In this episode, Ray Mina is joined by Craig Blake and Aaron Mauck to discuss the pitfalls of over-relying on bottom-of-funnel marketing strategies like Google search ads in healthcare. They analyze the changing dynamics in the payer market, emphasizing the need for diversification in marketing spend to combat diminishing returns. Craig and Aaron provide practical insights, including the resurgence of direct mail and the increasing importance of AI-driven strategies. They also underscores the necessity of a holistic, data-driven approach to reach and retain health plan members effectively.
💡 Episode Summary
In this episode, Ray Mina is joined by Craig Blake and Aaron Mauck to discuss the pitfalls of over-relying on bottom-of-funnel marketing strategies like Google search ads in healthcare. They analyze the changing dynamics in the payer market, emphasizing the need for diversification in marketing spend to combat diminishing returns. Craig and Aaron provide practical insights, including the resurgence of direct mail and the increasing importance of AI-driven strategies. They also underscores the necessity of a holistic, data-driven approach to reach and retain health plan members effectively.
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⏱️ Episode Timestamps:
*(01:31) - Why Google search dominance is hitting diminishing returns
*(02:16) - Why bottom of funnel marketing is breaking
*(07:16) - Identifying the warning signs
*(14:34) - Moving beyond Google
*(34:50) - Q1strategy: post-enrollment planning
*(39:55) - The future of AI and healthcare marketing
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💬 Quote
“ Bottom of funnel becomes less of a relevant tool as the way in which people approach interacting with markets. Whatever that market happens to be, insurance, cars, widgets, whatever it happens to be, evolves and it's evolving away from traditional search. And as that evolution takes place, the standard approach that we've taken will be less and less relevant going forward. So developing new strategies that try to meet consumers where they are is going to be relevant. That is not going to be bottom of the funnel as it's been traditionally understood.” – Aaron Mauck
“ The challenge is marketers by default is like, oh, bottom of funnel, we gotta pump money in there. The reality is, it’s diminishing returns. You're not getting more for the money you're spending. So we gotta look at it more holistically. We've seen a significant pendulum swing over the past two years in just marketing in general in the Medicare population, where that pendulum needs to come back to center. The times are changing, not to quote Bob Dylan or anything, but they are in marketing and things are breaking and things need to be rewired to, as Aaron you just said, where the consumers are today.” – Craig Blake
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🔗 Links:
Connect with Craig Blake on LinkedIn
Connect with Aaron Mauck on LinkedIn
Connect with Ray Mina on LinkedIn
Learn more about Caspian Studios
[00:00:00] Craig Blake: The challenge as marketers by default, is like, oh, bottom of funnel, we gotta pump money in there. The reality is it's diminishing returns. You're not getting more for the money you're spending. So, you know, we, we gotta look at it more holistically and, and I know we'll get into this later, but. You know, we've seen a significant pendulum swing over the past two years in just marketing in general in the Medicare population where that pendulum needs to come back to center.
[00:00:31] Craig Blake: And I'll circle back on that later. But you know, it's the, the times are a changing, not to quote Bob Dylan or anything, but the AR in in marketing and things are breaking and things need to be rewired to, as Aaron you just said, where consumers are today.
[00:00:46] Ray Mina: Yeah, I'm really excited to have this conversation.
[00:00:48] Ray Mina: We've been talking a lot about how healthcare marketers in general are so heavily weighted in bottom of funnel, like Google search ads, and we want to talk about how that's impacting the payer market because this episode is aimed at the diminishing returns of doubling down on that market. And we're gonna talk about why that's an issue, and then we're gonna spend some time talking about what we should do about it.
[00:01:11] Ray Mina: And I brought some friends who know a lot more about this subject than I do, joined by Craig Blake, who is agency growth at Amsive Health, and I'm joined by Aaron Mauck, who's Chief Research Officer at Oboe Healthcare Insights. Thanks for joining us today, gents.
[00:01:26] Craig Blake: Great to be here.
[00:01:29] Ray Mina: So you, this kind of, this conversation got sparked by a LinkedIn post, like I think a lot of stuff starts on LinkedIn as we're all having these conversations and some of them really trigger us and they're pretty visceral.
[00:01:41] Ray Mina: And you're like, yes, we need to talk about that because we're all nodding our heads here. You both commented about the limits of over optimizing bottom of funnel, and I think when we talk about this in healthcare. Like 80% of spend in some cases is anchored in Google search ads alone. This is what we mean by being so like weighted down and bottom of the funnel.
