Trust Is the New Healthcare Growth Engine

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, Cardinals experts explore innovative ways to build your digital presence and attract more patients. Buckle up for another episode of Ignite.

Ashley Petrochenko: Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Ignite Healthcare Marketing Podcast. We just celebrated a major milestone, 200 episodes. We’ve been doing this for four years. We’ve had so many brilliant conversations with brilliant marketers, and we’re going to do it again today. I’m really excited to host this episode. I’m the VP of Marketing here at Cardinal Ashley Petrochenko. Joining me today is Rachel Johnson, who’s Marketing Director at Acorn Health. Rachel, welcome to Ignite.

Rachel Johnson: Hi, thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited to be here.

Ashley Petrochenko: I’m very excited to have you here as well. As you can see, I’m talking very fast. We’ve got a lot to talk about today, and I’m really excited to have you join us. Before we dig in, can you set the stage a little bit and share with the listeners a little bit about who you are, the work that you do at Acorn Health, and then we’ll go from there.

Rachel Johnson: Thank you so much. Rachel Johnson, currently the Marketing Director for Acorn Health, as you mentioned, which is a national provider of ABA therapy services for children with autism. We’re operating in seven states across the country currently, with some rapid expansion and growth plans.

Ashley Petrochenko: Awesome. Well, thank you. I am glad to have you here. You have a long career in healthcare. The healthcare space, especially behavioral health, has changed a lot, especially since COVID, which I guess we’re at six years now. It seems crazy, but it is really evolving. I want to start there and talk about what are some of the trends that you’ve seen in the last few years, and how is that setting the stage for what you’re doing now in 2026?

Rachel Johnson: There’s behavioral health and healthcare, and there’s these broad healthcare marketing spectrums, if you will. I’ve been here in the ABA space specifically. I was new to the space. I came from healthcare to traditional healthcare, hospital system marketing. I consider ABA healthcare adjacent. It’s such an interesting mix.

It’s really, I would say, supercharged on the patient-led emotional experience because, again, these are parents and caregivers of children with disabilities. It requires a huge level from the caregiver and parent of advocacy for their child. It’s an intense, nonlinear journey. I know not all patient journeys are linear, but ABA, I think, is unique. I think that experience has been evolving over the past several years in how that research, that self-advocacy for services, and access, and what is right for my child, has been empowered by the consumer and the parent.

I think AI tools and other content has helped them truncate that research where they’re getting a lot of context. That digital front door on all the emotionally charged questions that they have is truncated, and they’re coming with plans and outlines and things that make them feel empowered in a- really, what can feel powerless sometimes in an unanticipated diagnosis. I think that’s what marketers are catching up to and reworking to in ABA specifically, which is meeting them where they are, which is so buried in such a long funnel.

Ashley Petrochenko: It’s an unexpected diagnosis. It’s so emotionally charged. When that happens, as a parent, where do you go? You’re just starting at square one and shock. You say people are coming to appointments, coming to their providers with more information. Do you think that has even been accelerating since the past year?

Rachel Johnson: You’re seeing a lot more. I absolutely think so. In the last that I’ve been in the industry, four and a half, almost five years now, it’s very consumer-led. It’s very, what I would call continuum-based. I think that’s the brands, and we’ll come back to that, but that’s the brands and the organizations who are going to win at scale, which is going all the way through this really varied discovery phase, education phase. There’s so many entry points for ABA therapy. It’s a lot of ground to cover up at the top of the funnel there.

Then going all the way through to intake when they are coming empowered and they’re coming informed, and they’re confident on a gut check from all that up here that you’re the guy, that continuum of experience is where that consumer experience starts. I know we’re counting billable services, and that’s the conversion, so to speak, on the marketing revenue side. What we’re talking about is making sure that all the time and stuff that you built, they’re coming to you with that confidence, and now that handoff creates relationship, which is where the scale is, I think.

