Healthcare Strategy

20

15

IS

SU

E 2

This issue of Healthcare Strategy Alert! is produced in cooperation with Coffey Communications, Inc.

on data-driven strategies

Building physician referrals ... 6

Data-driven physician relationship management ... 8

Marketing automation ... 10

Transforming healthcare marketing 2

TAKEnote

Judy Neiman, PresidentForum for Healthcare Strategists

Th e Transformation of Healthcare Marketing

Data Paves the WayAmong those tools are precision marketing, real-time campaign management, digital strategies, content marketing, and customer relationship management (CRM). Th e experience of organizations immersed in the transition off ers lessons for all healthcare marketers.

Orlando Health’s Radical TransformationFor Orlando Health, Orlando, FL, an organizationwide cost-reduction eff ort in 2012, driven by a troubled economy and signifi cant reimbursement cuts, was the impetus for a complete transformation in marketing strategy, structure, and execution. All departments were being asked to reduce spending—and marketing was no exception.

Faced with the prospect of budget cuts, marketing leaders at Orlando Health concluded that it was time to radically change the organization’s approach to

marketing. “We knew that unless we changed our marketing strategy, we would not have suffi cient resources to do an eff ective job in the future,” says John Marzano, Vice President, Chief Marketing & Communications Offi cer. “We needed to appropriately balance traditional ways of marketing and establish much more of a digital and multichannel approach, which is where the consumer was going.

“It’s really time to evolve marketing healthcare services,” Marzano continues. “Historically, healthcare marketing has focused on hospitals and facilities. But healthcare consumers today are not searching for facilities; they’re searching for services, information about diseases and treatments, and specialized physicians. We needed to adjust our strategy and tactics to focus on meeting consumers where they’re actively searching for information. If they

Healthcare marketing executives are increasingly recognizing that traditional marketing methods are no longer suffi cient in today’s world. Successful marketing now requires more targeted, data-driven approaches—and fl uency with newer methods and tools.

By Debbie Reczynski

Data Drives Today’sMarketing Strategy

With today’s growing abundance of data, accompanied by access to new technologies that enable better use of that data, healthcare executives have a tremendous opportunity to advance marketing and physician relationship strategies. And marketing and physician relations executives are clearly interested: data-driven approaches to marketing, physician relations, referral development, and digital strategy were a key topic of discussion at the 20th Annual Healthcare Marketing and Physician Strategies Summit this past April.

Th is issue continues the data-driven conversation. Featured in the issue are in-depth case studies of several organizations that have made data and analytics the foundation of their consumer-directed marketing and physician relations strategies. Also included is an examination of marketing automation, with some guidelines for organizations interested in pursuing a marketing automation platform.

How does your organization stack up? Read on for ideas to advance your use of data and analytics. And mark your calendars for the 21st Annual Healthcare Marketing and Physician Strategies Summit, May 23-25, 2016, Chicago, where data, analytics, and measurement will again be an important focus.

2 Healthcare Strategy Alert!

Data Paves the Way

“Our entire team now is skilled in a multichannel marketing approach.”

are out there searching, we want to be there with meaningful content so that when they have their ‘moment of need,’ they will choose Orlando Health for their care.”

To set things in motion, Marzano first had to convince organizational leaders and physicians that this was the right way to go. “That took quite a bit of time,” he says. “It’s a shift in mindset, and it took us more than a year to socialize ideas with executive leadership, the board, and physicians about why this shift was necessary to drive future revenue for the organization.”

At the same time, Marzano was assessing whether the structure and skills of his marketing team were right for a strategy that involved understanding new ways of engaging, nurturing, and converting consumers to action. Ultimately, full-time employees (FTEs) were shifted out of more traditional marketing areas into a digital environment and new

talent was recruited to fill the newly defined positions.

Next, Orlando Health eliminated its in-house creative services function and repurposed those FTEs to build a physician sales force as part of an integrated marketing and sales function. “This sales team is fully calibrated with our marketing efforts, and those liaisons are updated and informed to effectively communicate consistent information to potential referring physicians,” says Marzano.

