Transforming healthcare marketing technology with Chris Vitti of The Cigna Group

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More than 70 percent of US adults believe the healthcare system is failing them in one or more ways. One commonly cited complaint is that the healthcare experience has become depersonalized and devoid of human interactions. While this is a major red flag, it also represents an opportunity for brands to do better.

Chris Vitti, senior director & head of Marketing Technology at The Cigna Group believes technology in healthcare is one of the keys to bridging the gaps in the customer journey. As a marketing technology expert with decades of experience, Vitti sees the impact that technology is having on the healthcare industry.

When healthcare organizations like The Cigna Group use modern-day marketing technology to curate customer experiences, they can set the stage for more relevant marketing in healthcare, better patient outcomes, and fewer barriers to care.

Vitti has developed his unique perspective after being responsible for marketing technology for over two decades. He has operated both on the vendor side and as an in-house marketing technology leader for brands including Gartner, Knotch, Synthesio, Intralinks, and Alfresco.

In our conversation with Vitti, he shared insights about his role, his passion for healthcare, career path advice, and trends in healthcare marketing.

What is your role, and what part in particular is most exciting to you?

I lead our Marketing Technology Center of Excellence, which is a resource for all marketers at The Cigna Group, including Cigna Healthcare and Evernorth Health Services. What drives me every day is my promise to our marketers to enable them with modern-day technology to get their jobs done — essentially, reaching the right audience with the right message on the right channel at the right time — and helping them measure the effectiveness of their campaigns. Doing this for one of the best companies in the world, focused on improving the health of those we serve, makes it even more rewarding.

What first pulled you toward a role in healthcare?

A great recruiter, my manager, and his manager. During the interview process, it was so obvious how passionate they were about the future of healthcare and the mission of The Cigna Group that I had to be part of it.

The healthcare industry is transforming quickly now, and technology plays a huge part in this transformation. So when it comes to enabling our marketers with the right audience/message/channel/time, we also need to ensure that our audiences get access to the right care in the right place at the right time. All of this, coupled with my own increasing passion for health and wellness, made joining The Cigna Group a no-brainer.

Is there an emerging trend/technology within healthcare that excites you most? What do you think its impact will be?

I’ve been watching marketing technology evolve since the beginning, and it’s constantly changing, which I absolutely love. Improving the health of all the lives we touch, especially by using advancements in technology, is super exciting.

Top of the list for me is delivering a personalized customer experience in real time, which requires a sharp focus on the underlying profile data and technology. Virtual health, remote monitoring, wearables, and mobile apps are also areas that are changing fast because of the convenience and intelligence they offer.

Navigating HIPAA, and the removal of third-party cookies, are also changes that marketing technologists need to be on top of. And then, of course, there’s AI — and convincing marketers that it’s not AI that will take their job — it’s the marketers who embrace and learn how to co-exist with AI that will excel.

Read “Customer Experience (CX) in Healthcare — What It Means, Why It’s Important, and How to Do It Well” to understand how to prioritize consumers during your digital transformation.

What surprised you most upon joining your current organization?

I love it even more than I could have imagined. Everything from the industry to our company mission, to the people at The Cigna Group, to our four-pillar framework focused on healthy society, healthy workforce, healthy environment, and healthy company — it really is an amazing and special place to work.

Is there anything specific that you’re bringing from your out-of-industry experience to transform how your organization engages with customers?

All of it. My career has been split between being on the brand side and being on the martech vendor side. I’ve also been fortunate to work for early, mid-, and late-stage startups — and small, mid-size, and large enterprises. And I’ve been through a handful of acquisitions, too.

All of this combined has allowed me to think, innovate, and move like a startup yet get a strong foundation in place to allow the enterprise to scale for many years to come. Plus, having spent 13 years working at four different martech vendors, I’ve developed a superpower for seeing through what’s real and what’s not — in a matter of seconds. Pretty helpful when trying to cut through the noise of 13,000 martech vendors.

What advice do you have for someone who wants a career in marketing technology?

First, major in a relevant field, like a bachelor’s in digital marketing. You can also try a lower cost option like CareerFoundry’s Digital Marketing Program, Linkedin’s Master Digital Marketing course, or Google’s free Fundamentals of Digital Marketing certificate program.

Second, study the history of marketing technology, starting in the mid-90s with the founding of content management vendors, Day, Interwoven and Vignette, to the birth of Salesforce, WordPress, and LinkedIn. Follow it through to the Marketing Technology Landscape Supergraphic and learn the evolution from 150 martech vendors in 2011 to 13,080 vendors in 2023.

Once you land a job, it’s time to start thinking about your marketing technology stack. Choose category leaders based on your company size (SMB technology is a lot different than enterprise technology), and pick vendors that natively integrate with the other vendors in your stack because I promise you that integrations will be the toughest part of your job.

After you get the stack in place, move into innovation mode and think about how you’ll always keep the stack on the cutting edge. To do that, read lots of research from Forrester, Gartner, and G2. Watch how college grads prefer to work. Always test out new technologies. And be open to new ideas.

If you want to do this in the healthcare industry, learn about HIPAA, follow news & insights from The Cigna Group, and healthcare publications like Modern Healthcare. Finally, when in doubt, always err heavily on the side of simplicity and keep your stack lean.

How Adobe can help

In healthcare, creating a positive customer journey requires a multifaceted approach. You must educate, inform, and connect with patients using curated, engaging content. Additionally, you must ensure that all resources are consistently delivered in a timely manner to remove friction from the care experience. Adobe Customer Journey Analytics features powerful marketing analytics that take the guesswork out of healthcare marketing. With Customer Journey Analytics, you can understand multi-channel journeys, both online & offline. Customer Journey Analytics saves time and resources, enabling you to shift your focus toward improving the care journey.

Find out how Adobe Experience Cloud for Healthcare is leading the way for companies to create, manage, and orchestrate more personalized customer experiences.