Is your service line ready for marketing? A smarter approach to planning season.

For health system marketers, planning season is a balancing act: tighter budgets, competing service line requests, market pressures and leadership demanding ROI. With priorities pulling you in every direction, it’s tempting to let the squeaky wheel get the grease — but rushing service lines to market before they’re ready can do more harm than good.

As you develop strategic plans for next year, a service line marketing readiness check can help you identify where to invest for the greatest impact for your service lines as well as your brand.

The loudest service line shouldn’t always win

A service line can only strengthen your brand and market position if it’s operationally sound, delivers on patient expectations and offers clear market opportunity. But launching marketing campaigns for service lines that aren’t market ready can be damaging. It doesn’t just waste budget without delivering ROI, it can:

• Weaken or dilute your brand
• Create poor patient experiences
• Erode patient trust
• Damage service line credibility, setting it back

The question shouldn’t be, “Which service line is asking the loudest?” but instead, “Which service lines are truly ready to deliver value?” To answer that, we’ve developed a marketing readiness scorecard that weighs the essential factors every service line must meet before earning marketing support. It asks key questions such as:

• Do you have physician champions and the operational strength to deliver on increased demand?
• Is there a clear market opportunity and competitive edge versus your competitors?
• Can patients access the service line quickly and conveniently?
• Do you have measurable goals and ROI expectations in place?

Take our free Service Line Marketing Readiness Self-Assessment to cut through the noise, guide your planning and invest where marketing can deliver the greatest impact.

But readiness is only one side of the equation. The other is ensuring service line marketing supports — not overshadows — long-term brand growth.

Don’t lose sight of balancing brand and service lines

Readiness is only one side of the equation. The other is ensuring that service line marketing supports — not overshadows — your long-term brand.

It’s tempting to focus marketing dollars on short-term service line campaigns, especially when under pressure for ROI. But when brand-building takes a back seat, the foundation for all future campaigns is weakened.

The most effective plans treat brand and service line marketing as complementary — working together to deliver both near-term lifts and long-term growth. Research by Les Binet and Peter Field shows that an optimal mix allocates roughly 60% to brand and 40% to activations such as service lines, balancing immediate response with sustained equity.

Setting your brand and service lines up for lasting success

Planning doesn’t have to feel like a balancing act or a battle of squeaky wheels. With the right framework, you can prioritize with confidence, protect your brand and deliver marketing that earns trust and delivers ROI. The most strategic marketing plans don’t just fill funnels — they build stronger brands and create positive patient experiences that set every service line up for lasting success.