Marketing and communications executives from leading health care systems across the country have been working together to compare their resource allocation to true peers. With a steering committee including Cleveland Clinic, Ochsner Health System, Intermountain Healthcare and SHSMD, benchmarking data has been gathered through the use of a tool that allows participants to compare themselves to similar organizations of all types and sizes. Aggregate benchmarking results of over 50 participants across 3 years of the study will be shared.
SHSMD Connections 2021 Virtual runs October 19-21. Register today!
Selected Podcast
How the Nation's Most Recognized Systems Spend Their Marketing Dollars...and Why It Matters to You
Featured Speaker:
Peter Miller
Peter Miller is an Administrator of the Division of Marketing & Communication. Transcription:
How the Nation's Most Recognized Systems Spend Their Marketing Dollars...and Why It Matters to You
Intro: The following SHSMD podcast is a production of DoctorPodcasting.com.
Bill Klaproth (Host): This is a special podcast produced onsite at SHSMD Connections 2021 Annual Conference in San Antonio, as we talked with keynote speakers and session leaders direct from the show floor, and we had the opportunity to talk with Pete Miller, Division Administrator of Marketing at the Cleveland Clinic. Pete did a session on how the nation's most recognized systems spend their marketing dollars and why it matters to you. Hey, Pete. Thanks for being here. Thanks for stopping by our, our podcast booth at SHSMD Connections 2021. Can you just give us a brief overview of your session?
Pete Miller (Guest): Sure. Happy to be here. Thanks for having me. Our session today is going to focus on why people need benchmarks to compare their healthcare expenses for marketing and communication services. How that's useful to them. And then once they have them, how they can compare themselves to other organizations. What are the latest tools and techniques that marketers are using to reach customers and to most effectively communicate with their target audiences.
Host: Yeah. So this comparing of resources is really interesting. So, marketing and communications executives from leading healthcare systems like yours, across the country have been working, together to compare these resources. Can you explain that more to us a little more in depth?
Pete: Yeah, that's something that's pretty unique about the healthcare industry. So, if you were in any consumer product organization or industry, you wouldn't want to compare yourselves to your competitors. Well, not with transparency. And in healthcare, it's great because we, we have the same mission, same objective. We're all trying to serve the consumers in our markets and to provide them with good quality care. So, benchmarking is just one way. If you're the leader of any team, any organization, you need to be able to measure what you're producing and benchmarking is one way to do that, you know, in a comparative fashion with others.
Host: So when you say measure what you're producing, what are you comparing then?
Pete: We're looking at the organizations themselves. So, within the Cleveland Clinic exists within a certain structure, we're a large academic medical center and we happen to own a lot of other hospitals, et cetera. So, what's the Mayo Clinic like, what's Johns Hopkins like, what's Inter Mountain like. It's good to, to understand those structures. And then from a marketing and communications perspective, what do we spend our money on? Are we spending all our money on sports sponsorships or on social media advertising? What are the components that, that we are focused on?
Host: You're looking at comparing marketing communications resources, basically?
Pete: Exactly. So trying to get into the weeds of even within advertising.
Host: Like we allocate so much for broadcast TV and social media and print. And, you know, even inside the hospital, guerrilla marketing type tactics or events or things like that.
Pete: And crazy things like podcasts.
Host: And which we love. That we love That's always a good thing. So, this benchmarking, so you, said, we could see what the Mayo Clinic is doing and other healthcare organizations. What do you do with that information then? If you go, hey, Mayo is always spending 45% of their allocations on social media. Gosh, maybe we should be doing that. Is that kind of what you're looking at or thinking?
Pete: Yeah. So there are two different ways of measuring your, your effectiveness if you're a marketing leader in healthcare, right? So you, you want to measure the widgets or what you're producing. If I'm, if I'm doing a podcast, for example, I want to know how many people are tuning in. How many are listening? I also want to know how many of them I produce. And how much does it cost me to do that. So, we all do that and we understand in that way, the effectiveness of our initiatives. But the other thing that we're interested in is what are other people doing and how much are they getting for that? So, whereas we may not be able to get as specific as what's Mayo Clinic spending on this. We're able to define a benchmark. So, out of the hundreds of participants in this benchmark research, I select those organizations like Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins, et cetera, that are similar to mine and there, I see their data in aggregate.
