Healthcare providers can no longer rely solely on Google to reach today's health consumers. Strategically combining search, social, programmatic (CTV), and email is essential for diversifying outreach and reducing platform dependency. Scott Orstad's work at Catholic Health demonstrates how a privacy-safe, data-driven infrastructure transforms this strategy into measurable results: driving growth on flat budgets, proving ROI, and maintaining compliance. In this conversation, we'll explore how Scott's team successfully expanded beyond Google Ads—why they did it, how they did it, and what others can learn from their success in tying marketing to tangible outcomes.
💡 Episode Summary
Healthcare providers can no longer rely solely on Google to reach today's health consumers. Strategically combining search, social, programmatic (CTV), and email is essential for diversifying outreach and reducing platform dependency. Scott Orstad's work at Catholic Health demonstrates how a privacy-safe, data-driven infrastructure transforms this strategy into measurable results: driving growth on flat budgets, proving ROI, and maintaining compliance. In this conversation, we'll explore how Scott's team successfully expanded beyond Google Ads—why they did it, how they did it, and what others can learn from their success in tying marketing to tangible outcomes.
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⏱️ Episode Timestamps
*(01:24) - The limits of bottom-funnel marketing
*(04:20) - Building a multi-channel strategy on flat budgets
*(12:21) - How direct mail, email, and social outperformed expectations
*(26:30) - Proving ROI to financial leadership
*(30:38) - Why asking "how did you hear about us?" still works
*(38:44) - Brand vs. performance under budget pressure
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💬 Quote
“ Google's benefit was almost, in some ways it's Achilles' heel because of the instant gratification of the results that you're able to see and proving the worth. Because in many cases, it was one of those first drivers to really help marketers prove, especially in the healthcare space, with all the regulatory constraints that we are and can be a revenue generating resource for the organization. It's not going to necessarily work for every service line because again, that awareness is important. But there are, clearly, very specific ones where we can show that we are moving the needle as far as getting people to schedule appointments and actually have the appointments, and then looking at the downstream revenue of those potential things.” – Scott Orstad
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🔗 Links
Connect with Scott Orstad on LinkedIn
Connect with Ray Mina on LinkedIn
Learn more about Caspian Studios
[00:00:00] Scott Orstad: Google's benefit was almost, in some ways its Achilles heel because of the instant gratification of the results that you're able to see and proving the worth, because many cases, you know, it was one of those first drivers to really help marketers prove, especially in the healthcare space, with all the regulatory constraints that you know, we are and can be a revenue generating resource for the organization.
[00:00:30] Scott Orstad: It's not gonna necessarily work for every service line because again, that awareness is important, but there is clearly very specific ones where we can show that we are moving the needle as far as getting people to schedule appointments and actually have the appointments, and then looking at the, the downstream revenue of those potential things.
[00:00:48] Ray Mina: So I've been talking to marketing leaders over the last few weeks and everyone is really bullish on spending more time and more energy into brand. But they continue to be anchored in paid search. Why? Because it's hard to measure and as everyone knows, like budgets are under increased scrutiny, so that makes it even harder to move into new channels.
[00:01:09] Ray Mina: So I thought, who better as a tour guide than someone who's blended brand and performance over the last two decades? I've got Scott Orstad, he's Vice President of Marketing at Catholic Health with me today. Welcome. Great to see you.
[00:01:22] Scott Orstad: Great to see you too, Ray.
[00:01:24] Ray Mina: So, hey, I wanted to kick it off with, you know, we all know if you've been in, if you've been in performance marketing for a while, we all know that Google it, it, it's Google paid search is probably one of the greatest advertising platforms created in the history of marketing. It's very effective. It it, it has a place in our strategies. And maybe I'll start with you, with like, tell me about in, in your strategy, where does search show up? What is the role of paid search for you today at at, at Catholic Health?
[00:01:56] Scott Orstad: Paid search is an important part of our overall medium mix, but it's not the only one we utilize. You know, we use a number of, you know, very digital performance focused tactics, like paid search, social media, email marketing, you know, coupling that all up with our CRM.
[00:02:17] Scott Orstad: And you know, also mixed that in with some of the more, you know, broader traditional marketing channels as well too from television. We do do a lot with video as well as still doing direct mail and print mark and print advertising in situations where it makes sense. You know, healthcare is still an industry that is still a bit more paper marketing collateral, and proximal would like it to be at, but at times done the right way, they can be effective and compliment a lot of those more performance digital driven tactics.
[00:02:48] Ray Mina: Makes sense. Where, where do you, where do you see, like I, I've personally built early stage startups, at least the first, you know, year or so, almost predominantly on paid search if you're in the right market.
[00:02:59] Ray Mina: And so we know as like a high intent bottom of funnel strategy, it gets, it gets the unit economics people want. But I've seen in trying to scale the business, you reach a certain point. Maybe you run out of headroom in these queries and these keywords that produce the results you want, and then you're like, oh God, what's next?
