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Bryan Eranest: Well, hello everyone. I'm Brian Earnest and this is the Amp Up Podcast. Our topic today is healthcare marketing. Joining me once again is Amperage's vice president of strategy Erin Bishop, welcome Erin.

Erin Bishop: Hi, Brian.

Bryan Eranest: Erin you and I talk healthcare, well, basically every day as we work with a variety of our, healthcare clients around the country. The last few years have been extremely challenging time, for a lot of industries, but probably none more than healthcare and specifically hospitals and other providers. Hospitals have been faced with being on the front lines of COVID and have had their business models, well, basically turned upside down over the past few years. As you think about challenges that hospitals of all sizes face, what comes to mind for you and how do you see it all impacting marketing?

Erin Bishop: I think the biggest challenge that a lot of us are facing. but especially healthcare is, a lack of talent. There were a lot of nurses and other providers that chose to leave the profession, during COVID, after COVID. I mean, there were already kind of finding the pinch and not having enough nurses and COVID definitely did not make that any better. And that has really forced human resources and marketing to come together, because they are having to think about new in different ways on how they recruit talent and how they find people.

And even beyond, finding the actual employees to work for them, more and more starting to think about how do we encourage people to even go into this profession. Right? Which is further aligning hospitals and colleges, and we're seeing more, partnerships between hospitals and colleges to really get people into that profession. And then how do we market those programs? How do we recruit these employees? How do we get these butts in our seats? Because if we don't, that greatly impacts the experience, which then in turn impacts the brand overall. So it's kind of a trickle down effect. That's the biggest challenge that I see for sure.

Bryan Eranest: No, that's a great point you make Erin about talent. And not only the talent gap and people who have stepped away from healthcare, but I've also wondered to about the transient nature now of healthcare providers, physicians, and nurses that have chosen to be these kind of providers on loan around the country. How that's changed the culture and the dynamics of healthcare delivery. When these aren't people who are members of that community, instead they're coming in, treating patients, being there for a week, a month, whatever, packing up and then getting out of there again. I just wonder what that will cause to that brand experience long term?

Erin Bishop: I think we're already starting to, see some impacts of that when we talk to our clients. When you're talking about the overall experience and a lot of our clients, that's one of their biggest differentiators, right? Is their experience is so much better than that of their competitors. And they are really, really struggling right now. They're struggling to get patients in and access to appointments because they don't have enough providers. once patients are in, they're struggling to get them through the healthcare system again, because they don't have enough providers to really deliver the experience that their patients and consumers in general, have come to know and expect.

That's a big obstacle. and there's a lot of things that marketing, can do to help that. But there's a lot of things that they can't. Which is where we've also seen greater alignment between I mentioned HR, but also greater alignment between people, in administration operations and all of those other roles that are now coming together with marketing to figure out together, how are we going to solve this problem. From the ground level of how do we get providers in the door to, how do we operationally deliver that experience to how do we talk to consumers and patients about it?

Bryan Eranest: Yeah. You mentioned the term access and I think the challenges around access that whole disruption of patient flow, historically. Healthcare has struggled in this area for a long time, but I think it's been, highlighted or exacerbated by COVID and the expectations of patients. They, like other industries, they wanna be able to get online, find the doctor or the clinic or the hospital that they want to go to. They wanna be able to schedule it. Have it show up on their calendar when they get there, their chart's all up to date. They want it as easy as it is to book an airplane, ticket or buy their groceries or order from Amazon.

And historically operationally healthcare at hospital specifically have just been behind the times in this area. And what you say about the intersection of that brand experience? And, the organization's overall strategy and that operational, I guess, mindset to bring brand and strategy together is just falling short for many. So we have a lot of hospitals and healthcare systems looking to explore their brand right now, maybe if somebody was listening to this podcast and thinking about boy, it's time to really evaluate our brand. What process do you recommend for any hospital that is looking to explore that?

Erin Bishop: Sure. A Much deeper process than you would originally think of and I think we saw that starting to transition before COVID, but then we really saw it start to transition during COVID and this isn't unique to healthcare, right. A lot of times any marketer would think of brand, almost purely in terms of their visual identity. So, Font colors, logo, tagline, images, like those sorts of things, design type, things, tone and voice, certainly. All of the things that go into that brand identity package is how many would think of brand. Now we need to think of it much, much deeper. And as I said, the transition started happening before COVID, but COVID really pushed it to the forefront, especially with healthcare because of all of those challenges that we just mentioned.

So to start with, you need to think of it much, much deeper and wider than your visual identity. We need to look at it from a strategy perspective, and that goes all the way down to the healthcare strategy perspective. What does your culture look like? What does your mission and vision point to? What's your strategic plan? What are these foundational elements that are guiding what you do, how you do it, who you hire and how you train your people? That all falls into that strategy piece. We also need to take a look at operations. operationally, how are things going?

