In this episode, Jenny is joined by Hedy & Hopp’s Account Manager, Shelby Auer, and Marketing Manager, Taylor Fedderke, to recap their time at HCIC24 in Austin. With its walkable venue downtown and amazing food, the conference provided a great setting to reconnect with peers and explore the latest industry trends.
They dive into key themes from the event, including the growing role of AI, how SEO continues to be a game-changer, and fresh approaches to reputation management. They also discuss how organizations are using data to improve provider finders, enhance consumer engagement, and streamline digital strategies, as well as the importance of building authentic brands and maximizing social media with AI tools.
Connect with Shelby: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shelby-wanne/
Connect with Taylor: https://www.linkedin.com/in/taylorfedderke/
Connect with Jenny:
•Email: jenny@hedyandhopp.com
•LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennybristow/
If you enjoyed this episode we’d love to hear your feedback! Please consider leaving us a review on your preferred listening platform and sharing it with others.
HCIC24 Speakers Mentioned:
•Mike Canonig: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelcanonigo/
•Jamie Ryan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamie-ryan-mha-79690521/
•Angela Taylor: https://www.linkedin.com/in/angie-taylor-34ab3a173/
•Amy Muehlbauer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amy-muehlbauer/
•Elizabeth McGonigal: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabeth-mcgonigal-999bb739/
•Elise Horst: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elise-kogelnik/
•Emily Mangini: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emily-mangini/
•Nolan Perry: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nolanjperry/
•Amy Stevens: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amydickesonstevens/
•Ryan Donahue: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryandonohue/
•Max Freund: https://www.linkedin.com/in/max-freund-b4231a2a/
•Adriane Bradberry: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adrianebradberry/
•Chloe A. Politis: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chloepolitis/
•David A. Feinberg: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-a-feinberg-57746a5/
•Sebastien Leon: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sebastienleon2/
•Carla Rivera: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carla-rivera/
Jenny: [00:00:00] Hi, friends. Welcome to today’s episode of We Are, Marketing, Happy, a healthcare marketing podcast. My name is Jenny Bristow. I am the CEO of Hedy & Hopp, which is a full-service marketing agency that specializes in the healthcare space. We are your hosts for this podcast. I am very excited to have with me today, Taylor Fedderke and Shelby Auer, two teammates of mine at Hedy & Hopp.
We just got back last night from HCIC, which is the Healthcare Internet Conference for 2024. It was in Austin this year, and we wanted to hop on this morning and record a fun little recap for those of you who were perhaps unable to attend, usually attend in the past, or perhaps you’re thinking and wondering what HCIC is all about.
And should I attend in the future? So that’s the purpose of today’s show. Good morning, ladies. Welcome. So we’re going to break today’s podcast down into [00:01:00] 3 distinct areas. The 1st is going to be our experience. So, the H&H team, what did we experience going to a couple of key callouts of things that perhaps are different from other events, et cetera?
We’re going to talk about key themes. That we saw, and then we’re going to do a few session callouts. So if you were unable to attend and you want to kind of understand what were the topical themes, what were the educational themes and what was kind of hip from a session perspective we’re going to cover a handful of those.
So I will actually kick us off. I’d love to chat a little bit about our experience. As all of our regular listeners know, last month, we were at SHSMD. Which was another fabulous conference. If you only had to pick two a year to go to those right now are our two favorites and have been going for quite some time.
But HCIC, there were a couple of interesting things. I have 2 in particular that I want to call out. I think the location and venue for this event were fabulous. It was in downtown [00:02:00] Austin at the JW Marriott. So walkable. It was right on 2nd. At the end of every day, or even if there was like a couple of hour break, we constantly saw people rushing downstairs to try to get outside and go for a walk, and we did the same thing.
It was fabulous. And it was also really awesome because you could in the evening if you wanted to kind of network with other folks, just walk up and down second, and you would run into a handful of people kind of at every other restaurant. So it was very easy to do networking outside of the conference-sponsored events.