[00:03:16] Ray Mina: There's no, there's no more room to grow anymore. Where have you seen search quietly fail for you?
[00:03:22] Scott Orstad: You know, I, I think healthcare is an industry where people think of you in two different ways. You know, search works out great when they're looking for that immediate need. 'cause they're, they're looking up one of your urgent care centers 'cause they need it.
[00:03:33] Scott Orstad: Or one of your ERs, or their primary care doctor told you they need a referral for a certain type of specialist. So there's that kind of in the moment need, which is where search works out great. But in general, people need to be aware that you exist in the first place in your services. And so that's where the little bigger brander marketing is important so that you can remain top of mind from time to time.
[00:03:55] Scott Orstad: Because if you come up in the search results with three or four other competitors and no one has ever heard of you, you're likely not gonna get the click anyway if someone is not familiar with you in the first place. So we have to build familiarity so that at that time when someone's looking to take that convertible action where search works out so well, they actually have a general sense as to who we are and they've actually heard of us first.
[00:04:19] Ray Mina: Love that. Okay. This is the conversation that happens in the room, not, not necessarily from the marketing leader or the marketing team, but when other stakeholders come in, which is, Hey, budgets are tight.
[00:04:31] Ray Mina: It's hard to fight for net new budget, especially when testing new channels. This could come from the executive team, who knows, but hey, like, let's not, why would we move budget out of paid search?
[00:04:42] Ray Mina: Like you don't have net new budget. I better keep it all invested in my paid search search strategy. Like, how, how do you, like if you're, if you're a voice in the room or a mentor in that situation, like how would you coach that conversation?
[00:04:55] Scott Orstad: You know, I think a couple of things would depend upon where the organization is in its journey.
[00:04:59] Scott Orstad: I mean, we, like other organizations are dealing with that same situation of, you know, flat budgets. But what we've been doing is migrating from brand over to more of the performance marketing tactics for a couple reasons. One, as we relaunched the brand five years ago, there's more of that general awareness so we can pivot some of it.
[00:05:20] Scott Orstad: But we also intentionally started growing it as we grew the digital capabilities. You know, we made sure we launched the new website first and we were happy with the content, so we needed to start throwing paid search and we launched the brand because we didn’t have the correct website at the time to be doing it with.
[00:05:35] Scott Orstad: And you know, there's been a lot of cross synergy work done with our folks in digital technology and the call center to make sure we can more accurately attribute things. So until some of those infrastructure pieces were working correctly, we didn't ramp up search just for the sake of doing it. We wanted to make sure that we, if we were driving to that conversion, that the points that were allowing us to do that.
[00:06:01] Scott Orstad: Whether it was scheduling online, calling the call center, could be able to handle the volume and there was some sense of being able to show the metrics that it was actually working. 'cause otherwise search could have fallen into the trap of being a more traditional kind of branding type tactic, which is harder to measure other than through awareness studies and, and other things of that nature.
[00:06:21] Ray Mina: You mentioned 'cause you, you're, you have a different view. I think we've, it's been a little while, but we talked about this, where you're making a shift from. Traditional brand tactics in, in some way to performance channels. Can you explain that a little bit more? Can is, is it all, are you moving brand all to Google or are you moving to a more digital strategy? Can, can you talk about what that means a little bit for you?
[00:06:46] Scott Orstad: Sure. And then moving to an overall more digital strategy, you know, paid search and Google is definitely a key priority to that. And over the last three to four years, we've continued to invest more in those areas. But that's also complimented with a very strong email marketing program.
[00:07:03] Scott Orstad: You know, complimented with our, you know, our CRM system and having that all kind of work together, you know. Efficiently, you know, utilizing organic and paid social media as appropriate based on the campaign and the target audience of the messaging that we're looking to do as well too. And then again, constantly looking at ways to enhance and refine the website.
[00:07:24] Scott Orstad: You know, when we first launched it five years ago, a lot of it was about some of the things that we, the features we all liked from consumer brands at that time for the conveniences they provided. But we all know now too, you know, content's always been king, but content's becoming even bigger king, again, for having the updates and the clarity as, as we all are beginning to learn how to adapt for AI search, along with the traditional search that's going on as well too.
[00:07:49] Scott Orstad: And so I think it's, you know, one of the things that we just try to do is constantly evolve with what we're seeing in the marketplace and have, and now let the digital component become stagnant.
[00:08:00] Ray Mina: That makes sense. When you said at the top a little bit about you, you said something that really resonates with me, and I've talked to other marketing leaders about this, which is Google is really great at capturing intent.
[00:08:11] Ray Mina: Like you, someone is actively looking for something, but there's lots of things that show up in in our health that I'm not really looking for it, but I might need it someday. And I don't know if I'm gonna search for it in a Google query. Even in an LLM, like I may actually like go to the trusted brand because this thing is so sensitive.
