Meet our guest:
Don Stanziano is an executive leader responsible for setting marketing, communications and digital engagement vision and strategy for $7 billion non-profit integrated health care system (10-hospital delivery network, 600K-member health plan, 1,700-employed physician group, college of health sciences, research institutes) across multiple markets and lines of business.
Recruited to transform function and lead operations for enterprise-wide internal marketing and communications functions for: brand management, advertising, service line marketing, public affairs, media relations, executive communications, crisis communications, internal communications to 24,000 employees, community relations, and integrated digital marketing and customer engagement (consumer website and patient/member/physician portals, SEO, social media, digital marketing, email marketing, CRM).
Learn more about Don on his Linkedin Profile
Note: This episode is recut and remastered from an original recording of Marketing Mondays, on the Outcomes Rocket network. Original airdate: January 23, 2023
My learnings from the episode:
- Curiosity and Lifelong Learning: Embrace curiosity as a valuable trait in marketing. Don emphasizes that a natural curiosity drives innovation and problem-solving. This mindset helps marketers seek new solutions and better understand organizational dynamics.
- Balancing Brand and Growth Marketing: Effective marketing in health and wellness involves a mix of brand marketing and lead generation. Don discusses the importance of having a strong brand to support lead generation efforts, as well as understanding how to complement both strategies to achieve growth.
- Data-Driven Marketing: Building a robust data infrastructure is crucial for informed decision-making. Don shares his journey of investing in CRM systems and using data to justify marketing expenditures, demonstrating how data can optimize marketing campaigns and improve customer targeting.
Looking to share your experiences?
We’re always looking for guests! If interested, email us at podcast@diacreative.com
Read while you listen:
01;25;43;26 – 01;25;56;21
don stanziano
Curiosity is one of, I think, the most valuable qualities that I’m looking for when I’m hiring, because I believe being naturally curious sort of leads you to seek interesting and new solutions to the challenges that we face.
01;25;56;24 – 01;26;27;07
andreea
Welcome to Pioneering Perspectives, a creative podcast where we explore marketing insights from regulated industries. Join me as we chat with real professionals navigating these complexities today, uncovering their stories and their savvy strategies for marketing success. Hey everyone, and welcome back. I’m your host, Andrea Bhatia, CMO of Dia creative, a health and wellness digital marketing agency. I am excited to bring to you Don Stand Siano, who’s chief marketing and communications officer at Geisinger.
01;26;27;07 – 01;26;28;16
andreea
Don, thanks for being here.
01;26;28;18 – 01;26;29;05
don stanziano
Thanks, Andrea.
01;26;29;10 – 01;26;35;28
andreea
Yeah. So, tell me a little bit about how you got into health and wellness marketing. How did you what was your journey to get here?
01;26;35;29 – 01;26;40;26
don stanziano
Yeah, it certainly, wasn’t a direct path. I’ll say that. I sort of feel.
01;26;40;28 – 01;26;42;04
andreea
Like that’s common.
01;26;42;07 – 01;27;02;18
don stanziano
Yeah. if you had told me earlier in my career that this is where I would be and what I’d be doing, I would have laughed. I started out as a journalist and was a journalist for ten years, which evolved into hospital public relations. my first job in health care was as, public relations media relations specialist at a health system in San Diego.
01;27;02;21 – 01;27;25;26
don stanziano
From there, you know, I continued to advance into the on the communications side of marketing and communications in San Diego and went to another health system. From there, I had the opportunity to when the chief marketing officer left at the organization I was working for, had the opportunity to be promoted and take on the marketing piece of, of the portfolio as well.
01;27;26;00 – 01;27;58;14
don stanziano
And, really, you know, enjoyed that path. And I think being someone who believes in lifelong learning and is naturally curious, and I say this a lot, I guess I’m at that stage in my career where I’m reflecting more and I tell folks who are earlier in their career that, curiosity is one of, I think, the most valuable qualities that I’m looking for when I’m hiring, because I believe being naturally curious sort of leads you to, seek interesting and new solutions to the challenges that we face, and better understand what’s going on in your organization.
01;27;58;15 – 01;28;17;06
don stanziano
I’m sure we’ll get into that more, but, that that was my path, and and, a recruiter tapped on my shoulder five years ago and said, there’s this interesting opportunity in Pennsylvania. Would you be interested? And can we pray you out of San Diego? And, they were able to do that. And it’s been it’s been really, an interesting ride.
