← The Marketing Millennials
Loading summary
Transcript67 lines
- [00:02]
Daniel Murray
Welcome to the Marketing Millennials, the no BS Marketing podcast. I'm Daniel Murray and join me for unfiltered conversations with the brains behind marketing's coolest companies. The one request I tell our guests stories or it didn't happen. Get ready to turn the up. Welcome back to another episode of the Marketing Millennials Podcast. Today we're tackling one of the biggest challenges in marketing. Getting people to engage with your product and service before they even know they need it. I'm joined with Andrea Becker, senior director of marketing at Wellspan Health and a seasoned healthcare marketer who knows how to make healthcare messaging resonate, build trust and drive action in a competitive and highly regulated space. In this episode, we dive into how to get people to engage with your healthcare brand even when it's not top of mind what it takes to stand out and create lasting connections with patients, how to simplify complex medical topics while keeping credibility and the biggest trend shaping the healthcare marketing today. If you're looking for fresh strategies to drive awareness and loyalty in your marketing, this episode's for you. Let's dive in. I'm welcoming Andrea to the podcast. Welcome to the pod.
- [01:34]
Andrea Becker
Hi, Daniel. Thanks for having me.
- [01:36]
Daniel Murray
I'm excited to talk about health care marketing, but could you just give a little background on what type of health care you're in so people have a background on where you're coming from?
- [01:47]
Andrea Becker
Certainly so, not to date, myself, I've probably been doing this probably over 25 years. I started on the clinical side. I was actually a Lab tech for 10 years, so. So my career is fully within healthcare and health system marketing. So used to be hospitals. Most hospitals in the region have gone ahead and grown into systems. So it's very focused on clinical marketing, connecting patients with the right technologies, the right caregivers, and overall, every health system is trying to make people healthier and live longer.
- [02:17]
Daniel Murray
So I want to go into this. I mean, most people don't think about healthcare until they absolutely have to, so. So how does that change the way marketers in healthcare approach messaging and engagement with their audience?
- [02:31]
Andrea Becker
Yeah, it's a unique space. I find myself a lot of times looking at others in a similar space, which would be like nursing homes and funeral homes and lawyers. Like, nobody wants to think about it until you're there. So really we look at it as relationship marketing, which tends to be a lot of content marketing. If you look at most healthcare and health systems, they follow that model in the sense of trying to provide tips and tricks. And, you know, this is a great recipe for you or did you know, this is what happens when your ACL tears? Because it's really about building that relationship and the trust and really building the brand so that when the need comes, you're top of mind and you're trusted. Healthcare is really interesting because that trust is a huge piece I can distrust, let's say a large, big box store, but I'm still gonna go there if I need, like, batteries. But when it comes to healthcare, the gut is really driving a lot of how people make decisions.
- [03:20]
Daniel Murray
I want to go a little bit into the content piece of it because I look online, I will Google, like, symptoms or what should I do? And this happens or that happens. But how do you compete against all those searches, all the healthcare people putting out a lot of content?
- [03:39]
Andrea Becker
Yeah, that's a great question. I think it speaks to the larger strategy. So part of it is the content strategy of the content we create. Is it content that people want? Is. Is it personalized to them? I think if you're talking millennials, I'm technically an xennial. Short attention span only. Tell me what I need. I don't want any extraneous information. So first of all, we're trying to build content that is beneficial and helpful and actually provides something. I could tell you every single year during heart month. You should know your numbers, you should check your cholesterol, but if I can give you a tidbit or a piece of information you didn't know, like it could be familial. And we have a different type of test you can do now to find out if you, your parents or your kids are at risk. That's where we try to differentiate, you know, marketing 101. How can we make our content different? I think the other piece of it as well is then the media placement. Healthcare is very localized still. Even though we have some national names, it's really about getting it into the right communities. And there's some level of provider recognition as well. Oh, that's my doctor. He's great. You know, I'm so glad he did this video. So we really try to piece together the big picture of the content strategy, but obviously the media strategy as well.
- [04:45]
Daniel Murray
I mean, there's also a lot of moving pieces in that because there's basically the personal brands and nurses or the personal brands of the hospital. But if one doctor does something wrong, then that can tank a whole reputation of that hospital or that branch or whatever. But I also see a lot of, like, I think this time of year where, like, hospital rankings come out and you see a lot of billboards of, hey, we're in the top 1% of like hospitals in the nation and stuff like that. So how do you. What are some ways to work with doctors to make content and make sure they are focusing on good marketing for themselves? And we'll go into the other part next.