[00:08:32] Ray Mina: When you think about moving beyond Google and you, and you think about like what are some of those awareness strategies that you're building? Where do, where do you start or where did you start? Like what, what are some of the channels that you started with in order to do that job?
[00:08:48] Scott Orstad: Yeah, you know, we looked at it a lot as the foundation of our content marketing strategy, making sure we had the right type of content on the site that we could then utilize through social media and some of our different email marketing campaigns.
[00:09:00] Scott Orstad: We had specific, or we had some, we also have a number of very focused ones, you know. Broad ones for the system then for different, you know, service lines. We have specific e-newsletters from a content perspective, and we've really found that has created a lot of engagement as well too. And, you know, because I, I think again, we've, we've built this ability to become a trusted resource.
[00:09:21] Scott Orstad: And you know that that's part of it because things like figuring out when to go to urgent care or making that primary care visit are pretty consumer-driven. They can be a quick decision, but if someone gets a diagnosis of some sort of cardiac condition or perhaps a, a cancer diagnosis, they're likely gonna do a lot of, you know, research online based on what family, friends, their, their physician tells them.
[00:09:43] Scott Orstad: So that's where a lot of the, making sure that the content is structured the way you want it to be and a real effecting is important. And it's even, you know, kind of going with, talking about the whole Google perspective. You know, while we as marketers are looking at it. From that ability for someone for that intent to make the conversion.
[00:10:04] Scott Orstad: You know, we still have a lot of our, you know, medical leadership. They're just happy if folks, you know, you know, if we're at the top of the search, people click on us and just learn more about us. And I think there is still some, you know, validity to that. But I think the, the email marketing and the organic search and just the overall general brand awareness.
[00:10:23] Scott Orstad: You know, that we do exist and these are service offerings need to be able to help to better tell that story. So again, it's not something else. That search has to be the only mechanism to get it across with.
[00:10:36] Ray Mina: That makes a lot of sense. I've, I've heard, I've heard you mention search and I've heard you mention content and, and the CRM play of like being able to engage with people in a more, in a more rich way, like in an email newsletter. How do you think about for the folks in your marketplace? How do you get them into the CRM so that you can engage them? Are there, are there other strategies and other channels that you leverage first that cast a wider net and then pulls them into that deeper conversation?
[00:11:06] Ray Mina: I'm, I'm just curious of like how you build your, how would you build your newsletter list than your CRM?
[00:11:11] Scott Orstad: Sure. You know, it comes from a combination of, of two, two distinct audiences. One is those in which we have, who have had at least an encounter with us in the last two years. So they have an account through Epic and they get that kind of first outreach and have the ability to opt out if they so choose to.
[00:11:27] Scott Orstad: So there's kind of that built-in audience there. Then with a lot of the digital advertising and social media campaigns that we have. They'll drive folks to a landing page, you know, to learn more information or to sign up for a newsletter. So people are voluntarily saying, Hey, we wanna learn more about Catholic Health and its services.
[00:11:44] Scott Orstad: So it's kind of a combination of both pieces because, you know, we think it's important to try to get other new potential customers. 'cause we do see patients as customers. We're in a very competitive marketplace where people do have choice. And so, you know, we want to be able to, from our marketing efforts, attract people before they have that first encounter.
[00:12:07] Scott Orstad: So we kind of look at both, you know, opportunities to engage with the community.
[00:12:13] Ray Mina: I love. Yeah. I love how you like being able to like get mindshare before that first encounter so that they start to build the trust for your brand. I'd love to hear, can if you have like a campaign that you're proud of that your team worked on in, in that, like connecting with them before their first encounter.
[00:12:29] Ray Mina: What, what does, what did that look like? What, what, what was that campaign that ultimately earned the right to get them into your CRM?
[00:12:36] Scott Orstad: Sure. So there's, we've expanded our outpatient footprint significantly in the last two years to make care closer to home for various different communities. And these different outpatient centers are rooted with having primary care doctors there along with specialists.
[00:12:52] Scott Orstad: And so what we did is, again, using kind of a multi-channel approach that involved. Search, social media, email, marketing, direct mail. In some instances, print advertising may be people aware these centers are now open and the different types of physicians and providers that are there for, for care. And you know, we use different tracking mechanisms on, on each, on all of the various tactics to see which ones we're pulling in.
[00:13:21] Scott Orstad: So some of them, you know, we had data about some patients already. In that marketplace. I would send that, send them information. But then obviously things such as, you know, the, the direct mail and social and others were more, you know, lead gen for folks we may or may not have had interaction with. And so we tracked all of them to see which ones came in.
[00:13:40] Scott Orstad: And, and based on the, the marketplace, some of them varied a lot of times, you know. Clearly search did well, but in many cases the direct mail, email and social were the largest drivers for the new outpatient centers because again, many maybe had seen them in the construction phase or driven by, or seen the coming soon signs and things.
