The flight to quality & modern healthcare marketing practices - Peter Caddick (sella.io)

Speaker A: This is Reimagining Healthcare, a podcast about innovation in the healthcare industry. It's a show for healthcare business owners, for healthcare professionals, for industry investors and health tech entrepreneurs. On the show I talk to health tech and healthcare innovators to uncover how they're reimagining and building a world of seamless digital healthcare experiences and how that fits into people's lives. I'm your host Yani Sopan.

Speaker B: Last episode Peter explained what an activity based marketing service agency was and how that was reimagining marketing agency engagement, supporting B2B business strategies in healthcare. In this episode we extend the discussion into branding strategy referrals, key channels and alignments and what healthcare businesses should be doing to respond to the rapidly approaching future of marketing. Let's jump in. Peter, tell me about your experience in healthcare. I noted that you'd written about activity based marketing and um, healthcare was one of the top three industries that could benefit from activity based marketing. Uh, and uh, um I wonder if you could talk to that in the context of why you think healthcare is one of the top three industries that could benefit from it. What kind of problems ah does healthcare have uh, in marketing generally from your experience and I guess some of the, some of the insights that you've gathered with some of the clients that you're working with.

Speaker C: Yeah sure. Um, uh I think I'll start by looking at it from um a small business um sense I'd like to have a business to business frame to this because I think as an agency we typically focus on B2B rather than B2C. Um and I think I can talk to that with more authority. Um, I think from a, beat it from a business, a healthcare business looking to target other businesses. Um you know we've, we've helped um a uh national um uh physio uh franchising chain over the years, um really grow and extend um and it would you know basically that they were able to grow their network quite substantially. Um bring on new franchisees, um, bring um, bring the I guess their authority in the industry really far ahead in a few years. Um so I think from, from what I've learned first of all marketing your value proposition in some different formats than kind of the traditional such as um being able to produce um thought leadership content um, which is quite technical and interesting, um being able to produce video content quite consistently where you're educating the audience um and showing your uh, your skill, your technical prowess, um, marketing digitally. So not just, just the local community, local area but actually on a platform where you could talk to the whole like national group as well. And that's where social media probably is really powerful. I mean just doing those things, I think you're eight times better or you're eight times more head than a uh, typical business who is just healthcare business who is just literally going like referral to referral or just looking at their local geographical area saying I'm going to go to the business chamber, I'm going to. And there's nothing wrong with doing any of these activities and just kind of putting some context around it. Like I'm going to go to the local business chamber, I'm going to do an email blast once a month. Um, I'm going to you know get two or three referral partners and then that, that's pretty much it from a local perspective. Um, just by having a, a coherent plan to go, okay, here's what I can really specialize in. Here's what I really know is in what's my um, knowledge base that the audience would want to hear. Here's the problem that the audience has that where I can fit and then actively doing some other activities other than just those basic ones I spoke about before, um, on a consistent basis really puts that healthcare business ahead. I mean I'm not saying anything too, too extremely novel here. I'm just saying just by doing some of the basic, it just content. Well just put you so far ahead. I mean I remember working with um, the client and looking at what the competition was doing and just going you know, if we just get consistent about producing some thought leadership pieces and get consistent about producing some guys and just get consistent about producing some videos and get that in front of the right audience will be number one because no one else was doing it consistently. So I think that's actually one of the biggest opportunities is just do some good quality stuff with thought. Well it's different. Healthcare industry is different than potentially um, other industries where it's, it's a like SAS for example with a lot more competitive and you can't just do it well. You have to really think about different tactics and you know it, it's a lot, it's a lot harder global. You've got global competition. You know, you, you're up against larger us um, multi like multinationals. Right. So I think just doing the basics well really, really works. Um, and then from a perspective of um, um ah, activity based I think again it goes back to well what do we do well then and picking I guess the top three activities that can be done um, if you're going to do it yourself. I'd probably do one activity first as in I'm going to consistently write these articles every, every week I'm going to post them on social media and I'm going to get all the people who refer me business I'm going to email them to that to these people. Right. You know that's the very basic. Or I'm going to produce a uh good quality video and I'm going to interview one of my referral partners and I'm going to get them to share it on their network. Right. Or if you're a tech, health care tech company that and you'll be to be then I mean it's a whole nother story. Right. There's a lot more sophistication but it be then a case of um putting together the audience who fits your criteria such as the right types of businesses based on that profile we spoke about before. Company, um size location, um industries, um employee um size for example the Personas, the people who work within them, decision making influencers, profiling those that group, producing content to meet them and then distributing the content into them. So you win. Share a voice. So I think yeah it depends on who we're talking to. Whether it's a, it's a you know small business run by the practitioner leader or it's a um. It's an organization looking to scale and grow um from an organization perspective. But that's some of the basics. Yeah I would say by activity.