- [05:32]
Andrea Becker
Yeah, sure. So I think part of being a larger health system, it's a balancing act between letting them be themselves and be authentic. But obviously we have a brand to manage, so. So we've got some really enthusiastic docs that I probably could start. They could probably start their own marketing agency. They're all in. They love it. They're building their own websites and things. And sometimes I have to reel some folks back in and say, okay, but I need you to kind of stand on my brand umbrella since you work here. Others are gifted at what they do medically, but I actually feel sorry for them sometimes because they weren't trained to be marketers. They weren't trained to be interviewees. I'll call up a doc and be like, will you do this TV interview for me? And there's just a sheer look of panic. And I'm like, you cut people open for a living and you're afraid to talk to someone. So what I try to do is I try to find the right providers, try to create a comfort level or find a comfort level, but I always want them to be authentic. So when I talk to some of my docs and try and tee them up for opportunities, I will ask off the wall questions. You know, do you tell dad jokes? Is that something you're comfortable with? What do you do in your free time? Oh, you're a professional dart thrower. Like, I want to work in their personality to not only make them comfortable, but patients are people too. You know, my dad saw the same primary care provider for most of his life. And I swear most of the appointment was talking about fishing, but it got my dad to show up. So I try to balance those two pieces. Obviously they're expert. They're. They're there for a reason, but I want them to be comfortable. Otherwise it's just awkward for everybody to listen to or watch.
- [06:56]
Daniel Murray
Yeah. And I mean, if your dad's going to that person for a long time, he's probably talking, hey, this is the best primary care doctor in the area. You should really go to that. So, like, I was, I just moved to Miami. I was looking for doctors, so I went to go. The first thing I want to do, I did Google first, but then I Would asked all my friends to verify in Miami. Is this a good place to go? Is that a good place to go? Should I avoid this? Should I avoid that? And the websites that did have the best doctor rankings and the doctors that showed their personality more were also the front. How the front desk showed up is like there's so many moving parts. So it's so interesting to me that you as a marketer have to balance like not only the personalities, but like the people in the front, the people in the back, like the, the things that they hand out, the things that they don't hand out. It's a, it's a huge moving puzzle that you have to figure out.
- [07:55]
Andrea Becker
Yeah. So there's a lot of. I mean, it's branding and it's culture, which culture is an overused word, but it's the culture of a health system. Has to be. You know, it takes one person, it takes one person to make a difference in a positive way. It takes one person to make a difference in a negative way. So I've worked in places where we've had rock star receptionists that people will rave about the receptionist. I mean, that's a huge win. It's not always about the actual provider. It's about your full experience. But the interesting thing, I'm glad you brought up how you were looking for providers is especially being marketers, there's so much data and there's marketing data, but in healthcare, there's quality data, which is so difficult to communicate to patients and so difficult if you don't live in this space to decipher. So you said hospital rankings are coming out. You know, I make the assumption sometimes I use my parents as my focus group of two. I'll say, hey, what do you think of that billboard? And see how they took that in. But you could see a billboard that says, you know, such and such hospital was a three star winner, but do you know how many stars they could have had? Is it 3 out of 5? Is it 3 out of 10? So the awards piece and the quality piece is just really so difficult to understand. And that's not how consumers look at things. I mean, I find people, people spend more time looking up how to buy a television and measuring the pixels and what you know than they do for their providers. So that's a little bit of a, I won't say an uphill battle, but that's the ongoing challenge in marketing is we have a good product, but it's really tough sometimes to explain all of that.
- [09:22]
Daniel Murray
So how do you. Because you have to work with so many moving pieces and so many outside forces too, like insurance companies and all these people that are also recommending you to the hospital and also, I mean, recommending patients to providers. So how do you manage all the materials to make sure that people are getting the right type of information? So. Or get in front of these insurance providers so it makes it easy for them to tell the patients like, they are the best at this. They this is the best provider for you for this symptom or something like that.
- [09:57]
Andrea Becker
Yeah. So I think the biggest challenge is there's so much. So every service in a health system has a reason. So I never like to be like, well, I can't market you because I'm marketing this person. So it's really about prioritization, is how do we make sure that we're spending the right time making the right information. Because I could call every insurance company, every doctor. There's never a loss for that. So the name of the game, especially in healthcare, is really prioritization, which is ironic because if you watch any medical shows, everybody's yelling, stat. We're kind of the same in the marketing department, like, oh my gosh, there's a new provider. We need a plan stat. That's a big piece to it. And it's really about the infrastructure. So I've worked in a number of health systems that have a really nice online platform where we can develop branded flyers, but lock in some of the pieces so that the clients, the front desk staff or the providers can fill in the information they know. And all we have to do is review and essentially clean up if needed, rather than create things from scratch. But a lot of times that's the reason we have everything come through a centralized department. I've done very complex approvals, processes where five and six leaders need to review it before it goes out. A lot of times in pharmaceutical companies, there's also a legal review. So it really is about the infrastructure, the pipeline, and how can we automate better.
