Five Critical Roles for Healthcare Marketing Executives

Karen Corrigan

Corrigan Partners LLC

@karencorrigan

Corriganpartners.com

The changing face of competition . . . and healthcare marketing.

• Restructuring markets and intensifying competitor activities in anticipation of reform and other industry pressures

• New reimbursement methods and care delivery models that require greater emphasis on customer engagement to optimize profitability

• Transformation of marketing practice through web, social and mobile technologies

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Five critical roles for healthcare marketers

Growth Strategist

Brand Advocate

Digital Change Agent

Experience Champion

Innovation Catalyst

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Role # 1:

The marketer as growth strategist

In nearly every other industry, marketing is valued as a revenue-generating business competency critical to driving growth, brand loyalty and better financial performance.

Now is the time for chief marketing officers to move aggressively to transform marketing practice from promotions-oriented tactics to growth-oriented strategic leadership.

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Revenue generation is the priority . . .

For the foreseeable future, health systems will be operating with competing and somewhat conflicting objectives as they attempt to optimize commercial volumes for core clinical programs, while simultaneously building accountable care systems and capabilities.

Marketing executives must help health systems transcend the ‘pay for volume’ and ‘pay for value’ markets

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Building a powerful, relevant, differentiated brand position

Developing a core set of comprehensive ‘smart growth’ service lines

Enhancing access and minimizing ‘leaky bucket’ and out-migration

Creating and leveraging more tightly integrated physician structures

Developing innovative payor/contracting relationships

Developing competencies in population health management

Diversifying ambulatory, post-acute, retail and on-line health services

Creating future-ready models of care

Expanding into new markets and new lines of business

Creating a signature, customer-centric service culture

Leveraging strategic information technologies

Building revenue-generating marketing capabilities

Focus on revenue-generating growth opportunities

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Success requires a growth-oriented culture

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Marketing’s partnership and co-accountability with clinical operations, IT, finance, HR and other core business functions are critical to:

Driving alignment across the network (operations, IT, physicians, contracting, etc.)

Understanding changing payment methods and business models

Delivering on revenue growth and profit targets.

Role #2:

The marketer as brand advocate

The business of branding: Growth. Innovation. Leverage.

• Brands influence consumer decision-making and choices regarding health and medical care.

• Brands shape the complex referral and transactional relationships among consumers, health services, physicians, hospitals and payers; strong brands create premium referral, partnering and contracting advantages.

• Strong brands attract the best talent, and can be leveraged to benefit recruitment and retention.

• Brands are about growth, revenue, profitability, market leverage, staff commitment and customer loyalty.

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Brand management must evolve to address and handle the complexities of:

Rapidly restructuring markets require new approaches to brand leadership

Newly developing care delivery models

Hospital and health system mergers & acquisitions

Physician integration and owned medical practices

Ambulatory, post acute and retail diversification

Academic, technology and business partnerships

Multi-market, multi-state expansion initiatives

Enterprise IT/EHR/Website strategies

Co-branding/co-marketing relationships

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Brand leadership has never been more important – or more challenging – for health systems

Rapidly changing competitive dynamics are taxing even well established healthcare brands

To date, brand investments in healthcare have been largely focused on identity systems, advertising and promotions

Brand and its interdependency on the operating model is a fledging concept in healthcare

Strategic, operational, clinical, physician and marketing alignment is essential to creating and delivering a meaningful, differentiating and durable brand value proposition

Brand strength improves competitive performance

Brand alignment builds the brand-

driven culture that transforms an

organization from one that simply

‘promotes a brand’ to one that

‘delivers the brand.’

Tracking the impact of brand investments on business performance is imperative

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Strategic Metrics Marketing Metrics Financial Metrics

Performance Metric

Market Position

Brand Reputation

Market Leverage

Customer Acquisition

Customer Retention

Business Outcomes

Sample Measures

Market share Rate of growth

Industry rankings Customer perceptions MD perceptions Staff perceptions Community benefit

Contracting Recruitment Fundraising M&A/partnering $$/new ventures

Awareness Preference # inquiries # new customers Volumes

Satisfaction Referrals Share of spend Lifetime value Brand loyalty

Sales revenue Margin Payor mix Ratings

Focus How is brand equity leveraged to create and sustain competitive advantage?

How do brand perceptions influence customer behavior?

How does customer behavior create tangible

economic value?

©Corrigan Partners LLC

Strong brands influence consumer choice

Strong brands attract and retain the best talent

Strong brands create contracting, partnering leverage

Strong brands shape referral patterns

Strong brands build customer loyalty

Strong brands better weather economic cycles

The bottom line

Core competencies of brand leadership

Advanced brand research and analytic techniques

Purposeful, consistent brand experience

Relevant, defensible brand value proposition

Brand-driven growth pipeline

Leveraged brand equity

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Web, social networking and mobile technologies are revolutionizing business processes everywhere and marketers can be change agents by helping health systems better understand how to employ these technologies to:

Reach and engage consumers

Acquire and retain customers

Improve patient-provider relationships

Support patients with care management

Promote better clinical care and decision-making

Facilitate workplace communications and productivity

Build the brand

Role #3:

The marketer as digital change agent

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Building digital marketing capabilities is job one

Invest in digital marketing structures, capabilities and support systems:

• Integrated, multi-channel strategies

• Integrated web, social, mobile marketing

• Content marketing & management

• Integrated CRM/contact center

• Mobile media development & marketing

• Digital brandscaping

• Social commerce

• Community management

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Master the art of digital and content marketing Harness the power of digital marketing to drive customer acquisition and

retention; digital marketing gives us real time access to the patient at the very moment they are interested; social engagement gives us deep insights into consumer needs and wants.

