MARKETING

Tracking the Patient’s Journey: How Measuring Digital Campaigns Leads to Success

Karen Alcorn, vice president of marketing for MedStar Health’s Washington, D.C. region, says, “I feel like every time I go into my CFO’s office, there’s a huge dollar sign in front of me, and he’s looking at me as an expense.” MedStar Health operates 10 hospitals and 280 specialty, urgent, and primary care locations in Maryland and Washington, D.C. 

However, marketing isn’t just an expense to your health care institution, or at least it shouldn’t be. “We are a value add to our organizations,” notes Alcorn, who shared her thoughts on the issue during the SHSMD Connections conference in September. “And, measuring the results of our campaigns demonstrates that, moving us from an expense to a contributor in our organizations by bringing in increased volume and new patients. It also helps us support the organizations’ strategic growth and business goals, make informed decisions about using our marketing dollars, and identify opportunities and gaps.”  

Indeed, according to Alcorn, “you can’t understand the impact of a campaign by feel.”  

She explains, “I’ve had people say, ‘Oh, this campaign was so successful—the doctors loved it,’ or ‘The executive staff saw the video and thought it was great.’ But that doesn’t tell us whether it led to new patient acquisitions or increased brand awareness.”  

For each marketing campaign, your team should first establish what results need to be measured. “You want a core set of metrics that can be rolled up in a meaningful way,” Alcorn advises. “Determine what data and resources are available and develop a scorecard to record the contribution or impact of your marketing strategy.” 

According to Alcorn, key buckets of data to measure include: 

• Brand  
  • Unaided awareness
  • Brand preference
  • Reputation (organization)
  • Key service lines
  • Referring physician preference or awareness
  • How has your presence in the community affected the brand?  
• Growth 
  • Volume
  • New patient acquisition
  • Market share 

Before launching any marketing campaign, Alcorn recommends meeting with the appropriate departmental/program administrator and financial manager. “Let them know what you’ll be doing, and ask how you can partner with them to track volume so you can see if this campaign is making a difference for them,” she says. “How you measure effectiveness depends on the campaign you’re doing and the medical condition involved, so you really have to understand the patient journey.” 

Ask yourself about the goal of your campaign. “Is it engagement? New appointments? Increased awareness?” Alcorn notes. “And who is the audience? What do you want them to realistically do—make an appointment? Download a white paper? It should align with the goal of the campaign.” 

One relatively easy way to track the impact of a campaign is to set up a unique phone extension or URL for each marketing channel. “For example, we did a TV campaign for a prostate cancer treatment, with specific URLs and phone extension,” Alcorn explains. “We were able to identify that traffic increased when the campaign began as compared to the three-month period immediately prior.” 

Don’t make the data too complicated, adds Ben Waxman, president of the marketing and business analytics consultancy Tessellati Inc. “Take a ‘humanist’ approach to the data, which means communicating in a way that empowers your larger team to act on it,” he says. “If you can explain clearly and with simple graphics what you undertook, why you did it, what the outcomes were and what the next steps are, and then show the same graphics at the next meeting with a trend line comparing those results to the previous results, then you’ll have that aha moment.” 

Avoiding jargon is also important. “In larger meetings where you’re trying to build internal support, keep things narrowly focused and understandable. People outside your department don’t need to know the ins and outs of click-through rates and Google analytics data,” Waxman notes. “What they want to know is did you drive more patients in the door? Are they repeat or new patients? If you can document that, with data sources that you have established as accurate and trustworthy, you can take people along on the journey to see what you’re doing.”  

A strong data analytics team is essential to this process, the experts said. MedStar Health established its marketing analytics program about four years ago, taking small steps. “When I started, we didn’t have an analytics team,” says Sameer Kasargod, vice president of digital marketing at the health care system. “We had one individual who did rudimentary ad hoc analytics, pretty basic stuff. We began by repurposing existing resources when we had open positions, and now we have a team of five.”  

The group focuses on data infrastructure (database management and digital tagging and tracking); reporting (analytics workflow and data visualization); digital analysis and insight; and statistical modeling as part of the overall approach to digital marketing. “For each of these, we use tools that are force multipliers,” Kasargod says. “For example, within data reporting, we use Alteryx, Python and Tableau. These and other tools enable us to do the work of a 20-plus person team.” 

In addition, the team created a marketing “Datamart” that now has more than 60 data sets from 17 different data sources—but it started small, incorporating one database at a time. “We began with what was easily available and the basic top-line metrics you need for marketing, such as impressions, then clicks, then qualified leads,” Kasargod says. “We needed to at least be able to measure how many qualified leads were driven by a marketing effort, and the efficiency of that. That was the starting point. Then we started going deeper, looking at things like scheduled appointments and completed appointments. With each new data source, we go through an exhaustive process to make sure the data is clean and connect it with what we already have. There are no silos: The Datamart is all connected, and it gives us a full picture.” 

Monthly campaign reporting has led to new insight, tactical adjustments and continuous optimization, as marketers like Alcorn have access to a constantly updated, optimized dashboard of key performance indicators.  

“For example, in one of our campaigns it initially appeared that social media engagement was not really driving leads or appointments,” Kasargod notes.  

However, a deeper analysis revealed that social media was indeed a huge contributor—it was just not the last touch, he adds.  

“After a social engagement, people were clicking on Google ads and then going to our website,” he explains. “Without that analysis, we would not have understood that both organic and paid advertising on social media were driving these appointments. Based on that analysis, we have bumped up our social media spend for that campaign. One thing I always emphasize to our team: We don’t want insight for the sake of insight. It should all be actionable.” 

You can watch the full session from the SHSMD Connections conference here.