As the Chief Medical Officer (CMO), part of your job entails ensuring that you identify an Agency of Record (AOR) for the system-level work for your medical practice, as well as making sure that you assign members of your healthcare marketing agency to it.
During the process to find the healthcare marketing agency that best fits your healthcare practice, it helps to ask the following three questions. While there’s no exact answer for any of these questions, you’ll want answers that will best fit your practice’s needs.
1. What is your agency’s definition of excellent work?
A good answer to this question will feature examples for both tangible and intangible factors. Additionally, a good agency will discuss the option to stick to the strategy goal(s) while standing out amongst others. Most importantly, the best answer will be comparable to your own ideas for the success of your practice.
An overall good answer should allow you to find a common ground between their definition of excellent work and your own.
2. What is your preferred way to work?
Rather than describing how you want the agency to work for you, first ask how they like to work. Does their answer clash with your ideas of how your marketing should run or does their answer meet your expectations?
3. What is your agency’s approach and philosophy to how the health system works?
An appropriate answer should include these two traits: a new point-of-view and category expertise.
A new point-of-view. Yes, having solid industry knowledge is imperative, but it’s also important to be able to manipulate this knowledge and apply it in new and innovative ways. This ability will allow your practice to be the one that affects change rather than change affect you.
Category expertise. The marketing agency you choose should have a command of knowledge about the healthcare industry. Moreover, all of those working for your practice should have a firm understanding of the inner workings of the healthcare industry, as well as the trends and directions the industry is likely to go in.
These traits combined will keep the work relevant, ensure it exceeds (or at least hits) your expectations and that their impact is tangible.
For more tips to improve your medical practice’s SEO and marketing strategies continue reading our blog.