Did budget cuts derail your plans? Tactical Changes to Embrace Agility for Healthcare Marketers

If you are running the marketing department of a healthcare institution, feeling the pressure? First came NIH cuts, then shifts at HHS and the FDA, and now looming threats to Medicaid, which, by the way, account for almost a fifth of healthcare spending nationwide. All of this has generated significant uncertainty. If looking at your department’s budget gives you the sweats, you are not alone. In this environment, traditional strategic approach becomes a luxury. Instead, agile tactical iteration emerges as your new competitive advantage.

The False Security of Long-Term Planning

Long-term strategies have their place, but in the context of rigid budget cycles, they often offer a false sense of security. Think of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: strategic vision is only possible when daily operations are under control. Without agility in day-to-day execution, it's impossible to rise to a strategic vantage point.

Agile methodologies are essential for healthcare marketing today. Most of our clients are already embracing this shift—and you're likely pivoting toward that model yourself. But saying you are agile is not enough, you need to adapt your systems so they can follow this new mindset.

Here are concrete examples on how you should adjust your methods and technology. 

Practical Methods to Build Marketing Readiness

Time-box Initiatives

Keep commitments manageable and measurable. Divide large projects into smaller, deliverable components. If budgets get cut mid-project, you've already demonstrated value through completed milestones.

A concrete example of this is a project with vague goals. For instance, if you have an initiative simply named “improve page speed” you are in for a never-ending project. With no clear definition of done, you are in for an eternity of moving goalposts. However, it is also easy to break it down on specific and tangible wins:

1. Establish the specific user path we want to improve
2. Put in place a repeatable testing plan
3. Set a reasonable goal
4. Identify the biggest offenders on this specific path
5. Address one by one those specific problems
6. Demonstrate gains using the testing plan

Optimize Content Flow

Shorten your content cycle from ideation to deployment. We traditionally understand that output consistency is key, so we tend to accommodate long content cycles by scattering steps. If your cycle drags on, consistency is not good enough, valuable content may get discarded if it takes too long to go live. Make sure your content management systems are here to accelerate and not hinder your process. 

Here are my top 3 tips for quicker content entry in your content management system.

1. There’s a tradeoff between flexibility of your page building system and how long it takes to enter content in the CMS. Let go of flexibility where it is not absolutely necessary.
2. Wherever you first write content, whether it’s MS Word, Google Docs, etc… have a template that matches the way your content management system is configured. This template should include all the same fields, blocks, metadata, etc… This simple step can save hours of manual work.
3. Make sure your staff is properly trained with the tools you use, including the content management system. We often assume that experience on a website can translate on another one, and that tools today are intuitive enough that anyone can do it. In many cases, we’ve significantly improved client efficiency just by retraining them, making sure the tools align with their specific needs and giving them context about how the technology evolves.

Bootstrap A/B Testing

A/B testing is a mindset, not just a technology. Quickly validate ideas with simple experiments without heavy infrastructure. With evidence, you can pivot swiftly, ensuring continuous improvement with minimal investment.

Follow these steps and run your first experiment:

1. Identify an area of improvement: “I think our call to actions are not visible enough in the header”
2. Form a hypothesis: “Both the Find a Doctor and Find a Location buttons are the same color, if we change one with a different color, the contrast will make both more visible”
3. Make sure you collect the data: “On our analytics, over a week, we get 400 clicks a day on each”
4. Make the change: “Let’s make this one button blue”
5. Observe the change in the data: “Clicks increased by 5% !”
6. Decide if you want to keep the change or revert back. 

And just like that, you’ve completed your first A/B test!

Fancy tools are helpful to get rid of other contextual variables, maybe the first week was seasonally less busy. If you can’t run this simple experiment, it’s a sign that foundational readiness is missing.

Ecosystem Maps

Keep your digital ecosystem map updated and accessible. Understanding your marketing technology stack ensures you don't waste resources on initiatives doomed by incompatible or incomplete tech infrastructure. 

This simple tool will also save time and money on:

• HIPAA Compliance discussions: Show quickly where PHI is and where it is not.
• Asking quotes from suppliers: Tell them exactly what technology you are using.
• Purchasing new SaaS: Research integrations not only with the name of the technology but what it should be able to do.

Ecosystem maps can be as simple as a spreadsheet, but I like a good visual representation with boxes and arrows to signify the integrations. For inspiration, explore the 2024 Stackie Award winners.

Create Stability from Readiness

Building an agile mindset is hard when you have systems that are not able to move fast. The tools and examples I shared in this article will help you be more nimble and really apply those agile principles. 

Your first step is to honestly evaluate your readiness. Assess your tools, processes, and systems critically. Then, break down initiatives so you can deliver consistent value. These changes will help you respond decisively when new challenges arise.