01;28;17;07 – 01;28;34;04
andreea
Definitely. I like that you came from not a marketing background and now had to take on marketing, especially with that journalistic communications background. What shifts or adjustments? What did you have to learn speaking of like, well, loving the learning to really embrace that side of the communication side.
01;28;34;06 – 01;28;57;19
don stanziano
Well, that that transition happened at an organization called Scripps Health in San Diego. And I you know, I felt like I had a really good handle on comms in health care. And, you know, I hired somebody really strong to fill my role as role. And when I was promoted chief and I started talking to the marketing team about what we were doing and why we were doing it, and how do you know?
01;28;57;19 – 01;29;17;26
don stanziano
And that led me down a path of, we really didn’t have a lot of data to support what we were doing. And, and that wasn’t a fault of the team. It was, it was, you know, that there had never been the investments and the infrastructure needed to really, build that data, that, that data infrastructure.
01;29;18;02 – 01;29;38;04
don stanziano
I became a student of marketing, very quickly and started talking to peers and talking. And yeah, I’m fortunate I had some really great mentors who connected me to others who, you know, had been doing health care marketing longer. and I started talking to vendors, quite frankly, you know, help help me understand what you offer. How does it solve my problem?
01;29;38;06 – 01;30;03;08
don stanziano
that interest in data and demonstrating, sort of the why of the decisions that we needed to make. Because marketing dollars are limited and marketing budgets are always vulnerable. And I had been within the marketing and communications function long enough to know that, you know, if I can’t justify what I’m doing, I’m going to have a challenge continuing to, advance the program that I’d want to build.
01;30;03;08 – 01;30;40;05
don stanziano
So, that got me down a path of CRM and really wanting to understand how do we start to build a customer database? How do we start to, build a data infrastructure and led to a great partnership with the CIO at Scripps. At the time, we together invested in CRM, a customer relationship management system, you know, which also required staffing, and a change in staffing and a change in mindset with the legacy team that I had inherited and that, well, you know, brand is important and we can talk about branding, if you like.
01;30;40;05 – 01;31;04;01
don stanziano
Growth marketing certainly requires ownership of your data and a command of of your organization’s data. And, you know, that isn’t just marketing data. That’s that’s the data from the rest of the organization as well, helping you understand, what the customers are engaging with you, even using using the word customer in health care is, is controversial. And I was on the front lines of that early on as well.
01;31;04;03 – 01;31;10;23
andreea
Yeah, that that that’s a pretty big shift going from patient to customer. or even like user and.
01;31;11;00 – 01;31;11;21
don stanziano
Right, you know.
01;31;11;21 – 01;31;36;23
andreea
User data. so did you find that when you had taken on that role that the focus was a bit too much on brand building? with this, because I see the value in brand in health and wellness because you need to build trust. Right. And I need to know that you’re legit. but that it’s a very interesting shift to start bringing in growth marketing, which is traditionally not in health and wellness.
01;31;36;25 – 01;31;48;23
andreea
so did you feel like you had a lot of pushback? Was that really the transition you had to make? Is shifting mindset into, it’s okay to want to grow as health and wellness, especially with something as massive as Scripps.
01;31;48;25 – 01;32;11;12
don stanziano
Yes. And, you know, I had allies and champions within some of the service lines who had, you know, felt like they weren’t getting enough attention for their great work and wanted, they had capacity for growth and wanted support, from marketing to do that. You know, I don’t think that brand marketing and growth marketing or lead gen marketing are mutually exclusive.
01;32;11;12 – 01;32;35;03
don stanziano
They are part of an entire, ecosystem, if you will, of, you know, a marketing infrastructure. You need a strong brand. And that’s what, you know. And my comms background, you know, plays into that. And this is what I tell my communications folks. You know, you you, you all create certainly external communications folks. You all create an environment that allows marketing to be successful.
01;32;35;08 – 01;32;58;18
don stanziano
And so reputation management heading off issues before they become a big deal. continuing to sort of burnish the brand, through strong communications, but then brand marketing is also about being top of mind for that consideration. I can’t sell something to someone who doesn’t know who we are and what we stand for, right? So you have to have some of that.
01;32;58;24 – 01;33;21;03
don stanziano
I do think that health care organizations, particularly health care provider organizations, tend to over indexed on brand one because, that’s what the organization’s asking them for. and there’s a lot of meta marketing going on in health care. They have a billboard. Why don’t we have a billboard, you know, and we can talk about outdoor and where that fits into next, if you like.
