Creative Digital Strategies for Medical Facilities | Doug Powell

David McBee: Hello, and welcome to Simpli.fi TV, the web series and podcast for agencies, marketers, media buyers, and business owners. I'm David McBee. Our guest today is Doug Powell, an independent consultant who handles digital marketing at Boston Children's Hospital. Doug is, in his own words, an advertising dinosaur and a digital Neanderthal with over 40 years of experience. He was a very early practitioner of online marketing, and in fact, Doug was part of the team who executed the first paid online program with ESPN on behalf of the Levi Jeans company. Currently, Doug works with the great folks doing miraculous things at Boston Children's Hospital, and in his free time, Doug teaches part-time at the University of Kentucky. Doug, welcome to Simpli.fi TV. Doug Powell: Thank you. It's a pleasure. David McBee: Doug, let's just start this interview by addressing the elephant in the room. There are a lot of HIPAA laws and limitations on privacy for medical facilities, so what kind of audience targeting and digital strategies can medical facilities use while staying compliant? Doug Powell: First of all, I need to caveat. My relationship with Boston Children's Hospital has somewhat of a narrow scope, and just the way that they're constructed, I have visibility into a lot about what they do, but not everything regarding what they do. That said, one of the big things, and I've been working with them for five years, I think one of the biggest priorities they had and why I actually liked them so much was they have a big respect for all the HIPAA issues as it pertains to marketing. So I feel like that they were front and center of taking some leadership on making sure that privacy was a big part of everything that at least I was involved with them. I think of it more about compassion versus compliance, if that makes sense, being very target centric, especially when your target is parents with children that have complicated health issues. I think that one of the things that has helped us from a focus standpoint is that we start from a place of, what if we have to target without a lot of the technicians that are involved with the marketing platforms? That's forced us to be a little more creative. I think it's also helped them become more of a test-and-learn environment where we've taken small steps. We like knowing what's out there, but we like to ease into things and see what happens. I think that at least gives you kind of an overview of my involvement with them and then how we've approached the digital landscape knowing that there's always these HIPAA complications and problems. We're well aware of them. There've been lots of lawsuits that have been happening of late, and the entire hospital walks on glass a little bit when it comes to regulation. So it's always front and center in everything that we do. In fact, this past year we actually stopped retargeting as a proactive measure of just making sure that we were in full compliance and there was no concern, at least from internally, that we were doing something that might violate privacy. David McBee: So then what are some of the digital tactics that you leverage that fall within the lines of privacy and HIPAA rules? Doug Powell: I'll start with one of the big test and learn things that we did early on was we thought that health environment was going to be kind of a slam dunk for us. And so at the time, the ad director that was at Boston Children's had felt that, in fact, lifestyle probably may be a better environment for us. So we did a lot of testing and learning and discovered that actually lifestyle focus, our environments that we'd want to be in actually performed really well, both top of funnel and mid-funnel and really directed us in a whole new way. And so, lifestyle and mindset became a big part of how we started to think about our target. That gave us some guidance into the tools and things that we could use that we felt at least environmentally worked well for getting us the prospects that we wanted. And just to put another caveat here, a lot of what we do is awareness generation. We don't do a lot of heavy lifting, or at least I'm not a part of a lot of heavy lifting that they do in mid to low funnel. David McBee: For those who are listening who may not be familiar with lifestyle targeting, could you describe that? Doug Powell: Oh, sure. Anything pertaining to what I like and enjoy doing, so cooking, vacations, decor, anything pertaining to that lifestyle of a parent, which makes sense if you stop and think about it because we are human beings first and foremost. Our message was very emotional, and so it naturally landed itself to being I think more a part of lifestyle than just serious health environments that we were in. David McBee: This might be a challenging question to answer, but how do you prove the value of what you're running? You said you did some testing and you found that it worked. Describe worked, what does that mean exactly? Doug Powell: Worked means that we saw engagement both within the media format as well as within the landing page. Also, the hospital does a lot of brand tracking, so we were measuring what the lift of awareness was going on and attitudes about the hospital. We've been running our national campaign for almost five years, and it has consistently done very well on all the metrics, and we've optimized extensively over time. And that's been helpful because as they develop other programs, we have a baseline of things that we know that work, so we're not starting from ground zero many times with some of the campaigns that they do. David McBee: Are you running mostly display ads or do you run video or streaming television ads? Doug Powell: We very early were testing all those formats, and what we discovered, and not