The third component of the transformation ensured that Orlando Health would have the data analytics needed to validate return on investment (ROI) for its marketing efforts. “Through the implementation of CRM and physician relationship management (PRM) platforms, we now have the capability to access intelligence to optimize our precision marketing approach,” Marzano explains. “The analytics will

help us better determine what’s working and not working, as well as efficiently identify other key services that can drive additional revenue.

“Our entire team now is skilled in a multichannel marketing approach,” he continues. “The team is progressing nicely. We’re optimizing our campaigns; better targeting consumers; and building the foundation to track, measure, and drive ROI for the organization.”

The results of several multichannel digital test campaigns launched in late 2014 demonstrate how well the strategy works. The 12 campaigns, which supported key services and ran for 90 days, drove 82 million digital impressions from all digital channels including social media, search engine optimization (SEO), and search engine marketing (SEM); 90,200 unique digital visitors to Orlando Health’s landing pages and websites; and 3,033 conversions,

(Continued on page 4)

32015 Issue 2 3

4 Healthcare Strategy Alert!

support the organization’s business goals for both consumers and physicians.”

There’s still work to do, though. “We’ve made great progress, but we’re not there yet,” says Marzano. “We continue to work with our IT department to ensure that we will be able to consistently transfer data from our patient accounting system into our CRM system. Time is an issue as well, because once you start sharing data analytics, the demand increases exponentially. Finally, we continue to work on integrating our call center operations into the CRM. We will continue to drive patients actively searching for information to a digital environment as much as possible, and for those who prefer to call and talk with an appointment scheduler, our goal will be to make that transaction seamless. It’s a clear work in progress. We’ll get there.”

Ochsner’s Shift to Data-Driven MarketingOchsner Health System, New Orleans, LA, is another organization that has made the shift from traditional opinion-based advertising to marketing that is highly-focused, data-based, and measurable. “It’s really a shift in mindset,” says Terri McNorton, Vice President, Marketing. “I like to summarize it in terms of spending: if we spend $1,000 on marketing, that’s $1,000 that someone else in the organization doesn’t have the opportunity to spend on something else. So, we have a responsibility and obligation to know that it is going to get results and that it’s the best possible way to spend that $1,000. The only way we can accomplish that is if we’re measuring the results.

“We’ve learned to take that mindset and integrate it into everything we’re doing—whether it’s on the digital side or on the traditional side,” McNorton continues. Regardless of the platform, the question is always how are we using data before, during, and after our programs to make sure that we are optimizing those initiatives.”

Before launching a program or campaign, McNorton and her team test ideas

meaning consumers took some kind of action, such as downloading an information guide or making an appointment.

“Out of those conversions, we recorded 495 patient appointments that generated $17 million in gross charges and $4 million in net patient revenue,” says Marzano. “The numbers knocked us over—and again, these were just digital test campaigns over a 90-day period, without any backing of a full multichannel campaign. It was a defining moment for us. We were confident that we were on the right track.”

What’s more, those 3,033 conversions provided crucial customer data that plugged into the CRM for future outreach and engagement. “The conversions are feeding the funnel,” explains Marzano. “Our goal is to then drive those leads into an action.”

Right now, Orlando Health has 20 campaigns in the market for a variety of service areas: cardiac care, sports medicine, gynecology, oncology, and bariatrics, among others. All are targeted in precise ways based on how the consumer is searching. “We link consumers back to relevant Orlando Health landing pages where they can provide us with their contact information so that we can further engage and nurture them and ultimately convert them into an action,” says Marzano. “Once the CRM is fully functional, we’ll also be able to link to consumer lifestyle demographics for even more hyper-targeted marketing.”

Meanwhile, on the physician side, an electronic PRM tool enables streamlined management of physician activities. “We can identify which physicians are opportunities for additional business or which are opportunities for additional education about Orlando Health services and fine-tune our outreach strategy accordingly,” Marzano notes. “Our strategy is completely aligned so that we are able to cross-promote initiatives and reinforce key messaging, all designed to

(Continued from page 3)

5

with online panels, which helps set up for a better implementation. Precision marketing and propensity modeling are also used to target mailings and digital campaigns to the audiences most likely to benefit from the service being marketed.