01;33;21;03 – 01;33;53;19
don stanziano
But, and I think digital has really helped us, at least for me, help clarify my narrative in my organization about the value of brand and, lead gen marketing and how those two complement each other because, and I just did this presentation about a year ago to our board to educate them on our program and why we were making the investments we were making, and the idea that branded search, for example, performs so much better than generic search.
01;33;53;19 – 01;34;13;10
don stanziano
So, I mean, if you already have a consumer who’s going, to a search engine and typing in your name and wanting to know if you offer something specific and where it’s offered, you’re already ahead of game versus I’m looking for a knee replacement who offers it, and then I’ve got to make sure that I’m, you know, top of the search results.
01;34;13;12 – 01;34;32;12
don stanziano
I’ve got the right landing page. I’ve got the whole journey mapped out. I, I can have a less than optimal lead gen and lead conversion journey on my, you know, on my website, if I already have a consumer who’s motivated and predisposed to choose me and I’m not making excuses for bad digital, but you get my point.
01;34;32;15 – 01;34;50;12
don stanziano
Brand does play an important role in growth as well. And that so understanding sort of what that mix needs to be. And that’s going to be different for every every customer and and even by line of business, depending on your competition, your marketplace, the maturity of your product, all of those things.
01;34;50;15 – 01;35;22;18
andreea
That is one of the biggest challenges, I’d say, with health and wellness, marketing, especially in the health care system, like, Geisinger is and and, Scripps because, like, I don’t know that I’m going to need a knee replacement at some point. So it’s not like you have to fit into my head that like, well, you know, this is a brand that I should pay attention to just in case I need a knee replacement someday versus like, you know, like, oh, you know, the restaurants, like, I know I like Chinese food, so let me just find a local like, I I’ll that type kind of fits more into your psyche.
01;35;22;18 – 01;35;42;27
andreea
But health care I think in particular your end customer doesn’t really want to think about their health care until they have to. Then that lead gen really has to be more about like, because do I want to get on a knee replacement? Let’s no, I don’t know that I need and right. It’s so that’s really nuanced I think with how you tackle marketing.
01;35;42;27 – 01;35;59;18
andreea
So you know, how much of your marketing effort is spent on just being the right solution at the right time for these customers, versus how much is just like, let me make sure you know, we exist, just in case you need that knee replacement at some point or you know somebody who does.
01;35;59;20 – 01;36;31;01
don stanziano
Right? Right. So it’s a great question because it’s a conversation I find myself in a lot because we, we, we are spending guys. You know, I am I have invested a lot in brand. We did a whole brand. refresh a couple of years ago after I arrived to reposition us in the marketplace to sort of reintroduce us to the, the, the communities we serve and to build a platform on which we can put the that that lead gen marketing.
01;36;31;01 – 01;36;50;15
don stanziano
Right. the services and product folks who, want us to support them for growth, you know, are always asking, well, you know, why can’t we put one of our messages in that space versus a brand message? I just had this debate with, one of our clinical leaders, around a facility that we have a sponsorship.
01;36;50;15 – 01;37;17;01
don stanziano
It’s a sports facilities, athletic facility for kids. And in that community, it’s the place, you know, all parents go. there’s a lot of sporting events there. and it’s a great way to reach families. And we have, some, sports medicine docs who are doctors who are there providing services. And the idea was, why aren’t people talking about sports medicine versus just having the Geisinger logo?
01;37;17;04 – 01;37;49;23
don stanziano
And I said, because those same families need primary care, they need pediatrics, they need urgent care. We have insurance. We have insurance products as well. We have an insurance business. So they’re buying insurance. I want to be top of mind regardless of what they need. Right. That oh Geisinger trusted guys, high quality Geisinger is easy to access. Those are the things we’re trying to, sort of plant those subliminal seeds in the minds of our consumers so that, when they when they find themselves needing health care because we’re selling something most people don’t want.
01;37;49;29 – 01;38;09;10
don stanziano
So positioning yourself as a wellness brand is great from that perspective. But we offer and this is the other challenge with with health care at least, for organizations like mine. And I’ve talked about this, in the organization and with my team, our challenges, everyone’s our customer.
01;38;09;13 – 01;38;10;24
andreea
Nobody wants to be our customer.
