3 Ways to Get Your Healthcare Marketing Projects Finished

If you’re a healthcare marketer, you know how it feels: The assignments keep coming in, the priorities keep shifting and before you can start on anything new — you find yourself struggling to complete the assignments you already have. Oy.

So, rather than tearing out your hair (or someone else’s), what else can you do to get past the most frequent, irritating obstacles that block you from completing your content projects?

Here are some tips:

You’ve been waiting too long for approval

The problem: You’ve been asked to meet a seemingly impossible deadline for new service line copy. You do it. And then…you wait. You wait for approval. You wait for it to “go up the flagpole.” You wait for comments, edits and questions. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

The tip: What can you do to speed up the process? If calling, emailing and stopping by haven’t done the trick, see if you can go ahead and publish the material on the web. Send the link to those who need to review it. Chances are the content is fine (and they will be relieved to see it done). If there’s something wrong, it can be fixed within an hour. Done and done.

Your doctor doesn’t understand what an 8th-grade reading level is.

The problem: You’re ghostwriting a blog for a doctor. You’ve told the doctor several times who the audience is — they aren’t talking to a fellow colleague; they aren’t talking to JAMA junkies. They agree wholeheartedly — so you think. But then, whenever you write their blog and you get the edits back — they’ve changed about 100 words and made all kinds of annotations. Now what?

The trick: Show your doctor examples of ghostwritten blogs by other hospitals. Remind them gently of your prior conversation. Then, make a few changes the doctor suggested, but not all of them. Try to be accommodating, but stick to what you know works best.

Your original site map proposal has changed three times.

The problem: Congrats! Your site map was approved. But wait…your service line contact has changed it three times since your original proposal. Uh-oh.

The trick: When you pitch a site map, make sure you’ve got all the stakeholders to agree with the first version of it. Even if the marketing department signs off on it — there could be other stakeholders who need to be in the loop. Make sure they are there from the start. If things start to go off the rails and you aren’t making any progress, see if you can talk to your contact in-person, through Skype or with a face-to-face meeting. Explaining site maps can be tricky — and now might be the best time to sit down with the person and go over the details. And don’t start writing ’til you get the all clear.