[00:02:03] Ray Mina: What is happening in the payer market specifically that's starting to break for those that are relying so heavily on search. Aaron, maybe we'll start with you and get, get your take and the additional color off that post.
[00:02:16] Aaron Mauck: Yeah, so I, I think, you know, you probably all have heard a lot about some of the challenges related to this.
[00:02:22] Aaron Mauck: So one of the central challenges, of course, is that search itself is becoming less of a relevant tool, right? And so if we think about the way in which search has been optimized historically, people would go on Google, they'd search for a car or search for insurance or search for whatever, and we would track from that, their behavior and be able to sort of target de deliberately.
[00:02:44] Aaron Mauck: We know that that's disappearing. Very few of us actually go to search first. I mean, that's something that Uncle Murray might still do, but if you talk to young people, right, a lot of them are going to AI first or other media first as their central approach to this. And so bottom up funnel becomes less of a relevant tool as the way in which people approach interacting with market, whatever that market happens to be, insurance, cars, widgets, whatever it happens to be, evolves, and it's evolving away from surgeon as that evolution take place.
[00:03:18] Aaron Mauck: The standard approach that we've taken will be less and less relevant going forward. So developing new strategies that try to meet consumers where they are, is gonna be relevant, that is not going to be bottom of the funnel as it's been traditionally. Understood.
[00:03:32] Ray Mina: Yeah. I'm looking forward to getting into this.
[00:03:34] Ray Mina: So then what, in a little bit, but Craig would love to get your take. Like what, what are you seeing? Like where, maybe, maybe a follow up question here is. Like when do we know that this is breaking? What are some of the signals that we're seeing that we're hitting the ceiling?
[00:03:50] Craig Blake: Yeah. First off, thanks, thanks for having us here.
[00:03:53] Craig Blake: Excited to contribute and, and Ray, you and I have talked about this a lot and I think we're gonna touch on it next week in Miami together. But you know, the reality is, and let's focus in on the payer market, specifically Medicare market, because the reality is seniors got digital savvy really quick.
[00:04:08] Craig Blake: Really in the past 24 months, two years before search was done because everybody else did it. What we've seen is gas was born on the fire in the past two years and there's been significant market disruption where people are just, you know, I don't wanna say panicking, but, but consumers are going to search to finger what, what they should do because they're hearing their plan is being terminated or their benefits are changing, causing significant angst and disruption across the industry.
[00:04:36] Craig Blake: So. You know, the challenge as marketers by default is like, oh, bottom of funnel, we gotta pump money in there. The reality is, it's diminishing returns. You're not getting more for the money you're spending. So, you know, we, we gotta look at it more holistically and, and I know we'll get into this later, but you know, we've seen a significant pendulum swing over the past two years in just marketing in general.
[00:05:02] Craig Blake: In the Medicare population where that pendulum needs to come back to center. And I'll circle back on that later. But you know, it's the, the times are changing. Not to quote Bob Dylan or anything, but the, they are in, in marketing and things are breaking and things need to be rewired to as Aaron you just said, where the consumers are today.
[00:05:20] Ray Mina: For our listeners, 'cause I know some listeners may not be in the payer market.
[00:05:24] Ray Mina: When you made that comment about like there, there's a lot changing for consumer behavior, that that's actually a big driver here. Like can you just break it down like 101? Like what, what's changing and then why is that impacting, impacting Google specifically?
[00:05:39] Craig Blake: Yeah. So let, let's take a step back. Let's go back five years, right?
[00:05:43] Craig Blake: So we're 2026. Let's go back to January of 2021. Five years ago, digital marketing wasn't as pervasive in Medicare senior marketing as it is today. Traditionally, a Medicare plan for for acquisition would rely on direct mail that was the hero channel, and digital was done as a nice to have, but they're not gonna really do much that we saw that change holistically.
[00:06:11] Craig Blake: Last year, coming out of AEP annual enrollment period, where for the first time ever, deft research reported that consumers went to the internet first instead of calling the phone number. On their direct response or direct mail piece. That may not sound like a big deal, but in the senior market where direct mail has been the hero channel, that was significant.
[00:06:35] Craig Blake: Now we just got out of a EP this year and it'll be interesting to see the results as, as overall tabulated by the research that coming out this year. But I will say that it's gonna give you more drastically changed because of the influence of ai. And I'm sure we'll get an AI today, but you know that that changes the, we mixed even more.