01;38;11;00 – 01;38;54;09
don stanziano
And nobody want nobody wants what we’re selling, right? most of the time. So you have to sort of get to that, that, you know, part hearts and minds, sort of place in your marketplace. But then this is where the, the, the CRM, the customer relationship management work and the data is so critical understanding, you know, segmentation and targeting so that the spend that you’re investing in, that lead gen is really for folks who are in that place where they actually do need a knee replacement, you know, their likelihood to need something like that, is, you know, you we can build we can build outreach lists to find those folks, and have
01;38;54;09 – 01;39;06;21
don stanziano
folks opt in, you know, through our outreach as well, so that we’re nurturing folks along that journey. regardless of what the services, whether it’s a knee replacement or some other service.
01;39;06;23 – 01;39;28;21
andreea
With Geisinger in particular, you have so many different offerings. and my my expectation then is you actually have so many different target customers, both on the like. Yes, people, which is a lot we’ve been talking about. But on the professional side. Right. So can you talk a bit about how you’ve had to shift communication when you’re talking to professionals in the space?
01;39;28;24 – 01;39;34;27
andreea
and especially with like legal and regulatory concerns on top of that. Like it it gets very complicated.
01;39;34;29 – 01;40;04;14
don stanziano
Yes. Well, I’ve certainly had a crash course in regulatory, marketing, with the addition of the health plan, because health insurance is highly regulated and everything that we market, particularly for government programs like government sponsored programs like Medicare and Medicaid, all has to go through the centers for Medicare and Medicaid before everything we put out there. And so you have to be very thoughtful about your campaign build so that you’re baking in those, that review and approval.
01;40;04;16 – 01;40;26;12
don stanziano
We did, again, a great example. We did an infomercial for, Medicare Advantage. Open enrollment is always in the fall. It’s, it’s it’s, October to December every year. So we’re working on that campaign in late spring, early summer and mapping all that out. That creative gets built, in the, in the summer and, and, super early fall.
01;40;26;12 – 01;40;46;00
don stanziano
But we’re in market as early as September within the regs and then enrollment starts in October. We did an infomercial for this fall’s campaign that was not approved until November. So we were halfway through. So you have this very short window. Yeah. Customers to you, and you have this asset that you’re ready that you want to put out.
01;40;46;03 – 01;41;07;28
don stanziano
so we had to shuffle, and, and fill that air that we, we, we got some credits from the, you know, the broadcasters we had bought time with. other time we filled with other, other assets. But that’s, you know, that that regulatory, requirement, certainly forces you to, to, think differently about about how you work.
01;41;07;28 – 01;41;25;18
don stanziano
You also asked about, professionals. And that’s the other thing that in health care is interesting. There’s a lot more consumerism and health care and patients. The case for marketing is always if the consumer has a choice and there’s there’s been a rub in health care for a while. around, you know, are they patients or are they consumers?
01;41;25;18 – 01;41;50;17
don stanziano
And my answer to that question is there consumers when they’re making the consideration to choose us for that service? Once they make that selection and they’re under our care, they’re patient. But that consumerism never goes away. We always have an opportunity to delight them or lose them. disappoint them if we’re not careful. and that’s a process that all of health care is going through, in terms of that customer experience or patient experience.
01;41;50;17 – 01;41;52;05
don stanziano
But are they a patient when they’re paying their bill?
01;41;52;05 – 01;41;59;02
andreea
Yeah, I really like that distinction because like, you’re right, patients don’t make that decision. Consumers make that decision.
01;41;59;05 – 01;41;59;12
don stanziano
Right.
01;41;59;12 – 01;42;11;04
andreea
And once they’re in the system, yeah then they’re a patient. But it’s not like you patients don’t really get marketed to. It’s the consumer. At the end of the day, I’m making I’m a consumer in this day, and I have to make a decision of where I want to get this service taken care of.
01;42;11;06 – 01;42;34;25
don stanziano
Right now, a lot of people will say, well, my insurance tells me where to go, or my doctor referred me. Which gets back to your question about, you know, marketing to professionals or communicating with professionals. A lot of the services we have, you know, and all the services in health care require a referral from a provider or, you know, you’re under, you’re under a treatment plan and you’re trusting your providers, your your physicians to guide you.