“Rather than segmenting patients based on age and gender or geographic regions, we are able to, in a very focused way, segment on patients who are most likely to benefit from or need services such as cardiology or back and spine services,” says McNorton. These high-propensity patients are identified through Ochsner’s CRM program, which uses claims data and patient data from millions of interactions across the country to propensity model patient needs in a specific market. The result of these targeted campaigns is a better response for less cost.

Then, while a program is active, real-time monitoring provides data and information to help improve programs and optimize results. “There’s so much that we can be doing, especially on the digital side, to help us understand how consumers are reacting during the course of implementation,” says McNorton. “If there’s an online call to action or e-links, we have the ability to see how consumers are engaging or not engaging, where their journey might be taking them online, where they might be falling off, where we might not have enough content, or where the content doesn’t appear to be engaging consumers. We can use that information in real time to make adjustments and better optimize campaigns while they’re still in market.”

And when a marketing program ends, indicators such as market share and downstream visits and associated revenue are assessed. That data not only shows how well the program did, but can also suggest where improvements might be needed.

For example, as the top program in the nation for liver transplants, Ochsner had an opportunity to do some broad digital outreach for patients in need of a transplant. “These are people who are online, they know their diagnosis, and they’re searching for information, so the digital environment is a great place for us to engage them,” says McNorton. “By watching how they interact with us—by feeding into our webpages, engaging with those pages, completing forms we have online—we can get an overall look not only at how many people see the material as an initial impression and how many click through, but also how they are engaging. We can see how many are calling to schedule appointments and how many actually do schedule appointments.”

All of that provides a good view of a patient’s path to Ochsner as well as information on how to make that path more meaningful. Issues or obstacles that are interfering with the patient’s path can be identified, and steps can be quickly taken to resolve them.

For instance, Ochsner had an issue on a weekend where calls regarding the transplant program were rolling to an operator, but the operator wasn’t able to provide the information callers were looking for. “Because we were able to track that, we could quickly come up with a solution to get patients the information they needed and keep them engaged,” says McNorton.

A CRM MindsetAs often as possible, Ochsner runs its marketing programs through its CRM system. But McNorton notes that, even without a CRM system, it’s still important to take a CRM mindset into marketing. “You need to make sure that you are able to capture data and use it to track patient interactions throughout a marketing campaign or program,” she says.

Visitors to an organization’s website, for example, provide plenty of information that can be used to improve their online experience the next time they visit.

“If you come to our website and have given us information that helps us understand what you might be looking for, don’t we have an obligation to use that information so that your next visit to the website is more meaningful and more relevant?” McNorton asks. “If someone registers for childbirth classes or requests pediatric information or vaccine schedules, don’t we have an obligation to make sure that on their next visit, they’re not served up information about our Medicare Advantage or senior programs? We’ve got to do a better job of getting to know patients one-to-one and making sure that the content we provide is more targeted and tailored to their needs.

“It’s really about iterative learning,” McNorton adds. “And that’s what marketing should be about. It shouldn’t be about planning the campaign, implementing the campaign, and waiting six months to see what the campaign accomplished. It should be very much about putting programs into market based on the very best research that says it’s going to be successful and using real-time data while it’s in market to improve on it. This is something we in healthcare need to get better at. Otherwise, we’ll be quickly overshadowed by competitors who do understand CRM and who know how to do it well.”

Sources John Marzano can be reached at john.marzano@orlandohealth.com.

Terri McNorton can be reached at tmcnorton@ochsner.org.

2015 Issue 2

“You need to make sure that you are able to capture data and use it to track patient interactions throughout a marketing campaign or program.”

Armed with solid data, healthcare organizations are vastly improving their ability to identify physicians key to growth, strengthen referral relationships, improve hospital and physician alignment, and grow revenue in priority service lines. The fact is, data is power … and it can aid tremendously in physician relationship management and outreach, as well as in gaining physician and executive support for the efforts.

At the University of Chicago Medicine (UCM), data is having a major impact on decision-making in the area of marketing and physician strategy. “It’s all part of moving the organization forward from being more transaction-oriented to influencing through analytics,” says Carol Marshall, Executive Director, Referral Marketing, Customer Insights and Analytics. “With data analytics, we are able to take a smarter, more efficient and effective approach to our interactions with referring physicians.”