Any marketing director can say or any, sometimes this comes for administration, right? Maybe you have an admin. That's like, we need to push, OB as an example, but if you can't get an appointment with an OB doctor, that's not good. Right? If you have a pregnant mom, who's calling to make an appointment with an OB doctor and she can't get in for four months. Well, that's not actually a thing. she's gonna go somewhere else. So some of those operational challenges all the way to your point on people want an Amazon like experience in healthcare. So can they make an appointment online?

When they call the phone number, does someone answer it? And actually help get them to where they need to go? Are they informative? Right? What does that operational experience look like? What sort of operational things do they have in place to deliver the experience? BEcause the experience is a huge part of your brand. As marketers, we can say a lot. We can almost say anything we want to, we might get in trouble for that, but we can put whatever we want on a billboard. Or in a digital ad, right. We can write web copy, but if it doesn't ring true, when someone actually experiences that brand, whether it's trying to make an appointment online or calling, or when they walk in the door, and how they're treated and how quickly they're able to be seen.

We're all busy people. No one wants to sit in the doctor's office for two hours waiting for their appointment. So what does that overall experience look like? What's the follow up? Is it a good experience? Because your brand is what people say about you when you're not in the room and what they say about you when you're not in the room has very little to do with your logo. And it has everything to do with the experience that you have. so we need to take a look at all of those things and it's that strategy operations and experience piece that really lead to that brand identity piece.

And we need to make sure all of those things are in alignment. Otherwise your brand isn't authentic at all. So to go back to your original question where it starts is research, and we need to do a deep dive into those three foundational things, strategy, operations, and experience to really uncover where are the areas that you're finding, where might there be sticking points that will hurt your overall grand reputation? What obstacles do we need to overcome? What messages do we need to really highlight? And then we can begin packaging those things into a brand identity.

Bryan Eranest: Is there a particular kind of research you'd start with if we're looking at an organization's brand?

Erin Bishop: There's a couple of different ways the most in, I shouldn't say the most important, but there are two very important pieces, one is by talking to those internal stakeholders. So let's go in have, one on one interviews that really dive into those three areas that I talked about. Sometimes these are one-on-ones sometimes they're kind of small group where it might be someone, one of us and then a couple of different stakeholders.

Bryan Eranest: Maybe a group of doctors or?

Erin Bishop: And we need to talk to people from all levels. Right. So I don't want to just talk to admins. I also wanna talk to physicians. I want to talk to nurses. I want to talk to patient navigators. I want to talk to the people who are answering the phone. I'm certainly not suggesting that I need to talk to every single person in your organization, but a nice craft representation of different roles and responsibilities in the organization, that all give a unique and different perspective on those three different areas.

Bryan Eranest: And then balance that with the perspective of patients and, caregivers, family members, community members, referring physicians, get that outside and inside perspective. Right?

Erin Bishop: Absolutely. That's exactly where I was going next is sometimes we can collect that information by doing, a few patient interviews. Sometimes we might go out and do a community perception survey. Most hospitals also have patient satisfaction surveys. Some of them regularly do brand awareness surveys, so we can learn a lot by taking a look at those, other pieces of research and information that they likely already have, that they don't necessarily think about when we go into something like this.

Bryan Eranest: No, that's great Erin, thank you. You and I, both, we work with a lot of, marketing and marketing leadership as well as hospital leadership these days, from a marketing perspective, what are you hearing as their top priorities these days?

Erin Bishop: There is a lot about, we're talking a lot about brand. And when I say brand, I mean, brand from a really holistic point of view, not just brand identity, it is all of those things. Because they're really, really beginning to understand and see the impact of what happens when those things aren't in alignment. As far as strategy, operations, experience and identity. And a lot of times right now, especially those need to be brought into alignment in how do we begin to do that is a big thing. Another big thing, as I mentioned is recruitment. We're working with a lot of healthcare organizations on how do we help HR recruit from a marketing perspective?

That's a big thing. I would say another big priority is that prevention and wellness and kind of monitoring and screening stages of a consumer journey. Again, we had started down this path, before COVID, as health insurance requirements change and all sorts of things. The healthcare dynamic was changing drastically anyway. Now there's an even greater importance on this because there are a lot of people that put off their prevention, wellness, screening appointments during COVID, which certainly isn't helping with access in patient experience in those sorts of things. Because they are, having an increased number of patients because people have put off their care.

And now they have a decreased number of providers, which really just adds to that overall kind of conundrum they're facing. So the more that marketing can get out there with prevention and wellness, messaging and reminding people to get their regular checkups and to get their screenings and, giving them healthy tips on how to stay healthy and well, so you don't need to go into the hospital. We're seeing a greater emphasis and an importance on just general health and well being.

