The Speed of Marketing is Changing

Resources from today's episodeHealth workers, stuck in the snow, administer coronavirus vaccine to stranded drivers Washington state hospital apologizes for prioritizing top donors for COVID-19 vaccine Framing What We Do with a Noun or a Verb: Are we “___ing”?  TakeawaysNeed for speedCOVID-19 has accelerated change, requiring health systems and their marketers to find new ways to move faster. Safety protocols and legacy processes can make it challenging to adapt to change.  Health systems can apply some agile marketing principles such as prioritization and iteration to serve COVID-19 demands but should be calculated in each iteration. Because the stakes are so high for healthcare communications, each iteration must carefully balance exactness and speed, as each iteration could potentially reverse public trust.Setting expectations for responsive brandingFaster change means our brands need to evolve faster to remain relevant and avoid sounding out of touch. Continually test messaging to see what’s working and what’s not.  Health systems should consider diversity equity and inclusion as a central pillar of every branding conversation. Incident-based branding efforts can translate as insensitive and self-serving.  On the horizon for healthcare marketers COVID-19 has increased public demand for quality communications, and consumers will likely maintain these expectations in a post-COVID-19 world.  Informative, relevant, actionable content marketing will be an essential function for health system marketing and communications, and consumer expectations for quality content will rise.  Marketers may play a more strategic role in health systems because of familiarity with new technology and the ability to bring data to the table.  We will have to continue to act as technology educators as virtual care becomes more embedded in today’s healthcare system.