Patient Acquisition Demands Local Trust

Announcer: Welcome to the Ignite podcast, the only healthcare marketing podcast that digs into the digital strategies and tactics that help you accelerate growth. Each week, Cardinal’s experts explore innovative ways to build your digital presence and attract more patients. Buckle up for another episode of Ignite.

Ashley Petrochenko: My name’s Ashley Petrochenko. I’m the VP of Brand Marketing here at Cardinal. We have a very special guest today joining us, Ashley Pollard, the Practice Marketing Manager at United Digestive. Ashley, welcome to Ignite.

Ashley Pollard: Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to be here.

Ashley Petrochenko: Thanks. I’m pretty sure this is going to be the best episode ever. We have two Ashleys here, so it’s only going to be a good conversation. Before we jump in, we’re going to talk a little bit about how the patient journey is evolving, what that looks like in the GI space, how do you scale that across a house of brands, and a little bit about balancing direct-to-consumer marketing with referral marketing. It’s going to be a good conversation. To give some context, can you share a little bit about your role at United Digestive and the work that you do?

Ashley Pollard: As you mentioned, I’m with United Digestive, which is a PE-backed, multi-site gastroenterology group. I’ve been with the organization for just over 12 years, which is a little while to say, but over that time, my role has evolved, obviously, quite a bit. I started really more on the practice referring side, and my focus now is really on growth, spending a lot of time thinking about how digital marketing, referrals, and patient access all work together. The really interesting thing is seeing how this specialty that’s by and large referral-driven, but increasingly consumer-influenced, so thinking about marketing not just as a campaign or even a series of campaigns, but this larger system that includes access and operations, and the patient experience.

Ashley Petrochenko: I love that. I think your perspective from working at the practice local level now to overseeing more of the brands is going to give you a lot of perspective. I’m excited to dig into for this. When you’re thinking about growth marketing and how do you scale a house of brands, it’s very complex. There is balancing the hyper-local with the national goals or regional goals. Can you speak a little bit about how do you decide what to centralize versus what marketing motions do you think have to stay local?

Ashley Pollard: I think about it in a simple way. Standardize the system, but localize the experience. We spend a lot of time trying to centralize things like intake workflows, of course, branding and creative guidelines, our paid media structure, all those things that can really benefit from consistency and efficiency. When you get down to the things that influence trust, those are those things that need to stay local: your messaging, your provider relationships, your local reputation, all those things that need to be communicated and have that local feel. Your goal is to make those centralized systems that you’re working so hard to make efficient feel local so that your patient’s experience feels familiar and trustworthy, whether it’s online or in person.

Ashley Petrochenko: Absolutely. As you’ve moved to this approach, where you’re centralizing marketing, how do you balance pushback with some of the practices, who maybe don’t quite want to move in that same direction? I know that it’s hard when you have an identity or a system that’s been in place for so long. Any tips or things that have worked for you as you make that move?

Ashley Pollard: Just evaluating the opportunity and what makes sense for the practice, but also for the patient, all through the lens of balancing the overall brand strategy with the local need, and aligning on what the ultimate goal is. Are you looking for new growth? Is it an awareness goal? Is it service line promotion? Then, just making sure that all of those things align. You can usually come up with some agreement that makes all the parties happy with the solution.

Ashley Petrochenko: It’s really about communication around what is the goal we’re all trying to march towards. Patient journey has really, like you mentioned, evolved over the years. Before, it was very much referral-driven. Most people wouldn’t even think to go find a GI on their own. You’ve been in this space for over 10 years, like you said. Maybe you can speak to what have you observed, what insights have you seen throughout the last decade that really are starting to emerge and how patients are coming to the practice.

Ashley Pollard: I think what’s been really interesting, especially really starting in referrals and being in referral management this whole time, but then increasingly focused on digital, is that referrals don’t necessarily guarantee loyalty or even that follow-through anymore. Our referred patients are also still acting like consumers. They’re checking reviews, comparing locations. We can do all the centralization that we want, but if that local experience doesn’t reinforce the trust, that referral alone may not be enough to move someone forward in the process.