Host: Okay, I was just going to say, you kind of get an aggregate number then, and you can kind of get that benchmark of, okay generally 45% or 35% of allocations are going towards this type of marketing and communications.
Pete: Exactly. And some of the initial insights we got four years ago, for example, at the time print media was something that was still going rampant, and we were doing a lot of direct mail. There was a lot of, especially to physicians. And we were able to see that we had cut that down substantially as a percentage of our spend relative to our benchmark group. So, we're very happy with that. And then on the other hand, very unhappy with how much we were spending on sports sponsorships, for example, as a percentage of our budget relative to others.
Host: So, that helps you with targeting too making sure you're allocating the right resources in the right
Pete: Yeah. And it's not just the manager, that's not just the marketing leader. It's the CFO. So, any of you, who've been in the role of leading a team for long enough, know that people don't just write you a check and say go spend some money on behalf of the organization. They want you every year to justify that. So, it's part of being the chief justification officer, as I say, the CFO would like to know what others are spending.
Host: Chief justification officer I like that. That's a good one, Pete. So you're also going to share in this session, you have benchmarked results of over 50 participants across three years of this study. Right? So, you're going to share that information. And then I also wanted to ask you about this new partnership or collaboration with SHSMD. Tell us about that.
Pete: Yeah. So, we created this benchmark tool back in 2015. And so the number of participants is varied anywhere from 30 to, I think our high mark was 51. And again, these were organizations like mine, like the Cleveland Clinic that we attracted into this benchmark tool and collaboratively wanted to share our data. That gave us a lot of really unique insights. Like for example, we look at ratios like, what is our marketing budget or spend, relative to net patient revenue? Right. And you can look across whatever benchmark you define and see that. We find that among the big academic medical centers, that number is about 0.7% of net patient revenue. And that's a helpful marker for us to understand what we should be spending on marketing, where as you look outside the industry, there's some published data that shows it's more like 10 to 15% of the revenue of an organization that goes into marketing. So, in healthcare, we don't spend a lot on marketing and communications relative to other products. And then this opportunity with SHSMD really arrived. I mean, the by the numbers tool has been around for decades. And it is SHSMD membership resource to share your data about the scope of your organization, what you spend your money on, but it hadn't been done in a routine fashion. It was every two or three years. There had been a pause of even longer at one point. And they saw what we created. And reached out to us and said, hey, can we collaborate here and take advantage of the great dashboard tools you built, the insights that you've brought to this type of research and marry it with the large membership that we have, and let's expand it to be more than just the academic medical centers. So it's now a tool. We've already got a hundred people that entered their data. We hope all of the membership will take advantage of this great opportunity. Once you see the dashboards, you'll see how valuable it is.
Host: I could see how that would be very beneficial and almost provide a guide or a roadmap for a marketing director at a healthcare organization to see what everybody else is doing and go, oh, you know, I'm kind of off base on what I'm thinking about this. I can see where this is a really valuable resource.
Pete: I think a lot - the people who don't think it's valuable, will find out very soon when they're asked by their CFO or their, their Director to justify, as I said, what, what they're spending their money on and we get calls all the time from other organizations, leaders from other organizations, either they're new to healthcare. They're new to that organization and they're trying to get insight about what others are doing in this space to do again, justify their spend.
Host: I love that the chief justification officer. It's a good one, Pete. I like that. That's excellent. This is really cool. Well, thank you for stopping by and talking to us about this today. We really appreciate it. Thanks again, Pete.
Pete: Thanks for the opportunity.
