Top 4 Themes with Healthcare Marketing Executives

Jenny: Hi friends! Welcome to today’s episode of We Are, Marketing Happy, a healthcare marketing podcast. I am your host, Jenny Bristow, and I’m also the CEO and founder at Hedy & Hopp, a full-service, fully healthcare marketing agency. I am so excited! Today is our 100th episode of our podcast. It is a, it has been a super fun, rewarding journey.

And to celebrate, I invited Maggie Piasecki. She is the other owner at Hedy & Hopp and she’s also our agency’s president, our fearless leader. So Maggie, so excited to have you on today. Welcome.

Maggie: Thank you. I’m excited to be here.

Jenny: So before we dive into today’s topic, I wanted to do a little bit of a throwback. So our first ever episode was in August of 2022.

And I had my dear friend Annie Harmon on. We met when she was at Ascension, and, at the time during the interview, she was at Reputation. She’s now at Press Gainey, in their healthcare division. But we were kind of snapshotting a moment in time talking about the impact of reputation for health systems and the different technologies that systems were using to try to improve their reputation online.

So if you want to throw back about what technologies were trending in 2022, you go give that one a listen. But today we’re going to talk about the four top themes that we are seeing with healthcare marketing executives. So Maggie and I consistently talk. We have a handful of conversations every week with folks across the country. And with that, we really have our finger on the pulse about what’s keeping them up at night, what is their leadership asking them to talk about, and board meetings and leadership meetings.

What are the trends their team members are bringing to them wanting to invest time and budget on? So let’s dig into the first one. The first theme is staying ahead of patient expectations and AI being the go to. So Maggie, I know we’re hearing about patient expectations. And I often what are you hearing?

Maggie: Yeah. So it’s a complicated one because I think any healthcare executive you talk to will always ask about patient acquisition.

Like, how are we being different, how are we staying ahead of the competition. And some of the key themes that keep popping up is, you know, multi-channel omnichannel approaches aren’t enough anymore, right? Patients, we know that they’re online. We know that they’re always going online when they’re searching for information, whether it be research or searching for a new provider.

But they’re doing that across such a variety of different platforms, channels, mediums, and they’re expecting for these organizations to show up in all of those different channels, platforms and mediums. Right. And now you have AI search coming into the to the realm as well, which, you know, creates a whole new set of difficulties. So I think, you know, some of the biggest challenges are ensuring that, our healthcare clients are prepared to show up across all of those different mediums, platforms, channels, etc. when the patients need it, they expect it quickly, but they also then expect it to be connected to a human if they need to speak with them.

So making sure that all of that is integrated. But the other pieces I really think around content strategies. We’re hearing content strategy a lot, especially with the AI tools. So, this no click type of search mentality really needs to come to the forefront. And ensuring that, you know, our clients content is ready to be very easily digested and picked up, whether it is through an AI search result or an AI tool itself.

It’s almost like a bit of a conversation right between patients and these AI tools. So I think, you know, content strategy that works across variety, different platforms, but also is digestible from an AI standpoint, have been really some big challenges that have been coming through in a lot of our conversations.

Jenny: Yeah. And kind of piggybacking on that zero-click search result, thought process, and mentality.

We’ve been advising and have been seeing a lot of our clients really shifting from that top-of-the-funnel content strategy to more bottom-funnel, where it’s solution-oriented. So no longer, you know, if you’re orthopedic, an orthopedic group no longer searching for, things like ways to prevent, you know, an ankle injury instead, it’s more I have an ankle injury.

Who do I go see now?

Maggie: Who do I go to?

Jenny: So somebody more raising their hand looking for a solution. And what kind of content can you provide to make their journey easier? Because oftentimes those broader searches, that’s a national audience. You know, if you are a regional system, there’s no value in trying to rank for those large terms unless you have, you know, a business case for that, which some groups do.

But the vast majority of times your resources are way better spent at that more, you know, action-oriented keyword structure.

Maggie: Yep, I would agree. And then again, making sure that it’s, you know, accessible across any different type of platform channel medium, AI tool, etc. not just thinking again, multi-channel, ensuring that’s all integrated across the variety of different ways that they can engage.