Speaker B: Yeah it's, it's, it's a really interesting uh insight uh because there's such I guess the, there's a lot of follow the leader type of stuff that goes on in health care that I can observe and um, and different verticals within health care tend to try or repeat things. Take musculoskeletal for example in the uh and social media um there's just almost a um instant we have to be posting on Instagram you know regularly uh for example uh or Facebook um whereas um, you don't see that so much in mental health uh as an example. So it's, it's kind of interesting how that peer to peer copy and paste energy uh permeates um healthcare and in the health tech you're right around the B2B UM software as a service that's um, uh another set of challenges there as well. I think with um what a lot of healthcare and maybe even health tech businesses have at least a blind spot to would be that um, that ability to um build those community relationships with peers, there seems to be a lot of um, go to market stuff going on. Let's all just go direct out to market. Um, but there's not as much emphasis on how to build a brand so that your peers. So if you look at it in the context of healthcare, um, where a referral is going to come from, they're likely to come from another healthcare professional or another healthcare provider who doesn't happen to specialize or focus on the um, issues that you want to focus on. And so by bringing awareness to the community of healthcare providers around your marketing catchment area, for lack of a better term, um, you may actually be able to tick the box on everything you're referring to, Peter, around, um, qualified, um, well targeted, um, I guess qualified covers all of those things in the sense where the client that's now being referred through to you is actually a perfect fit for what you're doing either at a clinical, ah, technical level, um, but also in terms of your own business goals, um, and how you're trying to position. I think that kind of comes down to the whole idea of the, the brand, I guess the, the idea of um, being able to define your brand perhaps tell us a little bit more about how your thinking, um, goes towards when you're working with a client on how, how to actually establish that brand and why that's really important.

Speaker C: Well, totally. Um, it's interesting what you said about referral partners. I mean there's the mythical stat which no one's ever got the data on, but lots of people over the years have mentioned 80% of small businesses drive their new customers for referrals, Right? They're Pareto Principal.

Speaker B: That's interesting.

Speaker C: Um, so if 80% of. Yeah, so it's like one of those mythical numbers that everyone agrees with. But no, I don't know. No one knows where the original data came from, but everyone nods when you say it, right? So, um, there's some semblance of truth to it. If 80% of businesses, small businesses derive, um, B2B at least will derive their customers from referrals, those referral partners are absolutely crucial. And typically from what I've experienced, customers will have a couple, you know, a small handful. And I think, I think it's like um, when you then go and look at um, the brand question you just said before, like, how do you help a customer to find where they sit in a brand? Right? It's almost like you have to know who you are and what you stand for and why. And the big one is and why. Right? So you can be authentic. Um, and then once you've got that basic, um, structure sorted, you can then go out and cherry pick who you want to work with. Right? So from a B2B sense, you know, the classic fundamental is look for the ideal customer profile, right? Now B2B also means referral partners. And I think the ideal custom profile could be that ideal referral partner profile of who are the perfect top 5, top 10, top 20 referral partners who would be a great fit for you for various reasons is then they've got the same value alignment, right? They've got the same. And they don't do what you do. Um, you complement each other. Um, um, you're the same type of businesses. You know, you just get on with them because they just seem to be, you know, a good funnel. You just, you just, you know, they're just good people and you like them for whatever reason, right? So, so building an ideal customer profile, that referral partner allowed you to think more strategically. Instead of, you know, you meet someone at, ah, a, uh, business chamber event or whatever and you just bump into them and go, oh, you'll be my referral partner. Okay. You know, it's more that matchmaking mentality of thinking, who am I? What do I stand for? What am I confident? Where do I want to go? Okay, now where do I more. I want my partners, my channel partners, my referral partners, my customers to come from. What do they look like? And having that mindset, both your marketing and the way you go out there and approach and find those referral partners, now that sounds so basic and obvious, but it can be quite revolutionary and quite different for a lot of businesses. When, when they hand on, how to say, how have they found their channel partners or referral partners today? Or are they happy with their partners? Right? Or even the customers that come in and not. Right. Fit for me. Well, I think start thinking about who you want as customers and then go market to them. Um, back to the brand question. Um, it's really about purpose. I think today I think the one thing I'd encourage people not to do is write a corporate, corporate guideline summary of themselves just because they, they want to be seen corporate. I want to, want to see more, you know, professional. I think, I think today we're just, we've just come out of COVID you know, the biggest shake up to everyone's mentality in, in human, you know, the last known lifetime, you know, of history. We've got, you know, no one's ever been through that. So we've now got, um, kids, we celebrate kids on Zoom calls. You know, where we used to be embarrassed by it, right? So people, just people, people are comfortable being themselves more and more nowadays. So I think as if you start positioning your brand, the first question is why? Why are you doing what you're doing? Right. Um, who are you, um, as a person, not just a logo, um, you know, who you are as a person is probably more important than what your logo is, what logo is or the font of your logo, um, and why you're doing what you're doing. And being clear about that, um, is the number one thing. And that's really the way we suggest people start to think about their brands. If you know why you're doing things or what your purpose is and you know who you are and what excites you, then you, you can then look at what your skill set and what you're passionate about. And your skill set as in, you know, you could be able to do five or six different, um, technical things. But what you really enjoy doing, what you want to be known, be specialized in, or what you want to be known to be the best in, right? Then that can be the anchor for the brand that you build. Um, because it's authentic to you and it's going to get you up in the morning and it's going to make you want to go out there and be the best you can be. So I know that's quite a high level, uh, way of looking at it, but I think some of those basic questions quite important because without starting there, people can get lost on logo design.

