Health care marketers are under increased pressure to produce business results for their hospitals, health systems, practices and organizations.
Hardwiring ROI into every campaign is a must, not a should.
Franklin Street has built patient-centered brands® for leading health systems and organizations for 30 years. We know the art and science of generating ROI for health care brands.
But because this topic is so important, I wanted to reach out to colleagues who are masters in this topic and ask if they would share their insights to help you win more share of market.
These thought leaders include:
- Jim Hobson of True North Custom
- Chris Boyer of @chris boyer llc
- Brian Forrester of Workshop Digital
- Tom Corry of HDIA Analytics
Watch these segments to learn valuable insights in driving ROI into your organization. And be sure to sign up for The Next Idea newsletter to get new tools, insights and resources delivered to your in box every month.
The Value of Creating an Interdisciplinary Council for Strategic Marketing and Planning
Health care marketers are expected to drive service line volume and ROI in their organizations. But most marketers don’t have control over access and patient experience: the key indicators of service line success. Learn from Jim Hobson, CEO of True North Custom and a former hospital administrator, about the importance of building an interdisciplinary council to develop, plan and execute service line campaigns.
Key Takeaways
The interdisciplinary team structure includes:
- Marketing leadership
- Service line leadership
- Planning leadership
- Financial leadership
- Physician/clinical leadership
The Meeting Agenda Template
- Help build the strategy and plan, including what sub-specialties to market
- Identify the most logical access points and how to track them
- Address gaps in access or patient dissatisfiers
- Establish FPV: “Financial Patient Value”
Bonus benefit
By creating the interdisciplinary team structure, non-marketing stakeholders can appreciate what marketing can and cannot be responsible for.
The Three Categories of KPI Metrics for Health Care Marketers
Chris Boyer shares 3 categories of metrics that health care marketers should track and measure: attitudinal, actionable and financial.
The C-suite is focused on financial metrics and marketers should strive to track financial return on their campaigns. However, without documenting attitudinal and actionable metrics, marketers can’t be expected to achieve financial return. It’s crucial to align strategies and tactics with desired accomplishments or goals.
Setting expectations with stakeholders is also critical for success. It takes time to track and provide financial metrics.
A key place to start is to develop a “Data Dictionary”—a universally embraced playbook of how all stakeholders describe KPIs. Marketers may know the value of a Facebook ad click thru conversion, but clinical stakeholders may not. Take the time necessary to develop a common language via “Data Dictionary” so all stakeholders speak the same language, evaluate results consistently, and recognize the data gaps that should be closed to properly evaluate marketing success.
Key Takeaways
- Three categories of metrics: attitudinal, actionable and financial
- Align tactics and strategies with desired accomplishments
- Most stakeholders want financial metrics first—but you need time to track and provide financial metrics
- Assess where you are, what your “runway” looks like
- Create a “Data Dictionary”
- Identify data gaps up front—before those gaps get wider
The Importance of Having Control Over Your Health Care Marketing Data
Brian Forrester, co-founder of Workshop Digital, shares why it’s essential to have control over your analytics. Having control allows marketers to identify long-term trends and opportunities for significant ROI.
How Health Care Marketers Can Gain Control Over Their Data
Brian documents the key steps necessary for hospital and healthcare marketers to gain critical control over their data and analytics.
Key Takeaways
- Own your data, including:
- Google AdWords
- Google Analytics
- Call tracking
- Heat mapping
- Request ownership and challenge if agency pushes back
Two Types of Digital Health Care Marketing Optimization: Campaign Level and Historical Level
Healthcare marketers can optimize efforts on two levels: at the campaign level and at a historical or trending level. For example, optimizing at the campaign level provides marketers the opportunity to improve performance of ad groups (such as search terms and landing pages). Historical or trending level allows marketers to optimize channels such as websites.
Key Takeaways
- Two levels of optimization: campaign and historical
- Campaign example: AdWords, social posts
- Historical optimization for a website can inform:
- Designing for different devices
- Sunsetting outdated content
- Moving popular pages up in the architecture
- Reducing conversion pain points
Health Care Marketing Conversion Pain Points
Brian shares common conversion “pain points” health care marketers face and how to overcome them.
Common conversion pain points to fix
- Information is buried or undiscoverable
- Provide a Call-to-Action on every page as a conversion endpoint
- Most popular CTAs:
- Gated content
- Forms
- Call Tracking
How Digital Marketing Complements Traditional Marketing (and Vice-Versa)
Brian discusses how digital marketing can complement traditional marketing and vice-versa. For example, how digital can measure “brand lift” and how to track traditional marketing channels with digital tools to measure impact.
Key Takeaways
- Traditional/mass marketing strengthens digital marketing and vice-versa
- You can measure “brand lift” of mass media marketing with organic search queries
- Assign call tracking numbers for traditional marketing tactics to measure impact
- Use Vanity URLs to track user journey to know where Awareness/Consideration began
Key Items to Test in Digital Marketing
Brian shares key items to test in digital marketing and campaign efforts.
Key Takeaways
Items to test in digital marketing:
- Headlines
- Pages optimized for organic search
- Channels
- Landing pages
- CTAs
- Key message
- Video or no video
- Type of images
- Long form vs. bulleted content
- Statistical relevance crucial: need enough time or enough data
CRM: Best Practices and Building Your Own Tool
What if you can’t afford a CRM vendor for your organization? Tom Corry is a legend in the direct marketing and health care CRM space. In this video training, he shares many insights including how to build out campaigns if your organization can’t afford to hire a vendor.
Patient Journey Mapping Video Training
Learn a simple Path to Purchase model for identifying your patients’ journey in health care decision-making. That way you can inform how your brand engages audiences along their journey and identify specific variables to measure for maximum ROI.
Click here to watch the video training and download the companion worksheet.
Let us know in the comments:
- The 1 thing you wish you could measure more consistently/better/effectively
