In part one of a two-part series on paid media, Jenny welcomes Hedy & Hopp’s own Director of Activation, Lindsey Brown, and Director of Marketing, Julia Pitlyk. Together the group discusses what healthcare marketers should consider when planning their paid media strategies from 2024. They focus on how to balance awareness building and lead generation objectives in a media plan, the merits of paid social and exploring creative formats to tell a compelling brand story, considerations around patient data privacy in paid media tactics, and how to develop robust measurement plans for paid campaigns. Jenny, Julia and Lindsey also provide recommendations on how teams can conserve some of their 2024 media budget for experimental channels and tactics.
Connect with Jenny:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennybristow/
Connect with Julia:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jpitlyk/
Connect with Lindsey:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindseycbrown/
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 and owner of Hedy & Hopp. a full-service, fully healthcare marketing agency, and I am so excited today to be joined by two fabulous members of the Hedy & Hopp team.
We have Lindsey Brown, who is the Director of Activation and Julia Pitlyk, who is Hedy & Hopp’s Director of Marketing. Welcome ladies.
I am so thrilled to jump in today. We’ve been talking so much about privacy, it feels really good to change gears. One of the things that our team gets really excited about is thinking about patient acquisition efforts.
And we’ve been having lots of conversations about paid media strategies going into the new calendar year, whether folks operate on a fiscal or calendar, everybody’s still thinking about a fresh start going into January. And so I wanted to pause and really spend a little bit of time with y’all talking specifically about paid [00:01:00] media and what a patient acquisition marketing mix should look like right now.
So Lindsey, I’d love if you’d kick us off just talking a little bit about where our clients heads are at and kind of the conversations you’ve been a part of what folks are thinking about right now.
Lindsey: Absolutely. So a lot of our clients are obviously in the planning stages. And so they’re thinking about “What do we need to change for next year?”
Obviously they’re making some changes because of privacy, which we won’t get into too much on this call. But they’re really thinking about how do we get more leads? How do we get out to more patients? And the first thing that they always think about is “What are those channels that are producing the best ROI from us from a lead perspective?”
So they go straight to the things like paid search that are really great at generating those leads. And there’s a really great way to, to attribute that to a paid search campaign, for example. The problem is with paid search, it is, it’s like a demand, it’s a demand platform. So you’re only going to get the people that are already interested.
So what we’ve been talking with our clients about is really thinking about what are those things that you need to do to build [00:02:00] up awareness and build up interest and consideration in your products and services so that when they’re ready to start searching and they’re ready to start moving forward, you’re going to capitalize them in your search campaign.
So that’s kind of where the conversations have gone.
Julia: Yeah. I love that, Lindsay. I think about that all the time in terms of what are the right paid channels that are about demand creation, right? That’s where we tend to look at awareness and some consideration. But then, yes, paid search is so wonderful for that demand capture of someone. Think about what they’re putting in the search bar, right?
Their zip code plus whatever condition they’re looking to treat. That’s the place that absolutely our clients want to make sure that they show up. But I think the planning phase is a great portion to say, okay, where do we need to pull up a little bit and think about that demand creation?
Lindsey: Yeah, absolutely. So things like making sure your message is out in front of more people, making sure that partnerships that you have available and it’s not just a paid media thing, although paid media is really going to help you with that. It can help you with the volume. It can help you control sort of where that message is, how you spend that budget.
Media is perfect at that, [00:03:00] but there’s still other ways you can get that message out, right? You’ve got your earned efforts that you do through your PR. You’ve got owned efforts through email marketing and email communication and that kind of thing. But paid media really is going to help you sort of, expand sort of your existing ecosystem and give you a little bit more control over where you’re putting your dollars in your efforts to start to see those results come in through that funnel.
Jenny: I would love to hear both of your thoughts about how paid social plays into the patient journey and when it’s appropriate versus when it may not be, whether we’re thinking about brand marketing at a high level or service line or provider specific. What are your thoughts?
Lindsey: You want to go 1st? I can go 1st.
So from a paid social perspective, it’s a good question because there are so many social platforms. Five, 10 years ago, we were thinking about, Oh, it’s just Facebook. And then, okay, it’s Twitter. And then, okay, see, those are things. Now there’s a million different paid social platforms. So I think first and foremost, you want to make sure that the platforms that you’re in is actually where your audience is.
So a lot of [00:04:00] times our clients will just say they want to be in Facebook because they have a Facebook account, but maybe their audience actually isn’t active on Facebook, and they’re more Instagram people. They’re more TikTok people. They’re more Snapchat type people. Just kind of depends on who you’re looking for.
So you want to make sure number one, that you’re going to find your audience there in order to return that and get those better results and performance from your campaigns. But I think that paid is really supplemental to your overall social efforts. And this is also something I think that marketers kind of end up siloing a little bit.
We’ve talked about on previous podcasts where just because it’s the paid team that’s running that show doesn’t mean that’s it’s in a silo with what you’re doing with your social efforts overall. So if you want to have a paid social campaign, first and foremost, you have to have some sort of social presence because you want to gain some traction with your potential followers or your potential patients, potential customers and then those paid efforts can kind of.
And get them to do something else, like get them to your site to sign up for something, get them to your site to download an application or something like that, that organic efforts may not [00:05:00] really do. So you have to think about it in what you’re doing from an organic and owned perspective, and then using social or paid part of that to help supplement those efforts and drive to an actual action.
I don’t know. Julia, what do you think? What are your thoughts?
Julia: Yeah, I totally agree. And I love paid social from really sort of that awareness and, again, I’m going to probably say this a million times, that demand creation standpoint and, to go back to your question, I think it can work from sort of an overall, let’s say we’re talking about a hospital or health system, some overall awareness, but I think you can also talk to it from a service line specific type of demand creation.
My challenge to our clients and I think a challenge when you’re getting into planning mode to think about is how can you really get creative with the creative formats that paid social channels are allowing you to play with these days compared to something like paid search where it’s pretty darn limited. It’s a lot of text based, you got to really play back those keywords in, have some of those dynamic sort of search ads going on.
Paid social really allows [00:06:00] you to storytell. You can storytell through, wonderful static imagery and copywriting. You can storytell through some really creative short form video.
There’s so many ways to really get some more of that emotion, which health care is rich with, again at the overall level or at the service line level and really reach people and start to stick in their mind. So I really encourage, especially if you’re trying to tell a really emotional or really compelling story, to lean hard into paid social and your media plans.
Lindsey: Yeah, totally agree. I love that. That it’s like it can be more creative. You can be more creative. And especially as we’re talking specifically about patient acquisition, you’re talking to real people and real consumers. And so they want to see things that are interesting and relevant to them, things that kind of make them stop and think.
The long scroll is a real thing. We do it for hours and hours a day. You’ve got to find a way to cut through that. And so using social media in that way is really beneficial. And then again, from a paid perspective, it allows you to kind of broaden your net, [00:07:00] increase your user base, and then drive to more specific actions.
You can start to see some really great results.
Jenny: I love that. That’s a great kind of thought process of how to combine the two together and stand out. I hate to use the privacy word, but I feel like we have so many podcasts talking about this and we are not a privacy agency, but we have become experts in it.
So one of the things we’ve been counseling a lot of our clients on as they head into the new year is how they can continue doing a lot of the tactics they were doing before with patient privacy and consumer privacy front of mind. So specifically what I’d love to hear from y’all, overall, we’re saying don’t stop digital just because of everything that’s going on.
This is not a directive to go back to traditional mailers exclusively and billboards. We can still do digital. I specifically want to talk about social media targeting and the new rule of not really feeding the beast. So I’d love if, Lindsey, if you could give just a concise explanation of how can you still do [00:08:00] social and targeting effectively yet still be complying with all of the new privacy guidelines?
Lindsey: Yeah, I will try to be concise. I have a hard time being concise sometimes, I’m going to do my best. All right. So, from a social media specific perspective a lot of that feeding the beast comes from using things like targeting lookalike audiences. So that’s what we called feeding the beast. In social media, that is one way it’s a really, it’s a simple way to be able to optimize in real time your marketing efforts, right?
But if we don’t have the pixels on the site because we know that’s a not compliant way to move forward and we want to cut those off, that means that there really isn’t that learning that’s going on specifically from users on your site. There’s still learning that’s going on within the platform itself.
So, for example when we talked about, Julia talked about, storytelling a little bit earlier, one way that you can leverage something like Facebook and storytelling and still get to better targeting without using your site visitors or your site data is to just [00:09:00] retarget within the Facebook platform.
Let’s say you have a series of videos. You want to tell a four step process or a four step story, excuse me. And you start with your first one. And then those that have seen the first one, now you can target them with the second video. And then you can target with the third video. Now you start to, like, build in more of that story and you can do that all within the platform itself without having to use a pixel, without having to use any data from your website.
So there’s still ways to get more targeted within those platforms to leverage the targeting capabilities within the platform itself. They’re all available without the pixel. Sometimes I really think that those pixels are, like, helping those platforms more than they’re actually helping marketers because they’re learning more than really we’re learning as marketers.
So, I really think that again, you can stick to what’s available within the platform. And some of those platforms do have really great ways to target depending on what your audience is and what you’re trying to achieve.
Jenny: So for example, let’s say that a provider is trying to target for mammography campaigns, they’re doing a free [00:10:00] breast exam through the month of November.
You can use the Facebook or the Meta targeting to target women over the age of 40 that live within your zip codes, right? That’s the kind of stuff that is still available that I think a lot of folks are just thinking is off the table. Like, Oh, we can’t do any targeting anymore. We just have to like spray and pray, like the old school marketing.
Right. Like that’s not how it is anymore. Like you, you can still do targeting just using Facebook’s targeting situations, Julia thoughts.
Julia: Yeah, I agree. I think what is off the table is sort of what healthcare marketers were doing when it came to the classic example, like the abandoned cart retargeting ad, right?
If somebody clicked through from a Facebook ad to a service line web page and almost filled out that form, but didn’t quite, retargeting to come back and schedule an appointment like that from your own website’s data is off the table, right? But when it comes to retargeting based off of the click on that ad, which is [00:11:00] data native in that Facebook platform, that’s still okay.
So I think for me, it’s been really helpful to look at that entire end to end journey from the first introductory piece of content or ad we want to put out to a user of a specific target. Jenny, just like you spoke to, women over the age of 40. What are the stories, what are the messages we want to tell them throughout and then map out a layer underneath?
Like, what are the data signals that we will need to get from where in order to power that journey in paid social or in other paid media campaigns? And then as you do that, there’s going to be a couple that are now off the table, like sending that data from your website back to Facebook. But I think you’ll find that there’s still plenty more on the table from native targeting and retargeting within the platform than you may think when you’re grappling with some of these new privacy guidelines.
Jenny: I love that. That’s helpful. Anything else that either of you want to share that we haven’t touched on yet, thinking about patient acquisition brand awareness and kind of heading into the new calendar year.[00:12:00]
Lindsey: So one thing I do want to bring up is I think the measurement piece. So, Julia, you peaked it perfectly, like you’re looking at certain data signals to understand where people are, understand then how to modify or optimize within that platform. So, again, measurement also is not off the table. You can still measure all of the efforts of your marketing.
It just may not be as necessarily seamless or all within Google Analytics or all within one place. You’ll have to probably bring it in a little bit piecemeal, but there’s still absolutely possible to understand how users are engaging with your content, how they are moving forward in a pipeline, how your things are helping to drive that forward.
And so again, not completely off the table, just might take a little bit of additional upfront work and thinking of how you’re going to do that, but it’s absolutely possible.
Julia: I love that, and I’ll leave my parting thought with what everybody loves to talk about in media planning and planning season, which is budget.
And we know from talking to a lot of our clients budgets are flat at best, if not decreasing slightly. [00:13:00] But then there’s also: do brand awareness, market these new service lines, let’s experiment in a couple other channels. Like how do you grapple with a flatter or shrinking budget and all of these different objectives?
One of the things that I’ve found successful, especially with working with leadership who maybe has new ideas about new channels or things that they want to test and learn is take a classic kind of 80/20, or maybe even 90/10 model when it comes to your budget. Make sure you’re allocating as much as possible within reason to the channels that work.
Ideally, you know that they work because you have some really great measurement plans like Lindsey just spoke to. And make sure you siphon off a little bit, 20 percent, 10 percent, to be intentional about experimenting in some of these channels. That’s a strategy I found really helpful when you want to innovate, but you also don’t have an infinite amount of funds to do so.
Jenny: I love that. That’s such a great strategy. And I think I would just like, like to leave it that if there’s anyone out there that’s listening to this and you are kind of feeling the [00:14:00] pressure of going into a new year with a flat budget and all these privacy concerns, reach out. Chat with us. We have set up all of our clients are still getting full conversion reporting for all of their media plans in a compliant way.
It is possible. And so if you’re still kind of grappling with that, you don’t have full tracking in place, you are struggling getting reports to leadership. Call us. We’d love to chat with you. And with that, we are going to be doing another episode talking specifically about provider marketing.
So if you are a marketing team that is responsible for both patient acquisition and provider marketing, or if you’re provider marketing specific, look for part two of the series and tune in to hear more about media planning for providers. And with that, thanks for tuning in to today’s episode of We Are, Marketing Happy.
We’ll see you soon.
In this episode, Jenny welcomes Hedy & Hopp’s own Director of Marketing, Julia Pitlyk. Reflecting on their latest discussions around changes to patient data privacy, Jenny and Julia discuss what healthcare marketers should expect from their marketing tactics and analytics. They focus on two main areas of change: marketing activation and analytics, and specifically discuss how those two areas will be impacted by implementing server-side Google Tag Manager to address new privacy guidelines. They also discuss how other solutions, like new analytics tools and CDPs (Customer Data Platforms), differ in terms of how they impact these areas. Jenny and Julia also recommend ways to reset the benchmark of marketing performance and emphasize the importance of making sure marketing and legal/compliance leadership develop a shared point-of-view on how to move forward with new guidelines.
