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Integrated Marketing Helps Health Care Practices
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Integrated Marketing Helps Health Care Practices

By Knight Stivender
October 2, 2018

Marketing a family of brands
Every marketing challenge is different. Some are more complicated than others. And then there are the ones that really make you stretch. Those are the kinds we like.

Early in 2018, a company with 40-plus retail health care centers in 10 states approached MP&F looking for greater brand awareness and help attracting new patients.

But there was a catch – this wasn’t one brand. This was 40-plus brands. Every one of the centers.

A quick case study offers some insight to approach.

Need
A corporation of 40-plus retail health care practices in 10 states wanted to increase brand awareness and bring in new patients. Each is individually branded, maintains different value propositions, and supports consumers with varying service lines and approaches. The acquisition marketing efforts needed to meet several objectives.

  • Trackable.
  • Coordinate across multiple media channels.
  • Target to an array of audiences based on a wide variety of geographies and demographic profiles.
  • Remain within a reasonable budget for labor, hard costs and media.

Tactics
MP&F Strategic Communications was able to build an integrated marketing campaign that accomplished each of the client’s goals. We used a combination of Google AdWords with phone extensions, Facebook ads with conversion tracking, and direct mail of a brochure customized for each practice. A strategic data analysis underpinned the campaign to help determine audience profiling, campaign messaging, ad targeting and media spend. The campaign began with Google AdWords and paid Facebook ads in each market.

  • For Google – Eight ads per practice into three subsets based on whom the ads targeted. Those searching for two particular types of medical expertise or a particular expertise “near me.” Phone extensions were used so that people accessing the ads from their mobile phones could call the practices directly and their responses would be tracked as measureable leads as part of the campaign performance.
  • For Facebook – Three versions of creative began running for each practice. Each design was built to mirror the look and feel of the direct mail pieces that would drop later in the campaign. Click-throughs from the Facebook ads to the practice website landing pages’ new patient portals and other pertinent pages were measured via Facebook conversion tracking pixels.
  • Mail Pieces – Constructed with adjustable content. Each practice’s distinct offerings and expertise were showcased within specific sections of a creative “shell” suitable for the whole company. This approach allowed each practice to shine individually while adhering to a tight budget. The pieces dropped midway through the two-month digital campaign to prospects identified as part of a data analysis conducted at the beginning of the efforts.

Performance Review
MP&F monitored, tracked and reported performance throughout the campaign.

  • Digital – Made adjustments in targeting and creative. Done to optimize for performance on a campaignwide scale as well as on a practice-by-practice level.
  • Direct mail – Made at 60 and 120 days post-mail-drop. Trackbacks from the mail file to the customer file reported to show response rate and lift over routine acquisition efforts.

Takeaways
The two-month integrated marketing efforts have brought in an estimated 1,700 new patients so far. The estimated ROI for the client – including hard costs and labor – is more than 140 percent.

In the future, we recommend our client do three key things to build upon the campaign:

  • Retarget digital ads to visitors who clicked on their sites from Facebook and Google.
  • Streamline the lead capture experience through the use of simplified landing pages.
  • Expand on direct mail efforts in those markets where that tactic performed best.