care about Your Hospital.  Although I love, love, love his book, what I have found since working in Healthcare Marketing is it doesn't matter what I believe because if other people are not on the same boat I will continue to climb an up hill battle.  But I have hope....Chris spoke at a conference that one of the employees was at and she brought back his message to our team!  I gave my Joe Public book to another person and I am hoping to keep spreading the word!

I like to say that my role is building the bridge between the old and the new way of Marketing.  But building a bridge takes time....a lot of time.

There are some amazing people that I work with that see the vision and are building it with me! Which makes me ecstatic!  You see, I am a person that sees a vision and then wants to build the foundation and get started right now.  What I have learned recently is that patience is a must.  That change doesn't happen over night.  And I have no control over any of it.

One of my goals is to get all of our team thinking more strategically about our social media and marketing as a whole.  I love social media and see the value that it has in healthcare marketing.  As a marketer in healthcare, I have the potential to bridge the gap between online and offline with our patients experience.  That is such an important part of my job but in order to do that, I have to figure out how to connect all the collaborating teams/departments together to work collectively of filling that gap.  How do I do that when I am busy with tactical work instead of more strategic marketing and planning?  Well....I say it is one step at a time or one beam at a time since I am building a bridge:).  

First step- I am getting ready to talk to someone tomorrow about building a social media strategy team which would involve both our e-business team and anybody in marketing that does social media (or should be doing it).  I am keeping my fingers crossed (and you keep them crossed too!) and hopefully it will happen for me! So I will update you on the progress.

Second step- I am going to present to our team Chris Bevolo's strategy and incorporate it into social media inbound marketing strategy and linking it back to our strategic plan / goals and show our team how they can all do that in their areas.  I was so excited when our VP gave me the go ahead that I created my slide deck in a matter of hours after she said yes.  I am so excited to share with our team and am hoping to get a positive response.  So I will keep all of you updated on that as well.

So wish me luck!