In an industry that is now riddled with hospitals and health systems disenfranchised and underserved by CRM companies that have over promised and under delivered, it's time to start reimagining Digital Marketing. More than 50% of hospitals expect to have negative margins this year compared to pre-pandemic, so how do we work smarter with fewer resources while not compromising the ability to show true undeniable ROI? Learn from Becky Imbimbo, Digital Health Consultant with DeliverHealth that specializes in ROI analysis for Digital Marketing.
What you'll learn in this podcast:
How to develop an ROI analysis practice/strategy, even without a CRM
What is the TRUE definition of ROI in healthcare digital marketing
How to leverage, structure and democratize data to drive better decisions
Selected Podcast
CRM Agnostic ROI is POSSIBLE
Featured Speaker:
Becky Imbimbo
Becky has been in healthcare marketing for 13+ years. For the past 7 years, Becky has been focused on strategy, acquisition, and retention campaigns for hospitals and health systems across the country. Becky lives in Connecticut with her husband, Lorenzo, and two children, Olivia and Leonardo (Leo). Transcription:
CRM Agnostic ROI is POSSIBLE
Intro: The following SHSMD Podcast is a production of DoctorPodcasting.com.
Bill Klaproth (host): On this edition of the SHSMD podcast, let me ask you this, are you tracking every dollar spent? Are you tracking your ROI? Hmm. Well, let's talk about that. And we're also going to talk about how CRM agnostic ROI is possible. You're going to get all that information as we talk with Becky Imbimbo, digital health consultant with Deliver Health. So, let's get to it right now.
This is the SHSMD Podcast, rapid insights for healthcare strategy professionals in planning, business development, marketing communications, and public relations. I'm your host, Bill Klaproth. In this episode, we talk with Becky Imbimbo. For the past seven years, Becky has been focused on strategy, acquisition and retention campaigns for hospitals and health systems across the country. She is a health consultant with Deliver Health and this episode is sponsored by Deliver Health. Learn more about them at deliverhealth.com. Becky, welcome to the SHSMD Podcast. We start every episode of the SHSMD Podcast with rapid insights, one quick tip someone can use to make their marketing communications better today. Becky, give us your rapid insight.
Becky Imbimbo: Any dollar that you put into market, make sure you can also look at your return on investment.
Bill Klaproth: Always got to look at that ROI, that's for sure. Becky, thank you for that rapid insight. We appreciate it. And welcome. This is such a great topic because we hear the term ROI so often, and I feel like there are so many different definitions of ROI in healthcare marketing, specifically within digital marketing. So let me ask you this, how do you define ROI?
Becky Imbimbo: To me, ROI really means actual undeniable financial return on investment with true encounter attribution. In other words, someone engages with content served in a market, like a Google ad. And a person goes ahead and takes a health risk assessment, requests a call back, something in the form of a call to action, and they then eventually have an in-person or virtual appointment with the hospital or health system. The revenue attributed to that encounter minus the cost of everything associated with that media spend effectively would give you the true ROI.
Bill Klaproth: Right. So historically, the ability to demonstrate ROI relied on the existence of a CRM or data repository to structure the data. Is that still the case today?
Becky Imbimbo: So, yes and no. CRM obviously can serve many purposes within a healthcare organization, but for those looking for ROI specifically, you don't need a CRM to do this because when you apply highly sophisticated match merge methodology within a data lake or a repository being fed by source data from your EMR, EHR, whatever you want to call it, and activity data from campaigns or any digital activity, that's how we can show ROI. The ROI model, of course, must meet the needs of the financial team and their requirements, so making sure that we're talking and speaking the language specific to that hospital or health system. We take a look at total payments, contribution margin, really what that hospital and health system looks at. All of these can be calculated using different fields and criteria within the data. There is a lot of work that goes into the onset of establishing these rules and criteria. But once it's established and blessed by the internal stakeholders, you can truly measure ROI in real time. And I don't think that hospital and health systems out there today are doing this as well as it should be done. So, we at Deliver Health believe this can be achieved at a fraction of the cost by bypassing the need for a full-fledged CRM.
