Digital Marketing Operations and the Battle for Alignment

MAY SUMMIT RECAP

Finding the Signal in the Noise: Inside May’s Marketing Ops Virtual Summit

In a world where marketing operations is being pulled in more directions than ever, this month’s Marketing Ops Virtual Summit offered a refreshingly grounded conversation— just a community of marketers rolling up their sleeves and getting real about what’s working, what isn’t, and where the blind spots live.

Content Chaos, Brand Silos, and the Battle for Alignment

The conversation kicked off with a clear theme: disconnected content ecosystems. Most teams represented at the summit were grappling with the same core issue—stories scattered across departments, channels owned in silos, and brand/reputation communications fighting for space in the same pipeline.

Whether it was employer brand versus consumer brand, PR versus digital marketing, or reputation efforts butting heads with growth goals—everyone agreed the core problem wasn’t creativity. It was coordination.

What surfaced repeatedly was the need for clear governance and shared ownership. Several participants pointed to efforts underway to unify around strategic service lines, break down functional walls, and deploy frameworks like the hub-and-spoke model to bring some sanity to content planning and delivery.

The Quiet Power of Operational Models

Some of the most inspiring moments came when people shared practical fixes—things that didn’t require a new tool or massive restructure, just better orchestration.

A few standouts:

Cross-functional huddles between comms and digital teams to coordinate real-time and evergreen content.

Integrated content planning “beats” where content contributors across departments come together to map out themes, goals, and deliverables in a unified way.

Letting junior teams lead collaborative initiatives to reduce silos—often yielding fresh solutions that senior leaders might overlook.

The takeaway? Solving for structure doesn’t mean stifling creativity. In fact, structure seems to set it free.

Technology: Both a Barrier and a Bridge

Naturally, tech came up—especially when it came to marketing attribution, CRM implementation, and navigating the complex relationship between MarCom and IT.

More than one participant reflected on the friction between those who own the tools and those who need to use them to communicate. Whether it was workflow bottlenecks, lack of long-term governance post-implementation, or the absence of marketing-friendly project management resources, the consensus was clear: Health systems are investing in technology, but not always in the infrastructure needed to keep it aligned.

That said, glimmers of hope emerged. One strategy that stood out? Bringing together external vendors—agencies, platform providers, tech partners—in a single forum and asking them to collaborate. Instead of treating each vendor as a siloed partner, some are pushing their ecosystem to act like a single, cohesive unit. And it’s working.

Employer Brand: The Overlooked Half of the Equation

A particularly thoughtful thread emerged around employer branding. One attendee drew a direct line between employee experience and patient experience, making the case that you can’t have one without the other. And it’s true: we often obsess over patient-facing brand promises but overlook whether employees believe or even understand them.

With recruitment and retention challenges rising in healthcare, several attendees noted a need for tighter integration between internal culture, recruitment marketing, and external brand voice. The point wasn’t just about Glassdoor reviews or hiring campaigns—it was about alignment and authenticity.

AI: Efficiency Gains Without Cutting Corners

The group eventually turned to AI—not with hype, but with curiosity and grounded optimism.

Some were using it for early wins: transforming scientific research articles into lay-friendly summaries, repurposing evergreen content across new channels, or extracting review insights for social storytelling. One particularly inspiring use case involved assigning a dedicated “digital librarian” to curate and organize media assets, later integrating AI for classification and retrieval—cutting down time, improving access, and building brand consistency.

But everyone agreed on one thing: AI must be human-guided. The idea of content going live without vetting? A firm no. AI was framed as an accelerator, not a replacement.

Pulling It All Together

What emerged from this discussion wasn’t just a list of shared pain points—it was a clear, layered picture of where marketing operations in healthcare is headed.

There’s a growing recognition that content strategy, technology integration, and brand alignment can’t live in isolation. Marketing and communications must function as a cohesive ecosystem, not a patchwork of siloed efforts. That means aligning internal teams around common goals, bringing vendors into strategic conversations, and treating digital content as an organizational asset—not just a deliverable.

It also means applying AI with care—not as a shortcut, but as a tool to extend and enrich the expertise already on your team. When paired with smart governance, thoughtful planning models like hub-and-spoke, and a deeper commitment to brand consistency, these innovations can unlock real, measurable progress.

The most successful organizations aren’t just producing more content or chasing new tools. They’re building smarter systems, setting clearer priorities, and designing workflows that support both strategy and execution.

How Endeavor Can Help

If these themes resonate and you’re seeking to align your marketing operations more effectively across brand, reputation, digital, and experience, Endeavor Management offers a comprehensive set of tools to operationalize what matters most.

Strategic Marketing Services

Marketing Strategy Development: Crafting growth-focused marketing strategies tailored to your organization’s goals.

Brand Strategy: Building a resonant brand promise grounded in a deep understanding of functional and emotional needs.

Launch Communications: Ensuring successful product, service, or campaign launches with confidence and alignment.

Data-Driven Insights

Endeavor Analytics: Empowering organizations with data, dashboards, insights, and innovative strategies to drive meaningful change.

Market Insights: Utilizing advanced marketing research tools to gain valuable insights and inform decision-making.

Experience Management

Patient Experience: Enhancing patient satisfaction by uncovering functional and emotional needs, touchpoints, and identifying experience stewards for a holistic view.

Operational Excellence: Aligning operations and culture to deliver exceptional customer experiences and sustain improvements.

Creative Execution

Content Strategy: Developing compelling content that aligns with your brand and engages your audience.

Internal Communications: Crafting purpose-driven communications to motivate and mobilize your organization.