By integrating claims data with physician data from a PRM and UCM’s EPIC system, Marshall and her team can target opportunities, track changes in referral patterns, and measure returns on outreach efforts. “The data gives us a chance to not only build on our base of loyal referrers but also redirect referrals from competitors. We can drill down by service line and by physician within that service line,” says Marshall.

“We’re able to develop group practice profiles that show referrals to UCM by physicians within the group. We can see our loyalists, our splitters, and who’s not referring to us yet. We look at which of our programs and which faculty physicians are getting a high volume of referrals. And we can see where referrals are going if they’re not coming to us and whether there’s a particular AMC, community hospital, or specialty physician group out in the community that is a favorite.”

Engaging Physicians in OutreachThat data is presented to faculty physicians within a service line, and with their input, an outreach plan is developed. The plan includes all of the information known about referring

group practices based on the data as well as intelligence gathered in the field, such as a group’s interest in UCM’s Clinically Integrated Network, opportunities for improvement, and how they view the University of Chicago Medicine. The plan includes a commitment from faculty to accompany outreach team members on visits to referring physicians.

These physician-to-physician encounters are essential to the success of UCM’s outreach strategy, so it’s crucial that faculty physicians understand why they need to be involved and see the value of their participation. “As an AMC, the University of Chicago Medicine is totally dependent on referrals,” says Marshall. “So having our faculty reach out to community physicians is an absolute must. With data, we are able to show faculty physicians what we are doing on their behalf, as well as the return on their engagement. They see that the dollars invested are working for them and that the effort they are expending as part of our outreach and marketing efforts is worth it.”

One surgeon who had questioned the value of physician outreach has been so impressed with the referrals he’s gotten since the implementation of the data-driven approach that he has now become a vocal spokesperson. Through face-to-face meetings, he’s been able to win over physicians who had been referring elsewhere and is now seeing a steady stream of referrals from those physicians.

“That’s how we’ve been able to help our faculty understand the importance of building meaningful relationships with their referring physicians,” says Marshall. “Many of

6 Healthcare Strategy Alert!

By Debbie Reczynski

A Model That WorksData-Driven Referral Development

Health systems swim in data, but what’s been missing is the ability to integrate and apply data in a meaningful way.

Evariant provides a centralized data management hub and analytics engine that leverages multiple data sources, produces powerful predictive insights, is easy to use, and drives informed decisions and actions. Learn more at www.evariant.com.

Join the conversation!

Can you overcome your marketing challenges without a wall full of hieroglyphics?

our faculty have done a 180 from thinking they were too busy and that we should be bringing them referrals to being totally engaged in the process.”

And they’re letting the C-suite know how important outreach is as well. “Our faculty physicians have been extremely positive and vocal with the C-suite,” notes Marshall. “The faculty’s success from outreach has been so positive that our team has been flooded with requests to visit referring physicians.” As a result, Marshall has been able to expand her outreach team.

“In a very competitive market, the University of Chicago Medicine’s inpatient hospital volumes have grown significantly in the past couple of years,” Marshall adds. “We take that as strong evidence that this approach works.”

Source Carol Marshall can be reached at carol.marshall@uchospitals.edu.

Carol Marshall offers the following tips for successfully implementing a data-driven outreach strategy:

1. Work toward complete and accurate data capture of referring physicians in your EMR.

2. Make sure financials are readily available and linked to your data.

3. National Provider Identifier (NPI#) is the lynchpin—make sure it is included in all data systems.

4. Invest in claims data, but also invest the time to configure it correctly—service lines, DRGs, competitors.

5. Invest in a really good analyst! Whether it’s a separate position or something you take on yourself, you need someone who understands data and can connect multiple data sources together.

5 Tips and Tools for Data-Driven Outreach

8 Healthcare Strategy Alert!

Health Quest, a three-hospital integrated health system serving New York’s Hudson Valley region, is seeing success with a data-driven approach to physician relations and outreach. Although Health Quest does not have a liaison team, through diligent use of a PRM platform, the LaGrangeville, New York-based system has been able to improve physician tracking, build referrals, reduce leakage, and take a smarter approach to network growth.