- [11:14]
Daniel Murray
That's a good segue to go into a little bit too, since it's a very regulated space. How do you as marketers in that space have to deal with what you say? The legal tough, because you can say some things or over say other things, and if you have certain stats, they have to be right, otherwise it could come back on the hospital. So how do you deal with all those moving pieces?
- [11:43]
Andrea Becker
You become paranoid very quickly. But being paranoid is not necessarily a bad thing. It keeps you out of trouble. I think the biggest challenge I see is actually when you get into the digital space because phi or protected health information. When you look at digital technically, I could follow your journey. I could target you with a digital ad on headaches. You could come to a health system website. I could see that Daniel came to the health system website. I can pull profiles on the back end. But we reach a point where I know too much about you now based on a medical condition. And that's when we start to run into issues. So a lot of health systems have had to go away from Google Analytics and some of the pixel placements on our websites are still currently being debated through different legal avenues across the nation. And that's probably the biggest thing that is when we look at the ability for digital, but then we're still writing the laws of how to play within those guardrails. Sometimes I'm envious of other industries because I don't think it's that regulated. The more I learn about you, the more I can use. But in healthcare I have to think twice and where did that information come from? And I can't send a postcard to your house that says hope your heart surgery went well because it's a postcard, which means your mail provider would know you had a heart surgery, which would mean I just divulged phi. So there's a lot of thinking through that. And that's why sometimes I think having experience and having a team that's worked in healthcare, you learn to be very eagle eyed about those sorts of things and you have team members say, wait, no, I can't do it that way. Or should we call legal?
- [13:09]
Daniel Murray
I know a lot of e commerce brands fall into this too where they're selling something for something, maybe a headache or stuff and they, they can't advertise, they get banned from advertising because they know too much information and they fall under that bucket that you were just talking about. But I want to also talk. So if content marketing is one of the heaviest plays in healthcare and you have to go all in on content marketing, how are you dealing with like this wave now of AI? Because I know for me there's so much content out there, sometimes I just go to AI and ask like, hey, this is my doctor's results. Could you tell me what I should do? Like I skipped the step where I used to go to Google and say, hey, I'm having these symptoms. What are the possibilities? What are the best doctors for this? I kind of skipped that, that stuff. But I did have a bad experience with asking for doctors on AI. So that is actually a flawed process right now, but we could talk about that later. But how are you dealing with the wave of AI?
- [14:14]
Andrea Becker
We've been using AI to our benefit. So marketing is usually seen as overhead, especially in a hospital. I am not personally bringing in a patient and getting a revenue of $50,000 on a case. So we always have to be very lean and thoughtful and writers, I mean it's, we're finding we don't need as many writers. We're not getting rid of people, we're not trying to push people out. But as attrition occurs or I'm not, I'll admit I'll not the strongest with grammar. AI has been a godsend for me because I can kind of dump my thoughts into that and it cleans it up for me. Where you know, years ago I would have a partner that would help me write and she would do all my editing. And the amount of time and energy which, you know, you have to do the math on that, that's, you know, how many hours times salary, times benefits. It could cost you $600 to write a one page flyer if you really think about it. So we've been using AI to our advantage as far as expediting storytelling and repurposing content, putting it in and saying, here's my video and can I get a blog from this? Can I get an email from this? Can I get this from this? But just like any of the other technologies, you still need a human to review it. So it's sped things up, but it's certainly not fully automated, especially in the medical space to make sure that it's not saying things incorrectly or subbing in the wrong words, those sorts of things.
- [15:26]
Daniel Murray
Yeah, I want to also, I mean you just talked about that you're not really directly tied to say this like $50,000 medical thing that happened. What does the workings of a healthcare marketing department look like? What's in a healthcare marketing department?