Ashley Petrochenko: When you working with your field teams to help build that trust, how do you help enable them? Is that something that you’re actively working on?

Ashley Pollard: Yes, absolutely. It’s a balance because even with our patient base and our referring providers, making sure that they understand what that relationship is between the local brands and the umbrella company of United Digestive there as that support and access to resources, but being able to reinforce that the local brands are still their resource for local care.

Ashley Petrochenko: Consumers, like you said. People are still consumers. Even if they get a referral, maybe that doctor that they were referred to doesn’t meet the right location and the time. How are you positioning United Digestive to be the first choice regardless of the referral process?

Ashley Pollard: I think that’s super important. One of the things we focus on is, of course, getting all your listings correct. People, by and large, are going to be on Google, so you’ve got to be in those search opportunities on your maps, making sure everything aligns with your website. We do spend a lot on making sure that our organic results show up. Of course, then also supplementing that with paid. As things start to evolve in the AI generative space, of course, that’s becoming more and more important, to make sure that everything is set up technically so that your organic search, which may be fueling a lot of your results, is now maybe halfway down the page. It’s really changed the way that patients can even find you online.

Ashley Petrochenko: That is a great transition. I think that is something that we see a lot now with some of our clients. People are going to ChatGPT, they are looking at Google AI overviews, and they are taking those recommendations. If you’re not appearing there, then you are not part of the conversation. Not only do you have ChatGPT and LLMs to work, you also have social. The whole patient journey is really evolving. I think this is a good segue. We can talk about what are you doing to tackle this new landscape that we’re all in right now to reaching those consumers?

Ashley Pollard: I think it’s really having a full-funnel approach. You hear about that all the time, but what that means is showing up in all of the areas where patients are searching for care, and at every stage of the care journey, so making sure that you’re sharing information when they’re still evaluating what their options are. Do they even need care? What is available for them? Building that trust in the practice and the providers so that when they do finally get to the point of, “Okay, I’m ready to schedule. Let’s do this,” you’re there, and they’re familiar with you. Of course, the channel selection is important, but really just making sure that you are optimizing and being where the consumers are.

Ashley Petrochenko: You mentioned really optimizing your listings and a big part that’s patient, and the patient testimonials. Something that we’re seeing that the LLM, especially ChatGPT, what consumers, what people are saying is a big part of the signals, and that determines if you are served as an option during a query. If you’re not gathering that positive local feedback, you’re not going to appear.

Something we talked about also is the explosion over the last few years with TikTok of gut health. Gut Talk has 60 billion views monthly on digestive gut health. I’m on a TikTok. My sister tells me that she goes on there to figure out why does she feel the way that she feels. People are going to these channels. They’re going to ChatGPT. They’re asking or looking for information because it’s a little bit hard to go talk to people about why does your stomach hurt, and why do I feel this way, and why are my bowel movements this way? It’s taboo, so people are just looking for care. How are you seeing that manifest in the questions, the way that patients show up when they come to your group?

Ashley Pollard: I think that’s really an interesting phenomenon. I think GI is having its moment. Gut health is everywhere, the microbiome, all these buzzwords. The part that I love about it is that it is breaking down those barriers in a topic that has somewhat been traditionally taboo for even family members to talk about. I think that’s one of the things. Sometimes people don’t even know that they have a family history of colorectal cancer. If you don’t know you’ve got a history, you don’t know that you need to get screened earlier. Breaking down these barriers for open conversations about health is really important. It, of course, influences how our patients are coming to us.

We know that they are maybe more informed, but not necessarily always better informed. That influences our approach to how we communicate to them, especially earlier in the journey. We want to not just attract patients, but help them build that confidence and earn their trust to make that next step.

Ashley Petrochenko: Is this communication happening through what channels? Through one-to-one email nurturing as people come in, or more on the blog, informational assets that you create for the brand?

Ashley Pollard: I would say more so with our website content, through the blog content, with the paid search assets. I think from campaigns that we do, really focused on those earlier searches. Not so much the conversion searches, but the earlier discovery searches where people are still just exploring what’s available.