Ashley Petrochenko: I like what you said about that gut check. For them to reach out to you, they have to have a level of confidence, a level of trust. I think right now in healthcare in the world, there is a real erosion of trust in institutions, in healthcare, too. How are you guys giving consumers that trust? How are you showing up early in the discovery phase so that they can feel confident that Acorn is the right place for them?

Rachel Johnson: Of course, it’s not a single approach, but I think knowing that ABA is unique in the way that they arrive to that service. What I mean by that is there are many health conditions and services that even the general public has an understanding of, typically. Most people have heard of physical therapy, or they’ve heard of speech therapy and get the gist of what that is, even if you’re not in that wheelhouse of those care services that are needed.

Backing all the way up into what does that consumer experience look like from the different angles, again, is it are you really early in early intervention and you’re a parent who is noticing behaviors that are concerning to you, and so you’re researching what those behaviors could indicate? Are you a little further along, and your pediatrician and your school personnel have flagged some concerns and have provided a referral? Is your pediatrician referring to you for consultation and services because they have made a diagnosis?

There’s so many points. If you can imagine mapping those different consumer points, number one, and how they’re coming to ABA therapy, there’s so many different pieces of education along that layered journey for those different pieces. You can call it personas, but I really do call it different journeys or different entry points. Then you can imagine layering on top thinking through what are those motivators, hurdles, concerns, trust builders for them.

It’s usually multi-part, but you have to have your messaging, education, content around those different pieces of that journey that are really directly addressing those different concerns. It’s not variations of the same message of your cell points. It’s this is how they’re coming this way, and how do we speak to their biggest concerns over they really need daily living skills to get ready for preschool, or we really have to be able to afford providers. Is it scheduling conflicts because parents are two household workers? So many levers to pull across such different entry points and consumer concerns that make them feel like this is the right choice for me.

Ashley Petrochenko: I think buyer personas, a lot of times, some organizations think of it as one and done. That’s not true. I think as the consumer majority evolves in this space and there’s more resources available and more awareness about ABA at large, maybe some advice for listeners. How are you actually getting the insights, getting the information? Are you doing interviews with parents? How are you shaping those personas and those different journeys?

Rachel Johnson: Again, where you are as an organization varies widely on how much data, first-person, second-person, third-party data insights that you can get. As more of a lean organization, I think there’s a lot of shaping that with, I think, institutional knowledge, clinical input, feedback loops from clinicians and care delivery. Then, of course, what we see on the marketing through intake, through entry on what are those fall-off points.

There’s a lot of ways to aggregate in even a data-immature organization, directional signals that shape and help you map over time. Here’s where they’re coming from. Here’s different entry points. Here’s what we’re experiencing from the referral piece on pediatricians. Here’s what we’re experiencing from CMH referrals. These are different, and you shape over time with manual feedback loops if you need to.

Ashley Petrochenko: Something we advocate for is that marketing ops alignment. If you’re not listening and working with operations to hear what’s happening to intake or why people are not quite choosing you, there’s so much information there, and you really need to be close with operations so that you can get that information, get that feedback, and then adapt and refine your marketing and refine the journey. Maybe there’s a gap that’s missing that you didn’t realize if you’re not talking with your operations team.

Rachel Johnson: Absolutely. I hear a lot of chatter among marketing professionals. I think it’s great as an ideal state to say, oh, I think it’s marketing’s job on top of all the other marketing jobs to get that seat at the table to prove yourself out as a revenue partner and not a cost center. I think those are all true. I do strongly believe that there’s something to be said for the infrastructure of that organization has to position it as such to create that alignment. Otherwise, that continuity of that experience breaks. It takes so long to build that credibility and trust in this high-stakes environment. Then that handoff, if it’s viewed as a handoff, it breaks really quickly.