Connect with Jenny:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennybristow/
Connect with Julia:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jpitlyk/
Follow Hedy & Hopp on:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/hedyandhoppagency/
YouTube: https://youtube.com/@HedyHopp
Facebook; https://www.facebook.com/hedyandhopp
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hedyandhopp/ Listen to our other episodes on healthcare privacy: https://hedyandhopp.com/healthcare-marketing-services/healthcare-privacy-compliance/
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 and owner of Hedy & Hopp, a full service, fully healthcare marketing agency. And I am so excited today to have Julia Pitlyk join the call. So I’m very excited to announce that Julia has officially joined Hedy & Hopp as our Director of Marketing.
So welcome aboard, Julia.
Julia: Hello. So happy to be here. Second time on the podcast now in a different capacity. So excited. Thanks for letting me jump in on this really exciting topic.
Jenny: Oh, it’s so exciting. We did a webinar earlier this week and we had really strong attendance. It was really kind of heartfelt for me to be able to see the number of healthcare marketers that want to get this analytics and patient privacy issue right.
Now, nobody’s doing bad things on [00:01:00] purpose, right? They’re just taking things from other industries and putting them into healthcare. We didn’t as an or as an industry really realize the overall repercussions. So the webinar was fabulous. Side note, if you want to receive a copy of it, shoot me an email. We have it recorded.
Happy to share. Jenny at hedyandhopp .com. But today, let’s talk about execution because a lot of the Q&A, we did an extended Q&A, really just stayed on the line for folks to ask any questions. A lot of it was around like, “And then what?”
Julia: “Yeah, what now?” Yeah, absolutely. I love that you said in the webinar, like, we are problem aware at this point, right?
We’ve been dealing with this OCR guidance for almost a year. So the need to change is known. And we’ve heard so many people at all the conferences we’ve been to this year say, okay, we stripped off our analytics. We’re kind of in this. “What are we going to implement?” and then the next bucket is “And then how are we going to get back to marketing and what’s that going to look like for us and our patient acquisition [00:02:00] efforts in this sort of new paradigm of analytics and activation changes?”
Jenny: Yeah. So in this podcast episode, we’re not going to talk about the different journeys and ways you can fix your tracking. We have plenty of content on that. And like I said, the webinar is a great crash course if you want a recording of it, send it to me. What I want to talk about today is the path that we see most systems and providers and payers moving towards, which is server side tag manager, right?
They’re choosing not to do a CDP like FreshPaint. They’re choosing not to move over to a new analytics platform like PiwikPro, though, at the end of the session, I want to chat with you a little bit about the what ifs if they do that. But for those folks that are moving over to server side tag manager, I want to talk a little bit about kind of what that looks like. First of all, give me your thoughts. Like if you’re moving over, because you were on the client side really recently, like what kind of conversations are people having at the leadership level or what should they be having at the leadership level?
Julia: Yeah, absolutely. My [00:03:00] brain is always going to two big buckets.
It’s the analytics and the activation. And of course, they go hand in hand, especially over the past, what, decade and a half as marketers have become more and more data driven. We’re so used to looking at the data, making decisions, changing our tactics. Rinse and repeat. So I’m thinking about, okay, if I’m sitting on the client side, I’ve implemented server side Google Tag Manager to address the OCR bulletin and some of these guidelines that have come out, what are my analytics going to look like? And what’s my activation going to look like?
So I think first and foremost, I like to think about, like, what is just wholesale off the table? And we talked about this in our webinar a bit, and it’s hard to say but things like list buying, of course, list uploads, building lookalikes, like those are all things that you’re taking your data, you’re giving it to an ad platform, you’re feeding the beast as we say, like, no more.
That, very clear, put that in a bucket, that’s off the table. Then it’s okay, What tactics and activation [00:04:00] strategies are on the table in a different way?
So for us, that’s a lot of, like, the retargeting piece, right? You can do retargeting with data in the platform. So all of these, like, walled gardens we used to talk about Facebook, Google, they’ve got their data. You can use things like a consumer who clicked on an ad as an action that you can retarget on.
So that for me is, like, looking at that activation bucket first, because server side GTM is going to handle a lot of the analytics issues that are coming up from this bulletin. But it’s looking at that activation bucket and first and foremost saying like, okay, what do we put on the table? What are things we kind of need to tweak?
And then some of those bigger questions that come out of it for me are, Okay, we took some tactics off the table. We changed some things from our retargeting and our conversion attribution. What is our data going to look like? Because so many of these marketers are saying, well, leadership’s not changing our growth expectations after this bulletin came out.
[00:05:00] We still need high performing digital marketing and the tactics we were doing were getting us there. For me, it’s that next step is how to proactively talk to leadership about, w’re changing tactics because of these reasons, what should we all expect to come from it? And sort of giving some runway to really learn from the tactical change.
Jenny: Absolutely. It’s sort of like whenever thinking back, whenever folks switched from Google Analytics to GA4, right. It went from session to event targeting. That’s not apples to apples, right? And so this is that same kind of situation. It’s a line in the sand, not apples to apples anymore. Our goal is still the same efficacy of spend, but it’s, it’s not the same.
One thing I heard in a webinar I did yesterday with a hospital specific group in the afternoon I did one, is one of the people actually said, “I feel like we need to go back to strictly analog marketing tactics” and it hurt my heart. I was like, No. No, do not do that. [00:06:00] Digital is still 100 percent possible.
You just have to stop putting data into these platforms. Like you said, walled garden, use what’s in Facebook. You can use Facebook’s targeting if they have specific targeting set up based off of age, occupation, interest, whatever. You can still use all of that, right? You just can’t upload your list into Facebook to make it more specific.
Julia: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So I think like a very specific example that we see a tactic, kind of a journey that we see a lot of our clients doing is patient acquisition marketing goes to a landing page. The goal is to fill out the form, right? Like, I love that. Cause we want that, that email address, something to have more of that one to one communication with, making sure that you’re doing it in systems that are compliant.
So that journey makes perfect sense. So I look at that and say, okay, what in this new world order needs to change. And it’s optimizing the ads to that conversion of filling out that form because you’re taking a thing that’s happening in your world and you’re sending it back to the ad platforms and [00:07:00] saying, optimize for this.
So, if that’s being taken off the table, what can we expect to see in our campaign performance data because of that? Those tactics were on the table because they worked, right? Like, we’re performance marketers. They made the ads perform better. They brought down CPAs. So if I’m in that seat and what we’re telling our clients in that seat is that needs to be treated as, you need to look at it as sort of a new benchmarking period, telling your leadership.
What do you think the next two to four weeks, maybe even a couple of months. Like, yeah, we are making a technical change. I would literally like in the measurement plan documents that we have and in your analytics tools, like on this date, we changed these things for any optimization and say, okay, now we have this line in the sand.
And for the next two, four, six, whatever weeks, we’re looking to see what’s happening to our CPA. Like we heard at some conferences, the numbers are going to go in a direction that [00:08:00] you probably don’t want, you don’t want them to go in. It doesn’t feel good. It doesn’t feel good. This isn’t a marketing optimization tactical change.
It’s a regulatory and compliance one. But I think really running through that thought experiment of, what are we expecting to see, starting to see that with leadership and really start to say, like, we need to have this X amount of weeks as a learning period to see what performance we can get with this new type of compliant marketing and then use that to inform some updated projections and budget needs.
And I know all of that sounds very, those aren’t ideal conversations to have. I think again, like we said, to any client any year of doing this, it’s, bring the data to the table and have an informed conversation based off of that.
Jenny: And I think it’s really important to highlight that we’re not stripping away all data, right?
We’re not going into a blind world where we don’t understand anything anymore. If you choose a server side Google Tag Manager implementation, which again, most people that we’re talking to [00:09:00] are choosing that path from an annual cost savings, speed of implementation, et cetera, you still can use UTM parameters.
To be able to track and understand the success of campaigns, keywords, creatives, a lot of platforms like LinkedIn just two weeks ago came out with the LinkedIn conversion API that you can actually tie in to pull conversion data in to be able to understand how to optimize. The part we’re missing though, for people to understand is that automated feedback loop where it’s automatically optimized completed conversions.
You’re still going to get conversion information. You’re just going to have to pay a little bit more attention to the way that your team chooses to optimize or your agency, whatever chooses to optimize those campaigns. Right. But it’s not the end of the world.
Julia: I think this is also one of those periods of time where it’s, let’s roll up our sleeves and really get into the data. Yes, we’re going to, we’re going to lack some of that automated sort of I would say I would also challenge like this, this is an opportunity, to paint it nicely, to roll up your sleeves and look at, even when [00:10:00] you have, before you make some of these tactical changes really look at the patient acquisition, let’s see as far down the funnel as you can.
And I think, we really push a lot of our clients to do this when we do that full ROI analysis, but let’s take it beyond that form fill, which is a wonderful marketing conversion, but how many of those patients, or prospective patients, we should say, how many of them pulled through to schedule an appointment?
How many of them pulled through to actually show up to an appointment, right? And that’s definitely a, again, a roll up your sleeves data exercise, but I would be really curious to know, are you seeing certain trends in certain channels where maybe you’re getting a lot of volume form fills, but not quite the pull through lower funnel.
And maybe this is a way to inform some adjustments to your marketing mix spend, too.
Jenny: Oh, I love that. That’s such a positive way to go into it as an opportunity versus simply feeling like you’re having things stripped away from you. So I love that. Pivot with positivity, as we say at Hedy & Hopp. [00:11:00] Agreed.
Julia: Agreed. I think this puts us in a little bit of like, a last touch attribution world. I’m curious what you think about that. Google ‘marketing attribution models’ and you’ll find so many complex custom implementations. I feel like this pushes us to a last touch, but maybe helps us get a little bit away from chasing that holy grail of the perfect attribution model at the same time. What do you think?
Jenny: Yeah, no I agree with that. I think it’ll be interesting once we see more full implementations and more time with those implementations. I’d love to have somebody from our activation analytics team on a future podcast and talk about the data. Like what have our clients seen?
Because right now I feel like it’s going to be mostly speculation. I think there are still ways that you could do a multi-touch attribution model. But I don’t know with real world execution what that’s going to look like. So I think that’s kind of like a TBD, totally agree. Yeah. So let’s talk a little bit about, so that’s the solution if somebody is going the path of server side tag manager.
Or the, [00:12:00] not solution, that is the expectation of experience. You know what I’m saying? If they choose a CDP or a new analytics tool, which are the other two journeys that we talk about in our webinar and our overall education process around this they don’t, it doesn’t necessarily change it. You know what I’m saying?
Like on the tactic execution, you can’t do remarketing just because you chose to go with PiwikPro or you can’t do, you can’t upload lists to Facebook simply because you chose to go with FreshPaint. It doesn’t change tactical execution, but it may change the way that you view data and the way that data is presented to your leadership team, right?
Julia: Yeah, absolutely. And that’s where, like, looking at some of those other journeys, I just keep pulling my brain back to analytics and activation because exactly that. If you implement PiwikPro, like the tactical stuff still needs to be put back on the shelves and the things we mentioned earlier. So that’s, there’s just definitely two big buckets to navigate really through.
I think CDPs, uh, for an organization that’s ready [00:13:00] for it. And by ready, there’s a data maturity, there’s resources on tech and marketing, there’s budget. I think those are better positioned to be a solution that helps tackle both the analytics and the activation because it sits kind of right on top of your, your world and it takes your data and sends it to the, the analytics and the activation platforms.
So that’s something that I think could be a really good path forward. But again, got to be ready for it. Your organization’s got to be ready for it. So that’s why we focus so much on the server side GTM because it’s something that we’re just, has a lower barrier to entry to get that, get the analytics to get the data back. But you’re, you’re exactly right. It’s not, there’s no one perfect, easy switch to flip on or off. That’s going to address the complications in all of these buckets.
Jenny: So it’s really interesting to me that nobody yet is talking about marketing tactic changes based off of this.
I feel like we’re the only ones raising this. So far, so when we think about like [00:14:00] problem or versus solution aware, when you think about marketing analytics, most organizations are solution aware, but the number of questions in our webinar yesterday or on Wednesday about tactical changes as a result of all of this was kind of astonishing to me.
I feel like most people aren’t even problem aware yet on that side of the house. So it’s going to be interesting. I feel like over the next six months, as people start figuring out, Oh, wow, my agency is trying to do media buys as normal and they aren’t bringing anything new to the table, but they’re not the ones that are going to get the big OCR fines.
We are right, right, right.
Julia: And that, I think that a lot of that comes from, in the problem aware period, right? What we’ve been saying, audit everything, go to Builtwith.com, scrape every tag you may know or not know is on your site. Look at your entire martech stack. And I think where some of that is coming from is that, if you read the bulletin, it’s, you can very clearly when you read it, kind of ascertain, okay, we’re talking Google Analytics, we’re talking about Meta. But then you start to see all of these other tools that [00:15:00] work based off of some semblance of like seeing an IP address or a device. And it really, you start to turn over all those rocks and think about all the ways that you, communicate, distribute content on your site, and it really opens up this kind of this hornet’s nest of activation.
So I think that’s where again even though you may know at a high level, okay, we can’t feed the beast with our data, IP is PHI, like, still doing that audit because it really helps you kind of block and tackle and look at what solutions in your tech stack you may need to change in addition to tactics.
Jenny: Exactly. Exactly. Oh, I feel like this has been a really helpful overview and hopefully it’s going to spark some really good conversations within organizations about how, uh, they want to approach it better setting expectations, kind of creating a level of calm around it, right? Like we can’t change this.
So we might as well lean in a way that is healthy for our organization and not create unnecessary chaos within our conversations and expectations. So [00:16:00] I like that. Any parting words?