Host: And sign up for the SHSMD Connections, virtual conference, October 19th through the 21st 2021, which will feature two days of new sessions plus recordings from the in-person event. Go to shsmd.org/education/annualconference to learn more and to get registered and please join us at next year's conference, SHSMD Connections, 2022 September 11th through the 14th at Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland outside of Washington, DC. And if you found this podcast helpful, please share it on your social channels and to access our full podcast library for other topics of interest to you visit shsmd.org/podcasts. I'm Bill Klaproth. As always, thanks for listening.
How the Nation's Most Recognized Systems Spend Their Marketing Dollars...and Why It Matters to You
Intro: The following SHSMD podcast is a production of DoctorPodcasting.com.
Bill Klaproth (Host): This is a special podcast produced onsite at SHSMD Connections 2021 Annual Conference in San Antonio, as we talked with keynote speakers and session leaders direct from the show floor, and we had the opportunity to talk with Pete Miller, Division Administrator of Marketing at the Cleveland Clinic. Pete did a session on how the nation's most recognized systems spend their marketing dollars and why it matters to you. Hey, Pete. Thanks for being here. Thanks for stopping by our, our podcast booth at SHSMD Connections 2021. Can you just give us a brief overview of your session?
Pete Miller (Guest): Sure. Happy to be here. Thanks for having me. Our session today is going to focus on why people need benchmarks to compare their healthcare expenses for marketing and communication services. How that's useful to them. And then once they have them, how they can compare themselves to other organizations. What are the latest tools and techniques that marketers are using to reach customers and to most effectively communicate with their target audiences.
Host: Yeah. So this comparing of resources is really interesting. So, marketing and communications executives from leading healthcare systems like yours, across the country have been working, together to compare these resources. Can you explain that more to us a little more in depth?
Pete: Yeah, that's something that's pretty unique about the healthcare industry. So, if you were in any consumer product organization or industry, you wouldn't want to compare yourselves to your competitors. Well, not with transparency. And in healthcare, it's great because we, we have the same mission, same objective. We're all trying to serve the consumers in our markets and to provide them with good quality care. So, benchmarking is just one way. If you're the leader of any team, any organization, you need to be able to measure what you're producing and benchmarking is one way to do that, you know, in a comparative fashion with others.
Host: So when you say measure what you're producing, what are you comparing then?
Pete: We're looking at the organizations themselves. So, within the Cleveland Clinic exists within a certain structure, we're a large academic medical center and we happen to own a lot of other hospitals, et cetera. So, what's the Mayo Clinic like, what's Johns Hopkins like, what's Inter Mountain like. It's good to, to understand those structures. And then from a marketing and communications perspective, what do we spend our money on? Are we spending all our money on sports sponsorships or on social media advertising? What are the components that, that we are focused on?
Host: You're looking at comparing marketing communications resources, basically?
Pete: Exactly. So trying to get into the weeds of even within advertising.
Host: Like we allocate so much for broadcast TV and social media and print. And, you know, even inside the hospital, guerrilla marketing type tactics or events or things like that.
Pete: And crazy things like podcasts.
Host: And which we love. That we love That's always a good thing. So, this benchmarking, so you, said, we could see what the Mayo Clinic is doing and other healthcare organizations. What do you do with that information then? If you go, hey, Mayo is always spending 45% of their allocations on social media. Gosh, maybe we should be doing that. Is that kind of what you're looking at or thinking?
Pete: Yeah. So there are two different ways of measuring your, your effectiveness if you're a marketing leader in healthcare, right? So you, you want to measure the widgets or what you're producing. If I'm, if I'm doing a podcast, for example, I want to know how many people are tuning in. How many are listening? I also want to know how many of them I produce. And how much does it cost me to do that. So, we all do that and we understand in that way, the effectiveness of our initiatives. But the other thing that we're interested in is what are other people doing and how much are they getting for that? So, whereas we may not be able to get as specific as what's Mayo Clinic spending on this. We're able to define a benchmark. So, out of the hundreds of participants in this benchmark research, I select those organizations like Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins, et cetera, that are similar to mine and there, I see their data in aggregate.