“Th e PRM provides high-quality outpatient data, which has been diffi cult to get in New York state, as well as almost real-time access to inpatient data,” says David Ping, Senior Vice President, Strategic Planning and Business Development. “We have more

visibility into physician activity in the market, and we’re able to view it in an actionable time frame. Instead of relying on anecdotal evidence about where physicians are admitting patients, we have the data to track how much business comes to one of our hospitals

or diagnostic facilities and how much is going somewhere else.

“With that information,” he adds, “we can have meaningful conversations with physicians. If a physician’s volumes have dropped, we can ask why so that we

By Debbie Reczynski

Data-Driven Physician Relationship Management

Sometimes a physician simply is not aware of all your organization can do and what the results have been.

9

can uncover potential issues or problem areas and address them.”

Driving Outreach ImpactFor example, when analysis revealed that one orthopedics group was starting to refer fewer patients to one Health Quest hospital, a team that included the hospital’s CEO, operating room director, and Ping went out and met with the group’s managing partner and practice manager. “We asked, how are we failing you, what are we doing wrong, and what are the issues causing your physicians to refer elsewhere,” says Ping.

Several issues emerged from those discussions, including how Health Quest was handling patient education for knee replacement patients and some process fl ow issues that were making scheduling diffi cult for physicians. “We came up with a list of 10 things that were either creating process problems or leading to perceptions that there might be quality issues,” says Ping. “And we said, if we address these, would you be willing to refer more of your patients to our hospital?”

Physicians agreed that they would. So, through a series of monthly meetings, Health Quest executives worked with the physicians to resolve the issues and implement solutions.

Th e approach worked. Physicians were having a better experience, and so were their patients. Once physicians saw that, volumes started to shift, says Ping. In the fi rst 12 months, Health Quest saw an increase of $4.5 million in revenue attributable to this initiative.

Th e data also provides a look into relationships among physicians, which adds further knowledge about referral patterns and potential opportunities for redirecting referrals. “We can see which physicians have strong ties to each other based on the patients they have

in common,” Ping explains. “We can use that information to determine if there are physicians out in the community who we might want to talk with about Health Quest programs and our quality and patient outcomes so that we might be able to change some of those referral patterns.”

Leakage, Loyalty, and RetentionData not only helps grow referrals, it also helps keep leakage down. Health Quest employs approximately 120 practitioners in its medical group, including 40 primary care practitioners. As with referring physicians, the ability to track activity for employed physicians provides important information for opening a dialogue with physicians who are referring outside the network.

“Where problems exist, you can sit down and talk with physicians to fi nd out why,” Ping explains. “It’s also an opportunity to make the case for your own facilities and specialists. Sometimes a physician simply is not aware of all your organization can do and what the results have been. He or she may not be aware that you have three surgeons on staff who can do the exact same procedure that they’re referring outside of the network for and who are actually receiving better ratings from the ratings agencies.” Since starting to track this information, leakage from the employed group has declined, and one physician now sends 95 percent of his patients to Health Quest.

It’s also important to let loyal physicians know that they are valued. “If we have a doctor who’s doing 80 percent of his work at a Health Quest hospital, we still want to know what we can do to improve,” says Ping. “We don’t want those physicians to feel like they’ve been forgotten—we want to know what we can do better so that we continue to earn their business every day. Data lets us have those conversations as well.”

A Smarter Approach to Practice AcquisitionFinally, data has been a valuable tool for Health Quest as it seeks to grow its Physician Enterprise through practice acquisitions. “By preparing custom reports using data on alignment with Health Quest, business that is already coming to us, leakage to non-Health Quest hospitals or ambulatory facilities, and payer mix, we’ve been able to create a consistent format for reviewing practices and evaluating their incremental revenue potential,” Ping notes. “We use that information to determine if there’s an opportunity to grow the business more by acquiring a given practice or if it would be more of a defensive purchase.”

Health Quest’s data-driven approach to physician relationship management has been successful, and Ping attributes the success to securing executive buy-in and educating leaders throughout the organization early on. “It’s never too early to start,” he says. “We spent time working with the management teams at each of our hospitals and at the medical practice. We explained the platform, demonstrated how it could work, and gave them some good examples of doctors that we really need to talk with. Because we don’t have a liaison team, it’s our hospital CEOs and service line leaders who are doing the outreach, so they need to understand how to use the data and see that it works.”

