In this episode of We Are, Marketing Happy, Jenny and Lindsey Brown, Director of Digital Activation at Hedy & Hopp, share what healthcare marketers should expect from their media agency. Many clients are surprised by how much more we deliver compared to previous agencies when these practices should be the standard.
They dive into four key areas agencies should focus on: strategic planning that aligns with business goals, clear and consistent documentation for transparency, meaningful reporting that goes beyond surface-level metrics, and bonus items. Agencies should also consistently keep clients in the loop and be ready to pivot strategies when necessary.
If your current agency isn’t delivering on these, it might be time to consider other options.
Connect with Lindsey:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindseycbrown/
Connect with Jenny:
•Email: jenny@hedyandhopp.com
•LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennybristow/
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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, and I am your host and I’m also the CEO of Hedy & Hopp. We are a full-service, fully healthcare marketing agency, and we’re the organization behind this podcast. I’m very excited today to have on our very own Lindsey Brown.
Lindsey is the Director of Activation here at Hedy & Hopp, which means she makes sure that all of the work that our clients need is brought to life appropriately, we’re staffed appropriately, processes are in place so she has a pretty tall order. So welcome to the show today, Lindsey.
Lindsey: Thank you for having me again, Jenny. It’s good to be back.
So I’m excited today to jump in to an area that we talk about internally a lot. And as we were having an internal convo, I said, you know what, we need to just share this externally. Let’s rip the bandaid off and talk about it every [00:01:00] single time when we onboard a new client from a marketing agency of record perspective.
And we’re going to be focusing mostly on those agency of record where we’re managing their media accounts. That’s the kind of accounts we’re talking about now. There’s always a prize and an excitement and happiness. But we’re get, we always give them way more than they expect. And for me, that’s actually a pretty unsettling feeling because they were working with another agency immediately before they came to us.
And a lot of these things kind of feel like foundational activities that all agencies working with media budgets, especially in the healthcare space across the board, but we’re in healthcare, you know, is our focus, so in the healthcare space, they should be delivering either upfront or as an ongoing recurring part of the relationship.
So today we’re going to dive into 4 areas. We’re going to talk about strategic planning, documentation, reporting and then we have a fun 4th category called bonus items. And hopefully throughout this [00:02:00] episode, if you have an agency partner you work with, if you have an agency that manages all of your media, run through a mental checklist.
Are these things you’re getting from them? Are these things that they’re proactively offering? Are these things that you need to be reaching out and asking for? In our opinion, all the things we talk about today really should be foundational. You should be receiving them to make sure that number one, your agency has enough information to build the campaign strategically to service you.
But also that you’re getting enough documentation that you know they’re being good stewards of your dollars. So let’s jump in. Let’s first talk about strategic planning. So, Lindsay, I’d love your POV here. For strategic planning, what’s an agency’s role?
Lindsey: So, at least from our perspective and other agencies I’ve worked at, this is typically what we like to start with, the strategic planning phase.
The last thing we want to do is just kind of pick up where someone left off and leave it. So we really want to think about what is the client needing? What are they trying to achieve? Who are they talking to? What is the budget? Budget is very [00:03:00] important. Obviously, when media planning, it allows us to better understand how far we need to go with certain channels.
If we need to limit it, if we, you know, the world is our oyster. We have millions and millions of dollars to play with. You know, we kind of need to know those kinds of things, but essentially, the strategic planning part is really where the partnership forms. So your agency should be asking you a lot of questions at this time.
They should be asking you. The main things that I listed, objectives, who are we talking to? What are we trying to achieve? They should be asking you for your current marketing plans. Like, how does media fit into your holistic plan? And what are some of those challenge and challenges and reaching that holistic plan that even media could support?
And the client may not have thought of that before. There are some different ways to attack a lot of problems. And so we might be able to help you sort of attack a problem from a different perspective. They should also be asking you for things like what are your email marketing workflows? How are you directly talking with customers?
Can they see, can you see some samples of that just to get a better sense for like what is the tone with current customers? How does that need to shift for maybe prospective [00:04:00] customers or reaching current customers with a different message? Something like that. But essentially what you should if you have personas, they should be asking you for personas or some kind of documentation.
