This presentation will discuss how the Cleveland Clinic has established itself as one of the premier healthcare brands in the world through innovative and creative content marketing. Paul Matsen will describe how Cleveland Clinic creates distinctive and trusted content to build awareness, reputation and to generate volume. The Cleveland Clinic has been a leader in digital, social and mobile healthcare marketing and employees a unique mix of paid, earned and owned media to build its brand.
15. Brand is Important
to Prospective Patients
Source: 2012 Google/Compete Hospital Study. Q: “How important were each of the following features to you when researching facilities?” A: For each choose
from 5 (extremely important) to 1 (not important at all). Percentage represents top two box responses.
27. Cleveland Clinic News Service
• A dedicated team
• Local affiliates in key regional markets
& national media outlets
• Media can customize for their needs
38. Paid Media
Digital
• Leveraging owned assets (clevelandclinic.org +
landing pages) in display advertising
• “Reframed” concept focuses on three content
areas: Innovation, Outcomes and Patient
Experience with new calls-to-action
55. Cleveland Clinic Today iPad App
* To be released in February
Daily interactive iPad source for the latest health and
wellness tips to read, save, and share from the experts at
Cleveland Clinic.
• Updated Daily with new Health & Wellness Content
• Access to Health Hub
• Interactive 3D Human Body
• Interactive Timeline
• Request Appointments
• Find a Doctor
• Find Locations
• Access MyChart
58. Recent Sources of Cleveland Clinic Awareness (General Population)
Recent Sources of Awareness
Among Those Aware of Cleveland Clinic: General Population
45%
Family/Friends
30%
News Story or TV
All Digital Sources*
Advertising
15% Have NOT heard anything lately
Internet search
Clevelandclinic.org
Your doctor
Social media
0%
Q1 '09 Q2'09 Q3'09 Q4'09 Q1'10 Q2'10 Q3'10 Q4'10 Q1'11 Q2'11 Q3'11 Q4'11 Q1'12 Q2'12 Q3'12 Q4'12
(n=282) (n=316) (n=324) (n=329) (n=467) (n=490) (n=531) (n=501) (n=498) (n=480) (n=492) (n=483) (n=490) (n=499) (n=502) (n=530)
(Asked of Those Aware of Cleveland Clinic):
Market Research & In which of the following ways have you recently seen or heard about
Analytics l National Cleveland Clinic? Multiple choice from listed responses.
Awareness Tracker – Q4
2012 58
59. The Results
• Doubled our web-traffic
• 75,000 leads thru search, 2000% ROI
• Industry-leading social media and mobile position
• Exponential growth in earned media
• Double-digit increases in awareness
• Strong reputation and preference improvement
There are over 4,000 hospitals in the United States and they represent over $860 billion in revenue. Yet, we are one service sector of the economy that almost no one wants to visit . (Slide of Cleveland Clinic Hospitals) In fact, when most people come to hospitals their overriding emotion is fear.
Local Competition
National Competition
This is also a category where most people are extremely happy with their local doctor, in fact, for many it is the one of the most trusted relationships that they have (Slide with photo of physician and patient)
Trying to build a global or national brand is difficult and it is an area where awareness is very low. The three most recognized hospital brands in the country have general awareness at or below 30% (Slide of CC, Mayo and JH awareness)
Being a national contender is very difficult with a limited budget. Cleveland Clinic doesn ’t have the huge marketing budgets that big name brands do like soft drinks, credit cards, insurance, etc.
Hospitals cannot compete using traditional strategies. We cannot use discounts, coupons or BOGOs (Slide of garish ads for discounts, coupons or buy one get one free promotions)
So how can an organization like Cleveland Clinic build a national brand. We lack big advertising budgets and we do not have hospitals around the country or around the world except in select markets. For us, the solution has been to build our brand using an aggressive and innovative content marketing strategy.
According to a recent research study conducted by Google, reputation is the leading driver of choice for hospitals. It is even more important than which hospital takes your insurance or physician recommendation. (Slide of Google data)
The consumer for healthcare today has changed. The largest group of healthcare consumers is now the baby boomers and unlike their parents they are actively involved in managing their healthcare. Within the baby boomers, we focus our communications on a group we call the “Alpha Influencer Plus. (Slide of Alpha Influencer Plus). This group is highly engaged in seeking information on a number of topics: travel, finance, technology, health and wellness. They are highly involved technology and social media.
So, how do we connect and engage this group? We do not know when they are sick or need our care. They likely do not live in Northeast Ohio and are very satisfied with their local physician and hospital. They are not necessarily interested in the Cleveland Clinic.
Our strategy is to begin to capture “mindshare” with this target audience before they need or their family or friends need us. As Forrester Research as said in their 21st Century Brand Playbook: “ we need to make our brand experience – its messages actions and services – trusted, remarkable, unmistakable and essential
The key for us in healthcare and, likely in your product category as well, is content. This begins online. 80% of healthcare users seek healthcare information online
34% have read someone else ’s experience online.
