Case Study: How Strategic Marketing Consulting Transformed a Multi-Brand Healthcare Platform
Challenge: Addressing Disjointed Marketing in a Rapidly Expanding Healthcare Platform
Following the acquisition of four distinct healthcare brands, a private equity-backed platform faced a significant post-acquisition challenge: disjointed and misaligned marketing operations. This is a common obstacle for rapidly growing healthcare organizations juggling multiple brands, each with its own independent systems and vendor relationships.
In this case, each practice was operating with separate marketing vendors, strategies, and tools. What should have been a unified growth strategy had instead devolved into a fragmented network of overlapping vendor contracts, unclear scopes of work, and rising costs.
The absence of centralized oversight created several inefficiencies that hindered the platform’s ability to execute effectively, including:
- Multiple vendors billing for identical services, such as SEO, SEM, and call tracking, leading to redundancies and unnecessary spend
- Vendor contracts with vague deliverables and ambiguous terms, making performance difficult to evaluate
- A lack of visibility into overall marketing spend, performance metrics, and contract obligations
This misalignment not only led to inconsistent brand execution across the platform but also limited leadership’s ability to make data-driven decisions. It became clear that a more strategic, healthcare-specific approach to marketing was needed.
Engagement: Skytale Delivers Healthcare Marketing Consulting as Fractional CMO
To address these challenges and establish a scalable marketing foundation, Skytale was engaged to provide healthcare marketing consulting in the role of Fractional CMO. The goal was not only to stabilize operations but also to build a strategic framework that would enable long-term growth and consistency across brands.
- Comprehensive Vendor and Contract Audit
Skytale’s first step as a healthcare marketing consultant was to bring structure and visibility to a fragmented vendor environment. Without a clear picture of existing contracts and vendor roles, optimization would be impossible. To address this, Skytale:
- Conducted a thorough audit of all vendor relationships across the four practices
- Documented every contract, scope of work, and performance metric
- Identified duplicative contracts and underperforming vendors
- Uncovered a total of $46,946 in outstanding marketing commitments, with $31,108 still owed to vendors
- Created a centralized dashboard consolidating vendor details, services, costs, and contract terms
This audit provided the critical transparency leadership needed to realign marketing efforts and spending.
- Strategic Vendor Optimization
With full visibility into the vendor landscape, Skytale developed and executed a vendor optimization strategy:
- Eliminated low-performing and redundant vendors based on a spend vs. performance analysis
- Introduced specialized vendors to fill capability gaps, such as advanced analytics and creative development
- Negotiated improved contract terms with retained vendors to ensure alignment with the platform’s business goals
- Consolidated marketing services across brands to reduce complexity and drive consistency
These efforts created a more accountable, performance-focused vendor ecosystem while improving the ROI of marketing investments.
- Establishing a Scalable Marketing Infrastructure
True to Skytale’s strategic marketing consulting approach, the engagement didn’t stop at vendor optimization. The next phase focused on sustainability and scale:
- Developed a transition roadmap tailored to each practice’s structure and capabilities
- Implemented recurring communication cadences between practices and vendors for improved coordination
- Built robust reporting frameworks to track KPIs, benchmark results, and produce board-ready deliverables
- Documented marketing systems and processes to support onboarding of a future full-time, in-house CMO
By combining short-term fixes with long-term planning, Skytale ensured the marketing function could grow in lockstep with the business.
Results: Visibility, Efficiency, and Strategic Growth
By the end of the engagement, Skytale’s healthcare marketing consulting services had transformed a reactive, fragmented marketing function into a streamlined, strategic asset.
- Enhanced Visibility: Leadership gained centralized insight into marketing operations, including vendor roles, spend, and results. This visibility enabled more confident, data-driven decision-making.
- Optimized Costs and Reduced Complexity: Redundant services and underperforming vendors were removed, allowing the platform to right-size its marketing spend while maintaining high performance.
- Improved Executive Alignment: Clear KPIs and reporting structures restored confidence at the board level and positioned marketing as a strategic partner—not just a cost center.
- Scalable Infrastructure for Future Growth: Centralized systems and repeatable processes created a strong foundation to support future acquisitions, brand launches, and leadership transitions.
Ongoing Partnership: Continued Strategic Marketing Support
Even after the formal engagement concluded, Skytale continues to serve as a strategic marketing advisor. As a Fractional CMO, Skytale continues to lead vendor check-ins, manage performance and reporting, and align marketing execution with business objectives.
The client now operates with a centralized, insight-driven marketing structure built for growth enabled by industry-specific expertise and a proactive consulting approach.
Is Your Marketing Strategy Working for Your Business?
Many healthcare providers find it difficult to measure the true impact of their marketing efforts. For this reason, we are proud to now offer strategic marketing consulting—a new capability under Skytale’s Management Consulting service line.
Not sure where to begin? Our Marketing Program Evaluation provides a comprehensive, data-driven analysis of your marketing performance—examining key areas like your website, SEO, paid advertising, and social media. We also assess your competitive landscape to identify opportunities for growth. Whether you move forward independently or with continued guidance from our experienced Fractional CMO team, you’ll gain the clarity and insights needed to drive patient acquisition and long-term success. Learn more and book your discovery call by clicking here.