01;42;35;02 – 01;42;55;22
don stanziano
And, you know, it’s through those relationships that they’re making decisions about where to send their patients for the next level of care for something highly specialized that they don’t offer. Physicians are a customer for us as well. We have to be trusted. We have to have relationships with them. We also have to be easy to use. A lot of Geisinger physicians are employed.
01;42;55;27 – 01;43;18;03
don stanziano
Most most of the physicians on our medical staff are employed by us. That doesn’t mean that that that all of their patients always stay with us for services. So so we’re on a constant education that, you know, when we offer something new or we’re providing a service that, may not have always been offered, we have to make sure that our physicians understand that, because they may be in a pattern of referring that those patients out for those services.
01;43;18;05 – 01;43;40;14
don stanziano
But the there are a lot of physicians in the community who send, their patients to us. So one of the things that my digital team manages, among many, is, an authenticated portal for referring physicians to digitally refer their patients to us. So we’ve really spent a lot of, and made a lot of investments in that, in that portal to make it easy to use.
01;43;40;14 – 01;44;03;16
don stanziano
We listen to physicians about, you know, what some of the pain points were? How do we, how do we optimize that experience for them? And it’s and it was a lot of back office stuff. So this gets into another thing that I think is really important for marketers, especially in healthcare. We have to be part of some of the processes and workflows that, impact our customers, that we don’t own directly.
01;44;03;16 – 01;44;27;00
don stanziano
Right. So how do we partner with the operations team? How do we partner with the clinical team? to say, I’m sending you these leads and they’re not converting and they’re not converting because they can’t get in to see anybody for three months or six months. And so how do we how do we fix that? Or these physicians are referring patients to us, but there’s a back office issue with how those referrals are being managed.
01;44;27;00 – 01;44;32;14
don stanziano
So it’s really important that physicians are seen as, customers as well.
01;44;32;16 – 01;44;53;00
andreea
Do you feel like I mean, a lot of what you’re saying right now is the challenges are not just in the marketing space. So as a CMO, you also have to probably partner, like you said, your CIO operations and probably up and down the line, because part of this customer experience that you’re trying to sell is, is out of your hands, right?
01;44;53;02 – 01;44;57;04
andreea
So how do you build those relationships internally to get to on the same goals.
01;44;57;06 – 01;45;18;07
don stanziano
That it’s it’s super important. And I think that is my primary responsibility as the leader of the function. And, it really helps that I’ve spent a lot of time in health care. I mean, I’ve been in health care since the mid 90s, so I kind of understand how these organizations are now. They’re everybody’s a little different, you know, going from scripts to guys.
01;45;18;07 – 01;45;36;06
don stanziano
And you’re required me to sort of learn, you know, navigate the organization, different organization with a different org chart. But the key components are there. I recognize, you know, sort of and know who I need to know. And I’m always, you know, that’s always something I have to keep in mind when we bring folks in from out of industry.
01;45;36;09 – 01;46;03;07
don stanziano
that we have to, you know, we have to be responsible for their orientation to health care and how health care works. Very relationship oriented. Understanding how it works is really helpful and building trust with those other folks. I do hear, and especially early on when I, when I moved out to Geisinger to this role, Geisinger, when I would meet with leaders in different parts of the organization, that there was a bit of a surprise that I understood their area.
01;46;03;10 – 01;46;23;10
don stanziano
Oh, you understand this? Yeah, I do, I know how this works. I don’t know that, you know, as health care marketers, I think there’s some trepidation or fear of leaning into hard. I don’t think there’s a I don’t think there’s ever a reason not to do that. I think that’s you can always win by leaning in.
01;46;23;14 – 01;46;44;02
don stanziano
And it gets back to that curiosity I mentioned earlier. If you engage and help me understand how this works, help me understand what the patient’s going through. you know, I’ll go all the way back to when I was doing public relations and, you know, wanted to understand a procedure. Can I sit can I shadow the surgery, can, you know, and and that that’s fascinating.
01;46;44;02 – 01;46;56;14
don stanziano
Right. so I think the more we can do that as marketers, that, not only do we gain more knowledge of how, our businesses work understanding the business, but it also builds trust.
01;46;56;18 – 01;47;03;07
andreea
I love that level of curiosity that you actually sit in to see the procedures. I don’t know that a lot of people in marketing do that.
01;47;03;09 – 01;47;09;12
don stanziano
Yeah, I haven’t done it a while. I don’t, but I but I certainly did early on.