- [15:44]
Andrea Becker
So I think marketing, every health system is slightly different. So you're always going to see some variations. And I think the word marketing is used, but there's lots of other terms. Typically in my career, marketing typically sits with like strategy. So we need to be data driven. So it's looking at even the most basic of referral volumes of knowing we need more heart cases and less cancer cases or what, what that revenue balance is within that department. So my expertise area is really in marketing strategy. So there's usually a team of strategists, they can be called account managers. There's different ways to refer to them that meet directly with our clients. We would consider our service lines and our clinical departments clients and they've got their own business plans and they say I need 10 more brain surgeries this year. And then the strategists come back and talk through the content and the media strategy. We then tend to have communications and content partners that are really specific on the writing. You know, they, they live, eat and breathe, AP style. They're the ones that help create the stories, post the stories, manage our social media and our pr. And then most departments have a creative team, an in house team that does a lot of the design. A lot of times we have to outsource some things depending on volume, but that's the basic workings, is it? A lot of places I've worked have almost posed it as an internal agency. So we have a lot of the same pieces that an agency would. If you're lucky, you have some really good data support. Sometimes that's lacking for marketing. When you work in some place like healthcare that is so data heavy. Some people are surprised to know that marketing wants data. They're used to seeing outcomes and length of stay and financial. And I'm like, yeah, but I can use data too. Like we all use data here in the health system. So they seem a little surprised. I think sometimes they think we're the make it pretty department. But that's kind of the basics of. We usually have three to four teams that work in collaborative but yet linear fashion to put the input in and get the export out and get it placed and then we go back and we do it again.
- [17:39]
Daniel Murray
I think we, I mean you talked about your dad earlier, how he was with his doctor for 30 years. How do you think about capturing the younger Gen Z working younger millennials that might have not really had a doctor. They probably are on their cheapest insurance plan in their work. They, they don't think about doctors but they, they could have a doctor for 30, 40 years. That is cool. And like they could be staying with them. So how, how are you thinking about that group of people?
- [18:14]
Andrea Becker
So what I see a lot with that space and I like I said I'm kind of on the upper end of it but is the, the convenience aspects. So if anything positive came out of COVID I think it adapted very quickly, especially in healthcare to virtual care. And that's something I myself, I can schedule all my appointments by myself online like I would at a restaurant or something else. I can communicate with my provider online. I send messages back and forth. Hey, my Prescription didn't go through. Can you fix this? Or this is something I got going on. Is it worth me coming in? There's so much more that we can do digitally and I think the xenials X down through Z are so much more comfortable doing things digitally. I mean I was joking with someone the other day that if Chipotle could do a rapid strep test at the drive thru, I would probably go grab a burrito and get tested for strep throat. Like I. The. The differing views of what healthcare is by generation is significant. So I've spoken about my dad, you know, there's me. I also have four nieces and nephews in their 20s. So it's interesting to listen to what you're saying is no insurance or you know, very light insurance. Many of them see the emergency department as their provider which taxes health systems, which is not good for the community but it's also costing them way more money. It's really about trying to intercept that. And, and it's, it's a strange thing because I don't know that anyone was ever taught how to use health care. You either kind of did what your parents did or if your parents didn't show you, you know, you had a friend that went to a clinic or something and that's how you learn. And there's such an opportunity to try to teach people in that age group about how to access healthcare in a way that works for them.
- [19:49]
Daniel Murray
But what are you, how do you think about this? There's a new wave or trend that's happening now which is longevity. Starting to think about getting these earlier tests, starting to think about living longer, starting to think about how to seem younger. So how does that play into, I mean the healthcare space? You see companies spinning up around this but it's a very interesting play because a lot of younger people are jumping on because they want to know like how they're doing. Like you can go to, sometimes you go to primary care doctor, they'll do maybe a couple tests. They won't test everything. Like maybe they're not testing all your minerals or things that might be low. They're just testing the basic things to make sure you don't have diabetes or cancer or stuff like that. So how do, how does that play into the space now?
- [20:45]
Andrea Becker
I think it starts with a primary care provider. So it's so important for everyone to get their first doctor, their first, you know, like their quarterback of their healthcare team. From there. I think you need to know what you want out of life, which I know is a big question, but I spoke with a provider the other day. I was doing some interviews, and he explained to me that what the way he coaches, he does metabolic medicine, weight loss, GLP1s. And he explains to his patients, you are planning for your terminal decade, which is the last 10 years of your life. So how do you want that last 10 years to look? Which I never thought of. I'm busy. I'm too young to think about retirement and what that looks like. But I think that's a really interesting thing to pose is, do you want to be living in a nursing home? If you fall down, are you going to be able to stand yourself up? If you need to lift something, are you going to do that? Or you need to call your grandkids over? So it really comes down to what each person wants out of their life. Where, where I live, I'm in central Pennsylvania. I'm sure it's a little bit different in different pockets of the country, but this area is very, I want to say, stoic. Obesity runs rampant. We probably have more junk food companies here than the average city and state do between chips and pretzels. And I think a lot of people here what they want. No one's looking to climb Everest necessarily. They want to be able to play with their grandkids. They want to be able to go for a walk and their hips not hurt. So it's really a matter of deciding what you want and communicating that. And that determines, you know, there's all kinds of testing and research. And if you're into that thing, you can endlessly find ways to learn more about your own genetic makeup. But you got to figure out, do you want to be 175 years old or do you just want to live a good, healthy life for as long as it's going to be?
