Marketing in collaboration with internal stakeholders
Align functional teams and business units to marketing mission
Information Technology (IT)
The IT department manages a large, complex technological network with many internal and external audiences. Their customers include doctors and nurses who rely on patient health information, human resources for staff information, the billing department, and oh yeah, marketing. If the hospital’s marketing strategy includes website content, online videos, and integrated online and offline advertising, the marketing team will depend on support from the IT department.
Essential to the success of this relationship is a clear division of responsibilities: who will host videos, who will build web pages, who will upload new content, and who will manage the site traffic and analytics?
Legal Department
The legal team’s primary concern is liability and protecting the hospital from lawsuits and negative legal publicity. The marketing team works with legal to ensure that creative materials and campaign ideas are compliant with the hospital policies and regulatory restrictions.
The tricky part about healthcare marketing is to make sure it doesn’t violate patient privacy or the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) when using patient testimonials. HIPAA states that healthcare organizations cannot use private patient information to promote products or services without written permission, and that a patient may revoke their authorization at any time.
The Hospital Foundation
The foundation’s mission is to secure funding for hospital programs and initiatives. They reach out to donors and respected members of the community, seeking to inspire people to give charitably and to believe in the healthcare brand and its mission. Because of this, the foundation markets to different audiences than the primary hospital marketing program.