So kudos to the event organizers for that. And then I am a food-driven human. I know this about myself. If you ever want a good meeting with Jenny, just bring good snacks. But the conference had fabulous food. One morning there was a Belgian waffle bar friends, a Belgian waffle bar at a conference. I was blown away.
So I know all of us kept just looking at each other and laughing when we saw the food, like what this is phenomenal. So I [00:03:00] just have to give a shout-out to the sponsors. I know I’ve hosted many events. I know how exciting it is to be able to offer food of that caliber. So they really were showing up and trying to use it as a differentiator.
So I know we don’t go for the food, but it absolutely was the icing on the cake.
Taylor: Yeah. Completely agree with you there, Jenny. Some other callouts too. So we had our privacy session with Jenifer Warrell with Quartz Health Benefits. And then of course Jenny as well. And so this was kind of the updated what’s going on in all things, privacy, FTC, state laws, everything like that.
Great session. And it was really fun to talk to people afterward that had been to the 2023 version last year and kind of get their thoughts on, you know, what they’ve been working on and then them coming back this year and wanting to kind of hear about, okay, what’s changed.
They’re really trying to educate themselves. And so it’s a really great conversation after the session. I think all three of us said so that was really another fun little experience we had there too.
Jenny: Yeah, that’s a great point. I [00:04:00] think it was kind of interesting to me. Two things. First of all, the number of systems and providers that still haven’t really done much that had a lot of tactical questions, which, hey, we’re here for this.
Like we are here to be your friends and hold your hands through the process. Do we get it? But the other thing that kind of shocked masterclass was that they still didn’t know what the heck was going on. So another shout-out, like another clarifying point. If you’re working with an agency or a website vendor, you need to be asking them some hard questions because the number of folks that came up after our session, and then at our booth that were asking very basic tactical questions, cause they just still didn’t get it was really high.
It really, honestly, was that kind of concerning for me, for providers that maybe don’t know, and they just assume their partner has it covered. So, time to start asking some hard questions, friends.
Taylor: Yeah.
Jenny: So let’s pivot and talk a little bit about the themes. So at each event, I think you can kind of see a little bit of trends and themes like topical [00:05:00] shifts folks are happening.
I have one I’d like to start with the number of people who came up to me and said, this was the first conference they have attended post-COVID was staggering. I mean, we have, we jumped back in, in 2020. Let’s see 432 2022 was when we started doing in-person conferences again. So for me, it’s old hat, right?
Like I’m back at it, whatever. A lot of organizations are just now kind of getting their feet under them and comfortable doing that. So I’m really excited to see what 2025 is. I think it’s just going to continue building on that momentum of comfortability of being back in person.
Shelby: Definitely. And though people are still discussing AI, of course, and privacy, those were two key kinds of themes across the board still, but there were a couple of additional focuses that we saw across the board.
Reputation management, what you’re doing with your Google reviews. How are you handling that information and how could you really [00:06:00] use it to your advantage and SEO kind of going back to those fundamentals that I think we’ve. Maybe shifted the past couple of years, focusing on what’s going on with privacy AI.
We need to be on top of this technology. Understand what’s going on. There was a lot of great conversation about just very specific tactical strategies around SEO content strategy across the board.
Jenny: Completely agree, Shelby. I think we’re going to talk about it. I have a couple of sessions that I want to call out.
They’re exactly in that vein, meaning people are getting back to the fundamentals for content strategy and media optimize it like all of these areas. Kind of the shiny object syndrome, we saw a little bit of it at this conference, but a lot of it was like back to basics friends, like, let’s not think that we’re so advanced because first of all, in healthcare, we know we’re not as an overall industry, right?
Because of a variety of things we won’t get into today. But it very much was proudly saying [00:07:00] like, hey, let’s talk about content strategies again, right? Here’s some tips and tricks. And it was very well done. So on that note, let’s talk about key session callouts. One that I would love to highlight was a session specifically about provider finders.
So we’re talking about getting back to basics, right? Like one on one help. Patients find a provider on your website and help them schedule an appointment and the session that I want to call out. There are quite a few on this topic actually. But the 1 I want to call out was a new front door, exploring the next-generation provider finder.