25% have watched an online video on health or medical issues and . . .
23% of social network users have followed a friend ’s personal health experiences or updates online. (Slide: Pew Internet Study)
Each element of our strategy is developed from our brand promise or north star. There are four major pillars of our brand: clinical excellence, patient experience, innovation and wellness. Each contributes to our brand promise: “Every Life Deserves World Class Care.” Each is part of our content strategy. Let’s take a look at each element of the strategy
To build the Clinic ’s reputation, we employ a content strategy that leverages a mix of earned, owned and paid media. (Paid, Owned and Earned slide). And, more than half of our national marketing spend is digital. In each case we are not making retail offers or promoting products, rather we a providing trusted medical or health and wellness content from one of the industries’ leading providers and its doctors and health professionals
Earned media is perhaps the greatest untapped opportunity to leverage an organizations content. It is true that we are advantaged by being a non-profit healthcare provider which make the media more open to our content. But, there have never been more broadcast and digital channels seeking quality content and there are many ways to leverage this opportunity: commission primary research, develop compelling patient/customer stories of how your brand or product touches lives, focus on innovations, economic impact or policy. Train your leaders including your CEO as communicators for the organization.
Proactively pitching the media is one way to leverage content. Another is to create your own content to fill a void. Today most local TV stations cannot afford to have a dedicated Medical and Science correspondent. At the Cleveland Clinic, we are helping stations fill that void through our own news service. Developed to produce news content for television affiliates, differentiating itself from the typical VNRs (Video News Releases) - Packages developed, but news organizations are in no way required to run "as is". Media can use elements of story (video, interviews, b-roll, script, voice over, etc) independently at no cost to the station. Information is pulled from a server (Cleveland Clinic's or Pathfire) as stories and news elements are posted multiple times daily. (Show sample video)
We have very limited global and national advertising resources so whatever we do, it has to have high impact and break out of the “sea of sameness of healthcare advertising (Slide: Typical Healthcare ads)
It is critical that we be where the patients are looking for us with the right content. (Slide: Be Where Our Patients Are).
The other critical element of our Paid strategy is Search Engine Marketing. As I mentioned earlier, we do not know when consumers need us but, when they do, 80% of them begin their search on the web. They are probably not even looking for us but rather they are searching for information on their diagnosis, disease or condition.
xample of SEM page with Video. Example of SEM page with interactive quiz. Sample of Treatment Guide. This content drives SEM programs that generate over 70,000 leads for us with a staggering 2000% ROI. All driven by effective content and targeting, no offers or discounts.
Imagery with all 3- google search/print, news, social
Owned media is a critical content platform for healthcare providers and for us. When prospective patients or patients are searching for content this is where we can really deliver the complete experience. We view our owned platforms as an integrated ecosystem. All of the elements must work seamlessly together as patients move through their journey with our brands. (Slide: Digital Ecosystem)
The heart of the ecosystem is ClevelandClinic.org which is the most visited hospital website in the country. Here, patients can find a physician using a customized search tool, they can get turn-by-turn directions to their physician ’s office, they can find health information on virtually any topic, they can take a virtual tour, take a health screener or hear from our CEO about the experience or our history. And there is a mobile site designed to provide the most popular content of our site on different devices. (Slide: A click through of the items mentioned).
Enewsletters are another content strategy we employ to build connections to our community. We sent over 1.3 million email to subscribers last year (15 newsletters) and we are now building a channel of opt-in email to physicians. (Slide: Enewsletters)
We frequently survey our community regarding what content they would like to receive.
Generally, it centers around health and wellness tips, medical innovations and breakthrough and our caregiver team.
Often, our posts link you directly to our YouTube videos, we have over 1000, or to our website. This is a critical tool for us to build and maintain relationships with patients and prospective patients who do not live around any of our facilities. (Slide: Montage of Social Media Sites)
Our newest innovations and perhaps the best integration of our content model is a digital site we call the Health Hub. This is a place for topical health, wellness and medical content. It is all delivered by trusted Cleveland Clinic physicians and staff. It is updated daily and can respond to any breaking medical story. Recently, we began adding video blogs to text blogs. (Sample) All of the content is integrated with our facebook and twitter pages to broadly leverage our reach. (Slide and Video)
Social Media is a growing part of our ecosystem of content.
What have been the results of the Cleveland Clinic ’s content-driven strategy? Doubled our web-traffic Industry-leading social media and mobile position Exponential growth in earned media Double-digit increases in awareness Strong reputation and preference improvement (Slide of bullet points )
Paid, owned and earned. It is a powerful framework to think about how to build your content strategy. Here are some of our key lessons learned:
Start with a deep understanding of your target customer and market
Content creators are across your organizations. Find them and integrate content across platforms.
Digital and video are the future. Build a fully integrated digital ecosystem.
Earned media is a powerful outlet. Find innovative ways to include it in you content mix.
Experiment and Innovate. There is no one-size-fits-all solution. (Slide of Lessons Learned)