Bill Klaproth: So ROI in real time, that's an interesting way to put it. And who doesn't want ROI in real time, right?
Becky Imbimbo: Exactly.
Bill Klaproth: So as we think about ROI, or as I'm thinking about it as I'm talking to you, Becky, you gave an example earlier, if someone engages in a Google ad and eventually winds up making an appointment. And if someone is just seeing that ad and you're building awareness, they're not engaging, they're not taking in action, but they're seeing the ads, so you're getting at least an impression, does that count as ROI?
Becky Imbimbo: So, that would be something that we consider a leading indicator. A leading indicator are the impressions or the views or those high level metrics that don't really show, I don't want to say value because it is brand recognition, but it's not the lagging indicators. And that's what we want to look at from an ROI perspective to really get a good sense on what's making sense and what's working in the market. Because you could be seeing that ad, that Google ad, and it's just an impression, but truly is that ad working if it's not helping you convert?
Bill Klaproth (host): Right. Because that is the ultimate main goal. So, can you talk at a high level about some examples of how ROI was accomplished with customers you've worked with?
Becky Imbimbo: Yeah. So obviously, with Deliver Health, I can't provide specifics, but I've been working in the healthcare digital space for 10 years. And everything I've learned over the past 10 years is how we're developing and building out our ROI model. I've worked with clients that have been able to show a 10:1 ROI, a 20:1 ROI. I've even had campaigns and digital efforts that have shown 50:1 ROI on all marketing efforts and media spent. That means for every dollar invested, we were able to help them show and demonstrate the ability to return 10, 20, 50 to the bottom line of their organization. This is how we have to start socializing the concept and helping key stakeholders understand why marketing can truly be an investment center and not just across the center.
Bill Klaproth: Yeah, I mean, that's amazing. who wouldn't want a 50:1 ROI? That's truly amazing. I know you're not going to give away any trade secrets here. Are there any tips that you can share with us, or tricks, or things we should know in general on how to generate a better ROI?
Becky Imbimbo: Analyzing your data is always my go-to. If you are not looking at your data and seeing what it's showing you, I mean, obviously ROI is the most important, but if you aren't seeing leads being generated by an effort and your overall goal is patient acquisition, then you need to see leads that are driving. And if you're not, you have to rethink your strategy.
Bill Klaproth: So Becky, let me ask you this big question. Do you think most healthcare organizations are showing ROI on marketing efforts today?
Becky Imbimbo: I believe that healthcare organizations are looking at ROI, but they may not be getting as in depth as the ROI that we are building out. A lot of organizations are still looking at those leading indicators, as I had mentioned earlier, where we really want to focus our efforts on those lagging indicators. Because our ROI model is sophisticated in matching all activities of campaigns to actual encounters through the organization, we're getting to see the real ROI that clients want to see.
Bill Klaproth: Right. So, you paid more attention to the lagging indicators then?
Becky Imbimbo: That's correct. We still run all of our campaigns and programs to look at leading indicators and lagging indicators. Like I had mentioned, if you're not driving leads, then your strategy needs to change. But when we look at ROI, we are really focusing our efforts on what the ultimate ROI, the true ROI is showing. So if we launch a program, and that program in three, six, nine months, whatever that tail is that you have to look at, if we're not seeing a return, then we really need to shift the focus of our entire strategy to say, "Okay, this wasn't working. Whatever we were doing in market was not showing us the value," and that's really what we need to look at.
Bill Klaproth (host): Okay. So, you were just talking about looking at the life of a campaign three, six, nine months, and talking about the long tail. What about looking back retroactively showing ROI. Is that even possible?