Speaker B: Oh, 100.

Speaker C: They can get lost on getting a designer to tell them who they are.

Speaker B: You know, I think it's a really great point because it sort of goes ultimately towards the, the story that gets told. Um, and what is a story? A story is something that the other person, um, then starts to connect and identify and relate to in a sense. And it's really interesting when I was hearing you just speak about that, um, one thing that human beings do all the time, perhaps not even consciously when you meet another person is you inevitably ask the question, so what do you do? Right. And that opens up the door to form a brand impression of that person. I'm using it quite deliberately. Say it's brand. It's basically it's my, it's, it's how I now relate to you forever and a day until you correct that. Um, so much so that that first impression is so strong. Uh, my brother in law, for example is, well, was A, uh, tile or in a waterproof. And, um. And during the course of his career, he's pivoted to now doing renovations. And although he's been doing renovations now for years, I still think of him as the Tyler and waterproofer. Uh, and it upsets him every time I refer to that. And I have to recondition myself. But that's the power of the first impression. So knowing your own story, knowing how you're going to present yourself to the world, is brand in a sense. I mean, it's a little bit more nuanced than that when it comes to systems, um, and touch points for customers. But in terms of who are you and how can I categorize you and relate to you? Okay. Because that's. I'm forming that relationship with you. And if you get that aligned with, um, your values, your sense of meaning and purpose, your passion, then you're going to attract the right people every time. Um, because when they have a need for that, you're going to be top of mind and they're going to come to you and ask you to, uh, uh, support them.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: And serve them.

Speaker C: Yeah. And when we would go through a strategy setup process with a client, um, we were typically, usually talking to customers who have got revenue. They're quite well established, and they'll have a lot of those basics you spoke about before in theory lockdown. We would actually ask them a couple of questions in a discovery setup strategy session. Um, and it just goes as simple as this. Who do you want as a customer? And they say, these people. Why? Well, because, um, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But why, why do they want you? And they'll go, oh, uh, well, because, you know, typically, typically spout off something to do with, um, like, uh, a value proposition or something like that. But there's a book called why, why, why you over someone else? Why do you want them over someone else? And just answering those questions can really help sharpen people's focus to go, you know, instead of selling themselves in that first impression, like you say, any on features and benefit or corporate box ticking, you know, why, why, why, why do you. It makes. It makes you actually get down to basics and, and really focus yourself. Is it, uh, and maybe even say what you're not. What you. Who, who you're not, do you know what I mean? And celebrate who you are. Yeah, you know, you know, because, because, you know, we get the question all about, oh, did you do, you know, to do good? Oh, so you must do this, must do that. I said no and we don't do Google, we don't do SEO. People, uh, look at me like, well, you know, but you know, oh, we don't. What do you do? Well, were probably one of the best, um, in the APAC region and not in America, but definitely in the APEC region, potentially in the uk, uh, tech based, account based marketing and go to market growth and we use a very few channels to do that and people go, oh, that's cool. So if you say what you're not, but you say who you are, um, and what you can, what you can stand on, then people are like, great. You know, people say, would you operate in the us Say yes, but we're very small, you know, I mean it's a very big market and we're very small over there. But we really, you know, we're really got a great reputation in this APAC region and in the uk, people go, oh, that's cool. Without me getting caught going, we're a global business.

Speaker B: Yep, absolutely.

Speaker C: Does that make sense?

Speaker B: Oh, it certainly does.