Ashley Petrochenko: Yes. People are asking, “When should I get a colonoscopy? What age is that?” Colon cancer is one of the fastest-growing cancers, I think, in young adults. I think people are starting to hear those things and looking for information. Interesting to see how you are getting that information out in front of the consumer. It also sounds like this journey is a lot messier. There’s a lot of touch points. It’s not linear at all. How are you measuring marketing success, and how do you understand how those touch points are influencing your pipeline?

Ashley Pollard: It’s a long journey. There’s so many touch points involved, so I do look at a lot of different data points. Of course, you want to measure everything, but it’s really about patient access. The main things that I look at are going to be new audience growth. I’m going to look at those high-intent conversions. Are we driving phone calls, form fills, web appointments? Then how do those actually turn into projected kept appointments? Are we filling our appointments? Ultimately, are patient acquisition efforts actually driving real traffic over time, not just clicks?

Ashley Petrochenko: Clicks and calls from irrelevant people, so focusing on kept appointments. It’s a lot to balance from the measurement standpoint, from new emerging channels. How do you prioritize? Where do you focus? What do you do? Then how do you actually get it done with the team that you have?

Ashley Pollard: It is, of course, a lot because our team also, we are focused, of course, on growth, but we do operate as an internal marketing team. There’s a lot of components involved with just our internal work. Balancing those demands is really about evaluating the opportunities. Where can we show up and be consistent so that we’re driving and supporting the trust, not just visibility, but really focusing on where we can make an impact?

Ashley Petrochenko: I think that’s a good segue. There’s a lot of trends out there in gut health, in TikTok. ChatGPT has been every buzzword for the past year. AI. With all of these new shiny things that we’re all getting teased with, what trends are you really paying attention for in 2026, and where are you focused?

Ashley Pollard: We talked about AI and generative search. I think that’s huge. I know it’s a buzzword, but it’s something we can’t ignore. The old SEO playbook, you can’t throw it out the window. Those base technical things still really matter. That’s what sets you up for success to show up in AI, but that alone isn’t enough. I’m really focused, too. We talked about listings and how important those are. Your reputation is really the performance lever these days. People are searching for reviews and choosing their care based on those signals that they’re seeing. I think that’s really important.

Then, for us, it’s really an operational alignment, making sure that we can focus on where our efforts can make the most impact and aligning that with capacity. Not just for the organization, but really for patients, too, so that if we’re promoting something and saying, “Hey, we’ve got availability,” they’ve got the opportunity to actually get the care they need in a timely manner.

Ashley Petrochenko: I think with AI, people are looking for that authentic, real voice in their search results. Patient stories, patient testimonials are going to become more and more important. As there’s so much AI slop, you really need to have that real person communicating for your brand. If you don’t, you’re not going to have the differentiation. You’re not going to have that review. I think that’s a great focus. We didn’t really touch on the capacity piece, but that is huge. People need to know when they are trying to book care that they can be seen in at least three months. If it’s a six-month wait time, you have lost any chance to get that patient.

Ashley Pollard: Right. Absolutely. You have. It’s a balance, of course. We work really closely with our operations team to make sure that we’re aligned on that. We’re continuing to grow, so we open up those opportunities for capacity, but just making sure that we’re communicating that in an authentic way for patients to get the care that they need.

Ashley Petrochenko: I love that. You’re queued up for a good 2026. This has been a great conversation, Ashley. I’m so glad that you were able to join Ignite. If our listeners want to connect with you, where can they find you?

Ashley Pollard: Yes, you can find me on LinkedIn, of course, but I’d love to connect with anybody. Happy to chat through.

Ashley Petrochenko: Thank you for joining Ignite. Anyone listening, feel free to like, review, all those fun things. We need those authentic comments, so appreciate it. Thanks again. We’ll see you next week.

Ashley Pollard: Thanks, Ashley.

Announcer: Thanks for listening to this episode of Ignite. Interested in keeping up with the latest trends in healthcare marketing? Subscribe to our podcast and leave a rating and review. For more healthcare marketing tips, visit our blog at cardinaldigitalmarketing.com.