Farah Al Alami, Chief Communications & Marketing Officer, Global Fertility and BnoonAcross more than two decades in healthcare communications and marketing at leading medical institutions —including more than eleven years in C-suite leadership roles — I’ve observed a recurring challenge in the market: while some healthcare organisations truly understand and embrace the strategic value of marketing and communications, many still fail to give it the consistent recognition and integration it deserves.
So here are few points that every CEO and communications professional should consider and understand from my hands-on experience in the healthcare space.
Measurement of healthcare marketing impact
Healthcare CEOs frequently question how to effectively measure marketing impact. Unlike retail, e-commerce, or hospitality industries, healthcare results do not materialise quickly.
Immediate metrics often fail to reflect marketing’s real value because patient engagement in healthcare is a prolonged journey. It demands repeated brand exposure and sustained visibility.
Even digital conversions, such as appointment bookings, rarely translate instantly into patient visits. Often, patients may complete a form but delay their visit or fail to show up entirely – an issue we frequently observe.
Additionally, when new patients arrive, they seldom accurately attribute their visit to marketing efforts, instead citing personal recommendations, despite likely being influenced by ongoing campaigns.
This is why evaluating healthcare marketing success requires a long-term mindset, careful analysis, and an understanding that influence is often indirect and delayed.
Positioning and strong narratives
Positioning is another misunderstood yet critical element. Today, patients have abundant healthcare choices. Without clear differentiation and a unique value proposition, your hospital risks becoming lost amid competitors.
But positioning isn’t just about logos and taglines; it’s about telling a compelling story. Strong narratives and emotional resonance give your brand life, forming genuine connections with patients and their families.
This human touch, rooted in empathy and lived experience, is irreplaceable and cannot be compensated for by algorithms or artificial intelligence. Clear positioning is no longer optional, it’s fundamental to survival and growth.
Awareness and education within healthcare communications
The essence of healthcare communications surpasses promotional activities.
One of our core responsibilities is awareness and education; shaping important conversations, dismantling harmful stigmas, and empowering people to make informed decisions about their health.
Communications professionals don’t just deliver messages; we drive meaningful societal change.
A seat in the boardroom
Critically, senior communications leaders must have a seat at the boardroom table.
Communication leaders bring a distinct strategic lens to complex healthcare dynamics—perspectives that fundamentally differ from finance, operations, or clinical departments.
Their insights ensure strategic decisions are robust, holistic, and aligned with patient and community expectations.
Personally, I strongly value organisations that position marketing and communications (and in some cases, including business development) as an independent executive function reporting to CEO – not under operations or strategy – regardless of the different structural models or reporting schools.
Expense vs investment
Moreover, healthcare marketing should never be viewed as a cost centre.
It is a strategic investment demanding patience and vision. Immediate returns are rare; sustainable success is built over time. Short-term thinking in marketing inevitably leads to long-term setbacks.
Narratives, design, and brand expression are inherently subjective. There is rarely a single right answer, and creative direction often invites opinions from all directions.
However, as long as information shared is medically and scientifically validated, there is room for multiple perceptions.
The key is that the leader overseeing and executing these elements must have the full strategic overview – and that leader should be the marketing professional.
Their perspective bridges creativity with compliance, brand with evidence, and strategy with execution.
Interference and the need for an integrated healthcare plan
An ongoing challenge for marketing professionals is interference from other departments.
Interestingly, other departments often assume the privilege of dictating marketing strategies – a scenario marketing professionals would rarely, if ever, impose on them.
Mutual respect and clear role delineation are crucial for organisational success.
Healthcare marketing is not about isolated campaigns or individual tactics. It is an integrated system – each element, whether digital, traditional advertising, branding, community outreach, PR, sponsorships, stakeholder relations or internal communications, plays a role in the broader strategy.
No single channel or initiative operates in a vacuum; they complete and reinforce each other. CEOs must be aware that marketing is a comprehensive, interconnected function, not a checklist of deliverables.
Internal communications
Perhaps the most overlooked resource in communications is employees. Your staff are your most authentic brand ambassadors.
Engaged, satisfied employees who genuinely advocate for your organisation and deliver real quality care create a more powerful, credible, and lasting impact than any advertising campaign.
Prioritising internal communications and employee engagement is essential and I truly believe this function should ideally be led by the communications and marketing experts, with the support of human capital.
Internal and external storytelling should never operate in silos. When aligned, they build credibility from within; turning employees to become your most trusted brand ambassadors.
Attracting and retaining the right talent
Another significant challenge we face is sourcing and retaining top talent specialised in healthcare communications. Healthcare knowledge in our field
is crucial. Our industry operates with unique sensitivities, compliance frameworks, and emotional dynamics that require deep contextual understanding.
However, it’s no secret that healthcare marketing often lags behind other industries in adopting cutting-edge strategies.
Attracting professionals from sectors such as retail, tech, or FMCG brings tremendous added value, injecting fresh thinking, innovation, and speed. The ideal team blends these external perspectives with deep healthcare expertise to achieve truly impactful results.
Marketers are not mere executors
To my fellow communications professionals: you are not mere executors. You are strategic drivers.
Stand confidently in your expertise, proactively shape your function, and welcome input without allowing your role to be dictated.
Your strength, clarity, and decisiveness will ensure communications maintains its rightful strategic place within the organisation.
A strong communications function is always a two-way equation. When a CEO empowers their communications leader – believing in their role, inviting them into strategic dialogue, and giving them space to lead—and when that leader brings the right expertise, confidence, and strategic thinking, the function thrives.
But one cannot succeed without the other. Even the strongest communications professional cannot drive impact in an environment that doesn’t value or enable their leadership.
And no CEO can build a meaningful brand presence without a capable, empowered partner leading communications and marketing with authority and vision.
The moment for communications and marketing leadership in healthcare is now
Across my career, I was fortunate enough to work with several CEOs who recognised that marketing and communications are not peripheral functions — they are central to strategy, reputation, and growth.
My current CEO at Global Fertility and Bnoon, Majd Abu Zant, has created a culture where communications is embedded in leadership thinking, not brought in as an afterthought. That level of trust and alignment changes everything. I’ve also seen firsthand with CEOs I worked with, how different leadership styles can either elevate or dilute the impact of the function.
Sitting at the leadership table for more than a decade now has taught me that when communications is positioned correctly, it doesn’t just tell the story, it helps shape the direction and growth.
To healthcare CEOs: it’s time to leverage marketing and communications fully as a powerful strategic driver, and not as executors of others’ ideas and ambitions, but as originators of value and vision. Just make sure to bring the right people and empower them.
By Farah Al Alami, Chief Communications & Marketing Officer, Global Fertility | Bnoon