Speaker C: I think it's just been totally comfortable in who you are, uh, and what you're not.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker C: And just sticking to it. And, and, and it's, it, it's interesting what you're saying before about if I just keep going on, on the channel things and um, that Instagram example, you know, I was having a chat with um, you know, with, with my wife and um, you know, she, she loves going on um, Instagram but, but hates the concept of posting. And I, I, I, uh, I, uh, my heart goes out to um, businesses, healthcare businesses, where the owner or director or founder of that business is thinking, you know, they need to be an Instagram celebrity or thinking that they need to be a social media producer or thinking that they need to be a, uh, an influencer, uh, you know, when, when it's really not their thing. You know, I think, I think, I think I'd just be like, don't do it if it stresses you out, pick another channel. Do something else. But just do whatever you want to. Enjoy doing your digital marketing. If you're doing it for yourself or you're doing it with another agency, it might push your comfort zone, it might push your limit, but enjoy life. Don't do it just because everyone else is doing it. Think of how you can reach your audience and be the best at what you're comfortable with. And I think that goes for the brand and it goes for even the channels you use in the marketing.

Speaker B: Very wise words, Peter. Uh, um, I think it's really important to consciously deploy tactics that support whatever your branding and marketing strategies are and not feel that you have to add all of these micro tools and channels to your repertoire because you're effectively just adding work into your routines, into your business as usual. And the results may not be there and it may not be where your ideal clients are coming from in any event. So I think it's really wise and I think um, it's important to actually take stock of those things and not just be um, doing activity for the sake of feeling as though that's what's expected of you. Because one thing I'll say, even with um, uh, pay per click with um, AdWords, um, if you speak to a Google certified agency, um, they're always going to tell you how great it is, but it may not be great for you. Um, or maybe the um level that is being espoused. A lot of these big vendors in the social media community have certified people to go around and act as their salesforce. Um, so they're going to evangelize those products and talk about how great they are. Um, but I think trial and error is really important in the sense of iteration and evolving your thinking around how. But the first thing you need to do is what you're describing Peter, which is what and why. What and why is where the real value is. Because when you unpack that then you're able to tell your story. You know who you're telling the story to, you know what that story needs to be represented. And then you're able to say right, well this platform is, is better than, or is preferable than that platform or we only need two out of the array of channels to really um, focus on at the moment and it makes, it makes life easier. You, you attain that um, level of quality and repetition um, within your business operating environment. Far easier and far faster than just shotgunning, copy and paste noise all over the place that um, that nobody's reading uh, or if they are, it's not really sinking in and it's not really connecting with them because they're not the right customer for you at this point in time. What, what are your thoughts on that summary?

Speaker C: Yeah, it's a really good summary and I think um, the Google um, cost per click, you know, agency, um, I mean it's got a lot harder, I mean to be fair to agencies working in the Google Ad space, um, and SEO space, I mean it's just, it just, it's got harder and harder and harder every year. So I think the costs, costs have gone up. Traffic is more competitive. Right. So that's the, that's the challenge. Um, I think if you build on what you're saying though, about that focus, if the keyword, the traffic, uh, the evidence supports that a lot of the custom, your customers can be attained through Google. Right. And a good agency, um, um, again, it's not what we do, but another agency I've, I've worked with in the past did this. You know, they'll be able to do a keyword search on a traffic volume search and quickly tell you, you know, if it's a, they should tell you how much it's probably going to cost and whether it's going to be worth your while. As in, you know what, this is not enough volume of search for your keyword. Sorry, it's probably not a good channel for you. That's what a good agency should do. Yeah, that's what. So if you've got, if you're a listener out there and you're thinking about Google again, I'm not going to talk, I'm not, I'm not an expert in that space. Um, it's not our field, but I do know others who are and, and I think, and I've been on a phone and they've just turned around and said, yes, the search is no good. So, mate, you know, you'll have to do all the work here. We'll do a tiny bit of this because there's no volume. That's what a good agency should do. You know, they don't just sell you because they can, you know, I mean, and I think everyone should have that, uh, in the back of their minds

Speaker B: when they talk to an agency, 100% agree.

Speaker C: They should be telling you if it's going to work and they should be telling you if it's not going to work or whatever reason. And as a practitioner, you know, the health care business, be, be, be expecting that, um, you know, the same way if you go to see, you know, a good quality agent or real estate agent or lawyer, you know, they're going to tell you the truth and get the first bit of their role is to give you an honest appraisal. So, so I think, I think that can really help. And then, but then going back to what you're saying about channel focus, you know, if, if, if the evidence suggests that Google could be a good channel, um, SEO could be a good channel for whatever reason. Just focus on that.