Jenny: One of the things we’ve been seeing people kind of unsure about is the uncertainty and inability of being able to track and understand website volume and traffic that is coming from AI search engines. One thing that we’ve been seeing, the movement on in the last couple of weeks is different tools actually trying to show, and help you understand how you, hate to use the word rank, but rank.

So how you’re showing up in these platforms, especially like the Googles, you know, Gemini, you know, I summary at the top. So there are ways to actually measure the efficacy of that at this point. So your team should be really, you know, digging in to be able to add down your reporting and insights. You’re looking at.

Maggie: That’s a really good callout.

And I think also, then the other flip side of that is there are trends, you know, showing that click-through rates are starting to go down, right, because of that shift. And that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re not performing well or you’re not outperforming what you were doing prior. So more about the engagement and conversion across a variety of different platforms.

And the AI component kind of bringing all that together. So it’s a really good point.

Jenny: Yeah, I think that flows really well into the second key theme that we’re seeing, which is brand loyalty. And local trust still matters. So what’s your POV on this? Maggie.

Maggie: Yeah, this is always kind of a push and pull, especially with healthcare executives.

So going back to your point about sort of top funnel and, and not really putting money and energy into your in terms of like those larger, more, I would say symptom-based type of searches, but really putting the money and energy into building brand awareness and equity locally. There’s a lot of value that’s coming out of that.

And I think there’s been a big shift over the last maybe 18 months or so of how much that brand establishment locally really means. The end user. I also think when you look at a lot of the shifts from acquisition standpoint, so some of the larger organizations coming in and starting to put their brand on more of the local or regional hospital systems, that individual still wants to feel that brand connection.

And so when we’re in a room with healthcare executives and we’re talking about, you know, where do you want to spend your money, where are you going to get the best bang for your buck? We do try and move them up a little bit to brand awareness, because while it won’t show an immediate impact, it is building that long-term value in relationships.

And I also think, you know, going back to some old school tactics around the local publishers and the local newspaper or news outlets can play a big role in helping build that brand equity and starting to build some better relationships and sort of news coverage there. I think we’re seeing a shift with a lot of, especially our regional healthcare systems and tapping into those, those outlets.

Jenny: Yeah, that’s a really good point. I think it would be a dream to only do digital, right, because, I mean, the easiest a dream, but that just isn’t reasonable. That isn’t where audiences are always going to be reachable, especially when you’re going into either a rural area or you have an older demographic you’re targeting. So it is really important, you know, to be across the board.

Another thing I’d love to kind of like piggybacking on that. So we’re talking about brand loyalty. One of the things we see folks struggle with, is really balancing brand marketing versus service line marketing, you know, and how you kind of not differentiate the kind of figure out what size of a bucket, budget bucket each of those get.

So I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Maggie: Yeah. And I would I would push that. It’s not just budget bucket, but it’s ensuring that the messaging all ties back together. So I think when we’re in the planning stages with our client, they’re they’re not only trying to figure out where do I put my budget and why, but how do I ensure that there’s consistent messages, right.

Because that person that’s receiving the brand campaign or the brand can message campaign message may also be receiving, let’s say, a cardiology-based message for that service line. So ensuring that those two come together, what we typically try and do is we get down to what that client needs to see from an ROI perspective with getting those patients in a door.

So I think if you talk with any hospital system, for example, they’re going to have a set goal on on the number of new patient acquisitions or the type of market share they want to take over from the service line. So getting creative about how do we adjust marketing spend to meet that demand. And maybe it’s a five-month sprint, depending on what the turnaround time or sort of leeway time is to get them in the door.

But that’s one way that we would often push, our teams to look at that. And then, you know, I go back to the messaging that messaging matrices, which I feel like fell off for a little while, are really coming back. When we think about tying that brand back into the service lines. And so in we’re about to go into planning stages for a lot of our clients and thinking about that, brand and messaging matrix across the brand, but also then the service lines really helps get that marketing team and anybody else it’s activating for them consistent ways that we’re communicating with the audience because they’re going to see it, you know, a

bunch of different times across a variety of different mediums.