I agree with you that it’s part marketing’s job. You have to have trust, transparency, and it has to be earned, and then you get more of a leash and investment. I think structurally, it’s absolutely critical. I’m totally aligned with you on that. On operations, finance, marketing, intake, admissions, we all have to be building and contributing to the same consumer experience, 100%.

Ashley Petrochenko: Marketers have to wear a lot of hats. The hats just keep getting bigger, I think. I heard at a conference recently, they referred to the CMO as the change management officer because the patient experience is not any one person’s job. If it’s viewed as here’s a handoff, like you said, and the marketing steps away, that’s not a good experience. Really, you have to work with the team and through that change and evolving the experience, and it’s hard.

Rachel Johnson: Sure. It has to match. You can’t set someone up for an expectation, and then they walk into a storefront or a conversation, and it’s a completely different experience. Agreed, but that does take, I think, a lot of alignment and sometimes even internal education on the why between those departments. Luckily, usually we’re pretty good communicators, so hopefully we’re able to contribute to that internal alignment too on that process.

Ashley Petrochenko: Is there one moment, a patient insight that was like, aha, that changed the way that you thought about what you did or what you knew about the market, about the patient journey?

Rachel Johnson: I don’t want to hammer on the same point too much, but I think the aha moment is, for a long time, health care marketing was structured around, you had your ideal customer persona and your other personas within that, and then you had your sell points and the idea and your value propositions and how you’re going to match those and marry those together, and how you did that was a zipper.

Because the changing nature of consumer behavior has really accelerated, especially with these other AI tools and with people are searching and empowering themselves, what came to me was the resurgence of reputation management and what other people are saying about you is so much more back in the spotlight.

You have this piece where you could, again, insert in other channels, organic or paid, you could control that narrative and test that narrative in terms of how it was responded to, but now there’s this whole other dialogue that’s happening on so many other channels organically that is really feeding all of those perception points. That’s the piece where you were getting a lot of, hey, back in the parent groups on socials, back in TikToks.

That sounds old school. For a while, I remember social media, I was in higher ed at the time, but that was a big thing. Parent groups were forming, student groups, how does a brand participate in those non-brand conversations? Fast forward now, I think that’s the aha moment for us. Everyone’s so focused on AI and use AI strategy depending on what that means in the organization when we talk about everything that we’re foundationally investing in, which is credibility, trust, education as a growth engine.

The aha moment is there’s such a huge reputation piece in there, half of which or more you’re not controlling the narrative on. That’s where I think that authenticity piece and that continuity piece, that’s where it delivers. It has to match the experience and it’s going to be out there publicly. That’s the most credible piece, I think, that parents and caregivers are waiting for, sure.

Ashley Petrochenko: I’m glad that you brought this up because I do think reviews have always been like, oh, yes, sure. Reviews, it’s like table stakes. You have to do it. People know it, but it’s never been like- Yes, we’re doing it. It’s tied to a Google business profile, but Reddit is the new– not new. This is going to make me sound 100 years old, Reddit, those conversations where people are asking questions and getting peer input and it’s unfiltered and brands really aren’t welcome to participate in the conversation. You trust it more and that still goes back to the whole trust with you.

People want to hear from another mom, another parent who is going through this. I’m so glad you brought this up because I do think people are going to these other sources and those conversations are feeding what the algorithms are for AI engines are recommending. They are looking for that same. They want to be a trusted resource too, so they’re pulling those reviews, those conversations where they’re accessible, and that’s shaping the consideration set.

Is there anything that you’re doing, you can both shape perceptions and also just monitor and learning? Are you guys tapped into different Reddit groups, watching Facebook groups, anything like that?

Rachel Johnson: Yes, always. There’s some things that you can do at scale through systems for generation, monitoring, sentiment, pulling that out. That’s something we are doing, making it easy to solicit and share that feedback. Oftentimes, people go to those review sites when they are unhappy, and we want to make it really easy to share the good things too, and so make that accessible to them. Then when we do have that feedback, making sure that we are repopulating and resharing that because it is, to your point, picked up by so many other outlets, channels, et cetera.