[00:14:00] Scott Orstad: But it was the, once we started sharing the details with them, that's when it really became more tangible for them. And again, I think based on the types of services that were offered there as well too, that also helped to, you know, guide what sort of decisions they made.
[00:14:17] Ray Mina: When you frame, when you initially framed that campaign to leadership. What, what, what was the, what did good look like? Was the goal to actually drive people, whether like thresholds of driving your consumers in those marketplaces to the new outpatient. What, what was the plan?
[00:14:32] Scott Orstad: Sure. The ultimate goal was of awareness. Although we know, we knew that, you know, being able to show in appropriate situations that we had generated an appointment scheduled and actually occurring was important as well too.
[00:14:47] Scott Orstad: And that's something we've been able to do at those locations of the primary care. Because of the online scheduling capabilities, we can see that if someone has used one of those tools, the tactics that we've had, if they actually schedule an appointment within a certain period of time after that tactic goes out.
[00:15:02] Scott Orstad: 'cause some of the times too, what we would do is not necessarily launch the direct email and social all the same week. Sometimes we would tier them and kind of check besides the, the, the tracking mechanisms or there was UTM codes or QR codes or whatever we were using. Dedicated phone lines. There were the trackable URLs and such.
[00:15:22] Scott Orstad: Whatever the tracking mechanism was, we'd use that as well as a little bit of space and time as well too, just to kind of see which one was gaining the most momentum for us.
[00:15:31] Ray Mina: Right. 'cause you could measure like who, who is actually an active member of this campaign, and then what happened to those folks downstream?
[00:15:39] Ray Mina: Where, where did the, where did that conversion typically show up? Did it still show up in in Google? Was that like the last touch, or did people go, you know, never touched Google and went straight to like booking an appointment? I'm, I'm just curious what that looked like downstream.
[00:15:54] Scott Orstad: Sure. It was a combination of both. In some cases it was directly to scheduling an appointment. It's also another thing that we see too, is that two of the, those outpatient centers that we open, we also have an urgent care capabilities there. And in those cases, one of the new trends going on in urgent care that people like to do it's, it is called Reserve Your Spot.
[00:16:12] Scott Orstad: And so before they get there, they can go to the website, click and it'll kind of tell you what the potential weight might be, or they can kind of, in essence, schedule a time. And that was something else we started measuring as well too, specifically for that part.
[00:16:29] Scott Orstad: Or anytime we were doing specific urgent care promotion that was contained in those centers was really about driving people about the awareness it was open, but, you know, suggesting that they reserve the spot and we measure how many people are actually, you know, clicking on that feature to actually do and then reconcile it with the office staff afterwards on approximate numbers.
[00:16:46] Scott Orstad: Again, we don't, we don't know specifically who did it, but we know numbers of who, what the intent was, and then how many actually did it that day.
[00:16:54] Ray Mina: Google search is great because people are only gonna look when they have intent, where there's an injury or something. But urgent cares are evolving a bit and are giving more holistic care, and that's something that like people aren't aware of and Google doesn't necessarily solve that part and the campaign you mentioned does.
[00:17:10] Scott Orstad: Right. And even to that end, with the urgent care, that's one of those service line offerings where we do have a newsletter that we just kind of keep top of mind with seasonal topics. And so anytime someone has gone to one of the centers, we, they, in essence, become part of that audience mailing list to receive the e-newsletter.
[00:17:29] Scott Orstad: So again, knowing that they had an experience with us, we want to make sure the next time they need urgent care services that we come top of mind versus one of our competitors. So that's how, through our kind of our email content marketing strategy, we kind of try to stay top of mind and also just build brand awareness when they're not using the services, when they're making that search on Google, when they quickly wanna have that intent to schedule an appointment of some kind.
[00:17:55] Ray Mina: You're not the first person, you know, it's 2026. So when I think about marketing today, it's such, such a digital focus, but, you know, print and direct mail has continued to come up in healthcare. It's, it's more prevalent than I ever had imagined it would be. But it, it, it make, it makes sense a bit. I, I, I guess I'm curious for you, when you think about running a direct mail campaign, like you mentioned, is it, is it geo like outside of the customer, outside of the patient pool you have, is it purely geo-based or are there other criteria that you're looking for to make sure that that, you know, when I receive that piece, that it, that it impacts me and it's relevant to me? I'm just curious.
[00:18:35] Scott Orstad: Sure. It's usually, you know, foundationally based on a, a certain geo zip code, as you mentioned, right?
[00:18:41] Ray Mina: Yeah.
[00:18:42] Scott Orstad: I think depending upon what it is too, it could also be based on some health criteria. So for example, when we open the outpatient centers, is about a five mile radius, sometimes 10, depending upon the population density in the area. And that's really the key. We usually put some sort of an age disclaimer as well too. Usually, sometimes 21 and above or 25 and above, but there are cases too where it might be about a particular service.