Julia: Well, I love that because I find calm and spreadsheets, taking the data and saying, okay, what, what might be worst case scenario, middle case scenario, best case scenario, like, just again, finding a little bit of clarity through taking your, taking your mind to what could happen to your marketing next, I think is going to just help, uh, keep ripping the bandaid off and keep setting those expectations.
Jenny: And knowing it’s not just their organization, right? Everybody in healthcare is experiencing this. And I had one person push back whenever I was chatting with them and they said like, well, what’s enforcement look like if other people in our niche part of the healthcare world are not yet doing this, that means their marketing is going to be more successful than ours over the next year to two years.
And we are private equity backed. So that means our performance will be worse. Right? And then it’s like a spiraling conversation of like, how long could we keep doing this until we’re fined? And I just think, that is a different way to approach the problem because Hedy & Hopp, in our hearts, we just want to protect patients data.[00:17:00]
Right. So like, yeah, it’s difficult, but like, is that extra 2 percent growth that you’re going to experience going to be worth the potential liability down the road? I don’t know that your private equity firm would think that’s true.
Julia: It does come down to some POVs. Ours is out there and it’s always on the side of the patient privacy, but that is definitely something for every organization’s marketing leadership, organizational leadership, and legal and compliance leadership to have equal seats at the table to discuss.
Jenny: I love it. Well, for our loyal listeners, I want to make sure that you follow us on all of the social channels because we have a really fun micro content series we’re going to be launching in the coming weeks called “Hit of Happy.” It’s going to be hosted by Julia and she’s going to be covering a lot of information that we get asked really often by prospects and clients and really digestible short series.
So we’re going to put links to our socials in the show notes. Please go and follow us there if you haven’t already, [00:18:00] because I guarantee it’s going to be worth your time. So thank you again for tuning in today to We Are, Marketing Happy, and we’ll see you on a future episode.
Welcome back! Jenny is here today to present the impact of OCR’s December 2022 Bulletin on healthcare marketing. She starts off discussing how the bulletin categorized IP addresses as PHI, causing panic among many marketers, and why she disagrees with the American Hospital Association’s stance to fully withdraw the guidance. She advocates for patient privacy and supports OCR’s guidance. Jenny welcomes the opportunity to be a leader and example to other industries in the safety of personal information. She emphasizes the importance of technology companies’ understanding and protecting patient data, highlights affordable and effective solutions to do so, and calls for a standardized approach to protect patient privacy, even if it means reallocating some marketing budget.
Connect with Jenny:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennybristow/
Listen to our other episodes on healthcare privacy:
https://hedyandhopp.com/healthcare-marketing-services/healthcare-privacy-compliance/
Jenny: Hi friends. Welcome to today’s special episode of We Are Marketing Happy, A Healthcare Marketing Podcast. I am Jenny Bristow. I am the CEO and founder of Hedy & Hopp, a full service, fully healthcare marketing agency. And we have been really leading the way as far as publicly discussing OCR’s December 2022 bulletin, the huge impact it has had on the way marketers and healthcare can really do their jobs.
We have also really been leaning in as far as all of the movement with FTC for healthcare adjacent organizations, as well as a lot of state laws. We have episodes specifically dedicated to each of those topics, which we’ll link to in the show notes, But, you know, there aren’t really many moments in healthcare where we really have the tea, right?
Like let’s share the tea and talk about some gossip and some super controversial things, right? Like we’re healthcare marketers. It usually doesn’t happen. Well, my team has really been digging into a lot of the publicly shared responses to OCR’s bulletin. They actually put out an RFI. You know, we want to hear from the public about your thoughts about our bulletin.
And we had a client actually ask us to give our perspective on AHA’s response, American Hospital Association’s. And we actually had an in-person coffee session this morning and it got heated with all of my team members. They were so frustrated at American Hospital Association’s perspective and their position on the bulletin that I just felt so compelled to come on and actually share Hedy & Hopp’s stance.
So let’s back up a little bit as most of you should know the December 2022 bulletin effectively began categorizing IP addresses on the marketing front end of websites as PHI. So before it was only once you were actively within say a patient portal within an Epic instance, whatever, was the only time that marketers really had to think about HIPAA.
This bulletin completely changed everything. All of the technologies that we knew, liked, and loved suddenly were no longer able to be used. Things like Google Analytics were no longer compliant. And there was a huge moment of panic. Right? Like all of us, including us at Hedy & Hopp kind of stepped back and was like, well, now what do we do?
What do we do now? We, if we can’t use these things that all of these other organizations and companies and other industries are using to provide a great consumerization experience, how are we going to continue to serve patients in a positive way? So we had our little moment, our little pity party. But then we buckled down and we figured it out and, turns out it’s not that hard.
It’s not that hard and it’s not that expensive. So I want to step back and talk about this a little bit, because myself and the rest of the team at Hedy & Hopp strongly disagree with AHA’s stance. Them saying, let me actually quote this, “AHA recommends that Congress should consider exploring how to better require entities not covered by HIPAA to protect patient privacy, especially those third party entities that decline to sign BAAs, and they urge Congress to make clear to OCR that the agency should withdraw this guidance immediately”.
And that it is, this part is in separate, “It is onerous and it is impossible for marketers to continue doing their jobs. Not only does this OCR rule violate HIPAA, it inflicts meaningful harm on patients and public health. Congress should urge OCR to withdraw the rule immediately.”
Really, American Hospital Association? Really? Oh, I love when zoom does that to me. I was not giving AHA a thumbs up by the way. So ever since 2018 Congress has been fumbling its way through understanding how technology works, right? Like I remember whenever Zuckerberg was on stand and then all of these memes came out because basically it felt like all of these old people were asking Zuckerberg why their grandchildren weren’t accepting their friend requests, right?
Memes galore really showcase the questions they were asking, totally showed a lack of understanding about how the technology worked. That’s scary, right? People that are legislating not understanding what they are legislating is scary. But does that mean we’re going to leave it to the technology companies to decide what information should be captured and stored?
So we have been attending all of these healthcare conferences and we’ve really been going on a speaking tour. I spoke at SHSMD, next week I’m at SMASH. We attended Becker’s and talked with a lot of participants about it. And then I’m going to HCIC. The list goes on and on, right? Because this is such a hot topic.
Well, as a follow up, we actually decided to audit all of the provider websites for those folks that were at SHSMD. You would be astounded, out of hundreds, I think there were over 450 provider groups, that only 70 had removed scary tags. Vast majority of them had Meta tags. Some of them had TikTok conversion tags.
I’ll tell you if I’m searching for care – I’ve been very public about a lot of my healthcare stuff that’s been happening beginning of this year. I’ve had to seek out and research lots of care. TikTok knowing that I was doing, that Meta knowing that I was doing that is terrifying. I guarantee they are not going to be taking care of my information and data. So, I do not like government stepping in and legislating and telling us how to do our jobs. But if we are not the ones, but if they are not the ones doing it, nobody is going to do it. So let me just give you a couple of examples. Since that bulletin was put out a couple of really cool things happened. A lot of ad platforms are now putting out APIs that allow you, if you do server side tag management on a server, that’s willing to sign a BAA.
For example, the Google Cloud Platform is willing to sign a Business Associates Agreement. Awesome. So, LinkedIn, just a couple of weeks ago, released the LinkedIn cAPI. It’s a conversion API. So you can pull all of the information from your ads and so you don’t lose any of that conversion information.
Google just launched the Google Ads Data Manager, which we highly anticipate will be rolled into the Google Cloud Platform, which means it’s protected by a BAA. All of these groups are actually doing things now that are protecting patient data, visitor data, right. If you step outside of healthcare, this is a super positive step.
They’re allowing the marketers and technology folks to be able to truly control what information is shared versus just thinking we’re redacting it or anonymizing it on the platform without actually doing it. And all of this has happened since the bulletin. It is not super expensive to roll out a new solution, server side Google Tag Manager or a platform like there’s a large number of them.
So I know I just mentioned Google Cloud Platform, but there’s a lot of other ones that are willing to sign a BAA, really easy solution. You can still use Google Analytics, don’t have to change your processes at all, but it’s going through a filter that’s protected and protected by a BAA. And you’re all safe.
That’s not very expensive. It really isn’t. It’s not onerous. It’s not putting undue pressure on marketers, but you know what is really scary in the audits that we’ve been conducting since this bulletin came out. Two things that terrify me as a patient. First, one person we did, organization we did an audit for had built their web forms in such a way that whenever you submitted an inquiry, all of that form data was put up in a URL parameter and every single tool or pixel that was put on that website could then capture the person’s full name, date of birth, email address, home mailing address, everything was being captured. Terrifying.
We have audited and found a lot of systems have call tracking. And they are not implementing a HIPAA safe version. So the entire call is being recorded and shared with all of the agency partners that they’ve given access to that tool. So “Hi, this is Jenny. Yeah, I have this, I’m calling a doctor to make an appointment. Yeah. I have this really weird rash that won’t go away. Yeah. Oh yeah. Here’s my date of birth. Yeah. When can I get in for an appointment? Yeah. Here’s my home mailing address.”
Those recordings are then available to dozens of people that have access to that platform. Terrifying as a patient. I don’t want my personal information shared with Joe from Rando IT company.
And I’m sure you don’t either. And then also again, like, TikTok tags being on some very, like, providers that we hold in such high regard as far as the types of care that they provide. And they’re sharing all of this information with Meta and TikTok and all of these other organizations.
American Hospital Association, I appreciate that you’re trying to reduce the administrative burden. You’re trying to reduce cost, but this is not a hill that’s hard to climb. This is in the patient’s best interest. As a patient, I want this to become standardized. And for all of the audits and implementations we have done, it’s not that expensive.
It is not that hard. You have to understand technology, but it’s absolutely doable. And if healthcare has to implement this so that way the rest and all the other industries end up protecting consumer privacy as much as we should be protecting patient privacy, I consider that a win. So, would I rather see our clients budgets going towards more marketing campaigns for the little budget that has to be done to redo all of their analytics tech stacks?
Of course, every dollar that we could eke out to help patients in the marketing budget to help them find better care, buy a health insurance plan that gives them the coverage that they need, whatever it may be, I would always prefer that be done. But if we have to sacrifice a small little bit of budget in 2023 and 2024 in order to make sure that patient information is correctly stored, you bet that’s the right call.
And I really hope that American Hospital Association changes their position and I, for one, do hope that OCR does not change their position. And instead, we end up being the bright, shining light that other industries begin following because we paved the way to make sure that individuals’ information. is safe.
So with that, thank you for tuning in. And I hope to see you on a future episode of We Are, Marketing Happy. If you agree or disagree, whatever it is, catch me on LinkedIn, share your comments and thoughts in the chat. I’d love to hear from y’all. Have a great day.
Today Jenny is bringing you the inside scoop from the Becker’s HIT + DH + RCM Conference with a little help from Hedy and Hopp’s own Shelby Auer. Shelby discusses her experience at the conference, where they explored a wide range of healthcare topics, from digital health to IT, revenue cycle, and the patient experience. The conference featured diverse perspectives, including providers, highlighting the importance of cross-functional collaboration. She and Jenny dig into the themes of knowing patients as consumers, the role of AI in healthcare, and setting a solid marketing foundation. Speakers at the conference emphasized the need for convenience in healthcare and shared innovative approaches to patient care and referrals. Shelby rates her experience based on the thought-provoking content and valuable insights that were presented.
Upcoming Healthcare Marketing Privacy Events:
HIPAA, FTC & State Laws: What healthcare marketers need to know NOW!
In-Person Event: Tues, 10/24 | 9-11am | St. Louis, MO >> Register Now
Live Webinar: Wed, 10/25 | 9-11am | Online >> Register Now
Connect with Jenny:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennybristow/
Connect with Shelby:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/shelby-wanne/
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 and the founder at Hedy and Hopp, a full service, fully healthcare marketing agency. And I am so excited today to have a Hedy and Hopp team member join us, Shelby Auer. Hi Shelby.
Shelby: Hello. Happy to be here.
Jenny: So I am so excited to do today’s episode with you because I experienced so much FOMO last week when you went to Becker’s. I was supposed to go and then I ended up getting sick. My husband gave me the thing that he had. So you ended up going in my place and I passed the baton to you and sat there with FOMO watching you.
I’m just as excited, I think, as our listeners to hear more about some of the key learnings and takeaways and some of the people and organizations that are talking about some innovative topics.
Shelby: Yes, I’m excited to get to share. It was really fun getting to go last minute and get to join so many incredible people [00:01:00] talking about what’s going on.
Jenny: I love it. As a reminder, before we dig into this specific topic, we are actually doing an in-person, if you are in St. Louis, and a virtual HIPAA, FTC, and state law webinar slash session in two weeks. The week of October, uh, it’s actually on the 24th is the in-person and the 25th is the virtual.
This is a topic that you’re still trying to wrap your arms around. We’re going to share the registration link in the show notes. We expect a full house. This is a highly anticipated topic. Standing room only at SHSMD. We’re going to be talking about it again at Smash and HCIC and a couple of other conferences this fall.
So if you’re still trying to tackle it, please grab your seat and get registered.
But let’s dig on in. So excited to chat about Becker’s. At the beginning of the year, we stepped back a little bit as an organization and we said, okay, we have a couple of our favorites, right? Like we go to HCIC every year.
SHSMD is a big favorite, but what else, like, where are our people [00:02:00] hanging out in person? And so Becker’s, this conference in particular was one that we had flagged as one that we had a lot of high excitement around. And we just went as attendees this year to really try it out. We didn’t have a booth. We didn’t even pitch to speak. It was just like, let’s see if these are our people. And you kind of came back with a resounding “Yes,” right?
Shelby: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. It was such an interesting conference because of the broad amount of topics that were covered during it. Everything from digital health and the digital health ecosystem to IT and how everyone’s handling needing to be all hands on deck when it comes to IT and tech, to even the revenue cycle and how to handle that. So it was really, yeah, broad the amount of topics that were discussed, which just meant for some great conversations with folks.