Becky Imbimbo: It is possible if there's data to look at. So for our listeners out there, they might be thinking and asking themselves that we've been in marketing for several years with various service line campaigns, capturing acquisition data and they want to take a look and see what the ROI is showing to them. We're actively working with clients that have three to five years worth of data captured from various service lines, and we're able to apply our ROI analytics with that data, matching against their clinical data to show retroactive ROI. Now, because of how our programs are built out right now, it could be that they may be missing some fields. So, it's not going to be as exact as real time, but it's definitely something that can be done.
Bill Klaproth: So, Becky, let me ask you this, as we're talking about ROI, you've got my mind thinking in many directions here as most of my guests when I talk to them. So, I'm wondering what are we as an industry doing wrong when it comes to ROI? Obviously, the better we get at ROI, the better our bottom line is going to be. So, is there something that we're not doing right? Is there something we're all missing when it comes to ROI that you see like, "Yep, everybody makes this mistake." Is there something out there like that that you see that would help us with this?
Becky Imbimbo: Yeah. And I think that's a great question. And it kind of stems back to what is operationally going on. Because you can ultimately say, "Hey, we have this need on our oncology service line, but if you don't have operations internally to act on, you know, take the calls and schedule appointments, or, you know, you're scheduling six months out, obviously that effort is not going to return as high of an ROI effort as another service line that may be operationally ready. So, making sure that you are operationally ready and you have an operations process within the hospital and health system to make sure that you can take in more patients is going to be key to having that higher ROI.
Bill Klaproth (host): And is that where a third party company like yours would come in to help people make sure that they're operationally ready as you put it?
Becky Imbimbo: That's correct. We would definitely ask questions up front when talking through some opportunities for programs and campaign opportunities and ask them where they stand and what that looks like so we can make sure that it is in sound standing before moving forward on any effort.
Bill Klaproth (host): Well, this certainly has been an interesting discussion about ROI, Becky. Thank you so much for your time. This has been really informative. Thanks again.
Becky Imbimbo: Thank you.
Bill Klaproth (host): And once again, that's Becky Imbimbo. And this podcast is sponsored by Deliver Health. Deliver Health is a healthcare software and services company with a set of connected solutions that bridge mid-revenue cycle and digital health together to improve the capabilities of health organizations to increase revenue, lower costs, demonstrate a return on investment and create a healthier patient base. Learn more about them at deliverhealth.com. And if you found this podcast helpful, and of course, how could you not, please share it on all of your social channels. And please hit the subscribe or follow button to get every episode. This has been a production of Doctor podcasting. I'm Bill Klaproth. See ya!
CRM Agnostic ROI is POSSIBLE
Intro: The following SHSMD Podcast is a production of DoctorPodcasting.com.
Bill Klaproth (host): On this edition of the SHSMD podcast, let me ask you this, are you tracking every dollar spent? Are you tracking your ROI? Hmm. Well, let's talk about that. And we're also going to talk about how CRM agnostic ROI is possible. You're going to get all that information as we talk with Becky Imbimbo, digital health consultant with Deliver Health. So, let's get to it right now.
This is the SHSMD Podcast, rapid insights for healthcare strategy professionals in planning, business development, marketing communications, and public relations. I'm your host, Bill Klaproth. In this episode, we talk with Becky Imbimbo. For the past seven years, Becky has been focused on strategy, acquisition and retention campaigns for hospitals and health systems across the country. She is a health consultant with Deliver Health and this episode is sponsored by Deliver Health. Learn more about them at deliverhealth.com. Becky, welcome to the SHSMD Podcast. We start every episode of the SHSMD Podcast with rapid insights, one quick tip someone can use to make their marketing communications better today. Becky, give us your rapid insight.
Becky Imbimbo: Any dollar that you put into market, make sure you can also look at your return on investment.
Bill Klaproth: Always got to look at that ROI, that's for sure. Becky, thank you for that rapid insight. We appreciate it. And welcome. This is such a great topic because we hear the term ROI so often, and I feel like there are so many different definitions of ROI in healthcare marketing, specifically within digital marketing. So let me ask you this, how do you define ROI?
