By using this site, you agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Accept
Health Works CollectiveHealth Works CollectiveHealth Works Collective
  • Health
    • Mental Health
    Health
    Healthcare organizations are operating on slimmer profit margins than ever. One report in August showed that they are even lower than the beginning of the…
    Show More
    Top News
    physical health
    5 Ways Playing Games Can Improve Neural and Physical Health
    September 9, 2022
    Reasons For Hair Loss and Its Treatment
    Reasons For Hair Loss and Its Treatment
    February 16, 2022
    healthcare organization
    5 Actionable Strategies For Healthcare Organizations
    August 15, 2022
    Latest News
    7 Most Common Healthcare Accreditation Programs: Which Should You Use?
    August 20, 2025
    Hospital Pest Control and the Fight Against Superbugs
    August 20, 2025
    Hygiene Beyond The Clinic: Attention To Overlooked Non-Clinical Spaces
    August 13, 2025
    5 Steps to a Promising Career as a Healthcare Administrator
    August 3, 2025
  • Policy and Law
    • Global Healthcare
    • Medical Ethics
    Policy and Law
    Get the latest updates about Insurance policies and Laws in the Healthcare industry for different geographical locations.
    Show More
    Top News
    4 Reasons Chris Cornell’s Death Raises Medical Ethics Questions
    December 19, 2018
    What If You Could Sell Your Vote?
    August 24, 2017
    The Sleepy American
    September 12, 2017
    Latest News
    How Social Security Disability Shapes Access to Care and Everyday Health
    August 22, 2025
    How a DUI Lawyer Can Help When Your Future Health Feels Uncertain
    August 22, 2025
    How One Fall Can Lead to a Long Road of Medical Complications
    August 22, 2025
    How IT and Marketing Teams Can Collaborate to Protect Patient Trust
    July 17, 2025
  • Medical Innovations
  • News
  • Wellness
  • Tech
Search
© 2023 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.
Reading: Looking for a Healthcare Marketing Firm? Versatility Is the Key
Share
Notification Show More
Font ResizerAa
Health Works CollectiveHealth Works Collective
Font ResizerAa
Search
Follow US
  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy
© 2023 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.
Health Works Collective > Business > Looking for a Healthcare Marketing Firm? Versatility Is the Key
Business

Looking for a Healthcare Marketing Firm? Versatility Is the Key

David Avitabile
David Avitabile
Share
6 Min Read
SHARE

darren-stevens-and-larry-tate

Darren tries in vain to explain content marketing to a highly suspicious Larry Tate.

darren-stevens-and-larry-tate

Darren tries in vain to explain content marketing to a highly suspicious Larry Tate.

More Read

wound management care
Shifts in Product Usage in Wound Management, 2012 to 2021
Designing Healthcare Innovation
High Quality, Low Cost HealthCare Video Interview Series: Martha Bebinger and HealthCareSavvy
Top 5 Telemed Trends for 2015
Partnering to Improve Quality and Safety: A Framework for Working with Patient and Family Advisors

Over the past few months, we’ve been writing a lot about the pharmaceutical industry, life sciences marketing, and the agency business model. And we’ve published what we believe to be the definitive guide for healthcare marketers in 2015. What I’d like to talk about now is, in light of the lightning fast changes taking place in healthcare, what should clients be looking for when hiring a marketing firm?

Notice that I said “healthcare marketing firm” and not “advertising agency” or “public relations agency.” There is a big difference. In my experience, after working with hundreds of clients from top 15 global pharmaceutical companies, biotechnology companies, diagnostics companies, small to mid-sized specialty pharmaceutical companies, hospitals and more, when clients look at agencies, most of them see those agencies through the prism of their personal experience.

So for example, if you are talking to a marketing director who spent most of his career in advertising, he or she will most likely have an in-depth understanding of advertising. But they may have a very limited understanding of content marketing, public relations, medical communications, or social media.

This creates major challenges for the agency sitting on the other side of the table, particularly when the marketing director they are meeting with is responsible for bringing a new agency on board. Sometimes, we find ourselves talking a language that the potential client simply doesn’t understand.

Fortunately, as the industry continues to change, marketing professionals are changing along with it. Today’s healthcare marketers are far more versatile than ever before, simply because they have to be in order to survive. Alas, there are also still plenty of Darren Stevens’s and Larry Tates out there too.

One of my favorite sayings (and I have a few) is:

“If you’re a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.”

I can see my colleagues rolling their eyes as I type those words. But what this saying illustrates very clearly is this: If you look to an advertising agency to solve your biggest marketing challenges, guess what the solutions are going to be? And if you hire a PR firm that spends 90% of its time trying to get clients into the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, what kind of recommendations do you think that PR agency is going to give you?

Marketers at life sciences companies should be focused on finding partners who are versatile, first and foremost. These days, chances are there are a number of potential solutions to any given problem that marketers at life sciences companies are facing. We have more tools available to us today than every before. Make sure your agency knows how to use all of them.

Asking the right questions of a prospective agency could save you a lot of pain down the road. Because if you end up hiring a “hammer,” then you aren’t going to get much outside the box thinking from your agency. And you can’t blame the agency focusing on the one thing that it knows how to do.

When you are probing for versatility, good questions to ask an agency are:

  • What kinds of work have they done before?
  • Can they provide specific examples of creative solutions to major marketing challenges?
  • What kinds of backgrounds does their team have?
  • Is the agency team’s experience base diverse enough to allow for unique insights?
  • Is the agency “media neutral,” operating across paid, earned, shared and owned channels?
  • What kinds of insights does the agency have on how life sciences marketing has changed over the past five years?

That last question is a trick question. It should tell you all you need to know about how “tuned in” the agency is to what’s been happening around them. And if the agency answers that, in their view, things really haven’t changed all that much, be a Samaritan and immediately check for a pulse or hold a mirror up to the agency executive’s mouth to make sure they are still alive. And then run as fast as you can, and go hire somebody else.

These are exciting times to be in healthcare communications, if we’re willing and able to embrace the lightning fast pace of change and convergence, and give our clients solutions that meet their needs, not the needs of our new business forecasts.

Share This Article
Facebook Copy Link Print
Share

Stay Connected

1.5kFollowersLike
4.5kFollowersFollow
2.8kFollowersPin
136kSubscribersSubscribe

Latest News

travel nurse in north carolina
Balancing Speed and Scope: Choosing the Nursing Degree That Fits Your Goals
Nursing
September 1, 2025
intimacy
How to Keep Intimacy Comfortable as You Age
Relationship and Lifestyle Senior Care
September 1, 2025
engineer fitting prosthetic arm
How Social Security Disability Shapes Access to Care and Everyday Health
Health care
August 20, 2025
a woman explaining the document
How a DUI Lawyer Can Help When Your Future Health Feels Uncertain
Public Health
August 20, 2025

You Might also Like

Managing The Nursing Shortage: 3 Short Term Solutions

March 15, 2016
saving money in healthcare
BusinessGlobal HealthcareHospital Administration

Best Money-Saving Tips for Health Managers

January 12, 2023

Why Do Doctors Offer Credit Cards? It Helps Them Avoid Discounting

July 20, 2011

First HHS Innovation Fellowships’ Meeting Focuses on New Measures of Quality in Healthcare

December 11, 2012
Subscribe
Subscribe to our newsletter to get our newest articles instantly!
Follow US
© 2008-2025 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.
  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy
Welcome Back!

Sign in to your account

Username or Email Address
Password

Lost your password?