And there were 3 providers that presented. Mike Canonigo with Advocate Health, Jamie Ryan was Scripps Health, and Angela Taylor with Atrium Health. And while this was like a low-key marketing play by Sparkle, cause all three of the providers were highlighting the Sparkle platform, right? It was actually extremely well done.
It did not feel like a sales pitch for Sparkle for most of the presentation [00:08:00] and what these three. Presenters did is they really talked about what the data is telling them about how to provide or how patients actually want to find a provider. So, for example, I think it was Jamie’s talk specifically about really highlighting what insurance folks, expect and really having that be a top-level search functionality, which I thought was really important.
And then they also talked about the ability on the back end and the importance of really creating your own best match algorithm and really making sure. Hey, what is the data saying people are actually selecting or using? Like, are they really filtering the data? By gender for a provider, or are they really only focused on insurance like insurance is stable table stakes, right?
Nobody’s going to select somebody that doesn’t have their insurance, but like, how are they interacting with that and the ability and the thought process of really only showing people that have available appointments 1st? And really maximizing the patient experience. So this was one [00:09:00] of those, like back to basics, let’s get the fundamentals, right?
And really think about how users want to find a provider and make sure that our experience matches that. So kudos to the three of them for a very well-done presentation.
Taylor: Yeah. And I have another session that again kind of ties into that consumer journey. This one in particular, the title of it was Enhancing the Consumer Journey with a Data-Driven Digital Content Strategy.
This is with Amy Muehlbauer with Advocate Health. Really kind of just talking about where they’ve gone in terms of creating this full content strategy. One 14 Google searches are now health-related. I mean, if you think about it all the Google searches that are taking place on a daily basis, like millions, billions, so many out there thinking how they all are related.
Knowing a lot of them are related to health. I just, it’s a huge piece of that. And so with that, they really talked about how they want to capture this opportunity with consumer data research. And so kind of that’s the foundation piece for their web content, SEO, content, marketing [00:10:00] efforts. And another kind of tidbit they through, and I really enjoy that they mentioned this and talk about this a lot, I guess, within their organization is that, you know, SEO needs to be a main ingredient, not just sprinkles on top of a cupcake.
And it’s so true to kind of think about that as you’re going through these you know, taking the opportunity to revisit content, all these pieces, making sure that’s at the forefront.
And I think Shelby was in this session as well. And I think you found this one pretty interesting too.
Shelby: Yeah. No, they did a wonderful job really walking through the details of what they’ve done to build their content strategy. I mean, getting down to talking about this kind of content hub approach to all of their service-specific pages and using the most asked questions about those specific.
Services or conditions to build out separate sub-pages that answer those questions specifically. They also are utilizing posts on Google business profiles as a [00:11:00] key way to boost impressions and page clicks, and it’s not. something you have to pay for, but it does look like an ad. So they really talked about being able to make sure that you’re utilizing all of those different options within the Google My Business profile and to advocate for making sure that, hey, we want to put efforts into SEO, but oftentimes leadership is like, okay, well, what is that really getting us?
They calculated how much it would have cost them. Through paid search efforts to boost their rankings like they have done with some of this SEO work which I think is a super key detail that any of us can take away when talking about how do we make sure that this is prioritized as an organization.
Jenny: Yeah, absolutely. ROI can be really difficult to calculate in some situations. So I think that lens of like what would have paid search costs to do the same thing is a great way to kind of show the value. So a cool call out. One that I’d love to highlight [00:12:00] was An AI session. I sat through many AI sessions.
The 1 that I thought was the most interesting was artificial intelligence and action leveraging AI for enhanced patient engagement. And the reason why I think this 1 was the most interesting to me is the number of people I saw scribbling down notes. So for me, if I’m in a session and I’m like, oh yeah, we do all of this stuff at heady and hot, right?