Even if it’s a bullet point list of who is your audience, what do you know about them? What do you not know about them? And maybe that’s a place where we can help supplement some of that information. So part of the strategic plan really should be I want to say it’s four components that it is consistent of.
The first one is going to be your research. So where’s your data point? Where are we starting from? What does the market look like? What does the competitive market look like? Like where your competitors running? What does your audience consume? How do they consume sort of what is that background to like set the stage?
Then making sure that we’ve got a clear marketing objective and that leads into the media objective. So a lot of things, a lot of times what will happen is you won’t get a media objective specifically, not from a client, but that’s something that your agency should be able to share because media is not going to do everything.
It can’t do everything. So it’s going to, be focused [00:05:00] in a couple of different areas, likely. And we want to make sure that’s clearly stated. So we’re all on the same page about what is media supporting and how are we going to attack that particular objective? The third part of that is going to be your channels.
So where do we intend in running based on where their audience is based on what they’re trying to achieve and based on their budget, where do we think that money and that messaging is best going to reach and engage our audience? So that’s really the 3rd component. And then the 4th part is kind of the nitty gritty budgets and flighting.
So some of the creative things your agency might do if you’re limited in budget is flight it so that you’re getting, you know, shorter bursts of engagement. They may suggest that you have a couple line items that are running you know, evergreen all the time and a couple that are flighted. So again, this is going to give you an idea of how that media is going to be spent and sort of how you’re going to reach your audience 24/7 or whenever you’re going to reach them.
So those are really those four components that we look for.
Jenny: That’s excellent. And one [00:06:00] thing that you alluded to, but I want to specifically call out when we’re thinking about strategic planning for marketing, one of the things that’s really helpful is really understand the organization’s strategic goals one year and looking out into the future if they have a three year or five-year strategic roadmap because then your agency can more appropriately message the campaign results to ladder directly up to one of those organization-wide objectives.
So the CMO or the head of marketing’s job is easier in that board meeting because we did all of that the connection and storytelling work for you.
Lindsey: Yes. I’m glad you mentioned that because part of the objective also is how are we measuring that objective, right? So not only how are we understanding where you are with your business goals and your marketing goals and your media goals, but how does that all work together?
So how do we show that what we’re doing from a media perspective is supporting your marketing objective that ultimately ladders up to your business objective. And that’s also a key piece of how that, that whole strategic plan comes together is. How are we going to measure it? How are we going to evaluate it?
So a lot of times what you might [00:07:00] see from agencies are, yeah, we’re going to show you clicks and impressions and things like that, but how are you going to evaluate that? Are you going to look at different creative? Are you going to look by audience? Are you going to look by market? Any of those things so that you as the client and your agency are on board exactly how you need to report out and you can spend less time figuring out what needs to be in the report and more time actually analyzing the data and figuring out how to optimize and how to move forward.
Jenny: Absolutely. So once that strategic planning is done, let’s move on to the second category of the things that your agency should be doing for you, which is documentation.
What are the things that we send clients on a regular basis? What are the things that people should be expecting from their agency partners?
Lindsey: So there’s a couple things. First and foremost is a brief. A lot of times that brief is the very first step in starting that strategic plan. It ensures that we are on the same page with the client on what is the strategy, what is the goal, what are the budgets, key dates, all of those things that we need to make sure we’re keeping in mind and that we’re referencing before we finalize [00:08:00] that plan.
We want to make sure we’re not missing anything. It also allows us space to understand what are the opportunities and where might we need to think a little bit bigger, a little bit differently than what the client has asked. So that’s first and foremost obviously you want a copy of the strategic plan.
Once you are done, once you’ve got it approved, they should have that document for their leadership or whomever. So make sure you’re getting that, whether it’s PowerPoint, PDF, doesn’t matter, whatever you need, make sure you’re getting that. And then the next piece essentially is the flowchart. And the flowchart is one of those things that, Everyone has a different flowchart and a different way of managing.
But I think what’s really critical for a flowchart is to ensure that you, the client, understand a couple of things. What tactics are running? When are they running? And how much are they costing? Those are really the most important things that you have to have in your flowchart. A couple of things that we like to add when we need to is maybe the objective or potentially the goal.