Jenny: Absolutely. When we think about the kind of roles and kind of different positions that people were in as attendees, were we still seeing a lot of marketing [00:03:00] folks or were there a lot of it folks and people within other operational roles within the organizations?
Shelby: Yeah, it was a pretty mixed bag, honestly. There were some marketing folks, but there were a lot of IT tech folks. There were a lot of, especially on some of the panels, and this was something that was really interesting to me, was the provider perspective. There were quite a few providers that were at this conference that were speaking at sessions or in panels talking about their perspective on the patient experience alongside marketing team members.
So it was really special to see those folks standing on stage next to tech, next to marketing, and talking about the patient experience from all angles because we know providers have such a massive voice when it comes to marketing and working with all of these different teams, but hearing straight from them their experiences working with the [00:04:00] patient and how that translates to working with the marketing team to help change things and make things better for the patient was really interesting.
Jenny: Oh, I love it. I love it. And I agree. It’s so rare to actually see a provider up on stage talking about these things, at least at the events that we have typically attended. So I love that and I cannot wait for next year already. So you were able to attend about 10 different sessions in the digital marketing and patient experience track.
So what are some of the biggest themes that you noticed?
Shelby: Oh, well, one of the biggest things was this concept of knowing your patients as people and thinking of them as consumers, because there was a lot of discussion and very deliberate uses of consumer versus patient. And specifically, I love Donna Roach of the University of Utah who said it really best in one of the sessions that thinking of them as “consumers [00:05:00] always, patients sometimes.”
And we really heard that over and over again throughout a lot of the session. And the focuses were really on two kind of main areas: research and how important research is, as well as personalization, which we’re always hearing people are talking about. And now with the privacy landscape, everything is changing.
So those are kind of the two key themes from a high-level that we saw across the board.
Jenny: That’s so interesting. And I love hearing that. We do a lot of persona development and our episode last week was about segmentation, right? And how important it is to really understand who you’re talking to and who your end consumer is.
So it’s great to see that trend. And I think it’s going to be really interesting to watch it play out over the next couple of years as people begin kind of figuring out how to balance all the patient privacy concerns that are coming up with the implementation rollout [00:06:00] of things like a CRM or a CDP, where you are able to do that level of personalization at scale.
So we’ll be interested to watch. There’s no such thing as a digital conference in 2023 if there isn’t a conversation around artificial intelligence. So how did that come up as it relates to patient experience and digital marketing? Was that something people were talking about or was it “Yeah, this is here, but we have more important things to focus on in the short term.”
Shelby: Oh no, there were definitely conversations about AI. Like you said, it was definitely a focus. There was a talk of more specific applications. So when it comes to transcribing doctor’s notes so when they’re talking to patients, they’re able to be more present, not have to worry about transcribing every little detail or in-room monitoring for staff shortages and things that, that, uh, these organizations are struggling with.
How can they utilize AI to really help them from that perspective? But from a marketing [00:07:00] standpoint, the AI talk was a little bit more conceptual. I do want to call out a few people, James Watson of St. Luke’s, Kristina Dover of Mercy, and Christina Deidesheimer of Beebe Healthcare, all talked about partnering like we as marketers never have before with IT, and how AI can help marketers work at the top of their license.
And that was really a big theme when it came to talks of AI on the marketing side was this need for cross-functional collaboration. James was saying marketing has a stronger seat at the table than ever before. And I really loved Donna, who I mentioned earlier, who’s the CIO, said, “It is essential to not die on every hill, you’ve gotta be able to pivot,” which of course when I hear the word pivot I think of all of us at Hedy and Hopp and [00:08:00] how much we love one of our core values of pivoting with positivity. But I think that’s really the name of the game when it comes to working together with IT and marketing and all of these teams with this new tech.
And how do you work together to get ahead of it, to make sure that they’re going about it in a way that is safe from a privacy perspective? And Tara Nooteboom of UCI Health had, she was on quite a few panels and had some great thoughts about consumer experience and innovation. And one of the thoughts that was really resounding in my head was talking about calculating and measuring the outcome of innovation and the risk that comes with trying to stay ahead of tech innovation.
And how do you, that ROI, when it’s healthcare marketers for a lot of these organizations, [00:09:00] ROI is sometimes this soft number. There’s not always this number that’s a hard and fast number. And that makes it even harder when you’re trying to put value towards staying ahead of trends and staying ahead of tech and innovation.
So she really made some good points about trying to figure out how to set that expectation when it comes to some of that soft ROI.
Jenny: That is so, I love that perspective. And I’m really, I’m really sad that I missed hearing Tara speak because I feel like at the conferences so far this year, there’s been an over kind of like this cloud above all AI conversations, sort of like we haven’t even figured out online scheduling yet.
Like, don’t bother me with AI. We’re not even ready for it yet. So her perspective of, like, putting a value on it or understanding the ROI and, like, your internal organization’s prioritization of that is really fascinating to me. And I [00:10:00] love hearing that there were so many conversations about the clinical applications of AI because I definitely do think that is more immediately beneficial to patients.
Even thinking about, like, myself as a patient, I can imagine that being implemented much faster and easier, than on some of the marketing pieces when you’re thinking about personalization or whatnot.
Shelby: 100%. There was even a provider that was talking about because someone asked a really good question in one of the sessions about, okay, we’re pushing so hard for virtual visits, right?
But what about individuals who at home might not be in a safe space for them to be able to talk about what’s going on? And how do you stay on top of that? And one of the providers was talking about how they’re looking into using AI to help be able to flag any subtle cues of anxiety that folks may be showing on like within 20 seconds of a call, being able to flag to the provider so the provider can follow up after the virtual call to be like, “Hey, I felt like maybe [00:11:00] something was up, or there might be some, is there anything you want to talk about?”
And I just thought how amazing that technology can be able to help providers who are so overwhelmed. They’ve got, they’re going in and out of meetings with individuals. How do they keep that kind of personalization, right? To help people feel really seen and heard. So it was neat to see how tech is evolving on that side.
Jenny: Absolutely. And even thinking about like, whenever I’ve gone to see a specialist, they’re always looking at their computer typing while we’re talking. Transcription, right? Look me in the eyes and let the technology take care of that. That’s such a simple fix for such a cool technology implementation. So super exciting.
I love all of those topics. Let’s talk, because, so there’s exciting innovation, right? People love talking about innovation and all of the ways it’s going to change the way that we show up every day. But you also mentioned and talked about that there were just some great sessions that really focus on a solid marketing foundation and those things that marketers like us have [00:12:00] to show up and do every single day.
So tell me a little bit about that.
Shelby: Yeah. So for honestly, the true marketers out there, there was a Wednesday afternoon session called like marketing superstars, and we thought that session really delivered. So Brian Deffaa, who is the CMO of LifeBridge Health, Jason, who’s the Chief Digital Officer of Bon Secours Mercy Health, and Bob Poznanovich, who’s the Chief Growth Officer at Hamilton Betty Ford Foundation.
They were such a great panel to talk about this and they gave some amazing points about setting a solid marketing foundation. One of them talking about AI even said, “Sometimes it feels like we’re watering our lawn when our house is on fire.” Like, like we gotta get the basics in place, just like you were saying, Jenny.
So they were definitely mirroring that [00:13:00] across the board. But Brian told a great story about how marketing is about telling stories, right? And showing value. And he really took an inside-out approach to telling the LifeBridge story in the market. By starting with their internal positioning, so starting with that emotional story, and then they layered in kind of how are we going to activate on this digitally, externally, right?
So they made some really game changing digital improvements by creating this convenient entry point into care that they called Hello Brave, which were these four doorways into the right type of care. So you could easily, there are four options, what are you looking for? To help the prospective patient get to where they needed to go.
And Brian even said during that panel that 81 [00:14:00] percent of consumers will choose convenience over their current doctor. And we’re seeing Amazon and Costco getting into the healthcare space. And what are they doing? They’re making it more convenient. These traditional healthcare organizations are really going to need to kind of match removing that friction, making it easier for patients to get what they’re looking for in order to compete with these emerging kind of non-traditional healthcare options.
Jenny: Absolutely. Hello, Brave. What a beautiful brand name. I just, I want to go Google that and go look at what that user experience is like simply because of the name of it. I love that for them. Oh, this is so fun. So on a scale of one to five with one, definitely not going back, and five being I’m ready to buy my ticket for 2024.
Where are you with Becker’s?
Shelby: Oh my gosh. It was great. It’s definitely up there. If not a 5, 4. 5, like it was such thought provoking content.[00:15:00] Like, even as we’re just talking about the storytelling that came from Brian and his team, there was a lot of conversation about storytelling when it comes to physician leakage.
And I know I’ve talked to clients that have the, “Our physicians are referring people away from us, even though we can help them with the, we have people in our system that can help them with these next steps.” And so there were multiple people, Brian, Jackie, let me, I want to make sure Jackie Effenson of Houston Methodist spoke about this, Ken Chaplin, who’s the CMO of City of Hope, all talked about this and they talked about some low cost ways to improve referrals, like bringing specialists in around their primary care providers. Jackie even talked about internal providers being users of their patient-facing Find A Provider tool [00:16:00] and how they were considering even modifying a version of that tool to support internal referrals, which I thought was genius.
Jenny: That really is genius, right? If there’s a need and the technology exists, let’s pivot it so it’s easier for that group to use it. Absolutely brilliant. Yeah, well, Shelby, thank you so much.
Not only for taking my ticket, which again, serious FOMO, I was texting you the whole time like I wish I was there, but also for coming back with such fabulous insights. For listeners, so appreciate your time. I hope you were able to get a little bit of inspiration and just excitement around the neat things that are happening with innovation and with just smart marketing execution across the country.
We are going to tag all of the folks that we mentioned on this podcast. So if you have any specific questions around the topics that they discussed at Becker’s, I’m sure they would love for you to reach out to them on LinkedIn and start that secondary conversation. So as always, thanks for tuning in to We Are, Marketing Happy and we’ll see you soon.
Today Jenny welcomes Courtney Mahlandt, Senior Director of Segment Marketing at Evernorth Health Services. Courtney discusses their journey into segmentation, driven by the expansion of their healthcare services beyond pharmacy benefits. They aim to understand their broader audience and their needs and emphasize the importance of involving multiple internal teams. This meant including sales and product right from the start to make segmentation an organizational effort.
Courtney explains how they used a combination of first-party data and external quantitative data analysis, surveying over a thousand existing and potential buyers. Courtney and Jenny discuss the benefits of segmentation in working smarter across teams and enabling product customization, targeted sales efforts, and more engaging marketing campaigns. Courtney also emphasizes the need for continuous data refresh and adapting to market changes.
Connect with Courtney:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/courtneymahlandt/
Connect with Jenny:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennybristow/
Jenny: [00:00:00] Hi, friends. Welcome to today’s episode of We Are, Marketing Happy. My name is Jenny Bristow, and I am the CEO at Hedy & Hopp, a healthcare marketing agency. I am so excited today to be here with Courtney Mahlandt. So she is the, let me find your exact title, so I get your title right. She’s the Senior Director of Segment Marketing at Evernorth Health Services, and I’m so excited to chat with you.
We had a lot of fun kind of doing a pre screening call figuring out what the topic was going to be because you not only launched a lead generation campaign that won you two DotCom awards recently, but there’s some really cool segmentation work that you’ve been doing. And so that’s a question we’ve been getting a lot lately.
So that’s the topic we’re going to dig into. Today, so I’d love for you just to give us a little bit of the background of why you decided to embark on a [00:01:00] segmentation project and some of the root causes that was driving that need.
Courtney: Well, thanks, Jenny. I’m really excited to be here. Appreciate you asking me to be a guest today.
So segmentation has been quite a journey for us and the reason we started and kicked it off initially was we expanded our audience completely. We went from a pharmacy benefit-focused organization, Express Scripts for those of you that are familiar with the organization, and we extended and launched that into a broader health services offering Evernorth Health Services.
So we really needed to better understand our audiences and what their needs were beyond the pharmacy space specifically.
Jenny: Absolutely. And so whenever you began to embark on this journey, how did you think about or how did you tackle all the different internal groups that were going to be involved in the process?
How did you [00:02:00] identify stakeholders? Did you just kind of go at it alone and then loop people in later? What was your approach?
Courtney: Yeah, so I guess the very first conversation and where this really started was we had a conversation with our CEO at the time. It’s a really small, intimate group. And he said, marketing is really where we have the opportunity to best engage and understand our clients broadly, our buyers, what their needs are.
And of course, I’m sitting in the room next to them, across the table and saying, yes, thank you for that recognition. That is exactly what we do and where we are focused and how we can best help the organization. So, I reflected on that and I said, okay, but it’s not just marketing’s responsibility.
As an organization, we need to show up together through all these different groups that are engaging with our stakeholders and our clients and our buyers. And so we really said, okay, if we’re doing segmentation, this needs to be not only marketing [00:03:00] driven, but also something that our sales teams, our till teams, our product teams are bought-in on from the very beginning.
This should be how we’re orienting as an organization. So we started putting together that the core team, myself, my partner in market research and my partners in data and analytics. We said, okay, what could this look like? How could we show up? And we worked with each one of those teams to say, how do we build this the right way?
How do we best solve all of our needs and got that buy-in and commitment from the very beginning so that when we were starting to activate it, it wasn’t a marketing only initiative.
Jenny: That’s super smart in a place that I see so many people make the missteps. And I just want to say kudos to that CEO for understanding the importance of understanding the specificity of buyers and the persona and how that really weaves throughout the entire organization.
So that’s great that you had that executive level support. So talk to me [00:04:00] about as you started going down this process of understanding who the buyer is, what data did you use? Did you use a combination of first party data and third party data? Kind of how did you decide how you wanted to craft this?
Courtney: So we primarily used our own, we primarily used information that we could lean externally through quantitative data analysis. We actually surveyed over a thousand of our existing and potential buyers. But we really wanted to connect that back into our own data and analytics. That was always the goal.