- [22:21]
Daniel Murray
Yeah, I think that's a good point. I also think so you're in the marketing space, but I think it's interesting to like, reverse it and say, what should millennials out there or Gen Z's out there or even Gen X look for as like, warning signs of, like, doctors that are not saying the right thing versus doctor. Like, how do you find the right doctor? What marketing is legit versus not legit? Because I think that's one of the hardest parts is siphoning through, like, what is accurate and not accurate or the reviews. Is this, Are these reviews accurate or not? Because I've seen a doctor with like a 4.3 being a way better doctor than a, a five star doctor that you go into.
- [23:03]
Andrea Becker
So I think most people in that space are very familiar with Amazon. So Amazon's a great example. I don't trust many of those reviews anymore because it's a, it's a free review or it was somebody's brother that reviewed it or they switched the, the link on that. So I think the idea with reviews is take it with a grain of salt. Understand that people are people. You've all got friends that you may want. You've got friends, you 100% are always in agreement with the way they see things. And you've got friends that you never agree. These are also the same friends that are reviewing providers. I think the biggest thing and probably the biggest tip is find one that works for you and fits with you. And it's frustrating to have to, you know, essentially date a few doctors and go through a few of them until you find one that fits for you. But that's going to make the biggest difference. Someone that you can talk to that understands your lifestyle, understands what you understand. For instance, I was a lab tech, so my PCP knows that I can speak lab tech and I can speak values. And she doesn't need to dumb things down for me. Like, our conversations are very different. So sometimes it takes a few providers and that that's for anything. You need to feel comfortable. Don't just assume, well, this is my only option. And I think a lot of the older generations, my parents do that all the time. Well, this was the doctor they sent me to. This is my only option. It is not. There are so many options out there. Advocate for yourself. Find someone you're comfortable with, both in a physical doctor, but also mental health. I mean, that, that could be a whole nother conversation, but sometimes it takes a few tries. But once you lock in with somebody, that's going to be the best thing you can do for yourself.
- [24:30]
Daniel Murray
I think that's good advice because I think you people are comfortable a little bit with therapists dating a therapist because it's more of like an emotional, like, mental connection with someone. But I, I agree. Like, you should have that personal connection. Like if you know that that patient has anxiety and wants to know more about something, or this patient just wants to get in, get their tests, get out. They want just a clear checkup or someone like you where they just could tell you one or two things that you need to know. Like she can read the results herself, like the nitty gritty. So I think that's so important. But I'll go back and flip to Like a marketing question, like, how does, how do you communicate those things in storytelling and content and like, let's say like patient, maybe ugc. How do you use that to make that doctor feel more human or that experience feel more human or that medical center feel more human?
- [25:31]
Andrea Becker
Storytelling is huge in health care. I'm constantly mining for stories, constantly talking to providers, because that's probably the best way to do it. I mean, all that being said, you still may not click with, you know, we had one provider, a little kid lost his stuffed animal and the provider realized that and Amazon shipped one to his house out of his own pocket to make sure the kid had that. Those are warm fuzzy stories that at least draw your attention to that provider. But it doesn't always mean it's going to be a good fit for you. That's where I try to have folks be authentic. I really like to find out who they are outside of work because I feel like there's a. I don't know that it's a stigma, but a doctor is a, you know, well, everybody, that doctor's a big deal. They also go fishing and they coach their kids T ball team and you'll find them at the bar having a beer on a Friday night. And I think understanding that they're people too is the best way to make that connection. So I just try to find people telling authentic stories about what they like to do because they're also more excited. Then you get to see them more. And you want to see somebody that's excited about what they do and happy and you know, even if you're not a fisherman and they're a fisherman, sometimes it's still fun to talk to them. Or maybe you chose them because, you know, you can talk fishing with them.
- [26:38]
Daniel Murray
Also a question I have, I mean, how. How's healthcare marketing use community marketing or influencer marketing since that's become like more of a bigger play everywhere?