Becky Imbimbo: To me, ROI really means actual undeniable financial return on investment with true encounter attribution. In other words, someone engages with content served in a market, like a Google ad. And a person goes ahead and takes a health risk assessment, requests a call back, something in the form of a call to action, and they then eventually have an in-person or virtual appointment with the hospital or health system. The revenue attributed to that encounter minus the cost of everything associated with that media spend effectively would give you the true ROI.
Bill Klaproth: Right. So historically, the ability to demonstrate ROI relied on the existence of a CRM or data repository to structure the data. Is that still the case today?
Becky Imbimbo: So, yes and no. CRM obviously can serve many purposes within a healthcare organization, but for those looking for ROI specifically, you don't need a CRM to do this because when you apply highly sophisticated match merge methodology within a data lake or a repository being fed by source data from your EMR, EHR, whatever you want to call it, and activity data from campaigns or any digital activity, that's how we can show ROI. The ROI model, of course, must meet the needs of the financial team and their requirements, so making sure that we're talking and speaking the language specific to that hospital or health system. We take a look at total payments, contribution margin, really what that hospital and health system looks at. All of these can be calculated using different fields and criteria within the data. There is a lot of work that goes into the onset of establishing these rules and criteria. But once it's established and blessed by the internal stakeholders, you can truly measure ROI in real time. And I don't think that hospital and health systems out there today are doing this as well as it should be done. So, we at Deliver Health believe this can be achieved at a fraction of the cost by bypassing the need for a full-fledged CRM.
Bill Klaproth: So ROI in real time, that's an interesting way to put it. And who doesn't want ROI in real time, right?
Becky Imbimbo: Exactly.
Bill Klaproth: So as we think about ROI, or as I'm thinking about it as I'm talking to you, Becky, you gave an example earlier, if someone engages in a Google ad and eventually winds up making an appointment. And if someone is just seeing that ad and you're building awareness, they're not engaging, they're not taking in action, but they're seeing the ads, so you're getting at least an impression, does that count as ROI?
Becky Imbimbo: So, that would be something that we consider a leading indicator. A leading indicator are the impressions or the views or those high level metrics that don't really show, I don't want to say value because it is brand recognition, but it's not the lagging indicators. And that's what we want to look at from an ROI perspective to really get a good sense on what's making sense and what's working in the market. Because you could be seeing that ad, that Google ad, and it's just an impression, but truly is that ad working if it's not helping you convert?
Bill Klaproth (host): Right. Because that is the ultimate main goal. So, can you talk at a high level about some examples of how ROI was accomplished with customers you've worked with?
Becky Imbimbo: Yeah. So obviously, with Deliver Health, I can't provide specifics, but I've been working in the healthcare digital space for 10 years. And everything I've learned over the past 10 years is how we're developing and building out our ROI model. I've worked with clients that have been able to show a 10:1 ROI, a 20:1 ROI. I've even had campaigns and digital efforts that have shown 50:1 ROI on all marketing efforts and media spent. That means for every dollar invested, we were able to help them show and demonstrate the ability to return 10, 20, 50 to the bottom line of their organization. This is how we have to start socializing the concept and helping key stakeholders understand why marketing can truly be an investment center and not just across the center.
Bill Klaproth: Yeah, I mean, that's amazing. who wouldn't want a 50:1 ROI? That's truly amazing. I know you're not going to give away any trade secrets here. Are there any tips that you can share with us, or tricks, or things we should know in general on how to generate a better ROI?
Becky Imbimbo: Analyzing your data is always my go-to. If you are not looking at your data and seeing what it's showing you, I mean, obviously ROI is the most important, but if you aren't seeing leads being generated by an effort and your overall goal is patient acquisition, then you need to see leads that are driving. And if you're not, you have to rethink your strategy.