So we wanted to kind of approach it from both angles and make sure that we could actually say, what does this really mean for our own and existing relationships? Because retention is such a critical part of our business for the organization, and we saw that cross-selling would be a huge opportunity for us as we expanded [00:05:00] beyond that pharmacy benefits into a broader health services viewpoint.
Jenny: Yeah, I love that. I feel like the identification of cross-selling opportunities is always a really fun gem that shows up when you’re doing this kind of work, right? It’s like an unexpected happy surprise sometimes if that wasn’t the primary initiative of the project. So talk to me about, so you had all of this data.
You had a really nice large data set. You had an internal analyst team. How did you tackle? How many personas did you create? How did you segment according to different areas of your business? I think a lot of folks that we talked to are really excited about the idea of creating personas, but they get really overwhelmed when it comes to meshing data with behaviors and key triggers of why somebody would make a purchasing decision.
And so they kind of stop or pause the project if they don’t have a partner to walk them through that. So walk me through kind of how you merge that and how you divided it up.
Courtney: Yeah, we really [00:06:00] decided that from the beginning that we were going to need an external partner to help us through this while we had an expert in marketing research and expert in analytics and, really kind of helping us navigate what the activation process would be.
We knew that some type of cluster analysis and connecting all of those different data points together. We need the third party to kind of look over and see what are all the different connection points we could make to really pull up what are the key segments and then even from then. At that point, they looked at, I think they did like 40 different analyses to determine which would be the one we would advance and go with.
We wanted to make sure that they were mutually exclusive, that there wasn’t going to be overlap within the different segmentation elements. And then from there, we as a team said, Okay, well, while we have these different segments, we’re probably actually going to focus and prioritize a lot of our efforts on a handful of these efforts to really pull through [00:07:00] this insight across the organization and make this really understandable for the broad team that would be using it.
Jenny: I love it. That’s so smart. So then what would, what did the final deliverable look like whenever you actually presented the winning, let’s say there were four different personas or buyer profiles that you identified. What format did you use? Did you do storytelling? Like walk us through that.
Courtney: Yeah, there’s a lot of socialization explaining probably where we’ve landed and netted out.
But I think the most important and pivotal step that we landed on that made this real was the workshop. We spent all day together, all these different teams saying, okay, how do we want to make this real? How do we actually activate this? How do we prioritize this and start integrating it into the way that we work today?
And we didn’t stop there. We actually stood up a very non-exciting, but we set up a weekly forum and we [00:08:00] said, okay, we want to make sure that we have one representative from each of these teams. And we keep it going and we held each other accountable. And we started pulling in, okay, where are the successes that we can show?
So in every socialization conversation that we kept getting invited to, because people were interested and excited about the insights, we had more information to show on how we continue to progress and build successes. And instead of us kind of really pushing it out to everybody, we really kind of started building with a snowball effect.
And people were saying, oh, this is a smarter way to do my job. I want to learn a little bit more about that. So, it was a really kind of a natural way to keep the work going, but, we had to keep at it.
Jenny: Absolutely. And reinforcing those insights is really a never ending process, right? Just continues to evolve and change. So if you had to name the biggest takeaway or the biggest [00:09:00] win for your organization, as far as going through this process today, looking back over the entire timeline of work that you’ve done, what would that be?
Courtney: I think it’s all about working smarter. And every single team that’s using it today is incorporating this into existing strategies, existing work. It’s just helping them achieve their goals in a faster way. So for that product team, they’re creating products that are really going to resonate with the buyers for the sales team.
They’re prioritizing the buyers that these offerings will actually matter most to. So they have faster velocity when they’re trying to break through in those sales, and then, of course, for marketing, when we’re launching these campaigns, we can actually modify the way that we’re showing up to those buyers so that we’re getting higher click through rate, higher engagement and more [00:10:00] follow through.
Jenny: I love it. That’s so wonderful, Courtney. We did a segmentation and a persona project with one of our clients late last year. And just sharing an example to kind of make a palpable for our listeners. They thought that their average buyer, and this was a health insurance product, individual and family.
They thought the average buyer was a man married with children in his late forties. So all marketing was targeted to that persona. We found out it was actually a 62 year old single woman. And so that changed everything, right? That changes the images that you use. That changes the language, that changes the upsell opportunity cause they also provide Medicare, right?
And so, I think it’s really helpful just to have a real example as people start thinking about, yes, it’s a lot of work to go through this data and it’s a lot of work to then socialize it. But my goodness, the end result of marketing is so much more impactful. So, so what’s next, Courtney, what’s [00:11:00] next with your team?
So you’ve done all the segmentation work. You’re socializing it. Where do you see this project going from here? What do you think is the next iteration?
Courtney: So I mentioned earlier that we use quantifiable data as our starting point. We know that that information isn’t just forever. It’s not evergreen.
We need to keep refreshing it. And one of the ways we really want to further augment it is using additional data, pulling that in and better understanding marketplace changes. I think all of us know that in a, especially those in large organizations, that if leadership changes, if the economy shifts, broader market forces, it changes how we buy and our appetite for other services.
So we really want to make sure that this can continue to live on and be relevant and strengthen the work that we’ve done by augmenting and adding in additional data and information. That’s step one. I would say [00:12:00] also in parallel, we want to continue to work with our company and their sellers, make sure that they feel really comfortable understanding this information and making sure that they can prioritize and bring the right offerings and information to their buyers based off of this, particularly, new people enter the buying group and selections are different, right?
You know, I think something like five to 10 people are typically a part of a buying group. So that changes as organizations evolve. So how do we make sure that everyone has the right information at their fingertips when they’re having quarterly discussions with their clients, for instance.
Jenny: Oh, Courtney. I love it. This has been so helpful. I think for all listeners that are thinking about embarking on a segmentation and persona development project, this has given them a lot of fodder and food for thought. So thank you so much for being on the podcast today. I’m going to link to your LinkedIn in the show notes so if anybody wants to follow up with more specific [00:13:00] questions that they’ll be able to reach out directly.
But again, thank you for being on. And for all of our listeners, be sure to tune in next week for another episode of We Are, Marketing Happy.
On today’s episode, Jenny is coming to you solo to discuss the recently released Experian State of Patient Access Report. The report is based on surveys of both patients and healthcare providers across the country, exploring their views on access to care over a three-year period. The report identifies five key aspects of patient access and reveals that both patients and providers agree that access to care has either remained the same or worsened in the past year but for different reasons. Patients desire a streamlined scheduling experience, while providers grapple with staffing shortages and care cost challenges. Jenny emphasizes the need for well-integrated digital solutions throughout the patient journey and encourages marketers to collaborate with operations teams to optimize the patient experience. She also highlights the importance of compliance in the rapidly evolving healthcare landscape and the critical role marketing plays in enhancing patient and provider experiences.
Access the State of Patient Access Report here.
Connect with Jenny:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennybristow/
Interested in working with Hedy & Hopp on a marketing program?
Book time with Jenny today: https://calendly.com/jennybristow/
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 the CEO and Founder of Hedy & Hopp. We are a full service, fully healthcare marketing agency, and I’m on today to talk about Experian’s “State of Patient Access Report.” So it was just released and there’s a lot of really interesting things.
They surveyed both patients and providers across the country. They really understand the three year trajectory of how both groups are feeling about the state of access to care. And so I wanted to hop on and just share a little bit of what the report shared. I’m going to put a link in the show notes for you to go download the report yourself to be able to digest the entire report, but I wanted to share.
So first, there are five different things that Experian states as them, their definition of [00:01:00] patient access. And it’s really interesting because here at Hedy & Hopp, whenever we talk about being really passionate about improving patient’s access to care, typically we’re thinking about front-end touchpoints, right?
So whenever they’re able to find a provider online, schedule an appointment online, and really understand the care that they’re going to receive. Experian really expands that to five distinct areas which absolutely makes sense from a patient’s perspective, but I wanted to talk about those for a little bit.
So the first one is what we would expect, right? Like scheduling an appointment. The second is pre-registration and registration. Third is coverage verification and cost of care estimates, which is a really hot topic in the healthcare space. Pre-care payment services. And then, of course, the final is patient communication.
So one of the really interesting things is that overall, both patients and providers are saying that access to care is the same or worse as it was 12 months ago, but for different reasons. [00:02:00] So patients really want that right time, right provider scheduling experience. Make it easy, right?
It’s really interesting on one page of the report, it actually talks about how, let me pull it up. It talks about how the access to scheduling appointments online is actually worse than it was a year ago. So it seems as though quite a few providers actually added that functionality during COVID.
And then some of them have actually pulled back on the prioritization of that. Again, resources and budgets are tight. So we understand, you know, from an operational perspective, how that could happen, but it definitely isn’t meeting patients where they are and what they’re expecting. But, at the same time, providers feel the pain when it comes to staffing shortages, which really exacerbates that patient access pain point, right?
Because it results in scheduling delays. Taking longer to get that first scheduled appointment to happen. And then of course, challenges around care cost estimates. So again, that really makes sense is what we’re hearing from [00:03:00] providers is they really want to focus on care and that confusion or back and forth around costs is not really where they, or their administrative team, wants to spend their limited energy.
And so at the end of the day, all of this is really putting a big need and pressure on well-integrated digital solutions throughout the patient journey, right? It’s not just the front-end. It’s not just that digital front door that folks talk about all of the time of getting patients in the door the first time. It’s really thinking about everything from finding a provider, scheduling an appointment, receiving a cost estimate.
The bar is really low. So much that even, like, a positive payment experience can be an affinity driver, which is mind blowing, right? Making it easy for somebody to give you money results in them wanting to come back and see you again versus going and choosing another provider. Kind of mind blowing, but really marketers should lean in to work with these operation teams whenever you’re mapping out the patient experience.
I mean, one of the things whenever we [00:04:00] have assisted with Epic integrations, for example, is really making sure that it’s a much broader perspective than just marketing dollars and service line prioritization, but really thinking about how we can optimize that patient experience. So for example, with some clients we’ve had to implement feedback loops.
So if we’re promoting a specific service line or perhaps promoting a new provider within the practice, really understanding once their schedule is full and you’re looking out more than so many weeks in advance to pull back on that budget, so you’re not sending folks to a dissatisfying landing page where they’re not seeing appointments for two plus months out.
That’s clearly a negative patient experience, so it needs to be a much broader conversation to be able to make sure that we’re matching patient expectations along with provider availability. So what, right? Like, so what this report is really helpful to be able to see the state of the state and be able to see what positive [00:05:00] impact…
I put that in really heavy air quotes, because it’s difficult to think about anything positive coming out of COVID, but it really did force providers and systems to lean into telehealth and lead in to online patient portals. So that is seen as an increase over the last three years, but at the same time, there’s been a lot of other things that have increased from a negative perspective that the report talks about.
So there are three key things that are the Hedy & Hopp “So what?” about this report. Let’s talk about it. The first is making sure that marketing has a seat at the cross functional table. So as these decisions are being made from a budgeting and technology perspective, make sure marketing is sitting at that conversation and really being involved.
We need to think about how patients are experiencing care. We need to map out the entire patient journey. So if you are currently racing to redo your website, stand up telehealth, uh, mobile app, whatever, pause to map out that patient journey and understand how it fits in and the overall impact and messaging [00:06:00] modifications that need to be made across that entire journey.
The other thing that we’re seeing is we’re actually seeing marketing kind of either be labeled in a different way or have different functions kind of collaborate. So you see like patient experience teams and just a little bit of modifications around the language of marketing. And I think this is a really positive thing, right?
Cause we, as a function, are much bigger than just marketing, but it’s definitely something we’re seeing. Number two, map out the entire patient experience, whether you’re trying to improve the provider’s experience or the patient’s experience at the end of the day, the patient is really the one that we need to impact.
So if the provider is having hiccups, first map out that patient experience and figure out how the provider can weave in and out in a way that’s positive for the patient, because if you fix something for the provider, but end up making it negative accidentally for the patient because you weren’t thinking holistically,
you’re going to have a different problem on your hands 6 months [00:07:00] out. And then finally, please be compliant. I have to remind you all again. We are not a privacy agency. We are a full service, fully healthcare agency. We do everything, but we are talking so much about privacy and compliance right now because it is changing so quickly.
The sands are shifting beneath our feet and especially if we’re thinking about telehealth and all of these different levers that you can pull to improve or modify the patient experience, you’re going to run into compliance issues. So please make sure you’re working with your legal and compliance teams or a group like Hedy & Hopp that can really help make sure you’re setting things up in a way that is safe in both the short and the long term and you’re really thinking about your entire tech stack and light of the new guidelines.
So with that, I’m going to put a link to the report in the show notes. You can read it and download it. It’s a relatively short report. I think it’s under 10 pages and [00:08:00] it’s absolutely worth the read. I think the cross section of the size of the respondents is really helpful to feel confident in the results.
And thank you Experian for your work. Thank you for joining in today on another episode of We Are, Marketing Happy and we’ll see you soon.
On this episode, Jenny is again joined by Shelby Auer, Account Manager at Hedy & Hopp as they bring even more insights from their time at SHSMD 2023. Today she and Shelby discuss the evolving landscape of healthcare marketing regulations, pointing out changes in marketing practices driven by HIPAA, FTC, and state laws. Jenny highlights the importance of understanding GDPR, even for U.S.-based businesses, as opt-in policies and the “right to be forgotten” become more relevant. They also break down the growing complexity of state laws and emphasizes the need for collaboration between marketing, legal, and compliance teams to navigate these challenges.
Connect with Jenny:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennybristow/
Connect with Shelby:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/shelby-wanne/
Interested in working with Hedy & Hopp on a privacy compliance program?
Book time with Jenny today: https://calendly.com/jennybristow/30-minute-compliance-consultation
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’m the CEO and founder at Hedy and Hopp, a healthcare marketing agency. I am so excited to be here today. We just got back from SHSMD. I’m joined with Shelby Auer on my team, and we presented on, um, HIPAA, FTC, and state laws.