just within our branding effort but in other campaigns they run, video's a slam dunk. Because we have an emotional story, and health, especially of children, is an emotional topic, video does gangbusters. So we have more and more incorporated video in everything that we've done. So it's a winner and in lots of different messages that they've actually done. David McBee: Excellent. All right, so what am I not asking? What do medical facilities really need to know as they charge into the digital landscape? Doug Powell: Many times it's like, what does the ecosystem look like? The medical community is just now starting to take bigger strides and steps to marketing overall, and I think there's a big learning curve that they're going through in terms of what the digital landscape is going on. I've spent a lot of my time with the Boston Children's folks doing a lot of education work. I think if you were to say, "What inning is the medical and healthcare profession in in relation to sophistication of digital development?" I'd say maybe third, fourth inning. There's still a lot, and again, they have to be very careful, so they're still learning a lot. And we are, I'm still learning a lot with them. David McBee: I imagine five years and a lot of lessons have come and gone. Is there anything that you would recommend medical facilities do not do in the digital space? Doug Powell: I think do not assume that it will work because it should work from a medical perspective. I think all options should go off the table. I think that was what drove us to some early successes is, again, back to we assumed that health environments or medical environments would be the appropriate place to be. And what we've discovered was something completely different. I would say challenge assumptions, because I think there's a lot that people have going in. In fact, when I meet with doctors, which isn't frequently, they have a predisposed notion of what marketing should do and how it looks and what it should be. So many times we have to get them to step back and have an open mind. David McBee: I love that advice. That's really good. Doug Powell: Well, the other thing too, I have advice for anybody that's working with a healthcare provider is that nothing moves quickly in a hospital-oriented environment. Usually with any vendor that I've actually had to work with, that's one of the first training things is to say, "You're used to working at light speed, and that's not how things operate." I mean, just getting approvals, we have to go through legal, we have to go through financials, it has to go through all kinds of approvals before literally getting an IO approved. So as quick as they move from a health maintenance and protection perspective, they move equally as slow from a operations perspective. And understandable, they're very cautious. That's the culture that you have to work with. David McBee: But it sounds like once you get in the door and start proving things work, they stick around for a while. Doug Powell: Yes. Longevity with them has been an interesting thing just because we started very small and had some wins and proved success within the marketing arena. That has helped to grow and expand not only the practice of marketing, but how much they've invested over the five years that I've worked with them. David McBee: Awesome. All right, well, this has been amazing, great content. I really appreciate you sharing your wisdom. Before I let you go, do you have a favorite podcast or a book that you feel has been instrumental in your success? Doug Powell: I love this question, especially because this is a podcast. I have two podcasts that will sound very off the wall, but if you take a step back from what we do in the marketing area, our currency is ideas. And so what I tend to listen to and be drawn to are things that help me become a better idea person, even at my Neanderthal stage of my career. And two that I listen to, one is called Daily Intuition. It's a lady, Susan Gorman, actually does intuitive coaching, and she has a really great podcast about application of intuition and having people rethink it. I'm a big believer that our intuition is a big part of how we should be and do make decisions within the business world. I wish we did more of it actually. And then the other podcast that I listen to is Creative Codex. I don't know if you've heard of it or not, but it's a fellow. Really, it explores things around creativity and also features individuals who are known for their creativity. This last series that he just did was on Alexander McQueen, which was an individual that's redefined what the fashion industry was in the late '90s and early 2000s. David McBee: Those are a little different from what we usually hear, so I love that. Thank you for that. Doug Powell: Yeah, you're welcome. David McBee: And if someone wants to learn more about you or get in touch, what's the best way for them to do that? Doug Powell: LinkedIn. That's where my focus is, that's where I do keep my connections going. And as an independent contractor, it's been a big part of how I've developed my business over time, so a big fan of LinkedIn. Although I don't post a lot, I'm well-connected. David McBee: All right, and we'll include a link to your LinkedIn in the show notes. Thank you so much for being my guest today. Doug Powell: My pleasure, David. Thank you. David McBee: And thank you all for watching Simpli.fi TV. Please help us out with a like, comment, share, or review, and be sure to follow or subscribe to be informed about new episodes. Simpli.fi TV is sponsored by Simpli.fi, helping you to maximize relevance and multiply results with our industry-leading media buying and workflow solutions. For more information, visit simpli.fi. Thanks for joining us today. I'm David McBee. Be awesome, and we'll see you next time.