Bill Klaproth: So Becky, let me ask you this big question. Do you think most healthcare organizations are showing ROI on marketing efforts today?
Becky Imbimbo: I believe that healthcare organizations are looking at ROI, but they may not be getting as in depth as the ROI that we are building out. A lot of organizations are still looking at those leading indicators, as I had mentioned earlier, where we really want to focus our efforts on those lagging indicators. Because our ROI model is sophisticated in matching all activities of campaigns to actual encounters through the organization, we're getting to see the real ROI that clients want to see.
Bill Klaproth: Right. So, you paid more attention to the lagging indicators then?
Becky Imbimbo: That's correct. We still run all of our campaigns and programs to look at leading indicators and lagging indicators. Like I had mentioned, if you're not driving leads, then your strategy needs to change. But when we look at ROI, we are really focusing our efforts on what the ultimate ROI, the true ROI is showing. So if we launch a program, and that program in three, six, nine months, whatever that tail is that you have to look at, if we're not seeing a return, then we really need to shift the focus of our entire strategy to say, "Okay, this wasn't working. Whatever we were doing in market was not showing us the value," and that's really what we need to look at.
Bill Klaproth (host): Okay. So, you were just talking about looking at the life of a campaign three, six, nine months, and talking about the long tail. What about looking back retroactively showing ROI. Is that even possible?
Becky Imbimbo: It is possible if there's data to look at. So for our listeners out there, they might be thinking and asking themselves that we've been in marketing for several years with various service line campaigns, capturing acquisition data and they want to take a look and see what the ROI is showing to them. We're actively working with clients that have three to five years worth of data captured from various service lines, and we're able to apply our ROI analytics with that data, matching against their clinical data to show retroactive ROI. Now, because of how our programs are built out right now, it could be that they may be missing some fields. So, it's not going to be as exact as real time, but it's definitely something that can be done.
Bill Klaproth: So, Becky, let me ask you this, as we're talking about ROI, you've got my mind thinking in many directions here as most of my guests when I talk to them. So, I'm wondering what are we as an industry doing wrong when it comes to ROI? Obviously, the better we get at ROI, the better our bottom line is going to be. So, is there something that we're not doing right? Is there something we're all missing when it comes to ROI that you see like, "Yep, everybody makes this mistake." Is there something out there like that that you see that would help us with this?
Becky Imbimbo: Yeah. And I think that's a great question. And it kind of stems back to what is operationally going on. Because you can ultimately say, "Hey, we have this need on our oncology service line, but if you don't have operations internally to act on, you know, take the calls and schedule appointments, or, you know, you're scheduling six months out, obviously that effort is not going to return as high of an ROI effort as another service line that may be operationally ready. So, making sure that you are operationally ready and you have an operations process within the hospital and health system to make sure that you can take in more patients is going to be key to having that higher ROI.
Bill Klaproth (host): And is that where a third party company like yours would come in to help people make sure that they're operationally ready as you put it?
Becky Imbimbo: That's correct. We would definitely ask questions up front when talking through some opportunities for programs and campaign opportunities and ask them where they stand and what that looks like so we can make sure that it is in sound standing before moving forward on any effort.
Bill Klaproth (host): Well, this certainly has been an interesting discussion about ROI, Becky. Thank you so much for your time. This has been really informative. Thanks again.
Becky Imbimbo: Thank you.
Bill Klaproth (host): And once again, that's Becky Imbimbo. And this podcast is sponsored by Deliver Health. Deliver Health is a healthcare software and services company with a set of connected solutions that bridge mid-revenue cycle and digital health together to improve the capabilities of health organizations to increase revenue, lower costs, demonstrate a return on investment and create a healthier patient base. Learn more about them at deliverhealth.com. And if you found this podcast helpful, and of course, how could you not, please share it on all of your social channels. And please hit the subscribe or follow button to get every episode. This has been a production of Doctor podcasting. I'm Bill Klaproth. See ya!