[00:19:07] Scott Orstad: About two years ago, I believe we started a specific cardiac screening type test, and so that was done through a combination of kind of two lists. One where it was very geo oriented and of a certain age. I think we targeted over 40 or over 45, but we had some data about our own patients who had had an interaction with us before that met some of the criteria that might make them eligible for that testing.
[00:19:31] Scott Orstad: So then we began a more targeted response, and obviously we saw more of a reaction from that targeted audience than we did the broader one. You know, which is something we also typically see with our health risk assessments. You know, we do do that for a couple service lines, harp being our, kind of our key one.
[00:19:48] Scott Orstad: And there's no question that while search and social drive people to take the quiz and we ultimately see appointments do getting scheduled, those that we make the outreach to through the email marketing after we've done the AI predictive analytics that taking this test on a cardiac, an appointment with a cardiologist may be beneficial for them, definitely seems to have a higher reaction, higher open rate because it was more focused for that particular individual.
[00:20:20] Ray Mina: Was that the campaign? Was that how the print campaign showed up? Is that, did the print campaign, was the call to action to come take this evaluation so we can help you understand if, if it's helpful or not?
[00:20:31] Scott Orstad: Yeah, so like, you know, whenever we, you know, utilize print, we always have the, either the URL or QR code that drives folks to that landing page.
[00:20:38] Scott Orstad: So again, even the, in the case of print, you know, we're first saying, Hey, did they scan the QR code? That gives a sense of how many people are reacting. It always goes to, on those pages where there is that kind of strong call to action, to schedule an appointment by calling this number or the form fill, or take this quiz so that we can kind of see.
[00:20:55] Scott Orstad: You know, trying to make print as relevant and contemporary as it can be. Yeah, I mean, because for some audiences it is still an important tactic. Healthcare in general still is a little too comfortable with marketing collateral, prints, and the infamous billboards. But there are ways to still try to make them relevant to the media mix, and that's what we try to do whenever we can.
[00:21:18] Ray Mina: I love the value add on the call to action, which is like, oh, let's just help see if we're helpful at all before trying to like, you know, drive you to one of our, one of our centers, that with the QR code itself, I'm assuming that like folks who scan the QR code can, you can start to track down to like the recipient basically, and see that's like your first step to see in the funnel.
[00:21:39] Ray Mina: Like they, we know they're in the campaign and they receive the mail. Did they engage with it at all or not?
[00:21:44] Scott Orstad: Yeah. Yeah, I mean that's really the whole, the whole intent because it also helps us with those more generalized, broader tactics like print and direct mail and things like that to be able to keep them as part of the media mix.
[00:21:57] Scott Orstad: 'cause now there's a way to see if they are, what sort of results they are generating. And, you know, at some of those outpatient centers, the, the direct mail pieces and even print advertising and some of the weekly papers actually did prove to be beneficial. In other markets, not so much. It just really depends upon the geography, but it was a good test to actually show leadership that sometimes it can work, sometimes it doesn't.
[00:22:20] Scott Orstad: You just have to trust us that we'll kind of make that decision as far as when to make it a part of the mix, because we may have a menu of 10 options, but all 10 options may not work every time. Sometimes it's three or four. And I think it's adapting to each campaign and what the ultimate goal is.
[00:22:36] Scott Orstad: You know, is it simply about awareness because something is now open? Or do we have that ability to have folks kind of make that converted action of scheduling an appointment? And so we, that's why we try to specifically pick the t the tactics based on what the overall outcome of the campaign is.
[00:22:54] Ray Mina: What you just said really like, I think this is the thing that, that Google ruined us because Google works in such a predictable way, like it really becomes around the intent of the keywords.
[00:23:05] Ray Mina: Pretty much for every service or product people can sell. You could find some money, keywords that will converge, right? Paying people. It's just like how much room the rest of marketing is there. That's why we have to experiment and we have to measure. Because not everything will work, or not everything will work all the time, or not everything will work by location or not.
[00:23:24] Ray Mina: Everything will work with this particular consumer, and that's like you can't not do it at all because it's not universal. Right. You have to like play around with the levers and see like what combination of things, but we've completely, it's like Google obliterated that like mindset of marketing in a way,
[00:23:41] Scott Orstad: Yeah. It, it's, it, Google's benefit was almost, in some ways, its Achilles heel because the instant gratification of the results that you're able to see and proving the worth, because in many cases. It was one of those first drivers to really help marketers prove, especially in the healthcare space, with all the regulatory constraints that you know, we are and can be a revenue generating resource for the organization, it's not gonna necessarily work for every service line because again, that awareness is important, but there is clearly very specific ones where we can show that we are moving the needle as far as getting people to schedule appointments and actually have the appointments. And then looking at the, the downstream revenue of those potential things. And I, you know, I think one of the important things is, is as you're able to generate the metrics, it's, you know, working with leadership and trying to get their buy-in as early as possible in small chunks.
