Provider Equation (PE)
Purpose
Provider Equation (PE) is a digital marketing solution that was designed exclusively for healthcare providers by an experienced team of healthcare marketing executives. Most large healthcare providers have invested heavily in digital marketing. Similar to traditional marketing, much of it is still focused on promoting their brand, hospitals, larger facilities and service lines.
In order to complete the transition of healthcare to becoming a true retail business model, much more is required than the cross section of digital marketing efforts that have taken place in our industry to-date. The ability to reach and interact with consumers in their local areas represents the main focus of a true retail business and where healthcare digital marketing needs to invest next. We refer to it as “hyper-local marketing.”
Two key priorities of hyperlocal marketing are being able to own and control both the “First Mile” and the “Last Mile” of the patient journey in addition to the steps in between. By First Mile, we are referring to the first steps patients take online to inquire about or get resources for their medical conditions. By Last Mile we are referring to the last steps a patient takes to select a location, doctor and resources that are closest to them and most relevant to their needs.
PE was designed specifically to help providers connect with consumers during First and Last Miles. Specifically, the focus is primarily on individual outpatient facilities such as physician offices, clinics, urgent care centers, imaging centers, wellness centers, ASCs, outpatient labs, provider pharmacies, etc. The three solutions that are offered by PE to achieve dominance in the hyper-local space are:
- 1. Social Presence - Social Media integrations with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google MyBusiness and LinkedIn provide incredible labor efficiency and some automation when posting content to the five most important social media sites. It is all accomplished from a single PE console.
- 2. Online Reputation Monitoring and Management - while most providers are focusing on their enterprise and hospital star ratings, our solution is hyper-local and can scale to cover each of your consumer access points which for many large systems can amount to hundreds of locations.
- 3. Location Data Monitoring and Management - location data is often incorrect or out-of-date, because there are hundreds of directory listing sites that have to be maintained. If it is being done at all, most providers are pushing updated location information to directories manually. The PE solution offers you the efficiencies of pushing updated location data for all of your access points to hundreds of directory sites from one platform.
The primary benefits of implementing an enterprise-wide program with PE are summarized as follows:
- Builds strong connections between consumers and access points that are closest to them
- Will elevate the online ratings for each of your access points
- Provides tremendous labor efficiency to drive digital marketing effectiveness
- Our program is not a one-size fits all; it can be tailored to your needs
- Frequent reporting will show your market position and the progress you are making at all times
Budget
There are both set-up costs and ongoing maintenance costs for each location.
When creating a budget for these costs we suggest that you consider the following:
- 1. What Google ratings do I have for each of my consumer access points - physician offices, clinics, urgent care, imaging centers, wellness centers, etc.?
- 2. How much does it cost in lost business when your Google ratings are less than 4 stars for an access point? Would I go to a restaurant with a 3-star rating?
- 3. Are the phone numbers and addresses correct for each of my access points?
- 4. Do I have a social presence for each OP facility and physician office?
- 5. Am I at the top of the first page search ranking results for each access point when I do an incognito search with a zip code that is the same as the access point address, or one next to it?
- 6. How many marketing personnel would it take to optimize and maintain accurate listings, 4-star or higher ratings and first-page search ranking for every single one of my consumer access points?
We believe when you look at this solution in the context that the above questions raise, you will be motivated to find the budget to cover every single location.
Implementation
The implementation of the PHMP Program is accomplished with the coordinated resources of CSuite Business Solutions LLC and Provider Equation LLC. We offer you a managed (or co-managed ) solution. Other vendors offer software only which requires that YOUR employees utilize the software and execute the strategy with only one or two of the modules above.
Each PE client is assigned an Account Representative as well as Program Coordinator. These two individuals will work with both your executive sponsor as well as your marketing coordinators and specialists to launch and maintain the solution.
Our onboarding process includes receiving detailed information about each of your consumer access locations as well as access to a number of your social media and online accounts that will enable us to help manage the program for you. Our service includes acquiring certain accounts, such as Google MyBusiness, if you have not already acquired these accounts for each active location.
A program control and reporting console is created for you that will be branded with your logo in addition to Provider Equation. You will determine who has access to this console. The data for your locations will be kept separately and in custody for you.
Should the time come that you no longer want to continue the service (which we think would be unlikely) we will return all of your data and prospect information to you as we believe you should own them not us. You will find with most industry digital marketing solutions that the data including visitors and prospect information is owned by the vendors.
Completion of the start-up phase takes two months and we set the expectation that it takes another four months to start seeing results online. So six months from inception you will start seeing very noticeable improvements in your hyperlocal online ratings, search rankings and social media presence.