Bringing care home
Methods, skills, and techniques applied:
Integrated commercial pitches
Persona development & journey mapping
Behavior change marketing
Localized marketing planning & budgeting
Team building and leadership
A marketing home base for care
When the chief marketing officer of your Fortune 50 health care company calls you directly and asks you to lead a new marketing unit focused on “care” … of course you say yes.
At Aetna in 2017, there was a ton of executive-level energy to improve the logistics of getting people the care they need most effectively. Not only data-driven targeting and hyperlocal delivery, but literally getting services into the place where health outcomes are best — people’s homes. We called it going from the exam table to the kitchen table.
The company was making enormous investments in talent and technology to offer new services like at-home care visits, concierge customer service, and virtual care. However, the story to plan sponsors and members was disjointed. We needed a team that focused on gaining their buy-in which would ultimately improve health outcomes.
Here’s how I built that team…
Storytelling synergy
We all know the health care system is incredibly complex. Within that complexity though, there are pockets of innovation with potential to improve the overall system. Our innovative offerings were focused on personalized care via in-person and virtual channels. Aligning those efforts helped us identify storytelling synergy in our commercial pitches and link to a brand-level messaging architecture that could be localized and customized based on population and geography. As new care services, prospects, or markets were activated, we were able to plug in our “care” message and fine-tune it for each audience. These services were a critical proof point that validated Aetna’s newly launched global brand platform centered on the concept of “we join you.”
Operating model as targeted marketing channel
Home-based and concierge care models are incredibly expensive to operate. The investment is justified by the cost-savings from improved health outcomes. That human-to-human touchpoint creates a powerful channel to influence customer behavior during and after the visit. We collaborated with our analytics and creative partners to create targeted digital and tactical marketing artifacts to move members toward the next-best-action on their health journey — whether that was checking their A1C, meeting with a nutritionist, or simply going for a daily walk. All while reinforcing our brand-level “care” message.
Positioning for growth
These care services were only set to grow and expand nationally. I had to build a team of powerhouse product marketers who could each own the marketing of their respective care services. Each had the confidence and discipline to lead and iterate on the marketing model we created to drive top-line growth as a value-add in sales. Most importantly, everyone on the team was grounded in empathy and respected the diversity of our members. We knew the only way to continue to improve bottom-line health outcomes was to first understand the people we were trying to persuade on a human level.