[00:24:34] Scott Orstad: Because then I think it becomes more believable for them. That was actually something that worked for us really well is getting specifically with our CRM results as far as the campaigns we were sending out. Knowing that people had scheduled appointments and actually followed through with them after in a certain period of timeframe, we, everyone agreed upon what that timeframe was, we were showing the ICD-9 and 10 codes that we were taking credit for. And even in particular, in one campaign, we had this one where it was called no Primary Care Emergency Department. And simply what that was, is if someone came to one of our emergency departments and they didn't have a primary care listed in their, me, in their medical record, they would get an email from us the next day thanking them for choosing one of our, our six Catholic health emergency departments, indicating we knew that they didn't have a primary care listed. And if in fact that was true, here's how you could develop a relationship with one of our primary care doctors.
[00:25:31] Ray Mina: Love that.
[00:25:31] Scott Orstad: And for, for that follow up case. And you know, was well-received by the service line as well as even, you know, members of leadership. And you know, some even pointed out, well, people may need more than just a primary care follow up because orthopedics and a couple other service lines are. You know, very common follow ups that happen after someone has an an ER visit and they're like, you know, maybe you should, you know, consider those in the mix.
[00:25:56] Scott Orstad: And so we took that kind of conservative approach by just looking at the primary care follow up. And here leadership was suggesting let's take a look at the numbers, if we add some of these other ones. And so the mix and determine whether we wanna, you know, count those as well. And so that was really inspiring to hear that.
[00:26:13] Scott Orstad: You know, financial leadership was willing to work with us again because I think we had a very open and transparent relationship with them as far as what we were trying to take credit for and how we got there and it was believable to them.
[00:26:27] Ray Mina: You mentioned something I wanted to touch on, so it feels like a good place to transition is you were able to have that conversation with your financial leaders and, and continue to get their buy-in.
[00:26:39] Ray Mina: In, in what you described as that flow, obviously the ability to track that and measure that is so critical to go to your financial leadership. What if someone is just really heavily anchored in Google and, and hasn't been able to like, deploy this kind of strategy and campaign? What, what's the practical approach here?
[00:26:59] Ray Mina: Like maybe, maybe two parts? How do you, how do you go have this conversation with financial leadership to let them know the journey that you're going on together? And then two, how do you think about the MVP way? Because not everyone has like data science team and, and that's gonna be one of the blockers.
[00:27:17] Ray Mina: How do you practically measure this so that you can go back to them and say, I told you this is what we're gonna do. Here's how it's showing up in the results.
[00:27:25] Scott Orstad: Yeah, I think it, it has to foundationally start with the, the campaign and what's the ability for, for tracking for, and can you show that ultimately you're leading to a scheduled appointment.
[00:27:36] Scott Orstad: And I, I think if you can work with, you know. IT and financial teams before, and to kinda make that connection piece first, to show that there's a way to show that, whether it's using Google specifically as your tactic, or if you have other ones in tandem with that, that you're able to show that it resulted in scheduled appointments.
[00:27:59] Scott Orstad: And I think that that's the foundational key. 'cause you need to have something to show them with because then you can then have the conversation about we were able to prove that we did this. And in a lot of cases, sometimes it, it's that compliment with the, the medical record that you're using as well to, we are an epic shop, so that helps to, you know, provide a little bit more flexibility as far as being able to show some level of, of tracking.
[00:28:23] Scott Orstad: And then I think you can then present the conversation with leadership to talk about, kind of show, take them on the steps of the journey of how you got to where you are. And then have it that open conversation about, well, if we're gonna start measuring these primary care visits or urgent care visits that we helped lead, what is, you know, do we want to attribute a certain cost per appointment or do we want to use it based on the type of insurance that the, that the, the patient had? And so we then we can start seeing the benefit that it had as far as what it brought in from a revenue. And then you obviously are utilizing, you know, what the cost of the campaign were to see how it really benefited the organization.
[00:29:03] Scott Orstad: And then I, I think based on the capabilities of the group, you just try to keep, you know, scaling that by campaign as it makes sense and can just continue to have that ongoing dialogue to make sure there was the buy-in. Because again, I think for us, you know. I'm very fortunate that I have a senior leadership team that is supportive of marketing first and foremost, and that definitely helps as well as leadership that understands that we do and can help impact the organization financially.
[00:29:32] Scott Orstad: And it's more than just about awareness and branch familiarity. And so that willingness just to be able to have the dialogue was huge. And you know, exceptionally helpful. But I also think taking that kind of conser, showing them the journey of how we were getting there, taking a conservative approach as far as what we were willing to take credit for initially, then allowed to get the buy-in and we could then start scaling it up a little bit as far as, maybe it was more of a medium conservative approach because again, they saw the path we were taking.
[00:30:05] Scott Orstad: They knew, you know, what types of services we were trying to take credit for. And then they, they realized it was all, it just wasn't a bunch of stuff thrown at them that they, that didn't make sense. We were kind of in essence speaking their language from the patient journey to the ICD-9 and 10 coats.
