Your resources, experience, and work ethic are important. But nothing can set you on the path to success like building the best team possible. With the right healthcare marketers on your side, you can engage your target customers and build relationships like never before.
Finding these superstars is easier said than done. Fortunately, if you consider a few important things before hiring anyone, you’ll screen out the poor fits and stack the odds in your favor.
Mistakes are inevitable in the rapidly-changing healthcare field. With that said, few are more costly than hiring the wrong marketer for the job.
There’s the financial burden to consider, sure. CareerBuilder found that a bad hire can cost you at least 30 percent of the role’s salary.
You also have to think about all the lost time spent interviewing, selecting, and training these people. And there’s always the tough to quantify, but devastating effect the wrong people can have on your team’s morale. All it takes are a few poor fits to degrade your company culture, pulling your focus away from what matters most: your target customers.
Here are seven things to think about now to avoid hiring the wrong marketer later.
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Diversity is paramount to any successful healthcare brand. People with different backgrounds and experiences can come together to offer a fresh new perspective that resonates with your target customers.
But there’s one area where you can’t afford to be diverse: key values. These values shape the very foundation on which your brand is built. When your marketing talent is in alignment with the rest of your team, you can work together to thrive like never before. But if your marketing message doesn’t fit, it comes off as phony and inconsistent.
If you haven’t done so before, now’s the perfect time to hone in on your key values. What motivates you to do what you do? If money were no object, what drives you to get out of bed and serve your customers every morning?
Once you have a clear idea what your core values are, you can target like-minded marketers and vet them accordingly.
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Do you feel like you need more leads, customers, a digital platform, and dozens of other things?
You aren’t alone. A lot of healthcare brands are well aware they need to do better; they are just too overwhelmed to start.
You can make serious progress by asking yourself a different question: If I could just accomplish one big thing with my marketing in the next few years, what would it be?
Once you identify your top priority, you can focus on marketers who excel in the appropriate skill set. By hiring someone whose greatest talents match your highest priority, you’ll make big strides in your marketing and free up time and resources to pursue other needs.
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If you’re growing by 50 percent a year, your team will double in size in just two years. It’s easy to get myopic and consider how a marketer might fit into your team now. Yet that might result in making a poor hiring decision.
A marketer might be perfectly competent managing three employees, for instance, but completely overwhelmed with six.
That’s why it’s crucial to suss out each marketer’s vision of his or her involvement not just now, but moving forward. The best fits will be able to grow right along with you, teaching key strategies to others and delegating as necessary.
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The pace in the healthcare industry is dizzying. Toss in all the developments in the marketing world, and you have enough rapid change to make your head spin.
The demands of effective healthcare marketing today require two jobs in one–marketer and student. A fascination with ongoing education is the mark of a great hire. This will give you confidence that you’re not just staying on top of the latest strategies now, but well into the future.
Experience is valuable, but only to the extent the marketer doesn’t feel they’ve “figured it all out.” Surround yourself with a constant learner, and they’ll help you spot new opportunities to forge deeper connections.
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As people change the way they research, compare options and make buying decisions, it’s crucial for healthcare marketers to adapt.
Healthcare marketers have been slow to embrace digital marketing overall. But that trend is changing rapidly. Websites, email, and social media platforms offer interesting new ways to engage and forge communities where people already are: online.
A host of new opportunities in the digital space doesn’t mean more traditional approaches (in-person sales rep visits, going to trade shows or conventions, etc.) are no longer effective.
Ideally, your marketing hire will see the benefits of both. They’ll help you design– or implement– a multi-channel strategy that works even better than either approach on its own.
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Healthcare marketing requires trust, credibility, and a willingness to listen to your target customers. When someone’s quality of life is on the line, they’ll turn to those who have taken the time to build an authentic relationship and shown they have their best interest in mind.
An overly aggressive, in-your-face marketing style is a sure way to drive people away (and possibly run afoul of FDA regulations). Marketers who seem willing to cut corners in an all-out effort to boost short-term ROI aren’t the best fits for an effective healthcare strategy.
Look for community builders, marketers who understand the importance of appealing to people throughout numerous interactions and making their voices feel heard.
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Technology today, as well as an abundance of freelancers, allows you to hire full-time to handle the essentials while bringing on extra help as necessary.
Of course, the essentials depend largely on your top marketing objectives. If you’re pursuing both traditional and digital marketing strategies, but feel they are disconnected as a whole, it’s time to look for someone with a strategic vision to make them work together. Most of the time, strategists who see the bigger picture make for better hires. With their vision in place, they can work with you to bring on help to execute their strategies as needed.
Hiring someone who can “do it all” is becoming less critical than before. You can always turn to freelancers or consultants for help with the execution, whether it’s content creation, graphic design, social media promotion, or something else.
Figuring out what your marketing hire doesn’t need to do will lead you closer to the ideal candidate.
If you give the considerations above plenty of thought before your next marketing hire, you’ll be able to make decisions from a point of clarity and minimize your chances of making a mistake.
No matter how quickly regulations, technology, and the competitive landscape change, finding the right people is always essential. Start assembling your dream team today and delivering the experience your customers deserve.