- [26:52]
Andrea Becker
Yeah, that's been interesting. We've started to dip our toe in that a little bit. It's as you said earlier, there's so many lines that we can't cross. And it's also interesting in healthcare because loyalty to one system is rare. So especially in a younger generation. I'll use myself as an example. Fifteen, twenty years ago, I could have an upper respiratory infection and use an urgent care. I could have a regular gynecologist. I could possibly see a PCP once a year. And they could all be in different health systems. So my experience was pieced together. So fast forward and you take somebody with an experience like that and try to tee them up as an influencer. Their family and friends know that they didn't just use system A, they also use System B, System C, System D. So it's really tough to find someone that is loyal enough to the entire service set that we offer to be an authentic, appropriate influencer. Because like I said, they could say, oh, well, I had my mammogram here and their friend's going to be like, yeah, but I thought you did such and such over here. And that really kind of deflates the message we're trying to send. So we're trying to find those. We've always tried to find those, though, because those are testimonial stories. I think influencer is basically taking the testimonials we've done and just amping them up a little bit and maybe forming them a little bit more. We're always looking for patients to actually tell their stories about what was important to them and what they liked.
- [28:12]
Daniel Murray
I mean, I see healthcare doing pretty good in sponsoring schools, sponsoring sports thing, sponsoring things in the community. I think that's also like you said at the beginning, unless you're a national chain, like, it's a very localized experience for a lot of people. So doing marketing in the community is probably a big thing with those billboards and then sponsoring the school response in the sports team or depends what type of budget you have. But I think that's also a way to get your name out there.
- [28:44]
Andrea Becker
It's an interesting balance because if you're looking at, from a performance marketing standpoint, I want to be able to place a piece of media, I want to track the impressions. I want to, as much as possible, be able to tie it back to clinical roi, which is a challenge in healthcare to say, Daniel saw this ad and now Daniel had surgery. And this was because of what I did. We're still working on that. But then there's also the community support, because health systems are more than businesses. They're cornerstones to the community, to their large employers. So when it looks at budgeting, what are we considering actually advertising? Is it a banner on a kid's softball field? Sometimes those things come through marketing. And I think it's a little bit different because we've got things that are sponsorships, we've got things that are advertising, we've got actual performance marketing. And some of it is also just relationship building, chamber of commerce publications that we sponsor. Because we are a big part of any community, any health system is, and we lean on each other. So we support the chamber and the chamber supports us. So looking at the budget and the spend is a little more complicated in my opinion. Now, to be fair, I haven't worked in other industries, but there's so many, there's so many people that want to call dibs on marketing dollars when what's actually marketing is a sliver of the way we spend the dollars.
- [29:55]
Daniel Murray
I mean, that's interesting because I think I've been in some industries where they just sponsor that trade conference just for a relationship spend instead of a like ROI spend because they know that trades association is going to give them business back and it's a win win, but it's not really. They just do it for the relationship. And then other things are more marketing. But I was also thinking about that a lot of these things are also retention marketing as well as like, like new customer acquisition. Because like talking about billboards, I saw a billboard of like the healthcare system that I, I chose for me and my wife and I'm like, oh look, they're like the top 1%. Like we made a good choice.
- [30:43]
Andrea Becker
Yeah.
- [30:43]
Daniel Murray
Like it made me like feel better about my choice and validated my decision to go with them because I saw a billboard and now I feel like more, a little bit more loyalty because I saw that billboard where I think a lot of people think it's only acquisition. But that's also a big retention play too.
- [31:01]
Andrea Becker
It. It is to some extent. Absolutely. The awards just get so tricky because you have to understand how the awards were built, applied for awarded, and in the same stretch of road you're driving where it says someone was in the top 1%, the next one's going to say I'm in the top four in the state and the next one's going to say number one in the nation for this other award. And none of them are apples to apples. So it's really hard to discern. Which is part of the reason I think so many health systems are really pushing awards is because it's a peer pressure, you know, well, if they put out four awards, I should make sure everybody knows I have five awards. And that's not really what's important. But it's, it's hard to say if you are an actual patient and you're looking know what the awards mean. But at the end of the day, I think you said it. I don't care if someone's a five star or 4.3 star, if I get the care I want and I have the relationship I want, that should be what's Important. I always think the biggest award any health system can get is the fact that a patient chose them and stays with them. That's the award.
- [32:02]
Daniel Murray
Yeah, I do agree. I think some of the wards, I have no idea what they're saying. I think the people who do it right, if you're saying like top 1% in the country, that could mean like you're the hundredth or 200th hospital, maybe like it could be. It doesn't mean you're like the best of the best. So. That's very true. I want to go into a little bit of rapid fire with you if that's cool. And first thing that comes to mind to say it, what's the most underrated healthcare marketing strategy?