[00:30:24] Ray Mina: I love that. Yeah. You, you, you, I think we talked about this and you took a conservative approach too, on what you were gonna take credit for so that you could like continue to earn that trust versus just a more like, well, we're gonna get credit for everything here you were, you were practical. When you think about, 'cause you know, Google, Google paid search is always gonna be part of the strategy and one of the, one of the arguments that, that people face is like, well, just, just don't take away from Google.
[00:30:48] Ray Mina: Keep spending there. But, but I'm a marketer and I'm gonna, I'm gonna follow your path and say, Hey, I, I actually could get more out of that spend if I take part of it away and put it into this direct mail campaign or, or some other version of that that's relevant for your market. How do you, how do you think about that comparison and that experiment, like, here's where our baseline was before.
[00:31:11] Ray Mina: Are you expecting, like let, let's say you drove X number of patients to this center just with Google, and then you take a more blended approach. Is your ultimate expectation that you would drive like 1.2 X patients? So like would there be a bump at the bottom that would be required to be successful, or are there other KPIs that would also be like directionally indicative of like, success for you?
[00:31:38] Scott Orstad: Sure. I, I think it ultimately comes down, it's, you know, each campaign is looked upon differently as far as what's possible. 'cause it, and again, in some cases the online scheduling component is there and that's obviously a huge way as far as showing the success.
[00:31:50] Scott Orstad: In other cases it isn't. So is it generating qualified calls or is it the form fills and so it's, you know. And in some cases we have all three options open to us. So, you know, it just really depends and that's what we have tried to, is there's no cookie cutter approach to it. There's no universal way.
[00:32:08] Scott Orstad: And that's why we said there's a menu of options and we have to figure out which ones are the right options to select for that individual campaign. You know, we're, you know, doing a lot of rapid growth on the online scheduling component, which is gonna be great. Our, our digital technology team is working rapidly on that, and that's gonna be a great benefit, you know, in for us in marketing because that will really help that component.
[00:32:34] Scott Orstad: But, so right now, while we're waiting for that to happen in some of our specialty areas, we do need to deploy some of these other, you know, tactics so that we can help to prove beyond just a Google click that, hey, send out a direct mail piece generated, you know. 12 calls because we had that call tracking number over the real office number or generated this many scans.
[00:32:55] Scott Orstad: Same thing with an email or whatever it may be, just to show that these other things are helping to build awareness and, or hopefully appointments at that particular location or for that service.
[00:33:07] Ray Mina: Yeah, so it's not just the bottom of the funnel on a lead or an appointment. It's also there's a, a, a measurement of engagement like our is is the target audience engaging with, with our outreach.
[00:33:19] Scott Orstad: We even had an example a few years ago where there was a particular center that was really looking for some additional help and services, and the office manager was so willing to be a part of the process and, you know, thankful for getting the marketing support that they, she had it queued up with her office staff to ask people how they heard about the service. And so if someone had gotten the direct mail or had seen the ad or saw something on social, she was tracking for us exactly what they were, how it led people to the office to schedule that appointment. It's, you know, a more traditional way of doing things, but it still got the job done and it helped us to be able to justify continuing to promote that particular center because it was something that was consumer-driven.
[00:34:06] Scott Orstad: But it wasn't necessarily the highest priority list organizationally with some of the other things we needed to market. But because we were showing results for them, we were able to still leave a small portion of the budget available for them. And in particular, the two or three tactics that they were getting the most feedback from patients on is what brought them to the practice.
[00:34:24] Ray Mina: I love that, that that's a fantastic piece of like, I don't have any data science team, well, here's a very practical way. We've done it in B2B SaaS for a decade. You, you can't always trust the tracking to see like what are behaviors. So we ask on a form fill like, how did you hear about us? And we don't even, sometimes don't even have a pick list.
[00:34:43] Ray Mina: Just take the qualitative response and you'll be surprised. What's showing up a lot more today for us personally at Freshpaint is searching on like through AI. Like that is, that is not something we can easily track. But it's something that shows up qualitatively and that's something you could just do right now.
[00:35:00] Ray Mina: You could just implement that pretty quickly to get like a qualitative view of how people are finding you.
[00:35:06] Scott Orstad: Absolutely. It's, it's just, you know, further proof that sometimes some of the old school methods, you know, can still work and did have their purpose, you know, at, at that place in time and it can still get the job done.
[00:35:16] Ray Mina: When have you been under pressure to abandon some of the brand efforts in the face of performance when you've been under budget pressure?
[00:35:25] Scott Orstad: Sure. I mean, it's, it, it's something that is, you know, has been starting to percolate over the last year or two. I think everyone is in a much more growth-oriented mode right now, just with a lot of the, the landscape of what's going on in healthcare from a reimbursement standpoint.
