Episode Highlights:
Lauren Leone: ”
It’s time to start pulling your data from the first half of the year, or even you’re trailing 12 months. That’ll give you a better look back into 2022 and allow you to start thinking about, are you on track to meet your goals? Did you forecast and plan properly? Are you thinking about broadening your mix? What are your competitors doing? Collecting the information that then powers your pitch to your C-suite, your pitch into your board on what you want from them going into next year.”
Episode overview
On this episode of Ignite, CEO, Alex Membrillo, and SVP of Healthcare Marketing, Lauren Leone, underscore the significance of early planning for the upcoming year, recommending action in Q3 rather than procrastinating until Q4. They discuss the importance of thoroughly analyzing data from the first half of the year or the past 12 months to evaluate goal achievement, forecasting accuracy, and planning effectiveness. Additionally, they emphasize the need to be aware of competitors’ strategies and gather information for presenting to higher-ups when preparing budgets.
Lauren and Alex dive into the urgency of tracking and collecting data at present to demonstrate the impact of marketing efforts and justify budget allocations. They propose exploring new technologies and paid solutions to enhance tracking and reporting capabilities. Crafting a compelling story to secure the desired budget is also highlighted, and they outline factors to consider, including organizational goals, revenue targets, patient retention, and capacity objectives. By the end of this episode, you’ll understand the importance of initiating this process in NOW and not waiting until November.
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.
Alex Membrillo: What’s going on everybody? We’re going to get right into it. We’re going to talk. You guys are going to have big stuff going on next year. The time to plan is not Q4. It’s actually Q3. Q4 is too late. Whatever you’re doing in Q4, that is the start of your year. You don’t have enough time to start planning at that point. Q3 is the big one. You’re going to go into budgeting and forecasting and what will happen, what worked, what didn’t. We’ve got Lauren with us. What’s up, Lauren?
Lauren Leone: Hey, Alex.
Alex: Hi. We’re going to dive into what I want you guys doing in Q3. Just for reference, Q3 is one month, July, August, September. Right? July, August, September. We’re already in July, so you all better be doing this stuff. Lauren, what’s the first thing you want people doing?
Lauren: It’s time to start pulling your data from the first half of the year, or even you’re trailing 12 months. That’ll give you a better look back into 2022 and allow you to start thinking about, are you on track to meet your goals? Did you forecast and plan properly? Are you thinking about broadening your mix? What are your competitors doing? Collecting the information that then powers your pitch to your C-suite, your pitch into your board on what you want from them going into next year.
Alex: Right, because they’re looking at their budgets for next year. They’re going to say, “Hey, I gave marketing all this money. What did it create?” Now with all this HIPAA fun stuff, there’s less tracking and everybody’s scrambling to get the right tracking. That makes it more difficult to give the C-suite the data and the story that you need. Right now, you should be scrambling, get the technology, get the data so you can tell a marketing got this many leads, this many patients. That needs to happen right now looking trailing 12 months.
Lauren: Yes, I would be considering how am I going to tell my story to get the budget that I want? The how is what are the technologies? Am I capturing the things that they care about? You probably don’t have a massive line item on your P&L right now for compliant tracking solutions. Everything was free. Google Suite is free. You’re going to need to move into paid solutions, data storage, potentially some more expensive line items. What better time than now to say, “I had to put this on my P&L, it was urgent,” and get that approved going forward as well?
Alex: Yes. Good time to take calls with all the tech vendors and everybody. We’ve got round tables, and we can make introductions. Hit us up if you’re wanting, but you’re going to need new analytics, potentially a CDP. You’re going to need off-site call tracking, the lead form, blah blah blah blah. Online scheduling, that’s a big expense. You are going to need all that stuff. Now is the time to take the calls and get the estimates, factor that into media. What is the story, Lauren? Because we help tell our client’s story to go tell their C-suite, good or bad. What are the things you look at to tell the story?
Lauren: I think every organization is different. Was this year a foundation-building year? What frameworks did you put in place? What things did you not have that you now have? A little bit more deliverables-based. I built out the framework for next year to then be a growth year. If you’re already over some of those hurdles, you’re looking at what was the capacity goal of the organization, the revenue goal, the new patient goal, the patient retention goal, whatever those are. You obviously ladder up to those. What was your contribution in laddering up to those?
If you did well in laddering up to those, you know the organization has a bigger goal next year, what do you need to achieve that? If you didn’t, what are the gaps and why? What would you have needed to do better and then get that built into the forecast for the following year?
Alex: Yes, get the data, see what worked in contribution of patient volume, and then start thinking, if they offer me C-suite or investment PE from whatever, 30% more and they say, “What could you do with 30%?” Start thinking through that and get media estimates, capacity estimates, all that stuff from your agency and they’ll say, “Hey, listen, 30% more you’re going to see inefficiencies. You’re not going to generate 30% more revenue, or you will because you’re spending too little and actually the outgoes can learn more.” Start thinking, what would you do with more money? First, get your story straight, get your lead volumes and how you contribute it.
Get your tech calls, get all that stuff. Short and sweet, Lauren, I think this is good. I want you all to get moving. Start figuring out what your story is, what the data is, how successful you were, and then start going in Q4. If you have advice that you need, hit up Lauren. She’s done a lot of this kind of forecasting for our clients going into New Year’s. You got to get your story straight. That starts now in July. Lauren, thank you for joining us.
Lauren: Don’t come hit me up in November for that forecast.
Alex: No, they will, but you know they will.
Lauren: They all will.
Alex: We’ll see you in November, friends.
[music]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 [email protected].
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