01;47;09;14 – 01;47;35;29
andreea
That’s very cool. so given your history with marketing in health and how it’s evolved and the industry’s evolved, now we’ve got electronic health records, now we’ve got, more choice in health plans and doctors and procedures, etc.. You know, where do you see, marketing going? How do we continue to meet that customer and patient moving forward in the health industry with the way it’s evolving?
01;47;36;02 – 01;48;06;01
don stanziano
I really hope that marketing in health care is elevated. over the next, 5 to 10 years to a, direct report level to the CEO, which in most organizations like mine, it is not and that the, the role is expanded going back to the consumerism, you know, that the, the title maybe has even evolved to chief consumer officer.
01;48;06;03 – 01;48;40;14
don stanziano
or chief growth officer, with marketing just being a component of that portfolio, because in, you know, in most other industries, marketing is at the table. It’s about, you know, it’s the P’s, you know, it’s product and price. And in health care, we’re not really involved at that level. it’s more about promotion. And so I think evolving us, beyond our role as promoters, to really being involved in the product, which and health care is a is a service given by people.
01;48;40;16 – 01;49;09;11
don stanziano
So we should be involved in all aspects of the culture of the organization, and we should be involved in the customer experience from scheduling to the clinical care to the billing. And, you know, I’m not suggesting that we should be telling doctors how to do their job. but I think we should be aware of what the customer pathway is and, be part of those conversations on how to improve the overall experience.
01;49;09;14 – 01;49;29;12
andreea
Yeah, I’ve been seeing a lot more of that, even with, even just the decor of the office almost being like, I would consider that an extension of marketing. Right? Because if you’re already going into a medical situation, you’re terrified. It’d be nice if it’s a little, like, less clinical looking and a little bit more comfortable. Right. And yeah, that’s marketing.
01;49;29;19 – 01;49;32;07
andreea
That’s the experience you’re looking for. Right?
01;49;32;10 – 01;50;01;28
don stanziano
Exactly, exactly. I will say that at Geisinger, we’ve made a little bit of progress there. we partnered with the facilities team on entryway and lobby redesigns so that there’s some standardization that when you come into a Geisinger facility, it’s a Geisinger facility, you know, target, Starbucks. Others have figured this out. We’re just beginning that that journey. But it was taking that brand refresh and bringing it into, interior design, which is really cool.
01;50;02;01 – 01;50;26;05
andreea
Yeah, I, I’m loving the fact that that more health marketing is kind of acknowledging what other brands have already done. Like you brought up Starbucks and the rest like they they have to be a destination and they have to have all their branding and marketing growth tied in properly because they they can’t exist without it. But health care, technical could exist, just not very well without marketing.
01;50;26;05 – 01;50;39;27
andreea
And so now I do you feel like the industry, not just in the marketing communication space, but the industry as a whole, is starting to realize that there’s value in focus on marketing, consumers, branding, growth, etc..
01;50;39;29 – 01;51;05;29
don stanziano
Definitely. And I’m very fortunate to work in an organization like Geisinger where leadership does understand and is very interested in where the consumer is going. And then one of the reasons that I made the decision to leave San Diego for central Pennsylvania, the overall opportunity for sure, but it was clear that there was a real interest and respect for marketing and communications.
01;51;06;02 – 01;51;27;00
don stanziano
but that and that translates also to the consumer. I mean, I think we are very aware and I think health care overall needs to really, appreciate this even more that our patients have expectations based on not what they experience with other health care organizations, but with what they experience in their whole life. So our digital experience needs to be more Amazon like.
01;51;27;03 – 01;51;52;14
don stanziano
Our, you know, in-store experiences need to be more like Starbucks and Target. And we just we have to take those lessons from, out of industry. we’ve talked a lot about hospitality for sort of the inpatient experience, but so much of health care now is delivered, outside of the hospital. that we have to think about it beyond, just what others in our industry are doing.
01;51;52;14 – 01;51;57;14
don stanziano
We have to we have to take, lessons from retail and, and others.
01;51;57;21 – 01;52;10;09
andreea
Yeah, that’s a great point about digital. I, I remember when electronic health records came out, everyone’s like, oh, this is going to be it. It’s going to be a great experience. And then I’m looking at these things. It’s like, oh man, this looks like it was designed in 1992. It’s awful.
01;52;10;11 – 01;52;11;18
don stanziano
yeah. Yeah.