[00:35:42] Scott Orstad: You know, now that we're past, you know, a couple years past the pandemic and some of the federal funding that came across for health systems that exist at that point. So everyone is really in that kind of focused growth mode. So there's definitely a desire to continue with growth marketing and, and increasing that.
[00:36:01] Scott Orstad: But we do recognize the brand is so important. So I think it's just selectively picking which tactics to still utilize. You know, do we abandon one completely or do we just have less of a frequency, or do we just use it at a certain time of the year? And so those are the things that we are playing around with.
[00:36:19] Scott Orstad: You know, obviously the, the brand. A tactic that, you know, tends to be the most costly is television. But you know, there is still a, you know, place for that. You know, one of the ways in which we're, you know, trying to make it more cost effective is getting much more heavily involved and connected over the last year or two.
[00:36:38] Scott Orstad: But, you know, there's still those opportunities to utilize traditional linear television because it has been effective for us, particularly in survey results, for brand awareness of familiarity. And so, you know, we, we still have it in the mix. It's just not as heavy as it once was. And that's where. We're helping to supplement the growth tactics from a budgeting standpoint, as well as absorb any of the marketing cuts that we may need to, to just adjust appropriately because of what's going on in the overall marketing landscape, from a healthcare perspective, based on reimbursement.
[00:37:17] Ray Mina: What do you think will differentiate teams that kind of meet this moment? Like the landscape is changing, but there's still growth goals to hit versus those that kind of stall and, and struggle. What, what will be the points of differentiation?
[00:37:32] Scott Orstad: I think the key is, is figuring out the best way at, at their organization to stay, keep the growth mindset and keep with learning all the great opportunities they're coming and how quickly it's been evolving over the last year or two. And then complimenting that with the more important branded opportunities and figuring out how to do that because it's really not an either or. Figuring out what the right mix is of the two, and then just evolving them each appropriately, because brand needs to be evolved as well too.
[00:38:03] Scott Orstad: Those same traditional tactics just can't stay in the same way. Maybe again, it's, it's departing from one of the tactics, or it's just doing a little bit less of each of them, or you know, again, it's just figuring out that right mix. But both brand and performance marketing need to both exist for an organization to be successful, and it's just finding the right mix and the happy intersection of the two to, to make it work.
[00:38:29] Ray Mina: Yeah. I learned a lot from you today, which was thinking like impractical ways, making sure that you had, it's not just about setting up the tracking, it's making sure you have a clear goal and a clear way that you're thinking about how you're gonna measure. So when you get into that conversation with leadership that, you know, you've kind of, you're buttoned up and, and you've been really thoughtful about it versus, Hey, just trust, just trust me. Like, just let me, let me spend some money here and trust me.
[00:38:56] Scott Orstad: Yeah. I, I think the key is, is looking for ways in which you can show that you are a revenue generating department. 'cause it is possible. Just take credit for what you can at that point and then scale it as more capabilities come on where you can take credit for it.
[00:39:11] Scott Orstad: Again, utilizing, let's say, whether it's because of robust tech capabilities in a call center from a tracking standpoint, or again, it's the online scheduling. So at the beginning you just have primary care and urgent care scheduling. Take credit for that as you get some of the specialties on, do that and figure out what the, the tolerance level is within the organization for that.
[00:39:31] Scott Orstad: And then there's also figure out too, whether there's that willingness to just have the initial appointment or someone, or is the organization wanna look at the lifetime value of that patient? Downstream revenue, because that's the other component as well too. That starts getting a little trickier as to how that downstream revenue is defined.
[00:39:51] Scott Orstad: Is it simply another procedure or visit? Is it things like, you know, an MRI test or blood work? Is it all of the above? And so, but those are the types of conversations you would need to have. But I think it's, you know, clearly the, the, the crawl, walk, run approach will likely be the most successful because without the, the leadership buy-in, it'll never work. And I think going too big at the beginning will cause more skepticism.
[00:40:18] Ray Mina: Yeah, I, I couldn't agree. Like I think that you can't really get away in 2026 building brand without being able to like draw a line to the outcomes that the organization wants. And if you, if you just accept that and then work within those constraints, you're, you're just gonna have a way better chance to like be successful.
[00:40:37] Ray Mina: This has been super fun, Scott. Thank you for joining me on Marketing Rounds. Really appreciate it.
[00:40:41] Scott Orstad: Happy to participate. Glad to see you again, Ray. This was a fun conversation.
[00:40:46] Producer: Today's episode is brought to you by Freshpaint. If you're a healthcare marketer under pressure to do more with less, Freshpaint helps you stretch fixed budgets, prove what's working, and protect the strategies that drive growth. Freshpaint brings performance and privacy together in one platform so you can see real outcomes across channels and double down where ROI is highest. With Freshpaint, privacy becomes your performance advantage. Turn better data into smarter decisions, find more high value patients, and keep your growth plans on track. Learn more at freshpaint.io.