- [32:38]
Andrea Becker
I think sometimes experiential, because it's tough to bring enough people together because we have clinicians that are doing clinical duties so oftentimes to ask them to come out to a local community health fair. I think we'd have the opportunity to build larger experiential things at a health fair or, you know, a fire and ice festival or a hockey game, but we're just strapped for time. So being able to deploy something like a brand ambassador, because it's that one on one, I can, I can put a ton of money in the market. But if I meet you somewhere and we become friends and we start talking about, you know, all kinds of healthcare things, you're going to walk away feeling warm and fuzzy about the health system. And that is hard to put a price on.
- [33:17]
Daniel Murray
What's the biggest mistake you see healthcare.
- [33:20]
Andrea Becker
Brands making in marketing, everybody says the same thing. If you're bored, go and Google healthcare marketing and look. And I can tell you, most NICUs will say just in case, or emergency departments will say when minutes matter. Across the country we all say the same thing. And I think sometimes it gets distilled into that. Even if you're trying to differentiate amongst competitors, there's a fear of. But if we don't say minutes matter, are people going to think minutes don't matter to us? So differentiation has been very difficult to achieve in healthcare.
- [33:52]
Daniel Murray
I like that. I mean, I went to a software conference once and I literally saw five of the same people in the category say, the number one software. So it was hilarious to see that fine print.
- [34:03]
Andrea Becker
Number one in the category that I created myself and awarded to myself. Yeah, yeah.
- [34:09]
Daniel Murray
Well, what is a health care brand that you think is nailing marketing right now?
- [34:15]
Andrea Becker
I tend to not always focus on health care. I like to look at things outside of that. So the super bowl has always been fun to watch and how people can take a humorous look at things, a tongue in cheek. I can't say I know of anybody nailing it in health care, but I think what's missing is humor. You know, especially I think this generation, you know, again I'm going to say xennial, millennial, Gen Z all the way down. I think we have a sense of humor about things. I love seeing when healthcare does things like, oh, we just did an ad recently that said something in the bathroom like, did you come here just to get off your feet? Maybe you need to see an orthopedics doctor. Like little, little things like that. Because we all, we can laugh at some of those things. You know, we're not laughing at heart attacks and very serious things. But there are things about healthcare that are funny. I think I saw a post the other day, one health system had a picture of a doctor with a kangaroo and said, hopping into colorectal cancer month. Like I think we're missing making some of this light. It doesn't always have to be so heavy.
- [35:07]
Daniel Murray
Yeah, I mean one industry that's like extremely boring, that's incorporated humorous insurance and they do it pretty well. I mean healthcare could, if a healthcare brand found the line that they can toe. That is funny but also not insensitive. I think that's the hard part because they don't want to be too insensitive. And most marketers are risk averse out there because they don't want to deal with legal, they don't want to deal with backlash. So it makes sense why people aren't. But yeah, if you could change one thing about healthcare marketing, what would it be?
- [35:47]
Andrea Becker
Yeah, I mean data's been always difficult to get. I would say I wish we could be more data driven and make the decisions based on data. We could use better prioritization. But it all goes back to data. You know, I'm a big fan of black and white. If I can say to you, if I market this, we're going to make 50,000, if I market this, we're going to lose 10,000. It certainly informs the conversation. I know this is rapid fire, but if you can give me a minute here, I just want to talk a little bit about the finance of healthcare because people always want to complain about the cost and I don't want them to think that marketing is increasing that. So what most marketing does for healthcare if you're in a non profit system is you are bringing money back into the system that then gets reinvested and reinvested and reinvested. So I think that's, that's also something to call out is, you know, my parents have even questioned, like, why do you have a job? Why does health care do marketing? And I'm like, it actually feeds the system and helps the community. So I just wanted to call that one piece out. But making decisions based on data. But in health care, we also have to factor in that there's people involved.
- [36:47]
Daniel Murray
I think that's a good point to make. It's just the same as any nonprofit. Like, they still have to do marketing, but they also, they have to get money in the nonprofit. Otherwise, how's that nonprofit going to function? What's one book or resource you'd recommend to healthcare marketers?
- [37:09]
Andrea Becker
So most, I want to say most healthcare marketers know this, but there is a book called Joe Public Doesn't Care about yout Hospital. And I feel like there's actually, I think, five in the series now. But any industry that works in a space where, like we've said, you don't. Nobody wants to plan their funeral or find a nursing home or there's, there's just services in the world that we don't want to look at earlier. This series was written by a gentleman named Chris Bevelo and really talks about that they don't care. Like, I've done open houses for cancer centers. Who wants to spend their Saturday afternoon visiting a cancer center just in case it really helps put you in the mindset of the patient and your audience in that we can't market in the same way other people do because people don't care about us until they need us.