I think it is then important, which we are also doing, is to take out and analyze those themes. That’s where, again, where that marketing ops alignment comes back in because then marketing as a partner can work with operations to say, here are themes or things that are worth our discussion point on XYZ to make sure that we are designing, optimizing, and delivering that care experience that we aim to. Here’s what we’re hearing and worth the discussion point for us to come to the table and see what we need to address.

Ashley Petrochenko: Analytics marketing is a partnership. If ops doesn’t have that information, how can they inform? Yes, you have to work together. I love that. Okay, looking ahead for the rest of 2026, start of Q2, what do you think is your main focus and what you’re most excited about for the rest of the year?

Rachel Johnson: Most focus, I think, obviously, we want to continue to meet organizational goals and make sure that we’re expanding that access to care. Marketing is driving a lot of it. That’s what we’re responsible for, but focused on more of that cross-functional partnership and analyzation of where we can reduce friction, where we can show up in a meaningful way that maybe we aren’t, where are the loopholes on where there’s misinformation circulating that we can answer.

I think, again, education in the right moments across such a wide journey is going to be a huge area of focus for us. What that means for us is deploying updates and things that are relative to different parts of this journey, whether you’re in diagnostics already or what are signs and symptoms of autism, all the way through that journey, making sure that we’re doing short-form video content, making sure that we’re doing long-form blog content as well with FAQ, markup, and structure, photos, videos, all across those pillars that old school would say content pillars but I would call them education pieces, and then matching that to different pieces of creative because of all the changes of where you place creative.

Again, I think on your 200th episode, your guest was speaking about, it can’t just be it’s the same message with a pink background or a blue background. It’s really deploying those pieces of material and content that are meeting that consumer in their biggest concern in that layered map. I think that’s the operational alignment, sitting down, working through those, optimizing them, and then mapping back your strategy on what you’re saying where and when. Sounds fundamental, but because it’s shifting so rapidly with consumer search behavior and challenges in ABA around payer access, those sort of things that are barriers, we’re going to have to be really agile, and we’re going to have to keep optimizing. It’s definitely not a set it and forget it kind of thing.

Ashley Petrochenko: No, I love that. Content. I’m a content marketer. That’s my background. That’s my passion. It’s the foundation of so many things that consumers are looking to learn. If you can help them and guide them on that journey, that is going to make them trust you and choose you and come to them when they are finally ready. I love that advice. If there’s any closing thoughts that if you could share with our listeners, one thing that they should do moving ahead, or how do you build that content engine, anything you could share?

Rachel Johnson: My advice from where we are today is there’s a lot of focus and a lot of chatter on, hey, you have to have this direct, really multi-layered data infrastructure to move the needle or to make a move. I think it’s important that you can make changes and deploy things and map to what you can with imperfect data and still have an incredible impact. I think it’s important not to get discouraged and to know that it doesn’t have to be an all or nothing.

Velocity can absolutely be achieved in these spaces because it’s such a changing environment and consumers are empowered and ready and researching. Even with imperfect data, you can create those pieces and deploy them into a longer-term game that’s going to build that when they’re ready to come to you, and you’re going to be ready, and you’re going to be the guy, and they’re fully confident. That relationship building is what’s going to help companies scale, I think, acquisition to relationship.

Ashley Petrochenko: This has been a great conversation, Rachel. If our listeners want to find you, connect with you, where can they find you?

Rachel Johnson: I’m on LinkedIn, Rachel Johnson. It’s a very generic last name, but you can find me, Rachel Johnson, here at Acorn Health. It’s all on my profile. I would love to connect with other marketers. Always do. I learn something from every marketer I connect with. Please reach out, and we’ll network. We’ll get together.

Ashley Petrochenko: Join us next week for another episode of the Ignite Healthcare Marketing Podcast. Thanks.

Rachel Johnson: Thank you.

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