Blogs

The New Powerhouse Combination: Driving Measurable Demand With Meaningful Brand

By The SHSMD Team posted 07-13-2021 01:03 PM

  

How do you build a roadmap for an integrated strategy, incorporating values-based brand building coupled with demand generation that will drive business growth? BVK devised a roadmap in order to set standards for exponential business growth. And when incorporated with values-based brand building and demand generation, it led to the cultivation of leads and an unrecognized powerhouse.

In a recent episode of SHSMD’s Rapid Insights podcast, two leaders from BVK, Paula Serios, SVP, Healthcare and Joshua Derouin, SVP Performance Marketing & Analytics discuss BVK’s demand generation, what it is and how coupled with value-based branding builds long-term business success.

Serios shared one quick tip that someone can use to make their marketing communications better: “Strategically and purposely linking your brand-building to your volume-driving, will create results for both.”

BVK is an independent business marketing and advertising agency with expertise in delivering purpose-driven health care experiences that impacts lives, builds healthy communities and shifts societal health behaviors.

“A lot of people don't know this, but 5% of all Google searches are health-related. They also don't realize that patients who book an online appointment actually search three times more than those who don't. Our partners really need to make sure their websites are ready to book appointments online,” shares Derouin on making marketing and communications better.

BVK recognized that many health care organizations are great at building strong strategic brands. And at the same time, they're very good at driving patient volume. But without connecting the two, they are siloed. The best way to think about this is that demand generation and creating that pace and volume, is 1+1 = 3. It's a bit of a multiplier effect.

Brand Craving

Creating a strong, emotional connection and thinking about it as brand craving, created by reaching customers at the right time, with the right place and right message – is essentially volume driving. The connection of brand craving and volume driving, to create a crosswalk with the customer journey and engagement with experiences, drive both loyalty and advocacy. The results are exponentially larger in the end.

In health care, people aren't craving our brands. They don't want to come to the hospital, and most of the time hospitals market themselves in similar ways such as, "We offer the best care." "We treat you like family." "We're the number one spot for health care." Hospitals are simply talking about themselves and what they care about. Now with COVID and what that has done to health care, the need for trust in providers is more important than ever.

Brand craving drives business results. Values-based branding becomes the soul of the brand and ultimately enables data-driven and human-forward approaches to bridging strategy, bridging connection planning, and breakthrough creative. When you look at the essence of who your brand is, your audience's values and cravings, the competitive white space based on cultural trends, and what your competitors are doing – then you can see that at the intersection of that is where the brand craving lies and it needs to be delivered.

Connection Strategy

The connection strategy is similar to your lifeline to make your strategy into a real and tactical perspective. In order to understand consumer behavior, we study and research how messaging and creative can be placed carefully along the process that a consumer is taking or a potential patient is taking to show them the right messages at the right time. And by taking a step back, a demand plus brand campaign is just an effective use of that age-old marketing funnel that we are familiar with.

We are not always in the market for a product or service but when we are, it's important to have a level of awareness of the options that you have, so you can make a decision. The right messages at the right time is dependent on setting goals for how much money you want to spend to reach a certain audience at the top of the funnel that you're trying to make aware versus the people who are ready to make a decision. This approach ensures we don't waste ads on consumers who aren’t ready and show ads to people who are going to engage and buy anyway.

Real World Action Plan

“In the real world, we've seen this work well for both providers and health plans. And the example I have for you today is a health plan, because this is exactly where the strategy originated and it originated with Priority Health. They're number two health plan in the state of Michigan, and they compete against Blue Cross Blue Shield,” shared Serios.

In this case, BVK created a strategy for Priority Health. It was steeped in this idea of feeling smart and helping people feel smart about health care.

Serios says, “It's amazing to me that only 4% of US adults even understand basic terms like copay and deductible. And so we wanted our customers to feel smart. And that's exactly what we did from a brand craving standpoint, from a demand generation standpoint, developed a connection plan that led them to the right place and right time and right message for their specific needs.”

It's about optimization, a very fresh approach to just making sure that your brand is in front of the people that you want it to be, because that's the value that you can bring to them. You need to make sure you're bringing that value through a long term campaign. It's not a quick fix, but the investment that you make in building your brand and defining that demand generation strategy will deliver for you long term. Initially it takes some sell in to the organization.

Learning More

0 comments
22 views

Permalink