Another recommendation: start with the low-hanging fruit. “We started with initiatives that would show results quickly,” concludes Ping. “Once we had our fi rst success, with orthopedics, everyone saw the benefi t and was totally behind the strategy.”

Source

David Ping can be reached at dping@health-quest.org.

2015 Issue 2

10 Healthcare Strategy Alert!

Automation is changing the way we do pretty much everything these days. Building a car. Designing a house. Creating a retirement plan. Now, it has the potential to change the way we do marketing as well—sort of.

While marketing automation isn’t technically about do-it-yourself or replacing marketing professionals, it is about automating components of the marketing process to make individual, repeatable tasks more practical and to increase the effi ciency of marketing spending.

At its core, marketing automation is about using technology to centralize and manage real-time, multifaceted marketing campaigns that are heavily focused on content marketing and lead nurturing in the digital space. Th ink of it a little like a virtual sales force—generating qualifi ed leads and building relationships on top of the broad-based marketing and advertising campaigns you do to promote products or services.

Marketing automation takes advantage of technologies that facilitate faster, more coordinated communications with potential customers and, as a result, delivers clear benefi ts to marketing professionals looking to optimize their marketing spending and generate more qualifi ed leads for real sales teams or other conversion strategies.

Just as important, marketing automation can provide increased effi ciency and productivity, better marketing and sales alignment, and richer target audience and business intelligence. In short, it’s a good thing for marketers to add to their arsenal of marketing tools. And healthcare professionals, who are grappling with stiff er competition, more discerning patients, a need for population health strategies, and a desire to build lifetime customer value and loyalty, can certainly leverage the benefi ts of marketing automation.

Yet, jumping on this trend may seem daunting given how new and changing it still is. Th e decisions surrounding appropriate software platforms, contact databases, lead scoring, and other technologies can all be a little confusing.

As healthcare marketers explore this emerging solution set, they can learn from consumer and business brands that have been leveraging automation for the past few years. Looking at what other healthcare organizations have struggled with along the way can be a useful fi rst step as well. So, here are 11 guidelines for a smoother marketing automation experience.

1 Have a goal—and a well-defi ned strategy to meet that goal.

Th is seems intuitive, but it’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of using new technology and digital platforms and forget to set up clear expectations and a business plan. Th is doesn’t mean you have to invest hundreds of hours or thousands of dollars up front. Piloting and testing automation solutions is ideal, but even these test eff orts should be clearly defi ned.

2 Have the right people in place to set up and manage things on

an ongoing basis. Despite the name, marketing automation can be staff-intensive, especially on the front end. And most initiatives require a different mix of skills than those associated with traditional marketing and advertising efforts—skills including interactive development, content creation, analytics, and different approaches to production and design. Whether staffing internally, outsourcing, or

BY Daniel FellPresident Neathawk Dubuque & PackettHe can be reached at dfell@ndp-agency.com.

BY David PetersonDigital StrategistNeathawk Dubuque & PackettHe can be reached at dpeterson@ndp-agency.com.

BY Kelsi O’LearyAccount ExecutiveNeathawk Dubuque & PackettShe can be reached at koleary@ndp-agency.com.

for Marketing Automation Success

11 Rules

11

a combination of both, make sure you have identified the necessary resources and have defined roles and responsibilities ahead of time.

3 Marketing automation is a multidisciplinary effort.

A successful automation effort requires more than just the marketing team. Other key players include the web team, IT, finance, service line staff, and clinical professionals—all of whom can bring insights into the customer decision path, content creation, and conversion points. Nurturing relationships is a unique challenge that everyone has a role in; marketing can’t do it in a vacuum.

4 Marketing automation is NOT email marketing. Although email

can be one component of marketing automation, it should not be relied on for an entire strategy. Too often, email is used as a blunt tool to push out messaging indiscriminately. A better approach is to focus on content tailored to your target audiences and use inbound marketing to attract, nurture, convert, and delight your prospects. Email can then support those efforts and keep that content in front of engaged prospects.