01;52;11;20 – 01;52;28;02
andreea
So, I can definitely appreciate that. Okay. Let’s let’s close out on some final thoughts. any advice for anyone that is trying to get into marketing, or start to take a better control of their marketing for their health and wellness organization?
01;52;28;04 – 01;52;48;04
don stanziano
I first of all understand the business, you know, not all health care organizations are the same, but make sure you’re understanding who your customers are, how you make money. health care, the health care, the sort of the the revenue, path in health care is very convoluted. And understanding that, I think, is really important for marketers.
01;52;48;06 – 01;53;11;26
don stanziano
and understanding the customer experience, you know, how do they come to you and what what’s their experience when once they’re inside your organization? all the way through, how do you influence that? I think that’s really, really important. And then obviously, you know, agnostic of of, you know, your industry, health care. Otherwise we’ve got to be really comfortable with data.
01;53;11;28 – 01;53;23;02
don stanziano
and we’ve, we’ve, we’ve got to be willing to talk about the numbers, our numbers and the numbers, from the business and how those work together.
01;53;23;04 – 01;53;46;08
andreea
Yeah. That’s huge. Absolutely. Well, Don, thank you so much. I appreciate you being here. And, thanks, everyone for listening. Our guest today was Don Sten Siano from Geisinger. He’s chief marketing and communications officer. And I think you gave us a lot of really amazing insights over the last, you know, a couple decades of health care marketing and where it’s evolved and how things need to change.
01;53;46;08 – 01;53;53;11
andreea
So I super appreciate that. where, should people learn more about Geisinger, about you?
01;53;53;13 – 01;54;02;26
don stanziano
well, first of all, thank you, Andreas. Great conversation. I appreciate, joining you today. And you can certainly find us on all social media channels. just just search Geisinger.
01;54;02;29 – 01;54;25;18
andreea
Awesome. As the marketing world’s ever evolving and we’re all learning, I like to end each episode with a couple key takeaways. First, a lot of our conversation focused on data driven marketing. Don emphasized the importance of leveraging data to support your marketing decisions by building a robust data infrastructure, such as a CRM, you can enable targeted outreach and effective lead generation.
01;54;25;20 – 01;54;55;21
andreea
And for health and wellness marketers in particular, when you need to demonstrate the value of marketing spend and ROI. Investing in data analytics and a CRM is crucial. Secondarily, and not too far diverged from that first point. Balancing brand and growth marketing a strong brand presence is essential, but it should be complemented by targeted growth marketing efforts. And when you’re having those conversations about the ROI of marketing, brands sometimes can feel superfluous.
01;54;55;24 – 01;55;25;19
andreea
But really, it’s the baseline that helps stabilize and support all your growth marketing. So for health care marketers in particular, striking a balance between maintaining brand awareness and driving lead generation is critical. Understanding how branded search performs better than generic search can help in optimizing marketing strategies to ensure both brand recall and effective lead conversion. And finally, and this is one of my favorite points, because I feel like this is one of the things that I personally harp on quite a bit is integrating marketing and operations.
01;55;25;19 – 01;56;06;04
andreea
Anytime marketing ends up being its own siloed department, things go wrong. So I love how when Don and I talked about this, we leaned into how effective marketing in the health and wellness sector requires close collaboration with operations, clinical teams, IT, legal, regulatory. It’s one of the unique aspects of marketing. In a space like this, marketers must engage with different parts of the organization to better understand and improve customer experience, from scheduling to clinical care to billing to marketing, messaging and making sure you’re accurate and effective, building internal relationships and gaining a comprehensive understanding of the health care organization that you’re a part of.
01;56;06;06 – 01;56;32;12
andreea
Can enhance the overall effectiveness of all your marketing efforts. Have you ever wanted to leverage social media in your health care marketing, but felt a little intimidated? Well, in my next conversation with Vanessa Sierra, we dig into just that the power of social media in shaping brand perception. How important that long term perspective can be when you’re building your brand and making sure you’re addressing customers pain points in all of your communication, especially on social.
01;56;32;14 – 01;56;55;18
andreea
Well, that’s the end of our episode for today. If you work in a regulated field like medical, legal or finance and want to share your own marketing insights, email us at podcast at Dia creative.com. And if you’re looking for marketing support, well, that’s exactly what we do. Visit Dia creative.com Dia creative.com. Any other info you might need will be in the show notes, including all links mentioned in this episode.
01;56;55;21 – 01;56;56;16
andreea
Thanks for listening.