So, as most of y’all know, or you should know, the rug was basically pulled out from all of us. Um, a year ago today at SHSMD, there were many events talking about best practices for marketing technologies and your tech stack. All of those recommendations are now wrong. So I have a whole other episode that we’ll link to in the show notes that’s a 101 on HIPAA and FTC, but a lot of the questions I received were specifically related to GDPR and state laws.
So we wanted to talk a little bit about that first, and then [00:01:00] Shelby and I are going to dig into some of the feedback we received, because one of the cool things is we, as a result of being the first session on the one of the first sessions on the first day, is we ended up having dozens of folks coming and chatting with us about their individual team’s response, their legal team’s perspective, etc.
So we’re excited to share some of that. So first of all, I want to talk a little bit about GDPR and state laws. So first GDPR, most folks that are within the United States are probably thinking, Oh, I don’t need to worry about GDPR. We don’t sell to or do business with anyone in Europe. Well, maybe not. But here’s 2 key things about GDPR you need to know exist.
GDPR has 2 things that are very different from the way we operate within the United States. The first one is they are opt in versus opt out, which means, you know, how on your website, the cookie preferences loads, um, and you hit accept, um, you actually, if you hit do not accept, um, [00:02:00] or no, well, you have to hit, yes, give it to me, give the cookie me in Europe.
Whereas in the United States, you have to say, no, please do not put cookies on my computer and track me. And so it’s just a completely different perspective. And they’re tracking, um, percentages that are way, way smaller in Europe because most folks do not choose to opt in, whereas in the United States, most folks stay opted in and they don’t choose to opt out.
So that’s the first one. The second one is right to be forgotten. So pause for a minute and think about your marketing tech stack and think about if Jenny from St. Louis called you and said, Hey, I would like for you to delete me from all of your databases. Do you have any idea how you would actually do that?
That thought alone probably scares you, as it should, but again, that exists in GDPR and the United States, we mostly don’t have that. But there are four state laws that are currently online, California, Virginia, Colorado, and Connecticut, and California [00:03:00] is likely soon going to require data brokers to allow consumers to submit a right to be forgotten request.
So this is creeping into the United States. So it’s important to know how GDPR functions because we’re starting to see it show up in many other states. Um, we’re not going to go through all of the different state regulations because they are really intense. We actually have a couple of summary slides that I do in actual presentations just to give you a high level like cliff notes version, but your attorneys absolutely need to look at each state law and figure out how you need to comply.
Um, the other one that is really crazy is in Florida. Um, there are regulations around, um, having data stored outside of the country. So for example, if you use an offshoring company, uh, finding out where your servers are actually physically located, there are some repercussions related to anything [00:04:00] actually physically, um, or digitally outside of the United States.
Utah, Iowa, Indiana, Montana, and Tennessee are two that are scheduled to come online in the next about 12 to 18 months. And there are many, many more states that are scheduled to come online shortly after or are currently in legislative conversations and review.
So even if you’re a covered entity and you are, uh, complying with all things HIPAA, there’s still likely maybe some things that you need to think about at the state law level. And if you are not a covered entity, and you’re really just thinking about FTC, you also need to be thinking about state laws.
Washington, for example, has a regulation that says if you are a covered entity and you’re treating data like PHI, then that law does not apply to you, the regulations do not apply. But if you are not a covered entity and you are or are not treating data like PHI, it does apply to you. So for example, there are a [00:05:00] lot of what we call healthcare adjacent organizations that think they don’t have to really be thinking about this, or if they treat their data like PHI, they don’t have to worry about state law.
And again, that just isn’t true. These things are changing rapidly. Shelby, what are your thoughts on state laws? You’re working with a few different client projects right now from an audit and recommendations perspective and state laws get pretty hairy, right?
Shelby: Yes. Oh my goodness. All and figuring out how to approach the state laws because there’s a lot of conversation of, oh, is California the most strict?
Well, if we’re okay in California, are we okay in all of these other states? And it’s so, so important. I heard multiple people when we were at SHSMD say this, but to become BFFs with legal and privacy, legal and compliance. That is so true. So, so true. As much as it can be a little bit of a battle, making sure that there’s open lines of communication, that your [00:06:00] digital team is comfortable helping legal and privacy, understand the technicalities behind the changes in these laws and vice versa. Because that’s, that’s a lot of what I’ve, I’ve been working with clients is making sure that all of these different groups are talking to each other and help each other speak the same language because all of these state laws coming on are so hairy.
There is not a stop in sight. It’s just continuing to come down the pipeline with more and more states or additions to current state laws that are out there. So that’s, that’s really the biggest thing that that I’ve been working through lately and just making sure that everyone’s talking to each other and on the same page.
Jenny: Absolutely. Uh, the audit process that we talk about, not only in that first episode that again, we’ll link to in the show notes, but also that I presented at SHSMD is really doing that due diligence to show your legal and compliance teams that, Hey, I’m taking this seriously too. I am not putting my head, you know, down and trying to [00:07:00] ignore that all of this is happening.
We’re doing the work right now. I want to do the work alongside you, um, on the same side of the table, not opposite sides of the table. We both want the same thing for the benefit of our customers and patients 100%.
Shelby: And I think one of the things Jenny said, you said in your presentation that I think was really important for a lot of people to hear is right, this isn’t just your marketing, advertising and analytics platforms, but there are so many other things on your tech stack that are in the code of your site that are collecting things like IP address that so many people, you just don’t, you don’t even think about it. Right. And we didn’t have to up until late last year.
And so I think, yeah, that audit process is so incredibly important to have one place where, you know, exactly everything that is touching your site and what information it has access to.
Jenny: And not just your site, your entire digital footprint, right? Like there were some audible gasps in the room when I walked through some [00:08:00] examples of things our team has found during audits.
For example, I’ll just name a couple of them just to kind of help you help our listeners think about the broadness of this audit and the level of patient care that we need to have from a data angle. So one, for example is we have found on one site we audited that when forms were filled out on the website, that then field variables were then put up into the URL parameters.
So that means then things like Google or any other tool or software on the website are then indexing those URLs and all of that information, the person’s name, email address, whatever information they put in about the, um, you know, state of health, their health or any questions they entered is all now available free on the internet for all these tools to scrape.
Um, another thing is a lot of video players that are embedded on websites are actually behind the scenes pulling in IP and device ID information, which as [00:09:00] we all know now is no longer allowed. And then other examples are things like your call tracking tools or your advertising platforms.
Oftentimes we already know pixels can’t be on the site, right? We talked about that a lot. But what about the data that’s being in those platforms as far as, for example, call tracking tools has the phone number and then they have the recording of the call of them calling to make an appointment.
Advertising platforms, maybe, um, you’re maybe somebody in the past uploaded a patient, uh, list and they have lookalike audiences that they have built based off of that. There are all these different ways that you may inadvertently have been sharing this patient information. Audits need to be way more comprehensive than simply looking at your analytics setup.
So let’s dig in and talk a little bit about things that we heard folks doing. So we literally had a line at our booth almost the entire time, which was awesome to see, right? Like we love those conversations. And it [00:10:00] also is kind of disheartening sometimes because the number of people that came up to me and said, Oh, we thought we had it figured out, but everything you talked about just made me realize all of these other things that I need to look at now.
Um, and I, I hate that I started their conference in that way, but what are some of the things that you heard? How are folks approaching this?
Shelby: Oh, yes it’s, it’s interesting because there are definitely some folks that said, Oh, we took off everything. We went cold turkey and we are in this, you know, sixty to eighty day range of not really having much to be able to look at in regards to what we’re tracking until we get something else in place.
Uh, but again, this, I, I talked to individuals who, who were super on the defensive, right? Took everything off their site and yet there’s still issues popping up. They thought they had gotten everything and then they’re, oh, oh, yep, we got a video embedded on the site. [00:11:00] And I didn’t realize that that’s an issue, right?
So it’s, it’s, it’s been interesting to hear from the folks who, who were taking that stance that, yes, there are these things that are hidden that are hard to find, it’s not as easy as just, Oh, here are the 10, uh, platforms that we utilize in our week to week and, oh, we’re taking those off and we’re good.
So a lot, heard a lot of that out there.
Jenny: Totally agree. Some of the things that I heard is there were a variety of, um, orgs that came up to us that were in the middle of an implementation of either a CDP or a completely new analytics platform. And a large percentage of them actually had paused the work before coming to the conference in order to learn more about best practices and what other systems are doing before fully implementing them.
So those were some good conversations. We were able to share some insights about the tools they were looking to partner with some watchouts, um, and just some best practices about, which I think was really helpful. Um, other [00:12:00] things is, um, some folks did not realize that sometimes forms are actually implemented by third parties.
They just assumed it was part of the website database. So a lot of folks are going home, checking on that. Um, we have a lot of folks that are, um, going and checking on their advertising platforms. What else Shelby?
Shelby: There was, I will remember that, like, this was such a vivid memory, uh, in one of the sessions, someone asked such a great question about the video tools, right?
And they had said, you know, say we have a video on a page talking about West Nile Virus and tips and tricks when you’re dealing with somewhere where there’s going to be a lot of mosquitoes. What should you keep in mind? Right? So it’s, it’s more of a news story. It’s more of a tool. It’s not exactly a specific health condition.
And they’re like, [00:13:00] what do we, you know, is that worrisome? Should we not be, you know, utilizing those web posting services or having that type of video or any sort of tracking? And again, it was a panel discussion and everyone’s like, okay, you know, this is a gray area, right? You need to be talking to your legal and compliance, but at the end of the day, they could be researching, maybe they think they have West Nile.
Maybe they’re going to go talk to their PCP about some symptoms that they’re having. And so that’s how they got there. That really, the safest route is to make sure that you’re not utilizing any tools that’s going to be pulling in that patient information about what the content of the video is, even if it’s something that might even seem like, well, this is just educating the community.
This isn’t a specific health condition, which I thought was really important to think about.
Jenny: I agree. Um, a couple of examples we gave are, um, you know, if you’re a cancer center or if you’re [00:14:00] a, uh, breast health center or, um, whatever, if, if you’re not a large system where from your homepage, you’re listing out 12 different service lines our POV, again this is gray. Your own attorney needs to make this call. That our POV is you need to treat the entire website with care. You need to make sure that you’re not collecting IP addresses anywhere. Um, so some organizations had been thinking about only removing pixels from symptom specific or a super care specific pages kind of taking that bulletin verbatim.
But our POV is if you’re doing that, why not just fully protect that patient’s data throughout the entire journey, right? If anything, I think it’s easier from a tech stack perspective to treat all of it with the care and consideration that it needs. So, again, that’s something that they have to chat about with their internal legal and compliance teams, but definitely good food for thought.
So awesome. Well, thank you, Shelby, for tuning [00:15:00] in and for all of our listeners. I really hope that the GDPR and state law level information is helpful and guiding you and helping you understand the different questions you should be bringing to your legal and compliance teams again.
Cause if you’re on the same side of the table as them and you’re working together to make sure that patient information is safe and secure, it is such an easier conversation than if you dig your heels in and try to protect what you’re comfortable with. So thanks for tuning in. As always, Hedy and Hopp is here to answer any burning questions you may have.
Reach out to us. Otherwise, we’ll see you on a future episode of We Are Marketing Happy.
Fresh off the road from this year’s SHSMD Conference, Jenny and Shelby Auer, Account Manager at Hedy and Hopp, share their highlights from the conference in Chicago. They discuss various sessions and speakers, including insights on rural healthcare, brand management, internal communications, data-driven decision-making, and improving the patient experience. They also speak about the importance of learning and sharing experiences within the healthcare marketing industry to make a positive impact. (Check out the show notes on YouTube for links to our favorite speakers.)
Connect with Jenny:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennybristow/
Connect with Shelby:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/shelby-wanne/
Interested in working with Hedy & Hopp on a healthcare marketing program?
Book time with Jenny today.
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 and founder at Hedy and Hopp, a healthcare marketing agency. And I am joined today with an account manager from Hedy and Hopp, Shelby. Auer. So, Shelby and I just got back from SHSMD ‘23 in Chicago.
We had an amazing time and we wanted to do just a quick little recap for any folks that weren’t able to attend or even those who did attend but weren’t able to attend all of the different speaks, uh, talks, speakers. So, what we’re going to be doing is we’re just going to highlight a couple of things that really stood out to us as far as events.
We’re going to link to all of the speakers in the show notes, to their LinkedIn. And we’re going to tag them on LinkedIn. If you have any questions about the presentations, I’m sure they would love to talk to you about it. Everybody was so amazing at the event. So, Shelby, first of all, high [00:01:00] level, tell me about SHSMD.
This was your first ever SHSMD. So tell me a little bit about your, just some big key takeaways.
Shelby: Yes. Oh my goodness. It was so wonderful getting to meet and connect with such wonderful people. Everyone. I mean, Brad, or Bread, as I should call him, who kicked us all off with such a great, uh, keynote, really nailed, nailed it on the head in regard to how wonderful and weird in the best way possible the group at SHSMD is.
And so, it was so wonderful getting to connect with everyone and knowing that a lot of the HIPAA conversations that we’ve been having as an agency is really top of mind across the industry, so it was so wonderful getting to connect with so many people who really just want to protect their patients and figure out what the heck they need to do with everything that’s going on.
And so, it was wonderful getting to brainstorm and talk to such wonderful people.
Jenny: That’s awesome. I completely agree with you, just, healthcare people are the best people. So, let’s jump in and talk a little bit about some of our favorite sessions. So, I will jump in and go first. So, there was a, um, a topic specifically about rural health that I absolutely loved.
So, I grew up in a super rural town, um, there were 11 kids in my class from grades K through 8. So, super, super small. So, I was really interested in attending this one to be able to hear more from different POVs about how folks are actually approaching those communications, understanding what research methodology they’re using to understand their access to, um, internet, um, likelihood to schedule annual exams, those kinds of things.