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker C: Just do that one because it's, it's going to be hard. It's hard enough just to win one. It is so hard to win one. Channel email, LinkedIn, Instagram, Google, Word of mouth. Just not you know, word of mouth

Speaker B: is, it is a channel.

Speaker C: Word of mouth.

Speaker B: Yep.

Speaker C: Channel partners. Right. So buckle up. But I focus. Get your focus on you know, get in the zone, think about who you want, think about who you are and just go win one, win one and then think of something else.

Speaker B: Yeah but I think all of that, just to preface it again is um, doesn't matter who the expert is, they're going to typically ask you questions. And so um, being able to formulate the what and why will unlock the value of those other niche vertical services because inevitably you then have a consistent voice, a consistent message, a consistent um, focus on the right type of customers that you want to engage with and speak with.

Speaker C: Yeah, that's exactly right.

Speaker B: Peter. One last question just to finish up here. Um, the future, uh, you're talking about this um, activity based marketing, uh, revolution helping um, customers to enhance their team structures with um, experts in uh, marketing strategy, branding and being able to uh, deploy the appropriate tactics, tools and automations that are needed to support those strategies. What's next? Where's it going?

Speaker C: I think it's going back to basics. I think, I think the trend I've been talking about where people are just getting overwhelmed with channels, um, where people are not trying to do everything all over the place. I think um, AI is interesting because as it kicks in it's going to allow people to do more. But what's interesting is um, the best analogy I can give you is who remembers YouTube at the beginning where you get random videos of random people doing random stuff and it was all crap but you'd see everything and you watch everything. Didn't take long before high, high end content creators sort of started to dominate and grow quite quickly and they saturated the market right with, with a high quality, well produced, um, well thought through, articulate content in whatever field it is, um, and the viewers gravitated to them and you know often there'll be a small number of high quality content producers with a huge market share. Um, but it started with total low quality mass um fragmentation and I think that's what's happening to marketing. It's what's happening what happens to every social media channel whether it be YouTube, whether it be LinkedIn, whether it be media, um, um I think it's happening en masse. So I think, I think as um, even when AI kicks in and people start writing more content, for example just because Volume is going to increase. So what's that going to do? It's going to push people to quality. As soon as volume saturation increases, quality increases. The same example, to support my theory, the email conversation we had before. How many emails do you actually read on a weekly basis? 3. 5. From the same people. Right. Um, how many did you used to read? You know, 20, 30. So it's because people, there's a flight to quality. So I think every technology improvement, every technology phase, every channel evolution all moves to the flight to quality and improvement of the quality at the end of the day. So I think that's going to continue and it's going to actually accelerate. So if we're going to pick a channel and we're going to say that's our tip to any B2B business owner, think about the fact that there's going to be a flight to quality and you probably want to be one of the best at uh, showcasing your skill set because if you don't, someone else will. Um, and maybe that's one way to think about it.

Speaker B: Peter, that is a beautifully articulated point and I thank you for that because that is such a profoundly important point. A flight to quality. Um, yeah, I'm just absolutely amazed at how simple and elegant an answer that is because it makes so much sense when we reflect back on how the tech waves have come through, let's call them the generations. Um, some people in broad terms would, would understand Web zero, web one, Web two, Web three. Well within marketing there's been all these graduations and evolutions in, in tools and thought. Um, and I think uh, uh, you know, one of the follow up questions, you've already answered it which is fantastic with Flight to Quality, uh, in part. Um, but one of the follow up questions to that sort of future state idea is well, what do businesses do to prepare for that? And, and um, you've just uh, nailed that um, with that particular answer. So I really thank you for that. I appreciate it and I think that is uh, a wonderful way to finish up today.

Speaker A: Really.

Speaker B: Um, appreciate your time.

Speaker C: Thanks for the time. It's great to talk to you.

Speaker B: Oh, it's absolutely a pleasure Peter. Love the whole activity based marketing approach, focus um, on the strategy, the brand and high quality um, approaches. Uh, and I look forward to hearing more about that as you progress. Thanks Peter.

Speaker C: Thanks a lot. Yanni. Great to be here. Good to talk to you. Take care.

Speaker B: You're welcome mate.

Speaker A: Thanks for listening. This podcast is produced in collaboration with Health Tech X where we are working toward a world of integrated digital health empowerment for all people. If you'd like more info on how to get involved, head over to the website healthtech.com or if you have any feedback about the the show, you can reach out to me directly on LinkedIn, Instagram, or email by following the links in this episode's show Notes. And finally, don't forget to subscribe to Reimagining Healthcare in your podcast app. And if you like what you heard, leave us a five star review. It really helps other people find the show. I'm, um, your host, Jani Sopanos, and I'll speak to you in our next episode.