Like maybe I personally am not writing things down because I feel like our organization is pretty great in that area. Instead, what did I do I look around and I say, what’s that? How is everybody else responding to this? There was a lot of note-taking. So, I will say kudos to Liz McGonigal with Penn Medicine and Elise Horst with Fathom.
They did a great job really highlighting actionable ways that you can take specifically large data sets and use AI to be able to identify trends. So again, it’s not using AI to write content for you, which was the big theme of the no throughout the entire [00:13:00] session. But it was really. Using AI to do a lot of data calculation, and identify abnormalities with your campaigns.
And there was a tool that they called out. It’s actually called Akio, which we had never used at Hedy & Hopp. We actually use a variety of other platforms. And I looked it up and it actually looks like it is a tool specifically for agencies. So I’m not totally sure. I haven’t played with it yet to see how much value it would have for a provider in an in-house team.
But I will say that is one that we’re planning on checking out to see if it has any functionality that’s better than all of the other AI tools we’re currently using. So good job.
Taylor: Yeah. And I had another session here to kind of tie it back to what Shelby had mentioned at the start of this podcast episode about Google reviews being a bit of a hot topic and just like kind of that reputation management piece.
And so the title of the session was How to Request Reviews: The Importance of Google Reviews and Why You Should Ask for Them. Presenting this session was Emily Mangini and [00:14:00] Nolan Perry with Sutter Health and they’ve really implemented and have a strategy at their organization of finding ways, you know, to really build a really robust reputation management plan here.
And so with that, they kind of walked through their experience with implementing this and really growing that and kind of seeing the fruits of their labor. And one thing they had mentioned here too, just again, kind of at the beginning of the session was that of the 200 plus factors, Google considers reviews to rank number three which again ties into kind of that SEO piece.
So all these things are kind of tying into each other. And with that too, kind of talking about, for example, you know, a lot of time with these organizations looking at Google Maps, people trying to find that local care maybe for urgent care as one, they kind of threw out as an example and really where they did some testing with gathering reviews and kind of seeing how that would help with you know, getting them higher up on that map in terms of kind of that review placement there.
But for that, if you think about the map breakdown, there are really only 3 things that are showing us. People are kind of poking around and looking at maps and looking for where they’re going to go. And so [00:15:00] that’s the name of the organization and then also how many reviews they have shown up there too, along with that placement on the map.
And so, you know, Just showing the importance of reviews, which we’re all very aware of at this point, but I think just kind of reminding us of that. And then they kind of walked us through again, how they kind of implemented this in their process through that. But as a whole, I think it was a really great session to kind of just again, remind everybody and then also kind of put some next steps out there in terms of.
Working with your teams, making sure, for example, your responses are you’ve spoken with legal to make sure those responses make sense. And so this can be very different depending on the organization and how they want to tackle that piece. But as a whole, just making sure that you’re, you know, it can really help boost your brand and provide that visibility.
And again, just ties into the reputation of your brand there too. So it was a great session overall.
Shelby: Really interesting and piggybacking off of that, a session that I sat in on was called Consumers as Allies: Utilizing Market Feedback as a Strategic Tool [00:16:00], and Amy Stevens over at Tidelands Health presented with Ryan Donahue with NRC Health.
We work with a lot of organizations that partner with NRC and this specific session really dove into Tidelands Health and how they are. In an area that has grown exponentially over the last few years and how hard that can be to scale your internal processes to be able to keep up with all of that change their local population has become incredibly diverse in comparison to where it was a few years ago.
And they had been inundated with phone calls that they were not built to be able to answer. So they started getting reviews all over the place. I can’t even talk to anybody. Nobody will answer my calls. And instead of you know, there probably was a little panic, [00:17:00] but instead of just leaning into the panic, they really took that as an opportunity to kind of rebuild their internal processes.
They audited every phone tree across their health system to be able to streamline that process. And I know I’ve had conversations with clients of mine that want to start that process. But they kind of started there and then ended up really implementing larger changes, like creating a better patient and family advisory council that was virtual and allowed them to capture more of their growing diverse market than what they had previously.
