The patient journey has changed drastically in the past 5 years and it’s having an outsized impact on healthcare marketing. You know about the “Google-effect”, but did you know that 83% of patients are not going to the hospital website to research doctors and services? And now with Alexa, Apple Car Play and Android auto, voice-first is adding a brand new wrinkle. In short, there are many ways for your patients to find you and if you aren’t managing the digital landscape, then you’re missing out. Proper branding across channels makes it easier to be discovered and signals to your patients that your company is trustworthy.
On this episode, me and Shahid Shah are joined by one of healthcare’s leading experts on the patient journey, Carrie Liken. Carrie is the Head of Industry for Healthcare at Yext, and she helps us sort it all out.
The New Patient Journey and its Impact on Healthcare Marketing
1:51 How has the patient journey changed in the last five years? What sort of impact is it having on healthcare marketing?
2:22 What is Yext?
5:08 Have you checked your address on Google Maps to see if patients are being taken to the right place?
8:00 “Everyone comes to our website. Google doesn’t matter.” Sorry, wrong answer.
9:40 Technology has changed the patient journey forcing doctors to be more digitally engaged. What is the new patient journey?
13:45 Hospital executives: You must accept that patients are finding information about you and your doctors via external resources that may be outside of your direct control.
15:55 Google search has made small local hospitals the biggest competitor for big city hospitals. People don’t want to travel for healthcare and rural hospitals who have optimized across search and media channels are taking market share.
20:58 The new rules of re-targeting in healthcare. 83% of people don’t go to hospital websites. How do you find your audience?
26:11 What else will hospitals and clinics benefit from if they already have a lot of patients?
31:50 What’s going on with voice search? Most common question: “Where is my doctor located?”
35:18 When it comes to voice search, Carrie says go FOND (First Organic, Next Direct).
37:55 Patients still can’t search to see if their doctor is in-network.
42:30 What is it about branding that will suffer if external data is wrong?
45:41 Benefits of managing your “provider directory” well will help with tons of internal processes. Find more #HCBiz coverage here Provider Directory.
46:45 Where should health clinics start? First, talk to patients and collect data. Next is go internal and find where your data lives today. Third, launch and iterate. You can’t stop a patient from searching (and potentially finding bad data) so just start now.
51:17 If you are spending money on your website but not the organic discovery of your website, you’re doing it wrong. You’re only serious if you know how much money you’re spending on organic vs direct. Here are the most important KPIs you should be tracking.
Listen to the interview:
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About Carrie Liken
Carrie Liken joined Yext as the company’s first Head of Industry for Healthcare. In her role, Liken leads all healthcare-related activities, including product and partnership development. Over the last fifteen years, Liken has gained experience in the government, legal, nonprofit, and for-profit sectors, focusing on healthcare and health policy.
For 8.5 years, she worked for Google, where she worked with healthcare organizations of all sizes to better understand the patient journey, digital’s impact on patient and customer acquisition, and how to drive increased revenue and sales through digital means.
Find Carrie Liken on LinkedIn
About Yext
Yext is the leading Digital Knowledge Management (DKM) platform. Yext’s mission is to give organizations control over their brand experiences across the digital universe of maps, apps, search engines, voice assistants and other intelligent services that drive provider discovery, patient decision and action. Today, hundreds of healthcare organizations — including brands like Vanderbilt Health, Steward Health and OhioHealth — use the Yext Knowledge Engine™ to manage their digital knowledge in order to boost brand engagement, drive patient acquisition and increase system revenue.
Healthcare Industry Page at Yext.com
Related and/or Mentioned on the Show
- Yext Healthcare: Voice Search To-Do List
- The Evolving Patient Experience – white paper / report
- All of the #HCBiz Provider Directory coverage
- The #HCBiz Show! Episode 63: Internet Marketing for Healthcare Practices | Garrett Smith | InboundMD
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