Healthcare marketing Q & A
We’ve compiled our answers to the most common questions health system managers ask when selecting a marketing agency—plus some insights into what to expect if you start a conversation with TBH Creative.
Answers to the most common questions that we are asked
TBH Creative opened its doors in 2004. One of our first big clients was a healthcare system in Indiana which led to another and another. We’ve continued working with health systems to provide medical marketing ever since.
With all this experience, our team knows the healthcare industry inside and out and deeply understands patient needs, health industry business challenges, and what it’s like working with providers.
Since 2004, we have worked with various healthcare systems, from small physician specialty offices to multi-location hospital systems.
Our solutions for each are different based on goals, budget, and often where you are in your digital brand-building process. We also consider your goals for growth.
A sweet spot for delivering results in the last five years has been specialty multi-location systems that have already done marketing and are serious about growth.
For example, we often help teams who need to:
- Support with strategic marketing planning
- Ongoing assistance with web, campaign, or promotion activities
- Extended help for their internal marketing team
- Guidance and support to create a new website
- Help to create (and manage) paid advertisements across multiple outlets
- Insightful reporting of all marketing initiatives
Everything we do is based on “what are we going to track and measure,” “what results are expected or needed,” and “what does a successful project look like” before we even start doing any work. Without alignment on success measures, doing the wrong work and reporting on the wrong metrics is likely–plus with wasted spending.
With agreement and definition on reporting needs and success measures, we help our clients establish baselines, define positive ROI, and set up systems to track and measure. This could be Google analytic reporting, custom dashboards in Data Studio, or HubSpot solutions, to name a few.
The intricacies of measuring influence, lifetime value, and surgeries versus client visits can take time and commitment.
We aim to report as deeply and thoroughly as needed to prove value and hit the established success measurements for every project or task.
Examples of reporting
- Website conversion tracking
- Examination of campaign impressions and clicks
- Review of appointment requests by zip codes, service lines, and tactics
- Analysis of market share percentage
- Evaluation of quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year goals affected by marketing
Results come in all shapes and sizes. We work through a strict process of defining goals, baselines, and priorities before any work begins. Then, plans are developed accordingly. Since we work with most clients on a variety of campaigns and foundational marketing activities, we see many different results.
We help clients define what success looks like and work together to track and achieve that mark. Below are a few of our biggest wins to tout:
- 100% track record of delivering projects on time and on-budget
- 80% increase in appointment requests from website redesign within 90 days of launch
- 15% increase in mobile calls from website within 1 year after launch
- 32% increase in tracked surgeries attributed to marketing campaign
- 35+ awards for excellence in healthcare marketing
Yes! We publish case studies on our website. Here are a few that show a good variety of our services that have long-term partnerships with TBH Creative and continue to show strong positive ROI.
We have many more. Once we know a bit more about your unique challenges and goals, we can select additional examples to talk through and tell the story of our work and impact on their healthcare system and patients.
Any of these titles would work to describe the work we do and the services we provide. We have experts in everything from branding and paid ads to web development and social media marketing. The biggest successes we have seen in healthcare marketing come when all the pieces are in place and everything works together.
The questions are which do you need or what should be prioritized first? That’s not always an easy answer. We don’t believe in one-size-fits-all solutions. Every organization is at a different point in its marketing journey and asset collection. Plus with different goals, challenges, and budget limitations, marketing plans must be customized to best serve the needs of the organization and the targeted patients.
When working with us, we’ll start out as your strategic partner to define if you need more branding vs. web vs. marketing campaign services. Usually, it is a combination of a mapped-out plan with “quick wins”, foundational work, targeted campaigns, and reporting.
Real marketing transformation happens when you commit to tackling your healthcare business goals using a multi-faceted approach. We’ll meet you where you are and wear the hats necessary for marketing success.
Generally speaking, we often work with healthcare systems that need help because:
- Their marketing isn’t showing results
- The competition is “out-marketing” them
- Their team needs extra support
- They broke up with an agency
- They’ve outgrown their website
- They need a strategic marketing plan
Otherwise, the fact that you are reading this page is a good sign and you are in the right place. If you are impressed by our samples of work, like the answers you have seen across this website, and want to work with an agency that is an extension of your team, those are all positive signs that we are a good fit.
The next step is to schedule a complimentary consultation.
During this initial call (about 20 minutes), we can get to know each other and talk about your challenges.
All of us at TBH Creative believe that the most successful long-term partnerships happen when everyone is on the same page.
We manage expectations by following this basic process when beginning a new engagement with a client:
- Blueprint and marketing planning
- Foundation and goal definition
- Audits and assessments
- Audience definition
- Recommendations and narrow scope
- Execute prioritized work and quick wins, set up reporting, build foundational assets, and begin promotion or advertising initiatives.
- Measure results
- Refine and repeat
We are a healthcare marketing consultancy, and we sell our time and expertise.
Our goal is to have price transparency. During our scoping exercise, we will open up our estimation documents to show how pricing was determined to give you a clear understanding of our workflow, associated costs, and what tasks are expensive/complex.