5 Vet your automation vendors. There are a variety of automation

systems and cloud-based tools on the market, and they are evolving rapidly with many of the big companies buying up smaller niche players and expanding their solutions. Comparing vendors can be confusing and frustrating, especially when it comes to things like pricing. Make sure the products you select meet and exceed your needs and allow you to grow as your needs expand. Strive to have a full understanding of costs involved as well as what resources are required for setup and maintenance. 

6 If you don’t have a CRM system, get one. While marketing

automation can work as an independent marketing solution, it’s really designed to work in conjunction with a CRM system. Building and funneling qualified leads to your contact database should be the ultimate goal, and most automation systems have very limited database capabilities.

7 Plan ahead and create trigger flowcharts and customer paths.

Unlike a simple email blast or traditional advertising campaign, marketing automation takes time and intent. Strive to further segment your target audiences with lead scoring along with “if this, then that” type of scenarios planned out well in advance. And use the tools in the platforms to automate custom replies, build time-sensitive responses, and learn from your target audiences’ behaviors.

8 Test, test, test. Test the message, test the call to action, test the

response from your own team, test the frequency of your contacts. The beauty of these systems—and digital marketing in general, which is a primary channel for a lot of automation work—is the ease of testing and running scenarios.

9 Expect results and work for them. Marketing automation

requires a significant investment of time and energy to build and monitor activities. To realize the full potential of an automation program, marketers need to commit to building programs that ultimately drive conversion and

sales. Doing so requires detailed tracking and monitoring, real-time adjustments, and a dedication to understanding the ROI for your investments in time and out-of-pocket costs.

10 Marketing automation is all about the long game. Unlike

many marketing campaigns that have a clear start and end point, marketing automation is more like a sales effort that can continue indefinitely. Think beyond what you want your audience to do this week to how you want to communicate and shape their actions over months or perhaps even years.

11 Good marketing automation ties into other efforts. Multiple

divisions or service lines have to work together, learn from each other, and coordinate efforts. While automation can work for a single product or service, most customers, including consumers and referring physicians, will have multiple needs over time.

Marketing automation is still in its infancy. And with all the rapid advances in technology and software, marketing automation systems will evolve rapidly over the next few years. But marketers who focus on the relationship-building aspect of these tools, and not the technical features, will continue to be successful. Ideally, automation should augment strong marketing programs and never replace them. Keeping the basics in mind and applying sound marketing communications principles will always prevail.

2015 Issue 2

Healthcare Strategy

Healthcare Strategy Alert! is published by the Forum for Healthcare Strategists. 980 N. Michigan Ave., Suite 1260 Chicago, IL 60611 Telephone: 312.440.9080 Fax: 312.440.9089 Online: healthcarestrategy.com Annual Subscription Rate: $250 Send comments, submissions, subscription, and photocopy requests to contact@healthcarestrategy.com or via fax to 312.440.9089.

© 2015. Forum for Healthcare Strategists. All rights reserved. Printed in the U.S.

Publisher Judith S. Neiman jneiman@healthcarestrategy.com

Editor Debbie Reczynski dreczynski@healthcarestrategy.com

Marketing Manager Jennifer Pense jpense@healthcarestrategy.com

Director of Business Development Daniel Neiman dneiman@healthcarestrategy.com

you can count on.Healthcare marketing is an ever-changing world. That’s why having an innovative partner like Coffey is so important.

You can count on Coffey.Putting the right combination of marketing solutions together to help you meet your goals is our specialty. We’re ready to get to work for you. Call us today to talk about scheduling an audit of your website or publication.

800-253-2030coffeycomm.com

Expertise you can count on.We create compelling healthcare content and marketing—but our expertise doesn’t stop there. Our team can help, from mobile solutions to advice on the latest postal changes and so much more.

Solutions you can count on. We take the time to understand what you want to achieve. That way we can recommend the right products, services and strategies to help you reach—or exceed—those goals.

Your Coffey team will work with you to make sure your message reaches healthcare consumers where they are—whether it’s online, on the go or at the mailbox. And we’ll help you measure the effectiveness.

Creativity you can count on. Our team knows to make your marketing efforts stand out. We can’t be satisfied with what’s been done before. So we don’t sit back and wait for inspiration to strike. We reach out and grab it each and every day.

Innovation