If it’s a lighter campaign, you have a little bit more room to play with. And so you want to make sure that you are keeping [00:09:00] track of like, what is your goal against this particular tactic? So it reminds you every time you go back and you’re revisiting that you’re keeping that in mind. It’s also very helpful from a budgeting standpoint, because one, you have it all planned out.
And once you have your negotiated rates. All of that. That is part of your flow chart and where you start. And then over time you start to look at, okay, what have we delivered to date? Are we behind? Are we ahead? And you start to reconcile that. And that needs to be something that is shared with the client probably monthly just as a here’s where we landed in terms of actualizing the budgets and where we’re at.
It also shows them where things change because inevitably things are going to change. We’re going to shift money to other tactics. We’re going to move things around and we need to make sure that the client has you know, a good view of what that is so that they have no questions whatsoever about what is running and when it is running and how much they’re paying for it.
So that’s number two. The third one is kind of a you know, in between, depending on if your agency is doing the [00:10:00] creative or not you may also share a spec document. So we’ve had it both ways where we’re developing the creative. So we have a spec document, obviously, that we use to build the creative, but we’ve also had our clients either use an agency or do it in-house.
So we have to make sure that they have a spec document. And it’s not just Facebook is this and Meta is this. It’s it. Based on the flowchart and what we’re running, here are the assets we need. Here’s how you build them, just to help eliminate as much back and forth as possible when it comes to production and then trafficking those assets to vendors.
The last piece I know so many things right. The last piece is thinking about messaging. So many times in campaigns or messaging is going to adjust based on the tactic or based on where that user is in the journey, or based on the time of year, you may have a very specific message in February, and we need to find a way to account for that.
So one of your strategic documents will also should also outline by tactic and month, what message are we running so that again, the entire internal team, the client team knows What we’re saying to [00:11:00] those folks, but it’s not muddying up the flow chart that has a million line items and things like that.
It’s more of a quick reference guide.
Jenny: That’s so helpful, Lindsay. I think one of the things that has been so interesting to me as we’ve onboarded new clients is they’ve missed a lot of those pieces or key pieces like reconciliation. We have some clients that have never received a reconciliation, so they don’t have any proof that any of the campaigns actually ran.
So that’s really important to make sure all of those bases are covered.
Lindsey: It’s really helpful. It was very helpful to us last year during political season for our TV clients. Because they got bumped. They got bumped out of so much in October and even September that we had to basically adjust and replan and where those added value spots running and they needed an update of that.
So the flow chart helped us keep track of that and help them keep track of it as well.
Jenny: Absolutely. That’s great. Let’s move on to the third category, which is reporting. What should reporting look like and what should that whole process encapsulate?
Lindsey: Yeah. So, as I mentioned, as part of the strategic plan, you have a [00:12:00] measurement plan.
So really, your report should reflect what’s in the measurement plan. What are your main KPIs? And what, and how are you reaching them? Have you reached them? Have you met your goals? Are you on your way? We would love to keep it simple. I think that some agencies and some clients feel like more data is better.
I think better data is always better. Not necessarily more. We’re looking at quality over quantity when it comes to reporting because the important point is that are we meeting our goal or not? And so what we do on our side is. Look at that metric first. So that’s the first thing we want to talk about.
Are we meeting that goal? If we’re meeting that goal, awesome. What are some of the quick wins on why we are reaching that goal? A tactic outperformed. A message outperformed. An audience came out of nowhere that we weren’t expecting. What is that? And if we’re not meeting our goals, well, why not? What is underperforming?
What isn’t working right? Did we get bumped because all of our TV spots went away? So we missed, you know, that big coverage for a couple of [00:13:00] weeks. You know, what is it? And then that’s what we want to share in the report. And then how do we fix it moving forward? So what is our ability to make modifications to change some things around to ensure that we don’t see another month like that.
And that’s really important from a reporting standpoint. The other part of that, and this is not something we’ve necessarily implemented for every single client here, I think it’s where we’re headed, hopefully, is a report that just shows what was purchased or what ran based on what was purchased.
So those are two different things. Performance is one thing. And then what did we run and how much did it cost? And what did we pay for is another because those things are important. The client needs to know that if they purchased a million impressions in the month of January, that we delivered a million impressions in the month of January.
