A 30 minute talk based on survey research conducted in Q4 of 2015 w/Ogilvy CommonHealth on how digital trends are affecting healthcare and healthcare marketing.
5. 21%
31%
34%
14%
19%
41%
36%
4%
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
We are leading the way and
are part of the digital
disruption in our sector
We are fast followers We are threatened by
disruptive forces in our
industry
We don’t see much change
in our sector
Thinking about how digital technology has disrupted your industry,
which statement best describes your organization today?
Healthcare All Sectors (8/2014)
7. 30%
51%
14%
5%
19%
48%
19%
14%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
Digital marketing is very
much separate
Digital permeates most
of our marketing
programs
Digital permeates all our
marketing programs
We are a digital-first
organization
To what extent does digital permeate your own
organization's marketing activities?
Healthcare All Sectors
Hello and welcome to the webinar. Today I will be discussing research that Econsultancy conducted in partnership with Ogilvie common health in Q3.
My name is Stefan Tornquist and I run research at econsultancy in North America.
The session should take around 30 minutes, leaving us some time for questions. AT the end I'll share my Twitter handle so if you're watching the recorded version of this we're still here to answer your questions.
Very quickly on e- consultancy...we do a lot of things around the world...but all of them focused on building excellence in digital marketing and digital business.
What matters for our session today is that we base our work in research - that's the foundation for all the services really, from training to consulting and of course market data and best practice information.
The survey closed on September 16th with a total of 150 qualified respondents.
The sample reflects a range of industries within healthcare. Pharmaceuticals, medical devices and direct healthcare providers comprise the largest subgroups.
The study was aimed at midmarket to large organizations. The highest concentrations of respondents were at companies with over $1.5B at 43%.
All respondents were at manager level or above, with 27% in senior management.
Over 90% of responses originated in North America or Western Europe/UK.
I thought we would start by taking the temperature of the of the healthcare community in regards to its adoption for digital – we’ll look at a few charts that I think tell the story of an industry that is eager for change but perhaps even unsure of where it is today and not entirely sure how to proceed.
So as we move from left to right in this chart we track the digital evolution of our respondents and compare them to study we did of all sectors in the middle 2014.
You can see healthcare moves at its own pace respondents are significantly more likely to report that there's no change in their sector than their peers.
Most healthcare companies think they’re fast followers…they’re probably not, except in relation to their own sliver of the industry, and perhaps not even then. Throughout the study we see a bit of a disconnect between what companies are doing, and the grades they give themselves for innovation.
Now the majority do feel under some pressure to evolve and more than one third describe themselves being threatened by disruptive forces - my theory is that where these companies fall on the spectrum is a function of their distance from the end consumer where the change is really happening.
One interesting aspect about the service self perception of many healthcare companies is that the sea suite tends to give their companies higher marks then the rest of the organization
Especially senior leadership…middle managers are much more likely to say “we’re threatened by disruption”
Competition is the larger consumer marketplace that sets expectations, which make the field ripe when someone comes along promising more.
Competition isn’t just with the sector, but with Zappos and Mint and Amazon…
One of the proxies for how an organization or sector deals that digital is to see how it's treated whether it's treated as a separate discipline whether it's baked in etc.
In some sectors, “digital” is almost a vestigial word. To speak of marketing is to speak of digital, as it is baked into every part of the campaign or program. This includes those elements that are still called “traditional” but which must now have digital connective tissue and opportunities for action.
This isn’t the case in healthcare, where the lines are still bright. While half of all respondents report that digital is part of most of their programs, fully 30% describe it as “very much separate,” nearly 60% more than other sectors.
Only 5% self-identify as “digital-first” – a testament to the challenges to innovation and disruption presented by healthcare institutions.
There a lot of reasons that healthcare is moving slowly and we will talk about some of them today, but one of the most basic is the very few organizations have the tools in place to measure the impact of digital marketing on a holistic level let alone at the channel level via any kind of marketing attribution... if you can't prove your impact and don't know enough about the what the customer is doing online and how they're behaving etc. and he gets very difficult to mobilize the kinds of support from senior leadership that are required for all you real shift towards towards the digital customer
So with RR states set let's look at some specific issues that come out of the research some specific concerns that bubble up from the research...