Bryan Eranest: Those are great examples for me. And I'd love your feedback. A couple that pop up for me. I can think of two. One is, we continue to hear from so many, of our healthcare clients. I think healthcare catching up with other industries from the standpoint of, in the past they could build awareness around a service line. They could promote new doctors, promote a new service, but actually showing that lead generation and conversions all the way through this system. I think about a campaign we did this past year for a state hospital association where, it's great.

We've had, hundreds and hundreds of views to a video. We've seen an ad campaign. That's had more than 9,000 video views from two different videos. In healthcare, traditionally you would think that is huge success, right? But healthcare systems today looking at also then how do I get it all the way down to the appointment level, all the way down to a conversion that actually leads to an appointment, leads to revenue, and then that revenue can be downstream? That's huge. I think that's the next big frontier it's here for many of the biggest systems, but, I think even the smallest systems are looking to, figure out how they can get those kind of conversions. Would you agree?

Erin Bishop: Absolutely. And that's a great point, Brian. and I think it's also a huge challenge for our marketers.

Bryan Eranest: It's certainly.

Erin Bishop: That's not an easy thing to do when you're relying on a lot of other people to help connect those dots and really show that ROI. But I think hospital and clinic leadership is demanding it.

Bryan Eranest: It also brings into play technology, right? A website that can allow you to do that. A mobile experience, a phone tree experience that can capture those leads and get them to the right place. It's all about that access piece we were talking about earlier. The other one we're finding, I think is also, we're seeing a bridge happening between, healthcare hospital marketing departments. And the fundraising, foundation side where connecting a patient message, a community message with a donor message and having greater linkage between the two. And I think organizations that are figuring that out, that they don't work independently, that they truly do work in a synergistic way, are having even greater success.

Erin Bishop: I wholeheartedly agree with that. And I think that also is a great example of healthcare in general has traditionally been very siloed. and they're having to break down those silos between the various departments, marketing and philanthropy is a great example, marketing and operations, marketing, and HR, even service lines between each other, have to break down those, silos because it's all intersect. And it all has to work together. that's what your patients are expecting that it does. And in reality it doesn't, and that can be a big struggle.

Bryan Eranest: Before we wrap up today, Erin, we also work with a lot of small, maybe more rural, hospitals across the Midwest. any particular challenges we're seeing for those, maybe smaller rural hospitals?

Erin Bishop: Absolutely. I think recruitment is still a challenge there. Though ironically, in talking to some of our smaller, more rural, hospitals, I think they're having better luck than some of our larger hospitals and larger metros, they're having better luck, attracting and retaining employees. So I'm not quite sure why that is. but that's good news for them. I think their biggest challenge is a small rural hospital is they are constantly, butting up against the hospitals in the larger metros that surround them. And are having from a marketing and branding perspective, having to really demonstrate their value.

Some of that value is inherent in that a lot of times they are the community's largest employer. Right. And they, donate a lot of money to, community organizations and nonprofits and things like that. But beyond that, They can't do those things if they don't have patients through their. So they're really having to prove their value, with regard to patient care and why patients should come to them versus going 30 miles down the road to the larger hospital that in all reality might have more specialties than they do.

But there's a lot of care that our small rural hospitals do provide and they provide it really, really well. They need to constantly communicate that and consistently communicate that to consumers in their area, otherwise it can be easy to overlook, those small rural hospitals when you're looking for care.

Bryan Eranest: Yeah, great points. Erin, I think about, those smaller players in the healthcare space, really understanding their brand to the point where they understand their core. They understand their unique selling proposition. They understand the value that they bring and understanding continually demonstrating in an authentic way, their relevancy in the communities they serve. When they do that and do that well, we've found many of them to be really, really strong players. Any other thoughts on healthcare today?

Erin Bishop: Just one more comment on our rural hospitals, the more rural hospitals and some of the comments you just made, the other thing I would say is saying that we're close to home is not enough. Which is the trap that a lot of 'em will fall into. And that's not unique to healthcare either. but consumers already know you're close to home. They can see your big building there. And they see your logo everywhere, but they need to know why they should come there for their care. And it can't just be because it's close to home.

Bryan Eranest: That magic word in marketing. Why?

Erin Bishop: Exactly. Exactly. And that's probably my final parting thought is that's really what healthcare needs to take a really close look at is why, because that's what consumers are asking. Why? Why should I get my care there? Why should I go to that doctor? and they have to be able to answer that question.

Bryan Eranest: As always great information today, Erin. Thank you. I love the conversation. Hey, let's do this again.

Erin Bishop: Sounds good. Thank you, Brian.

Bryan Eranest: Well, that's it for today's Amp Up Podcast. If you like what you've heard on our podcast, please share it. Go to amperagemarketing.com. Also, if you get a chance, please rate and review us. We appreciate any feedback on behalf of all of us at Amperage. Thank you. Check in on another podcast and we will help you move the needle.