We also discuss what tasks are “must-have” vs. “nice-to-have” and label all tasks as small, medium, or significant in terms of effort and cost. There are always options within to discuss and finalize details.
Our prices vary, depending on factors such as:
- Level of competition
- How much foundational work is complete versus needs to be created
- In-house split work responsibilities
- The content creation workflow
- Collaboration efforts with other partners are also involved
- Reporting infrastructure already in place and systems
- Timeframe and urgency of the situation
- Design customization needs
- Development complexities and details
- Travel costs
If someone wants to work with us, we will work to find a way to make it happen—establishing clear expectations to go with the engagement.
Too many hospitals and healthcare organizations invest in marketing tactics based on what’s popular instead of the best first for reaching patients. This “strategy” can be ineffective and costly.
At TBH Creative, our partners find value in exploring and executing multi-faceted marketing campaigns and brand-building activities.
There are a lot of benefits to working with a healthcare marketing agency, and these are probably the three most critical:
1. Healthcare familiarity
Agencies specializing in healthcare marketing will speak your language. Their teams will deeply understand the unique business challenges (and corresponding opportunities) facing your hospitals or multi-location medical practice.
As such, their experts will be easier to work with since they’ll have the skills and experience necessary to develop strategies and campaigns specifically tailored to your unique needs.
2. Patient-centered approach
The best healthcare marketing strategy will focus on patient needs (and preferences) rather than just promoting the goals of a hospital or practice. A marketing firm that excels in healthcare is more likely to know all of the ins and outs of building patient-centered campaigns that attract (and support) patients.
3. Compliance expertise
The healthcare industry is heavily regulated. As such, marketing efforts must comply with laws and complex regulations. A healthcare marketing agency will have experience navigating these tricky requirements with your legal team to ensure that all your campaigns are compliant.
Getting results for our clients is our top priority, but being recognized for that work with awards is a plus. We are proud to be recognized for our digital marketing and website work for hospitals and healthcare organizations, including 35+ Aster Awards including one judge’s choice top award.
What does it mean if an agency wins awards and gets good reviews?
Generally speaking, it’s a good sign if a healthcare marketing agency has won prestigious awards or has great reviews from its past and present clients.
Winning awards indicates that the company has produced exceptional marketing campaigns that experts have judged as being among the best of the best in healthcare.
Similarly, positive reviews signal that the firm has a track record of delivering successful campaigns—on time and on budget—while also providing excellent customer service.
Of course, it’s always critical to remember that awards and reviews are just one factor when choosing a healthcare marketing agency. When evaluating a new agency to partner with, you should look at portfolios, industry expertise and experience, and services provided to ensure that their team would be a good match for collaboration with your organization.
When a potential new client calls our office, we hear a lot of questions, ranging from “Is your team experienced in websites?” and “Does your company do branding?” to “Will your agency help manage our paid ads?” and “What does your group NOT do?”
Since every hospital and healthcare organization is different, we offer a wide range of services, and—on rare occasions when a project falls outside our area of expertise—we’ll use our connections to help you find the best partner to help you reach your goals.
Our core services are:
Some of the tactics that we are include:
- Account Based Marketing
- Analytic Reporting
- Application Development
- Blogging
- Branding
- Content Creation
- Email Marketing
- Graphic Design
- Inbound Marketing
- Marketing Strategy
- Persona Development
- Photography
- Search Engine Marketing
- Search Engine Optimization
- Organic and Paid Social Media
- Video Production and Storytelling
- Web Design
- Web Development
- General Support or Maintenance
How do I buy from TBH Creative?
Our sales process
We’ve learned that while many prospects like what they see in our work, they have no idea how to buy marketing services successfully from us and want to know what to expect to start a partnership together.
Read on to understand whether beginning the conversation with us is right for you.
1
Phone call to find out if a meeting makes sense
Step one helps us know where this potential relationship is heading.
We want to know about your business and your reasons for reaching out to us. This helps us discern if your challenges are difficulties we can help you manage. Once we determine that a meeting makes sense, we outline step two and set up an appointment for a meeting.
2
Meeting to determine details
Before our second meeting, we’ll give you some homework—a short list of things to consider and a questionnaire.
During this one-hour session, we’ll dig into your needs, answer your questions, and discuss what makes a good client fit. Our goal is to ensure we have the best chance of effectively solving your challenges.
3
Project recommendations or planning project
If the scope is clear, we’ll present our recommendations, options, and cost estimate.
When more information is needed, we may start with a planning project—meeting with your team to gather objective data and key insights. We review your existing assets, discuss findings together, and outline what can be done, how long it will take, and the expected ROI.
4
Decision-making and paperwork
After the scoping or evaluation process, you’ll have a clear understanding of our recommendations and what parts of your marketing will be most challenging or costly—and how to manage both. We’ll also review a realistic timeline for moving forward.
By this point, it’s clear to both of us what needs to be done. We’ll prepare the paperwork and begin execution.
Trust begins long before the first appointment—it starts with how you show up online.
TBH Creative is a strategic healthcare marketing agency that can help you win patients and strengthen your online reputation.
