The healthcare sector may be resilient to economic ups and downs but that doesn’t hold true for every healthcare business. Healthcare start-ups, in particular, are struggling to navigate the current economic waters and layoffs have been widespread for healthcare technology companies. Which is why many healthcare vendors are now stuck in a pickle. If you are one of them and recently laid off your healthcare marketing team, you are likely asking yourselves, now what?
Marketing is invisible.
Despite all our efforts to create metrics and Key Performance Indicators, it can still be hard to see what marketing is actually doing. Marketing can also fall prey to the idea that it doesn’t need to be maintained. This shows up as the “we’ll just let it run for now” mentality, which can wreak havoc, particularly on pay-per-click ads.
In contrast, sales is always the company darling. They bring in the money. They are talking with desirable prospects. And they can tell you exactly where they are in a deal. What’s not to love?
So when recession looms, sales teams are likely to stick around while marketing teams get sent on their merry way.
Marketing is necessary.
Unfortunately, as these companies soon discover, marketing is not a “nice to have,” it’s a necessity. If your company adds new features and products, this may increase your sales – but only if you have the collateral to communicate about them. Sales sheets, web pages, white papers, and videos all still need to be created in order to get those sales. And your communication channels – like email and LinkedIn – all still need to be maintained.
This is where companies trying to save money wind up creating problems for themselves. Without a marketing team, how can they lay the groundwork for new sales and upsells?
What to do after you lay off your marketing team
The first thing that needs to happen after you let your marketing team go is figure out what marketing still needs to get done.
Ideally, you will have reports and notes to go by. Maybe you retained one marketing person on the team and they will know. Either way, you have to go through everything and prioritize it.
You also need to coordinate what you learn with your product development roadmap. If new features or products are soon to launch, that has to get added to your priorities list.
Is your team bare bones or nonexistent?
At this point, things get real. If you have one person on the team, can they really stay on top of things? Oftentimes, the more expensive – read, more experienced – people are let go, so you may not even have the skill set left to handle your priorities.
If your entire team has been let go, you are going to have to outsource. This is the harsh reality for a lot of small companies who had gotten by with a single marketing person who kept everything afloat.
If you laid off your marketing team, outsource.
It can be hard to find a healthcare marketing consultant with the experience you need to run your marketing department. If all you need is someone to write a monthly newsletter and maintain your social media, you may have an easier path. But if you need someone who understands how your marketing automation integrates with your CRM or how to gain the interest of healthcare executives as well as providers, then you may have to look a little harder. The steps you take after a layoff will make the difference when it comes to continued success for your company.
Photo by Jan Tinneberg on Unsplash