And I just wanted to shout out Amy and her team because convenience ease coordination and availability were all places they were not ranking well. And those ratings moved from worst in their market to first in their market.
Jenny: Wow.
Shelby: Went through all of these changes. They developed [00:18:00] an app. I mean, again, they really took that feedback as The catalyst to let’s look at our strategic plan.
What can we modify and change to really make sure that we are taking this feedback and even going beyond what we need to do to make the experience better?
Jenny: Yeah, that’s phenomenal. What amazing results for something that feels so tactical, right? But truely has a huge impact. This is another example of going back to the basics and not focusing on the shiny objects.
Let’s make sure the basics are right first. So, one that I would love, and we just have a couple more or a few more sessions but one that I would love to call out was again, back to the basics. So it was a session called Integrating Clinical Content Strategy with Website Design Through a Repeatable Process.
And it was Max Freund with the University of Iowa Health Care and Adriane Bradberry with Unlock and Max did a really great job talking about their organization’s focus on clinical content on their website, what they do, and what [00:19:00] they don’t do. So he shared about 8 percent of the pages on their website are clinical content.
And at first, the crowd was oh, that’s a small percentage. And then he sat back and said, is it like, we don’t want to be top line or people are doing symptom checks, right? A lot of organizations focus really heavily, too high in the funnel, or people across the country or even the world may come to your website because they’re doing high-level research on like, what is type two diabetes?
Right. You’re not going to be the definitive source for what is type 2 diabetes, but you may end up being a great source locally for folks to come in to understand what are the treatment options. What are the different options that they have? So it was really a reframing of how to think about clinical content.
And a great point was the emergence of AI in Google search results, a lot of that super top of [00:20:00] the funnel content is going to be served up in search results as that top AI answer, right? So if you’re going to be spending a lot of energy to build out content, to get people to your site, you have to be a lot more thoughtful about the way that you’re tackling content and where you’re spending your energy.
I can speak to this personally with some content strategies we’ve done for clients going in and looking at. Oh, my gosh, this content piece has gone, you know, viral, which in health care, like viral, it’s thousands of visitors, right? Are visiting this, but then you look at the geography when people are coming in from around the world, and you’re like, they’re never going to come in for an appointment.
So what’s the value of that? And so stepping back and really forcing yourself to have discipline. And the kinds of content are helpful. They specifically shared an 8-step process to incorporate clinical content, and they actually went and talked to subject matter experts or identified me as that clinical expert multiple times in the process.
So, getting with them early and often, and then having them [00:21:00] review it. So he had a very detailed explanation around. creating templates and approval processes and making sure it’s signed off on. And that has allowed his team to be able to get really nitty gritty with the level of clinical information they have and ensure the level of accuracy is there without you know, having to have marketers that can create that level of technical content because if SMEs are involved and they are the ones that can do that.
So, kudos to Max. You did an awesome job on that session.
Shelby: Amazing. Now, when it comes to content and what some of these organizations are doing what I thought was really unique in the space, was David and Chloe over at Mount Sinai Health System shared a session that was titled The Social CEO, and I work and talk to a lot of people in the space who, you know, their leadership, their higher executive leadership want to be involved with marketing, especially when they’re new to a system. [00:22:00]
And I mean, that’s huge for the local community. And so David and Chloe and their team ended up partnering with their new CEO to build a social media strategy for him to be able to push out content to the community. Re-share things that the health system is sharing out on their socials to be able to really kind of grow eyes on their content, but such a special session.
And this is kind of new for them. This is their 1st year doing this. So I’m excited to hopefully hear a follow-up session in the future about how that potential potentially extends beyond just their CEOs. Social profiles, but they really walked through that process of creating manageable workflows between their social team and the CEO.
But I think this is such a great way if you have leadership who want to be involved, but you know, putting their face on a print ad or a billboard might not make the most sense to really [00:23:00] connect with the community. I think doing a strategy like this, that’s more personal on social media would be a great way forward for a lot of systems.