The speaker was Pauline Hoffman. She was absolutely phenomenal, great speaker. Um, but there was a couple of things that she mentioned. One thing she mentioned, the phrase social listening, but she used it in a different [00:03:00] terminology, which I actually really, really appreciated. She used social listening by actually like using your ears, right?
Not using tools and software, but actually like when you’re sitting in like a PTO event or you’re sitting in a restaurant in your small town, actually listening to hear what people are saying about the physicians and the facilities because in small towns, a lot of folks are going to be talking just through word of mouth versus using digital platforms like you may see in more urban areas.
And then some of the other things that she actually talked about is, um, getting information, um, about your services to first responders, because they’re some of the people that are most trusted in your community and have the ability to share information about access to care.
And then the third thing is, she talked a lot about fighting disinformation. Um, and not only about, um, you know, your physician. and facilities, but also just about the world and care that we want to and [00:04:00] need to offer to help make our communities a healthier and safer place. Um, and she had some really interesting perspectives talking about how PR is generally not as understood and they think it’s more of a spin position versus trying to share her phrase was truth and trust, um, which I thought was really great.
So that one for me really hit home.
Shelby: Love that. Well, and speaking of PR, one of the last sessions that I got to sit on was with Karen Brodbeck who works with OSF Healthcare. So, based out of Peoria, Illinois, so a lovely Midwest sister over there. And, she talked a lot about their brand management and how they’ve really built a national brand, though they are pretty small and focused in the Midwest space, and it was really, really interesting. She told a wonderful story about how she was at Girl Scouts as a kid and was always told, if you don’t [00:05:00] ask, the answer is no. And so how she’s kind of taken that as a mantra in the work that she’s doing, and she’s constantly reaching out and applying for different awards or speaking opportunities for individuals in the system.
And, specifically, I loved some examples of the great stories that they’ve gotten out about their health care system and I think we saw it all over this conference about not only just consumer focused work, but also stories and how important that is, how stories and data need to co-mingle and work together.
Um, but they had a story that ended up in People Magazine, got picked up in People Magazine about a nurse that cared for a sweet, sweet little baby and ended up adopting, um, this little boy. And how one of their workers on their [00:06:00] government team ended up talking to his daughter about everything that was going on in Ukraine, and they ended up sending over an ambulance filled with a bunch of stuff to Ukraine.
He ended up going and just such, such amazing stories that they have such a good. system of collecting those stories. And that was a lot of what she talked about is how they’ve really built up a space where across all their health systems, they’re sharing those stories because it can be hard to do that when you’re spread across different areas.
And so that one was a really, really great one to get some practical information, but also to get to really celebrate her and her team and how far they’ve come.
Jenny: I love that. Lehigh Valley out of Pennsylvania, they were actually the last session on the last day, but Pamela and Kirsten came in with such amazing high energy.
It was so fun to watch them. They did something really similar, but it was specifically focused on internal comms. So, how do you better communicate, [00:07:00] um, especially, you know, to those frontline people, thinking like nurses, they’re so busy. They’re not going to have time to go log into an intranet. So they, in 2019, they actually launched, um, something, um, they use Sprout, uh, and it’s an employee advocacy tool within Sprout.
So that’s the backend of the system. But it basically is a social media platform for within their internal organization. So they can do everything from talk about new services, they can, uh, feature and highlight employees or amazing cases and outcomes. But the cool thing is they came up with a colleague ambassador program where they actually recruited about 30 highly influential folks across the organization and gave them access to the platform ahead of everyone else, gave them branded swag, all of this fun stuff.
Um, and then that helped really spread usage of this platform. And they said at this point, 88 percent [00:08:00] of their team downloads the app and uses it on a regular basis. One of their biggest spikes in usage is at 3 a. m. in the morning, which you know, is nurses, right? Working shifts. And that was the most difficult group to access before.
And the cool thing is they actually have it, it’s so well loved within their organization that they actually have people submitting and, um, putting content out and engaging with other people’s content all of the time. And they, they shared so many metrics about the number of posts and engagement that they receive on those posts.
It blows away anything else that I’ve seen as far as internal comms and the, the pride that they’ve built up within their internal organization. I mean, they had this tool, you know, during COVID, they used it to be able to make sure that all the communication was clear, it was just, they had the hashtag LVHN proud, and I was so proud for them just sitting there listening to all of their wins, because that’s a huge accomplishment.
Shelby: Love that. And it reminds me of, uh, one of the sessions that I sat in on again, kind of [00:09:00] talking about internal comms, but focused a little bit on when that’s not so easy and when it is really, really hard. And shout out to Jeff Stewart, uh, on the CHRISTUS Health team, because he did such a wonderful job being incredibly vulnerable, sharing very, very, uh, in depth and specific quotes that he received from executive leadership that were really, really difficult to receive when you’re going through a complete website architecture redo.
And some of the biggest takeaways from that discussion were, what do you do when you get that negative feedback, right? So he was really, really struggling with the physicians in their group because they basically had a website where there was so much competing information, the same information on multiple pages across so many different of their specific [00:10:00] health clinics.
And, the session I loved, it was called, Can We Just Put The Old One Back? Because four months after the launch of the new site, after they had data to show how consumers were able to more easily find and set schedule appointments, that was an exact quote that he got via email from someone that was, “You just got the old site and you just put it back up.”
Jenny: And I get that, right? Like these people are so busy. They don’t have time to learn a new site architecture. So that probably was really difficult for him to hear, even though he knew it was doing better.
Shelby: A hundred percent. And I love the way he gave some really practical experience on how do you deal with getting that kind of feedback and showing up with empathy first and understanding where they’re coming from and not going to defensive mode, you know, trying to protect your team has been working so hard on this, [00:11:00] but really trying to understand where they’re coming from and help them really take the data showing, Hey, consumers are utilizing this, but sometimes the data is not everything.
And so one of the biggest takeaways was also pulling in those stories. Here are individuals that haven’t received care in years and now they have a primary care physician. Like, those are the things to celebrate.
Jenny: Yeah. It’s absolutely amazing.
Shelby: Yeah. When those physicians voices, and that this was a big takeaway, when those voices are sometimes the largest voice in the room, everyone can agree that the patient’s voice is louder. And so, just figuring out ways to communicate that across your organization and to really help everyone move toward the same goal. It was really inspiring.
Jenny: I love that. So, um, Arkansas Children’s, they did an amazing presentation talking also about the power of using data for internal buy-in. And, um, you know, all organizations, many organizations, have this intrinsic belief that like, [00:12:00] we’re the best, especially if they’re in a space where there aren’t many competitors and they’re really one of the only large providers within your state or your region.
Um, and so what this group did, um, is they actually began using some, um, third party data to pull in to understand not only where the gaps in care are, so where, where are we within the state where there are large groups of pediatric populations where we perhaps don’t have an outpatient center location, or people have to drive more than three hours to be able to access care. And then they also use that data to be able to look at things like birth defects within certain counties of the state to understand what may be coming up as far as specialized services that they perhaps don’t offer right now, or they aren’t offering statewide in a way that can really service their growing population.
And it was really powerful because so many times we talk about data and dashboards and so many times it’s just focused on your own data and the power they had at pulling, um, mostly [00:13:00] free third party data that’s available through your state and county and some meaningful story that then can allow you to be much more comprehensive with your strategic planning was super just impressive for me.
It’s something that so many groups we work with want to get to, and it’s like part of the continuum, and it’s certainly a worthy goal. So kudos, Arkansas Children’s. So I love it.
And then I think, um, one of the other ones that I really loved was, um, Advocate Health. Kelly, Joe and Jamie. Their energy, it was so much fun watching them. So they were talking about, um, being consumer first, which all of us want our organizations to be. Um, but they were talking a little bit about, um, things like, how do you actually measure that?
Right, like, how do you, how do you talk about progress of becoming a consumer first [00:14:00] organization or improving patients access to care? Like what metrics are the metrics that matter? And one of the things that stuck out to me is they actually have developed this internal metric called ease of use. And that’s something that they use to be able to understand how things are progressing within their own org.
And so again, it’s like, um, it’s a made up metric, but it’s one they’ve all agreed upon as something that’s important and valuable to measuring progress. And I think that was a really good reminder that, um, you don’t necessarily have to use these industry standard, um, you know, statistical analysis or processes or formulas within your own organization.
You can decide, what is the metric we want to use to understand if we won or not? And that’s enough, right? Like that’s enough, that aligns all of your team as far as where that, um, you know, finish mark is. So it was really cool to watch them. One other, I want to call out Mary Cronin from St. Luke’s did such a phenomenal job.
She was on a panel of two other people, there are three people total within St. Luke’s. Um, and [00:15:00] they were, um, talking about strategic and design thinking within an organization, but one phrase that she said, um, that really stuck with me and I wrote it down verbatim is, “A way to be able to get organizational buy in is really thinking about that influence on the front end and the empowerment on the back end.”
So, as a strategist, it isn’t really our job to execute the concepts, but really is our job to be able to influence and then empower. So it was a really great takeaway.
Shelby: Oh, love that. And one of the, one of the sessions that I sat in on with Joel and Beth from Columbus Regional Health in Indiana, again, another Midwest friend, but, they talked a lot about this WellConnect system that they developed over the past 10 years.
And I love one of the things that they talked about as kind of a key takeaway was to be a gap filler. That [00:16:00] every system, like, there’s going to be gaps. They have a very diverse population and who’s going to do it if not you to help? And they really, really showed this sense of accountability for the community that they serve, which was incredibly inspiring, reminded me of what Brad said in the keynote about why do you love what you do and how powerful that question is, and it’s really, really neat to see that they have this free offering to their community where you can call a connection specialist and they’re going to help connect you to a PCP.
They’ll help talk you through your insurance if you’ve got questions or concerns and even connect you with other community organizations that can help support you. So if your insurance isn’t covered, oh well we know of this non for profit that will be able to help you. And it was just really really neat to see how they really took this idea that started with, okay, we [00:17:00] need a building downtown that can serve the community and how that just has spiraled over 10 years.
And now, they have all of these connection specialists and they’re looking to grow the team super soon. So kudos to them and all the wonderful work that they’re doing in their community.
Jenny: That is awesome. Um, a session that really reminds me of that is KC Children’s Mercy. They were talking about, um, how to be able to positively impact the patient experience.
So first, how do you decide what patient experience you want to improve? So they made this beautiful, super simple chart with four quadrants and, um, the variables about the quadrants is urgency versus frequency. So, they then mapped all of their different service lines within that chart to be able to figure out, you know, how to make the biggest impact.
And they decided they were going to focus first on, um, patients, pediatric patients that had multiple visits within one day. So it can be super overwhelming for the parent and for the child when they go and they have like five appointments stacked. [00:18:00] And so they began working with client services and a bunch of other groups within the organization.
And they manually executed their ideas to see if it made a difference before actually rolling it out. So my favorite example, and this is near and dear to my heart because so many of the children in my family have had long-term care issues in pediatric hospitals. Um, they began mailing these welcome packets or, um, um, anticipation packets like a week before the day where everything was stacked.
And it not only had a nice letter to the parent saying, here’s the name of your, um, care, what word did they use, it was like a care manager or your friend at the facility that will be waiting for you when you arrive and they’re there to answer questions all day. They would try to pull food vouchers if they were there all day and they met certain income requirements.
They had that information in their database. But then they actually would print out a schedule of the day with all of the appointments. And then they would provide [00:19:00] stickers for the kids to be able to put on the different events to be able to mark the completion of it. And they literally printed these out and mailed them for a period of time manually before they rolled it out formally to see if it works.
So I really like that scrappy initiative of saying like, hey y’all, we think this is going to make a big difference, but before we put tons of resources into it, let’s test and iterate and then we can roll it out. So it was a really great way to think about a physical experience improvement, um, in a, you know, test and iterate formula, because often we just think about doing that in the digital world, but it can still be done in the physical world as well.
So, I love it. So, uh, this was Hedy and Hopp’s second year, um, being at SHSMD. Uh, this year I did a presentation on HIPAA, FTC, and state laws. Super well received, standing room only, had so many good conversations afterwards. Um, but we will definitely be there next year. Next year is going to be in [00:20:00] Denver.
So if you have any questions about any of the sessions that we talked about, please reach out to the folks that we’re linking to in the show notes and tagging on LinkedIn, because the presentations were all just phenomenal this year. And I really look forward to next year to continue learning and meeting more peers.
So, thanks for tuning in. We’ll talk to you soon.
Shelby: Thanks so much.
On today’s episode, Jenny welcomes Ben Camp, CEO, and co-founder of RehabPath, a platform focused on improving the patient, caregiver, and family member experience in addiction treatment. Ben discusses the origins of RehabPath, which began in 2017, stemming from his prior work in marketing for addiction treatment centers and tech startups.
Ben emphasizes the importance of the user and patient experience and the challenges people face when seeking addiction treatment information online.
Learn More About RehabPath:
Connect with Ben:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjamincamp/
Interested in working with Hedy & Hopp on a healthcare marketing program?
Book time with Jenny today.
Connect with Jenny: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennybristow/
Explore what Hedy and Hopp can do for your healthcare marketing program.
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, a healthcare marketing agency. And I am so excited today to be chatting with Ben Camp. He is the CEO and one of the co-founders at RehabPath. Welcome, Ben.
Ben: Thanks, Jenny. Great to be here.
Jenny: So, we met a while ago, but I went up to your office and chatted with your organization about a month or so ago when you were having your organizational all-hands and we’re doing some in person training for your team. And, I was really blown away by your focus on patient, caregiver, and family member experience.
So I would love for us just to back up a little bit and have you share with our audience your concept for RehabPath. Why you decided to create it and kind [00:01:00] of how you’re always thinking about that experience throughout the process.