Jenny: Yep. That’s a great point. Third trend establishing a preventative care relationship with baby boomers. Preventative care is not necessarily sexy, but it is a strong entry point to that relationship development. So I’d love to hear your thoughts on this one.

Maggie: Yeah, I mean, we we hear the word baby boomer quite a bit, not only from our payor clients, but also from our healthcare system clients.

You know, I think the number is around 70 million. They’re going to reach by 2030 if I have my numbers accurate. So it’s a huge chunk of the population. This baby boomer group, you know, they’re sophisticated. They’re, you know, much more comfortable with digital than the generation prior to them. And they’re expecting to have that brand relationship with their healthcare providers and systems.

Right. And they want it to go beyond the transaction of just coming in, getting an appointment done and then leaving. So a lot of what we’re hearing from executives is challenging us to think about how do we get in at that preventative care point, how do we continue to extend that relationship with the baby boomer audience to where we’re not just a transactional name?

To them? We are a trusted relationship, healthcare partner to them. To really get them in that long because, you know, there’s going to be a variety of different needs that they’re going to, require over the next. You know, 15 to 30 years.

Jenny: Absolutely. And making it easy for them, just making it appointment and, you know, minimal clicks.

Maggie: Integrating the comms and all of those different pieces.

Jenny: Yeah. All of those things. And then last but not least, is they are talking about focusing not just on patient acquisition, right? Onesie twosies bringing in new folks, but really thinking about capturing more of the healthcare dollar overall for their patients. So share your thoughts here. So patient acquisition obviously is number one across the board, right? That’s what we hear in and out of every conversation. But where we are seeing that extend is one thing. Once they get that patient in the door, the marketers, not the healthcare organization, but the marketers themselves, are being challenged with, how do they expand that footprint with that individual patient. Right. So if they come in, let’s say for an emergency room visit, how do we extend, to get them to take another service with that healthcare organization?

Right. Once we have them in the door, how are we extending to think about preventative care or this type of subspecialty, whether it may be cardiology or orthopedics, whatever, have you. So there’s a big challenge in pushing down to marketers to not stop at patient acquisition and to think about how do they nurture that patient once they’re in the door of the system.

It’s obviously a hard balance, I’m sure, as everybody knows from a privacy standpoint. But I think one trend that I believe you talked about in your original episode is the tech stack behind it. Right? So I think healthcare organizations across the board are continuing to see, you know, some gaps in how do they integrate those variety of different texts and platforms from the point of patient acquisition to ensuring that we can compliantly communicate with them about what else is available?

And that’s another big area we’re really I think health executives are asking us that question. You know, we have Epic, for example, there’s a lot of opportunities and platforms within the epic system that they’re not yet tapping into, and they’re asking for us to really come in and help them think about how do they do that from a compliance standpoint that’s usable and actionable?

Jenny: Absolutely. And we have some clients that are on Salesforce and they absolutely love Salesforce. But we have a lot of clients who would love to be on Salesforce. But today they have Epic. So they’re challenges. You know, budgets are being crunched all over the place. How can we really focus on increasing the share of the healthcare dollars with the tools and resources that we already have access to?

So that’s a really great point and something that I think a future episode is going to be dedicated about.

Maggie: I would agree, and I think more and more marketing dollars will go to really ensuring that that patient is expanding, the lines of service within the organization post patient acquisition as we look in the next couple of years.

Jenny: Yep. I completely agree. Well, Maggie, today has been an absolute joy. Thank you for joining me.

Maggie: You are welcome. Thanks for having me.

Jenny: Yeah, I was so fun to celebrate the 100th episode. You’re the only guest I’d want to have on for today. And, I also want to give just a nod that it is officially going to be four years since the gang got back together in August.

That we’ve been working together again and has been just an absolute joy. Being side by line.

Maggie: Yeah, a ton of fun. And cheers to four years for that. And cheers to 100 episodes.

Jenny: Yes. Well, listeners, thank you so much for tuning in. Please like and share this episode. If you have any colleagues that would be interested in the content and please, follow along.

New episodes drop almost every Friday. And we will see you on a future episode of We Are, Marketing Happy. Cheers.