Marketer Career Path Excellence: Best Practices for Training and Developing High-Impact Healthcare Marketers

Best Practices, LLC undertook benchmarking research to identify critical marketer training and development approaches to guide better marketing career path planning and execution at biopharma companies. In particular, this report probes key skills, competencies, training curriculum and content, common language, role rotations, mentoring, external partnerships and career path development approaches for forging high-impact marketing professionals and future leaders.

Marketing, commercial, and training and development leaders can use this report to identify and promote the critical skills and experiences needed among marketing personnel to succeed and grow in key roles.

Study Snapshot

Best Practices, LLC engaged 22 biopharma executives, directors and managers from 18 leading companies to gain insights into critical marketer training and development approaches.

Key Findings

• Build in-house training capability to drive home priorities and nurture core skills and competencies: For most benchmark companies, the bulk (71%) of formal training and ongoing development activities are conducted on an internal basis. Effective in-house marketer development programs focus on specific competencies which translate into on-the-job success.
• A majority use on-the-job results to identify high-potential marketers and future leaders: Most companies (53%) look to on-the-job successes to winnow out high-potential marketers and push them along a more specialized career path toward marketing leadership, while 24% use performance reviews.

I.	Executive Summary	pgs. 3-11
	Research Overview	pg. 4
	Participating Companies	pg. 5
	Key Research Findings	pgs. 6-11
II.	Nurturing Core Marketing Skills & Competencies	pgs. 12-23
	Core Competencies, Skills, Curriculum Sources and External Institutions
	Marketer Development Program Funding, Management, and Maturity Curve
III.	Adopting an Experience-Based Development Approach	pgs. 24-29
	Training and Development Approaches (Formal vs. Informal)
	Role Rotations and Critical Development Experiences
IV.	Using a Network of Mentors & Advisors	pgs. 30-34
	Finding and Deploying the Right Mentors
V.	Creating a Common Language & Tools	pgs. 35-40
	Must-Have Tools, Resources and Approaches to Enable Marketer Success
VI.	Developing High-Potential Marketers & Future Leaders	pgs. 41-46
	Identifying, Grooming and Incentivizing High-Potential Marketers
	Career Path Excellence and Succession Planning
VII.	Appendix A: Field Voices: Creating a Successful Marketer Development System	pgs. 47-53
VIII.	Appendix B: Study Participant Data	pgs. 54-57
IX.	About Best Practices, LLC	pg. 58

• Role of Different Groups in Managing and Funding Marketing Training and Development Programs within the Organization
• Maturity Curve of Marketer Training and Development Program
• Development of Core Marketing Competencies
• Most Important Skills to Train High-Impact Marketers On
• Percentage of Total Marketing Training and Development Programs Conducted Internally within Organizations versus Externally
• Effective Marketing Training Curriculum Sources
• Effectiveness of Various External Institution Types for Marketer Skills and Performance Development
• Best Institutions for Developing High-Performing Healthcare Commercial Professionals
• Criteria used in Selecting Employees for Participation in ongoing (i.e., Post-training) Marketing Development Programs
• Marketer Job Levels Targeted for Initial Training and Ongoing Development Programs
• Types of Training and Development Programs that Work Best for Developing Marketers
• Formal Role Rotation Strategy for Marketing Personnel across Different Marketing Teams or Other Commercial Functions
• Importance Ranking of Exposing Marketers to Critical Business Streams via Rotations
• Best Practices for Using Role Rotations to Help Maximize Marketer Development
• Effective Approaches to Monitor Progress and Ensure the Continued Professional Development of Marketers
• Best Backgrounds to Find Marketing Experts to Help Mentor or Advise Marketers
• Effectiveness of Different Professionals in Leading Internal Marketer Training Programs or Development Seminars
• Lessons Learned in Maximizing the Benefits of Using Mentors and Advisors to Promote the Long-Term Development of Healthcare Marketers
• Valuable Tools and Resources for Guiding the Development of Marketers
• "Must-Have” Marketer Development Tools, Resources and References
• Effective Approaches in Developing Individual Marketer Capability and Enabling Career Path Growth
• Participants Indicated How Forging a Common Language and Framework across the Marketing Organization Enables the Progress and Long-Term Success of New Marketing Talent
• Approach toward Identifying High-Potential Marketers
• Effective Approaches for Grooming and Retaining High-Potential Marketing Talent for Leadership Roles
• Effective Approaches for Incentivizing and Retaining High-Potential Marketers
• Marketing Succession Planning Approaches to Ensure Continuity and Ongoing High Performance
• Approach toward Delineating a Clear Career Path for New Marketers
• Special Development Tactics / Approaches to Develop Marketers to Succeed in the Critical Areas of New Product Launch and Brand Leadership
• Best Practices for Creating and Executing a Long-Term Development Program to Forge High-Impact Healthcare Marketers with Diverse Experience