A recent survey by True North Custom confirms that content marketing continues to play a growing role in the marketing of healthcare brands.

The 2018 State of Healthcare Content Marketing Report provides a fascinating look into what healthcare marketers deem important.  It is a must read for those who wish to stay on top of trends and determine what is working and not working in the marketplace.  That being said, there is one question that we recommend be included in next year’s report:

Do you have a process in place to make sure that your marketing content is legally compliant?

Why should your organization have a marketing legal review process?  Here are some things to consider:

  • The cost of litigation can be expensive.   Any healthcare provider can attest to how litigation fees can severely impact the bottom line.  While healthcare system legal efforts often focus on regulatory and quality of care issues, missteps in marketing and brand protection can be just as deadly to brand reputation and budgets.
  • Brand reputation is worth the investment.   Brand names and reputation are some of the most valuable assets of any company, including those of healthcare providers.  So why not be proactive in protecting them?  When an issue arises that could tarnish your healthcare brand, it is often too late.
  • Marketing compliance makes sense.   When it comes to risk mitigation, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.  HIPAA marketing compliance, brand clearance, the proper use of patient testimonials, and other issues continue to face healthcare marketers every day.

Getting started with a Marketing Compliance Program

If you do not already have a health marketing compliance program in place, here’s what you can do:

  • Conduct a health marketing checkup.   Provide your brand protection attorneys with a selective sampling of your marketing materials.  Be sure to include examples from various channels, including social media, newsletters, video, and direct mail marketing.
  • Identify risk gaps in your marketing plan.   Your attorneys should be able to provide you with a diagnostic tool that helps identify marketing problem areas, together with recommendations to remediate problems and mitigate risks.
  • Make compliance easy to understand.   A red light, yellow light, and green light chart that indicates brand protection and marketing compliance risks from low to high often works best.  Recommendations should also be color-coded, based on low-priority to high priority tasks.

An effective healthcare brand protection and marketing compliance program need not be expensive or complicated.  But it is important that healthcare marketers partner with qualified health brand attorneys.  That way, there is a greater chance that your compliance efforts will be embraced by your organization and external marketing partners.  By doing so, it will help ensure the overall success of your health marketing strategies.