Lacking the emphasis on digital from senior management
Lacking the investment in people, process and technology
Lacking the infrastructure for collecting and using data
Every business is pressed to find great digital talent…but healthcare suffers because of all the bits we just talked about. Technical and digital marketing pros want to be where they’re wanted…and healthcare doesn’t want them badly enough.
Of note is that the most commonly used source of information is also the least accurate. Human input data is notoriously inaccurate, especially around the variables most important to marketers like contact information.
What we generally is an ability to deal with high data volumes, but not a variety of data nor data in real time…both of which are obviously only getting more important.
#1 goal is multichannel campaign management, but no DMP…#2 goal is personalization but only 26% have personalization tech
No approach to innovation is foolproof. In fact, those methods most often designated as “very effective” are also the most likely to be thought of as “somewhat [or] very ineffective.”
The challenge, then, is execution.
Incentives that reward innovation can inspire people to transcend standard operating procedure…or alienate individuals and teams from their organization.
We’ve divided our findings into a few sections…this one is the longest because it addresses one of the trickiest issues in any marketing organization, especially if it deals with multiple regions – how do you balance local relevance with global priorities and brand.
Transformation is a company-wide effort and it demands enthusiasm and cooperation from employees at every level. Fear of change is the number one threat to that cooperation. For example, the implementation of marketing attribution will likely mean a shift in budget, which often means a shift in power and workforce. Getting ahead of these concerns is vital. A lack of information is worse in the mind of the employee than negative news they can rely on and understand. Smart innovators will think first about how their initiative will be received and design their strategy with this in mind.
The digital talent gap in healthcare reflects a lack of commitment. People with digital skills want to use them and want to be wanted. They don’t see that commitment in how most healthcare companies approach their infrastructure, technology and strategy. One approach is to show recruits and existing employees that the organization is thinking beyond specific roles. By plotting career paths the organization can change the nature of the relationship with the employee, giving them a longer-term view by giving them a trajectory.
The most exciting uses of data in marketing are in service, not traditional marketing messaging. By using customer and patient data to provide services related to their lives and conditions, companies can grow and extend their relationships. For example, real-time targeting can identify when a customer is searching for side effect information, which can then trigger delivery of useful content and information on alternative medications, complimentary medications and treatments.
Many companies have a tendency to conflate digital marketing with digital marketing technology. Of course, those investments are necessary, but it’s equally necessary to staff digital initiatives. Powerful technologies often go under-utilized because staff is tasked with expanding on existing responsibilities. If it’s not possible to expand internally, healthcare marketers should look to partners; one of the key roles of the modern agency is being expert in marketing technologies and managing data strategy. It’s not feasible or cost effective for every company to build their own digital marketing technology practice.
Innovators in healthcare companies can find it difficult to spark fast action. But the outside world demands change; 75% of respondents acknowledge that changing consumer behaviors will force them to innovate. Every study of consumer behavior, every new mobile app in healthcare, every new innovation in treatment…these are the levers that can be used to encourage innovation and investment.
We’ve divided our findings into a few sections…this one is the longest because it addresses one of the trickiest issues in any marketing organization, especially if it deals with multiple regions – how do you balance local relevance with global priorities and brand.
1 second litmus test…does your organization see a new trend as a threat or an opportunity? It’s almost that simple…because companies that have aligned around digital are in a position to use trends as levers. It’s a sign you’re where you need to be…if not, you have work to do.
Questions…
Someone’s asked how respondents were recruited…they came from a variety of sources including internal lists of marketers from Econ and Ogilvy COmmonHealth
Why are healthcare companies bad at data? Not sure they’re bad at it…it’s been a question of priority…security was and is number one…but now you see hiring data scientists and a new focus on the consumer…
IF you’re got a question later