Taylor: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And to tie in with that to the content side of things, I had one last session that I wanted to make sure to call out. And this was maximizing social media impacts with AI strategies from Broward Health. So with Broward Health, this was a Sebastian Leon and Carla Rivera. And they mentioned several AI platforms that I had not heard of in terms of just what has worked with them or worked for them on the content side of things.
And so a few ones I wanted to just point out call out was what the first one was Jasper. And so they use this one for a variety of things on the content side. But their biggest help for that is the SEO optimization role plays. And so a lot of times they’ll have it they’ll create some type of content.
And then with that, they’ll have it created for multiple channels so they can really push it out and kind of maximize their time there. You know, but they’re still again, creating that content and writing that in the [00:24:00] first place and then allowing it to create all these different forms. So again, just kind of implemented it in terms of workflow to quicken the process there.
Another one, and then this one that was very interesting to me was Devi. They use it to monitor Facebook groups. And for example, one that kind of mentioned was like maternity side of things to see if there’s these buzzwords that people are talking about for these like mother Facebook groups to where people are, you know, sharing experiences and things like that.
So they’re using Devi to kind of monitor that. And then using those buzzwords and their content to kind of pull it in and really relate to them and connect there. And then another fun one too, which is on the video side. So as we know on the content piece, a lot of times it’s hard to, you know, sit down with physicians and get these videos that are really great and engaging with the eye contact piece that a lot of people struggle with.
They, for this, they use a platform called VEED. And so you’ll be looking like, say, if I was recording and I was looking off to the side here they can plug it into VEED and it will have AI go and create it to where eyes are looking directly at the camera, [00:25:00] whether they’re looking at our script or something else.
And so something very new on the video side that I thought was cool. And then lastly, there were a couple of two, just more on the competitor insight side that they dove into Pathmatic and Nielsen. And they just can get really nitty gritty into just all the competitor research. And those were two I hadn’t really heard of.
But with all this, one person had a really great question at the end of the session. It was like, you know, how do you get the chance to try out all these different platforms? Cause I think that is a struggle a lot of times. How do you get the funding for it? And they’re like, think about all these free trials that are out there.
A lot of them. You can get the opportunity to try that out and see if it works for you. See if it’s something that, you know, has been helpful in your content creation process. And so I thought that was really great to think about because I think as a whole, it can be a little overwhelming to be like, how can I get the funding to try out all these new platforms constantly to see what will work for us?
And so I thought that was just really cool on their end to mention what has worked for them there.
Jenny: Yeah, two quick callouts. We clearly have heard of Nielsen, just not specifically the AI capabilities. So, yes. So just for anyone who’s listening, [00:26:00] like, of course, Nielsen. But that’s interesting.
And then the other thing I will just say as a general reminder for AI. Remember privacy, so do not put things in any of these tools that you are not willing to put on a billboard outside. So, within all of these sessions, I sat in on, they all did a really great job reminding folks about that.
So kudos to presenters for keeping privacy top of mind. I think it can be really easy whenever you create an account with a tool to think like, oh, this is a safe space. No, it’s not. So just a general reminder. If you do start doing all these free trials, do keep in mind that you have to be very careful with any information that you upload.
So, thank you for joining us for today’s recap. We had so much fun. We are all, I think, pretty ready to sit and be in silence for a couple of days after all of the conversations and talks that we had. But so much fun. We’re already looking forward to 2025. So for anyone who is interested in learning more about any of these sessions, note that we are [00:27:00] going to put links to all of the people that we mentioned. We will put their LinkedIn links in the show notes. So if you want to reach out and ask them more about their sessions, I’m sure they’d be more than happy to engage with you. Everybody is just so welcome welcoming and willing to be able to share information with others in the industry.
And on that note, thank you for joining us for today’s episode of We Are, Marketing Happy. We really appreciate and value your time. We would love it if you could like, and subscribe. New episodes drop almost every Friday and we’ll continue to cover topics that we think are helpful for folks in the provider and payor space.
So, with that have a fabulous weekend, thanks for tuning in and we’ll talk to you soon.