- [37:52]
Daniel Murray
Honestly, I think a lot of marketers, a lot of people sell. They don't. They, they don't. They say vitamins, not painkillers, as they, as they say, like, they sell, like, preventative stuff. Like, people don't. That's why people don't take vitamins, because you don't really see the benefit. Like, but a painkiller, you have a headache, you take Tylenol.
- [38:12]
Andrea Becker
Prevention is a whole other discussion because it does take time. And you could do yourself such a service if you leaned into prevention with your health. But again, I think it goes back to each person's individual. I could live the healthiest lifestyle ever, and maybe I don't have any fun. And somewhere I got to figure out what the balance is between fun and healthy.
- [38:30]
Daniel Murray
Lastly, is what is a marketing hill you would die on?
- [38:36]
Andrea Becker
You know, the. Me too. Marketing just doesn't do anything. The oh, my gosh. The competitor just put an ad out talking about how great they are at this. We have to put our own ad out. Does both systems a disservice? It's a waste of money, it's a waste of energy, it's a waste of time. I continue to try to educate like, marketing is differentiation. Just because they did it doesn't mean we have to do it.
- [38:59]
Daniel Murray
Yeah, I mean, it's good to note that they did it and then you figure out how to be different or it's way easier to be different than to be better in marketing. So I always lean on the different because better is, is a hard game to play like. And better is such a broad term. Like, what is better? Like, you, you don't see what the results of their campaign actually is bringing in or doing anything. So it's like, just be different and then you'll, you'll stand out. Lastly, where could people find you or what you're doing?
- [39:37]
Andrea Becker
That's a great question. LinkedIn is probably the best. So I'm even of an age now. I work fully remote, which is fantastic. So I don't even print business cards up anymore. I just send people to my LinkedIn. So you can certainly look me up. Andrea Becker on LinkedIn, and it'll show you where I've been, what I've been doing. Kind of an interesting background coming from clinical all the way through marketing and a few things in between.
- [40:00]
Daniel Murray
It's actually crazy that, like, this generation, probably Gen Z, more probably will never, ever have a business car. Just. That's crazy to think about.
- [40:11]
Andrea Becker
I don't save them, you know, that's. You know what? That might be the other hill I would die on. I always laugh when I have a client say, well, I need a brochure. And it's kind of like business cards. Tell me what your favorite brochure is. What is that one brochure you keep on your nightstand? It's the best brochure ever. It doesn't work that way. Business cards are the same. If people give them to me, I can't tell you where they are anymore. If it was important, I plugged your number into my phone or into my email and I got rid of the piece of paper.
- [40:36]
Daniel Murray
Like, the only the times that brochures work is if you're in a place and they're stacked up and like, you like, say you're in a doctor's office and you like looking and saying, hey, I need, maybe need that as well, and you just grab it because you're in the mindset of health care and then you do something else like that. Or if you're in an airport and you want you're just landing in this tourism brochures that might work, but other than like getting it getting handed out, a brochure that's probably getting thrown away.
- [41:11]
Andrea Becker
I tend to tell clients I don't mind doing brochures, but they need to be a supportive tactic in a conversation and not just let me throw a piece of paper at you and assume you absorbed it all.
- [41:20]
Daniel Murray
Yeah, I mean, and there's also too much information on a brochure, usually for us millennials, zillennials, x annuals.
- [41:32]
Andrea Becker
If anything, I will take a picture of it on my phone and then put the brochure back because I don't want paper.
- [41:37]
Daniel Murray
That's what I mean. My wife does that too. Like, she does that with like birthday cards and stuff. She'll just.
- [41:42]
Andrea Becker
That's a great idea.
- [41:43]
Daniel Murray
Take a picture. It's. Well, thank you so much for coming. I really appreciate it. And yeah, it was great chatting.
- [41:50]
Andrea Becker
Yeah, it was a lot of fun. I'm always happy to explain a little bit more about healthcare because like I said, I don't think people on any point pay attention and it's important and I find it very interesting. So if anybody wants to reach out and talk healthcare and marketing, let me know.
- [42:04]
Daniel Murray
Cool. Thank you so much.
- [42:06]
Andrea Becker
Yep, thank you.
- [42:08]
Daniel Murray
Thanks so much for listening. Keep tuning in to hear more great insights from the cool, coolest marketers from around the world. If you haven't already, make sure to subscribe and follow the Marketing Millennials podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get your podcast. And if you like what you hear, I would greatly appreciate you giving us a five star rating. It helps bring more marketers into our community.