So those basic things are also very important, just not necessarily part of your overall performance.
Jenny: Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Now let’s go on to category number four, which is bonus items. What else are things that agencies should be doing or things that we do [00:14:00] for our media clients that they have told us provide tremendous value.
Lindsey: Yes. This is the bonus round. This is all the good fun stuff. So, one of the big things that we can do at Hedy & Hopp and it’s because of our director of media, Miranda Ochsner. She’s got amazing partnerships around, around the country with a variety of different folks and platforms, traditional and digital.
And she has the ability to negotiate with those folks what your rates are going to be, right? How CPM lower? What added value can we offer to get the effective CPM rate lower? Can we get better spots? Can we get better coverage? Can we get better inventory? All of those things that you, the client, don’t have to do on your behalf, we can do that on your behalf to get you the best possible plan.
In the best possible position, so that’s 1 thing that an agency will do for you, or should be doing for you. Negotiate, negotiate, negotiate. The 2nd part is, you know, more of the custom packaging. So, again, because of relationships, because we have long-standing people here that have been in the industry for a long time, custom packages.
So things that, you [00:15:00] know customers or our clients, excuse me, or other agencies may not have that deep relationship. So they may not they may have to do out-of-the-box type of things as opposed to a custom package that actually works for the client. So that’s something else that we can offer. And then the media billing and reconciliation.
So not all not all agencies do this. It is a lot of work. It is a lot of tedious work. And we have people here that is the light of their life. They love this work. Most people hate it, but we have the special few that absolutely love it. So, that is something that we do offer as part of our as part of our fee as we do that.
But again it is hard to do. Digital’s fairly simple because it’s a pretty, like, what did I buy impressions? Not, but from a traditional side, you’re looking at multiple stations, different ways of purchasing, different ways of showing what, what ran. So all of that reconciliation is a lot easier on the client because you pay us what the fee is and what the out of pocket is, and we take care of all the nitty gritty so you don’t have to worry about it. So that’s a big one. And then the last one is a little more, [00:16:00] I would say, like, higher level thinking. So one of the benefits of going with a full-service agency is your access to other areas of marketing.
So going with a media agency specifically, well, that may be the right choice for you. You may be missing out on how that, how the media you’re running really works with. Your content marketing. How does that work with your overall strategy? How does that work with your analytics setup? And so having that full-service feel you’re getting a strategist as part of your media plan with Hedy & Hopp.
And that’s not just a strategist for media. We have a media strategist for that, but we have a strategist that actually thinks about the larger picture, thinks about the audience, thinks about the market and really helps. Ensure that we are foundationally reaching the right people and going about it the right way.
So that’s something that you may not get at other agencies. Same with creative. We have the ability to do creative, even if you are using a creative shop to do your concepting and do your large pieces. Having access to creative, we can make adjustments. So if we find a CTA isn’t working. [00:17:00] We can just change the ETA and we can run it and try that without having to go through a lot of hoops.
So it’s some kind of added value we can provide to ensure we’re giving you the best possible results. So those are just a few.
Jenny: That’s awesome. And I would add, of course, I can’t get through a podcast episode without talking about compliance. So we also help folks be compliant if your agency has not already brought up compliance and the kinds of tactics you no longer can do you need to talk to them about that because there are things like lookalike audiences, retargeting that you either cannot do at all, or you can only do in some instances. So definitely bring that up. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Lindsey. Listeners, I hope this was helpful.
I know a lot of times I get on the phone with prospects and they want to chat about, you know, they’re working with an agency and they just want to kind of understand how other agencies work. Well, this episode was for you. So hopefully it helps set the stage of what you should be looking for and what your expectations should be, whether it’s with your current agency or with a new one if you’re looking for a new [00:18:00] partner.
And on that note, if you’re looking for a new partner, we’d love to chat. We are accepting new clients currently. Again, our specialty is healthcare, a hundred percent payors and providers across the country. So give us a shout if you’re looking for a new marketing agency. And on that note, thank you so much for tuning in to today’s episode.
We look forward to seeing you on a future episode of We Are, Marketing Happy. Cheers.