Engaging the right audiences, in the right places, at the right time to drive revenue and brand loyalty is the goal of digital marketing.

Success requires a thorough understanding of how consumers discover, consume and share information on-line; and the role of search and social interaction across the buying cycle.

Make digital brandscaping a priority – deliver a positive, consistent brand experience in both virtual and physical environments.

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Lead the change . . .

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• Develop fluency in digital and social media -- use the tools personally & professionally

• Establish a vision and plan for digital and social marketing; restructure marketing and redesign marketing processes

• Educate the organization as to how web, social and mobile are changing consumer behaviors, and how digital and social tools can enhance brand experience, improve health and facilitate business processes

• Provide education to increase digital & social media skills in marketing and across the organization

• Facilitate adoption of digital – web, social and mobile -- from top tier executives who may be entrenched in outdated ways

• Make it easy for staff to do the right thing – help them understand the brand, understand the rules, understand the platforms

Role #4:

The marketer as experience champion Be a champion for customer-centered decision-

making and innovations that transform customer experience.

Drive understanding across the health system that customer experience is more than HCAHPS scores and patient satisfaction . . . it’s about meeting customer expectations every day in every interaction through DESIGN – administrative systems, appointment scheduling, meeting and greeting, clinical processes, customer engagement, billing, follow-up, etc.

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People

• Culture

• Beliefs

• Values

• Behaviors

Brand-Driven Experience Framework

Processes

• Scheduling

• Registration

• Treatment

• Hand-offs

Performance

• Service

• Quality

• Lean

• Six Sigma

Marketing

• Segments

• Products

• Channels

• Brand

Experience happens by design; not by accident

Help others learn from the “Elite 8%” A Bain & Company study found that 80% of surveyed companies felt they

delivered good experiences; when their customers were interviewed, only 8% truly delivered. What sets the ‘elite 8’ apart?

They understand their customers and design the right offers and experiences for those customers.

They deliver experience by focusing the entire company on customer needs with an emphasis on cross-functional collaboration.

They develop capabilities to please customers again and again—by such means as continual innovation, training people in how to create new customer experiences, and establishing direct accountability for customer experience.

Source: Harvard Management Update; Three D’s of Customer Experience; 2005

What can marketing do?

Employ innovative research techniques to generate rich insights into customer needs, wants, expectations . . .

Bring customers and providers together in planning and design sessions . . .

Articulate the link between brand value proposition and experience . . .

Keep experiences authentic…authentic to your brand value proposition, authentic to customer expectations, authentic to capabilities . . .

Champion use of DESIGN to hardwire experience . . .

Become a fan of demonstration projects; experiment, learn, apply . . .

Educate, educate, educate . . .

Role #5:

The marketer as innovation catalyst Transformation of care delivery systems, business processes, and market strategies are top priorities for health systems:

Innovations advance strategy, build brand equity, and produce a better bottom line.

Innovation rarely happens by chance; it happens more through the purposeful creation of innovation competencies and processes.

Innovation demands alignment of culture, capabilities and structure, as well as a laser focus on value-creation.

Transformation cannot happen without innovation.

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Creating new markets, moving market share, developing new sources of revenue, building brand loyalty, improving profitability, and sustaining competitiveness are all goals of innovation.

Marketers can help by creating a focused customer-centered approach to innovation and developing the platforms to drive creative solutions.

Success stems from creative thinking, fresh solutions, and relevance to customers.

That puts marketing front and center as the curator of customer intelligence.

Marketing’s role has never been more crucial

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• Needs driven innovations - emphasis is market research to better understand customer needs and discover market opportunities that can be addressed in unique ways; R & D is the core competency.

• Relationship driven innovations - emphasis is mass customization as a competency to create one-to-one relationships, enabled by sophisticated, enabling CRM technology that recognizes, supports, and delivers customized solutions for valued customers.

• Market driving innovations - resetting the rules of competition through value innovation; radical, disruptive moves that create new markets, transform customers into fans, and build such distinct points of competitive advantage that they are difficult to duplicate.

Align innovation efforts to strategy

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Promote less talk, more action

Healthcare consumers are frustrated by the complexities of access, fragmentation of care, lack of communications, and other aspects of their experiences.

Most of the industry is woefully behind in providing on-line conveniences such as scheduling and customer communications.

Opportunities for innovations that take the hassle out of healthcare are sizable.

So why aren’t more marketers driving changes in the customer experience realm?

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The business enterprise has two and only two

basic functions: marketing and innovation.

Marketing and innovation produce results;

all the rest are costs.

Peter Drucker

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Embrace change, then drive transformation

Questions. Comments. Discussion.

Karen Corrigan Founder/CEO Corrigan Partners karen@corriganpartners.com P 757.288.2480 @karencorrigan blog @ karencorrigan.com