MID-YEAR HEALTHCARE DIGITAL MARKETING CHECKUP

For many companies, 2020's marketing and sales goals as well as their strategies drastically changed between March and May 

Now that we are officially in the second half of the year, it's time to conduct a simple but definitive assessment of digital marketing strategies and tactics. In-person meetings, medical conferences and other close personal contact venues for marketing and selling pharmaceutical products, medical devices, diagnostics and clinical services have evaporated. Digital marketing resources have already been widely recognized by many companies as the go-to method to effectively communicate with customers and patients. 

Is your company doing enough to outpace the competition and if they are, is it sustainable through the end of the 2020? 

Now is the time to address the present and future of your digital marketing resources and how they are deployed to engage customers and generate sales to close out the year with profitable sales results. 

A few simple questions coupled with data should help determine the actions necessary to propel your organization through the end of the year:

• Are the sales numbers (volume, margin, etc.) ahead of goal, on track or behind; do the figures call for sustaining or improving their performance through the end of 2020?
• If you asked Sales how your company's digital marketing could better support their efforts, what are the top 3 recommendations they would share with Marketing?
• Based on the feasibility of their suggestions, is your digital marketing budget enough to meet 1, 2 or all 3 of their recommendations and if not, where can funding be allocated from and which one of their requests is most impactful to get underway immediately?
• If you strictly evaluated each of your digital marketing instruments (e-commerce, email marketing, PPC, social media and other digital promotional elements, etc.) based on budget versus ROI, which ones are clearly outperforming the others?
• What is the weakest digital link between your company, its product franchises and its most important customers and what is the cost and time required to strengthen it?
• What is your primary competitors' key strength(s) in digital marketing and how do your digital strengths and weaknesses compare to them; what is the optimum strategy and action necessary to leverage your greatest digital strengths against their digital weaknesses?
• If your company has recently or is about to launch a new product, service or program what would your customers say is the best way to introduce it to them digitally in light of COVID-19 and is your company following their advice?
• Are there any digital marketing initiatives planned for 2021 that you can afford to moved up into 2020 to have a greater impact this year and gain early momentum into 2021?

Realistically determine how fast your digital marketing strategies and tactics can pivot based on the answers and the data

As you assess the answers you have collected and interpret the associated data involved, determine which solutions can be realistically implemented in a reasonable amount of time. It is important to avoid churn at this critical point in 2020. 

If you can exceed or meet your goals by year-end or at least profitably outperform your competitors, you will be better positioned to advance into 2021.