Host: Okay, I was just going to say, you kind of get an aggregate number then, and you can kind of get that benchmark of, okay generally 45% or 35% of allocations are going towards this type of marketing and communications.
Pete: Exactly. And some of the initial insights we got four years ago, for example, at the time print media was something that was still going rampant, and we were doing a lot of direct mail. There was a lot of, especially to physicians. And we were able to see that we had cut that down substantially as a percentage of our spend relative to our benchmark group. So, we're very happy with that. And then on the other hand, very unhappy with how much we were spending on sports sponsorships, for example, as a percentage of our budget relative to others.
Host: So, that helps you with targeting too making sure you're allocating the right resources in the right
Pete: Yeah. And it's not just the manager, that's not just the marketing leader. It's the CFO. So, any of you, who've been in the role of leading a team for long enough, know that people don't just write you a check and say go spend some money on behalf of the organization. They want you every year to justify that. So, it's part of being the chief justification officer, as I say, the CFO would like to know what others are spending.
Host: Chief justification officer I like that. That's a good one, Pete. So you're also going to share in this session, you have benchmarked results of over 50 participants across three years of this study. Right? So, you're going to share that information. And then I also wanted to ask you about this new partnership or collaboration with SHSMD. Tell us about that.
Pete: Yeah. So, we created this benchmark tool back in 2015. And so the number of participants is varied anywhere from 30 to, I think our high mark was 51. And again, these were organizations like mine, like the Cleveland Clinic that we attracted into this benchmark tool and collaboratively wanted to share our data. That gave us a lot of really unique insights. Like for example, we look at ratios like, what is our marketing budget or spend, relative to net patient revenue? Right. And you can look across whatever benchmark you define and see that. We find that among the big academic medical centers, that number is about 0.7% of net patient revenue. And that's a helpful marker for us to understand what we should be spending on marketing, where as you look outside the industry, there's some published data that shows it's more like 10 to 15% of the revenue of an organization that goes into marketing. So, in healthcare, we don't spend a lot on marketing and communications relative to other products. And then this opportunity with SHSMD really arrived. I mean, the by the numbers tool has been around for decades. And it is SHSMD membership resource to share your data about the scope of your organization, what you spend your money on, but it hadn't been done in a routine fashion. It was every two or three years. There had been a pause of even longer at one point. And they saw what we created. And reached out to us and said, hey, can we collaborate here and take advantage of the great dashboard tools you built, the insights that you've brought to this type of research and marry it with the large membership that we have, and let's expand it to be more than just the academic medical centers. So it's now a tool. We've already got a hundred people that entered their data. We hope all of the membership will take advantage of this great opportunity. Once you see the dashboards, you'll see how valuable it is.
Host: I could see how that would be very beneficial and almost provide a guide or a roadmap for a marketing director at a healthcare organization to see what everybody else is doing and go, oh, you know, I'm kind of off base on what I'm thinking about this. I can see where this is a really valuable resource.
Pete: I think a lot - the people who don't think it's valuable, will find out very soon when they're asked by their CFO or their, their Director to justify, as I said, what, what they're spending their money on and we get calls all the time from other organizations, leaders from other organizations, either they're new to healthcare. They're new to that organization and they're trying to get insight about what others are doing in this space to do again, justify their spend.
Host: I love that the chief justification officer. It's a good one, Pete. I like that. That's excellent. This is really cool. Well, thank you for stopping by and talking to us about this today. We really appreciate it. Thanks again, Pete.
Pete: Thanks for the opportunity.
Host: And sign up for the SHSMD Connections, virtual conference, October 19th through the 21st 2021, which will feature two days of new sessions plus recordings from the in-person event. Go to shsmd.org/education/annualconference to learn more and to get registered and please join us at next year's conference, SHSMD Connections, 2022 September 11th through the 14th at Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland outside of Washington, DC. And if you found this podcast helpful, please share it on your social channels and to access our full podcast library for other topics of interest to you visit shsmd.org/podcasts. I'm Bill Klaproth. As always, thanks for listening.