Ben: Sure. Okay. Thanks. I appreciate the kind words. We really enjoyed your talk.
I think people were inspired by your take on marketing as well. So, we started the company RehabPath in 2017. But before then, my co-founder, Jeremiah and I, and some of the other founding team members, have worked at a marketing agency that specialized in a few different segments.
So, I’ll kind of talk about two. One big segment was addiction treatment. So, we worked with treatment centers and helped them do their marketing and really learned a lot about that patient journey, how complicated it was, how difficult it was for these providers to both run a successful program and also keep the beds full.
And so, we were able to work on some really good strategies for that with them. And then on the other hand, we worked with a lot of startups just in the, just like tech startups. So it’s not, we weren’t [00:02:00] as focused as you on completely healthcare. But I think that there were some benefits to that.
So we were working on the, kind of on the healthcare side, but also, yeah, on the tech startup side, and one of our big clients was a company called UserTesting.com and they did, they had a product. They still do. They’re now publicly traded, but they were super small back then. And they developed this concept for remote usability testing where you could at any moment, as a, marketing, a lot of marketing people use it. All sorts of people would use it. But at any moment, you could just order a test from their panel. And their panel was just regular people that would get paid. I think at the time it was, like, ten a test and it would go to, they would get an order for a test to be run and you would just have them walk through something that you are building or a website that you had and get feedback from them.
And we just learned how important it was to, yeah, get that user feedback as we’re building things, whether it was for our clients, or as we started [00:03:00] developing these, this concept of RehabPath before we officially launched it. So anyways, we just from the outset have had a real focus on putting user and patient experience first. And as we looked at the addiction treatment space, we saw that most people, when they have an addiction or mental health problem, they turn to the Internet first over family, friends, medical professionals and the websites that they were finding either were very hard and clunky to navigate and find help.
Kind of on even the sites that had really good intentions. And then there are a lot of websites out there that had really bad intentions and were using dark UX patterns to trick people into calling a hotline and trying to redirect them to a treatment center that is basically paying for those calls or paying for the website.
So, we build websites that truly are an independent resource. And put that patient experience first for when people are looking for treatment. We have websites that help them [00:04:00] navigate this really complicated process of finding a treatment center. And, that’s been something that we’ve been working on now for since 2017.
Like I said, we’ve got a pretty large team now and have made a lot of progress and have thousands of treatment providers on our website that people are able to find each day.
Jenny: I love it. I am just proud of you for the work that you’ve done. It’s really great to think about how many lives you’re positively impacting.
But, I’d love for you to talk a little bit about when you think about this space in particular, how are you and your team understanding what information should be highlighted within all of these facility profiles? And then how are you understanding how to best serve the patient or the family member that’s searching?
Ben: Yeah. Great questions. And I think, I mean, the lives being impacted is, like, why we, I think, both really enjoy doing marketing in this space is we know that. We’re not just selling. I mean, I love marketing any [00:05:00] type of product that I believe in, but it’s really great to do it for something that is literally saving people’s lives.
And, that’s the outcome of good marketing that you’re doing. So, we have a research team from the outset, our one person, that was Olivia. She’s now our VP of Research with a lot of people on our team. She has her Master’s in Addiction Studies. And so she heads up the effort that our team takes to work through all the information that’s out there about treatment centers and try to highlight what’s most important.
One thing that, we’ll, I’ll acknowledge is important for people when they’re looking and it sounds kind of, it’s definitely not the most important thing, but we found that photos and good, just information about what because we’re mostly working with residential treatment centers.
So someone’s looking at: “I’m going to spend 30 plus days at this place.” It’s really important for people to know what that’s going to look and feel like. So, I mean, we found that [00:06:00] the better photos and video that treatment centers have can really help people make a decision and feel comfortable actually call, picking up the phone and calling.
So that’s, like, pretty surface level and we obviously see some treatment centers that that’s really all they have to offer is a nice facility, unfortunately, but when there’s the combination of, we start with, okay, they have a really nice facility. And so we try to highlight that in the, you know, and if we are working with treatment, we often sometimes work with treatment providers that have really high quality treatment, but then their marketing assets are really bad. And so, trying to point them to agencies that can help with that, or we’ll even just go on site and do photography to help make their listings on our site look better.
Because we don’t want people to overlook a great treatment provider just because the photos are bad. If they have, yeah, so, that’s definitely one piece of it. But then we really work to try to highlight the treatment program itself and try to suss out what a [00:07:00] treatment center actually specializes in.
So it’s, typically, if you just give a treatment center a form and ask them, like, what they treat, they’ll check pretty much every box and kind of just, it’s very, and they, it’s very hard to get them to differentiate themselves from others because they believe in what they’re doing and just say that they’re the best at everything pretty much and have the best staff and all that. So, we do really try to take a, so it’s very helpful for us to take a bit of an independent look and see what they actually specialize in, what their staff, what their staff is credentialed in, and things like that.
And then we’re able to, we have a few different ways that we are able to highlight the, those specializations. We’ll certainly, like, make sure that everything that they treat is shown on the profile, but we’re able to, in the way that we kind of rank our centers, when you’re looking at a feed, if you’re looking for a certain type of treatment, we try to push up centers that specialize in that type of treatment.[00:08:00]
Jenny: That’s wonderful. I’ll say when we’re doing content marketing strategies for healthcare organizations, and then we go back and look at the data of what content is working the most, TikTok is so popular right now. Short form videos are the videos that get the longest watch time, most engagement are the “What to Expect” videos.
So for example, what to expect at my ENT pediatric appointment, or what to expect for an MRI, whatever it is. It’s boring content, right, whenever you think about all of the sexy, fun influencer content people are creating now? But at the end of the day, that’s what patients and their families need in order to help make a good decision.
So I totally understand positioning.
Ben: Yeah, well, back in the marketing agency days, like, one thing that we would do with a lot of our clients is recommend that they do, like, a day, what an average day looks like in treatment and doing a video around that is, like, it’s a really simple concept, but just kind of walking them through, like, what the daily schedule looks like.
And if it’s not a video, just making sure [00:09:00] that’s just even published on the website so people can really get a sense of, a day or a weekly schedule, what that’s going to look like. Because, most people are, that are looking haven’t ever experienced treatment before. So they need like, really want to know what it, what they’re getting themselves into.
Jenny: Yep, absolutely. And one thing I’ll say that I’d like to chat about a little bit more is what these local clinics are experiencing and facilities as far as actually trying to do marketing on their own. I mean, we work with a rehabilitation center and the Head of Marketing is also the Director of Admission.
So, we often see, like, multiple hats being worn. And so, I would love to hear your thoughts about not only what you’re seeing as far as that structure within the facilities today, but what changes you’ve seen since you’ve started this platform? And if there’s been any movement,
Ben: Yeah, I think the multiple hats thing is real, for sure. And, as we’re really passionate about the [00:10:00] patient journey, like I’ve talked about, but many of us that interact with our customers and have had a lot of experience doing that are also super passionate about helping these treatment centers run successful businesses and find people that can really use the treatment that they’re providing, so, I’m super empathetic to them.
And often just some of the most, like, passionate people that you’re working with. So I think, I mean, one thing that you’re saying the Director of Admissions and the and she’s also running marketing.
I mean, a lot of times the marketing that look that treatment centers are doing is a mix of kind of referral network building, so, I mean, they have, like, kind of on the ground marketing people that are making connections with local providers like hospitals, et cetera. And like, kind of doing that.
Like, I guess you would call it, like, old school, like, person-to-person marketing and that’s very effective [00:11:00] and, like, is a big way that treatment centers kind of build their beds and also, building that, like, alumni network. So, if someone’s gone to a treatment center and hopefully been successful just continuing to build that relationship with them over time is really helpful for getting those referrals in the future when they, because often these people end up mentoring someone that needs treatment and they’re able to point them to that center.
So, I mean, that’s really important, especially as a center, like, grows over time in terms of just, like, longevity, they can rely on more and more on that. But regardless, we see that digital strategy is really important on top of that. So, I was just talking to one of our customers yesterday and they were just saying how there’s so much overlap between that kind of on the ground referral marketing and the digital marketing.
And, sometimes people want to, like, in the CRM or something, put/decide which one gets credit and there’s a lot of kind of fighting over who, who actually filled that bed. [00:12:00] But often it’s a bit of a combined effort. So, I don’t know that I’m answering your question, but I’m just like, that’s just on my mind is that kind of, the pairing of the two is there’s a lot going on there as far as I’m trying to remember what your original question was now, maybe redirect me.
Jenny: Yeah, no worries. It just shifts, like, where you think it’s going to be going in the future from an industry perspective.
Ben: Yeah, I mean, we’ve seen, like, some shifts that we’ve seen is people kind of learning how to do their own SEO over time, which is good, I think, and not an over reliance on Google Ads, which had been a big way that people have historically filled their beds and are still doing that. But, I think that there’s one of the trends, even on the side has been, I mean, Google has gotten a lot better at surfacing, high quality content and user [00:13:00] first kind of content.
So, both our SEO strategy and then a lot of our clients is to just answer people’s questions, help them, like you were saying, like that whole, like, what is it like to go to treatment? Like, those types of queries are, have I mean, there’s not nearly as much kind of shenanigans on the outside as there used to be thankfully, and so it’s, we’ve seen some of the, some of the players in the space that were pretty low quality as far as websites out there to help people find treatment have, like, kind of fallen off over time because they didn’t ever really have that high quality of content. And so, just as we continue to invest in what we’re doing, we’re seeing kind of the rewards of that in terms of how our rankings continue.
And, like, when people are searching for treatment, they’re finding our websites because Google is getting data every day back that., “Oh, people come to this website and find what they’re looking for.” So that’s been really good. We, [00:14:00] a big trend is, over the last 5 or 6 years since we started RehabPath has been just the whole insurance thing, kind of post Obamacare where much more people are able to get treatment.
But then it gets complicated because people want to know, like, what their insurance covers and there’s a lot of restrictions on, but, insurance companies are always pushing back on what they will cover and things like that. So, that’s something that on our kind of road map is to help people navigate that treatment, like, looking for treatment with that information about their insurance.
So, if we had, I mean, a lot of times treatment centers have, like, a verification of benefits form on their website. We would love to centralize that so people can put in a verification benefits and then we only show them treatment centers that would work with their insurance so that it would just like, it’s just there’s a lot of as, it’s like, if someone picks up the phone, calls the treatment center, and then they find out, oh, like, they don’t take my insurance or they can’t, I can’t afford this, the chances of them [00:15:00] going and picking up the phone and calling another center just become less and less because it can be very demoralizing.
And there’s only that, like, there’s only those small moments where someone is, especially if you’re talking about the patient themselves, is willing to put in when looking for mental health treatment. It can be a very small window, so a lot of what we’re doing is just trying to make it so that when someone does want to make that decision, we’re taking all the barriers away.
Jenny: I will tell you, just from, I had a family friend that wanted to seek care about 10 years ago, and they ended up eventually just giving up. They, like you said, had a day where they said, okay, if somebody can find me care that I can go and check into now, I will do it. And there was no tool to search.
There was no way to be able to understand what resources even were available in the state of Missouri, let alone those that are nearby and those that accepted insurance. So huge [00:16:00] paradigm shift. So, I would love to end. Oh, go ahead.
Ben: That just reminds me of some stats that we’ve been looking at. And, I think this is from Sam.
So, I’m not sure it’s some government study. So in any, in a, in the year that they did this study they found that there were 659,000 people that didn’t get treatment, but wanted to get treatment for substance use disorder. And then they, here’s some of the reasons for no treatment. There was 221,000 people that didn’t know where to go.
There were 195,000 people that couldn’t find a program with the type of treatment desired. There were 75,000 people who couldn’t find a program close enough and then 37,000 with no openings where they looked. So, like, those are really interesting for us to see, obviously, and where we think that we can help more and more people, like, find a place to go find a program that has a type of [00:17:00] treatment.
If they can’t find a program close enough, help match them with one that they could go to and it gets covered by their insurance. So those are like, really interesting stats that we’re seeing around this. So, yeah, I mean.
Jenny: That’s an entire city’s population.That’s staggering when you think about it through that lens.
Ben: Yeah.
Jenny: So, I would love to end by you helping to help explain if there are rehab and behavioral health centers that are interested in being on your platform, what are the options? Like, if there’s a marketing person listening that wants to make sure their facility is adequately listed, how should they move forward?
Ben: Yeah. So, From the outset, our strategy is to, has been to be comprehensive. So we list treatment centers for free. And like, our research team is always looking for treatment centers that are on our platform that should be and so if a center’s, very likely a center that’s listening to us, if they’re in the US, they probably are on our platform already as a free listing.
But [00:18:00] if not, that would be the first step is to get them set up with a free listing. And then we kind of have this process where we, very similar to Google My Business, where you claim the listing and can make edits and things like that. So, we are able to provide value to centers just on the free listing side.
And then if people, if treatment centers are looking for larger reach, that’s where our advertising program comes in. So, that’s a really simple program. That is it’s cost per click. So similar to most digital advertising programs. So you pay for the volume that you get. So, basically, by turning on that campaign you’ll get a much larger reach off.
And it’s like, if you’re in one city, you’re getting access to neighboring cities, different targeting that you’re looking for. So, yeah, so the easiest way is just to fill out our contact form. And we’ve got a sales team that will, works up a discovery call and just make sure that you’d be a good fit, but yeah, I love it.
Jenny: Well, Ben, thank you so much for being on today. Thank you for the work that you’re doing. I’m going to share a [00:19:00] link to your LinkedIn profile as well as to RehabPath in the show notes, so if anyone’s interested in learning more, they know where to go.
Ben: Yeah. Thanks, Jenny. It’s been lovely getting to know you this year and just really excited for the opportunity to be on your podcast.
Jenny: Oh, thank you. And for all of our listeners, thanks for tuning in. We will see you on a following episode of We Are, Marketing Happy. Have a great day.
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