As hospital identities are becoming blurred by the pervasive and unabating M&A trends, so is the definition of "director," the most common title for the individual that directs the marketing responsibilities (60%) for the facility, according to the most recent 1996 Hospital Marketers' Survey released by Opinion Research Corp. Int'l (Evanston, Ill.) Most directors operate within the PR (32%) or marketing (32%) departments, with the remainder spread across a variety of communications departments.
Other key survey findings of marketing execs:
- Marketing salaries tend to shadow their budgets, increasing less than 2% from last year to $53,390 annually.
- However, 6% of marketers' salaries are in the six-figure-plus category ($100,000+), but they hail from the larger (500+ beds) institutions. And marketers with hospitals that have a 50% or better occupancy rate are 10 times more likely to command this high-end paycheck.
- The average tenure of marketing execs is 4.8 years, but nearly 17% have been on the job less than a year.
- 68% have direct access to hospital CEOs with 70% receiving key CEO support.
- The typical marketing director maintains a staff of two full-time equivalent employees.