[00:06:52] Ray Mina: Aaron, what are you, what are you seeing in how, in how this shows up? Like how, how is this change? Because the change is obvious. Like to your point, Craig, there's AI there. Like my father-in-law is in his eighties. He is like on his phone more than I am. Like there's this maturing of like digital savviness of, of an older population we assume would never get it.
[00:07:15] Ray Mina: They get it Now. How is this showing up, Aaron, in the data? Like what if I'm a CMO? Of one of the big payers out there, what questions should I be asking my team to know? Like what, how this is impacting my business?
[00:07:28] Aaron Mauck: Well, partially you need to look at evolving consumer expectations, therefore, right? So one of the sort of big implications of this is that.
[00:07:37] Aaron Mauck: Consumers are going to be digitally engaged across their experience from both getting in garnering information when they're electing a plan through the process of onboarding, through making decisions around whether what they wanna re-up or not. All of that is going to be done at least partially, digitally, now, different kind of consumer expectations about engagement with marketing materials.
[00:08:00] Aaron Mauck: With their understanding of the plan brand, how it is positioning itself, all that has to evolve. One thing to say, of course, is the challenge here is it's not like all seniors are switching from traditional channels or, or you know, away from mass marketing to the mass market just to personalized experience.
[00:08:20] Aaron Mauck: You still have to have an element in that, but you also now have to have the digital element. And that of course, creates interesting challenges because. You're gonna have to engage the consumer where they are. Some become very savvy in markets which had traditionally have relied on direct mail or other media, and then some are going to be less savvy.
[00:08:41] Aaron Mauck: And suddenly you have to have a footed, two boats across all your Medicare products, but really across every product that you're trying to approach. And that, of course, is gonna create real challenges, especially for smaller payers. Where you have smaller budgets and there so much of the focus is on bottom of the funnel or has been right, that this creates interesting kinds of challenges because how are you gonna allocate your marketing dollars in ways that are gonna meet the consumers with different expectations across the span of consumer expectations that you're seeing?
[00:09:11] Aaron Mauck: So a lot of this comes up in terms of what consumers want and how their perception is evolving. They want some digital engagement. They're going to expect some sort of strong digital experience. In ways that they haven't in the past. And that's even for those, those consumers even two or three years ago, probably had no experience of digital engagement or being online.
[00:09:31] Aaron Mauck: They're online now, and that's the new reality for them.
[00:09:36] Ray Mina: Craig, before we, before we talk about like, lifting your head out of Google and like what are some of the things you can do? I, I think we can all accept is like people are gonna ride Google to death. Like there no matter what we say. They are going to figure out every way possible to stay effective in Google.
[00:09:52] Ray Mina: You brought up AI, given how much AI is gonna drive zero click behavior. So a lot of that, like super desirable last click attribution you get from Google Ads is likely going to just disappear over time, but you know you're gonna stay invested there. How should people start to think about Google ads?
[00:10:08] Ray Mina: Like what should they continue to do there?
[00:10:11] Craig Blake: Yeah, you know, you obviously need to be bidding on, on words that keywords and strategies there that are gonna separate you, you know, all those basic foundational elements that go into a good paid search strategy. You need to still exist, but I think it's the, the volume of budget that you towards diverse.
[00:10:31] Craig Blake: And I think that that's where people, I, I said it earlier that you're not gonna get the return on the investment diminishing returns. And, and so until people see that, feel that in their pocketbook, right? That, hey, I, I upped the budget and I didn't get the why. I was expecting the behavior's not going to change.
[00:10:48] Craig Blake: So, you know, I guess warning signal to the marketing world listening that hey, evaluate the, the diminishing returns and start diversifying their portfolio of marketing spend. Because the reality is the consumers, and this is not just specific to plan marketing. Or Medicare marketing. This, I think, goes across every industry.
[00:11:09] Craig Blake: You gotta diversify it and customers where they are and, you know, gotta make sure you're present in the ai com AI conversation.
[00:11:16] Ray Mina: Listen, I, I don't know if we can answer this question on this call, because it's gonna be very nuanced and it's gonna be situationally dependent for each, each, you know, payer.
[00:11:27] Ray Mina: But if I'm a CMO and let's, I'm, I'm a, I'm a brand oriented CMO. I'm not a performance marketing expert. I buy this, I'm nodding my head because I understand the first principle here of what we're talking about, but I don't know what questions to ask. My demand gen performance team, what are the leading indicators?
[00:11:46] Ray Mina: What do I like? Is it as simple as like, Hey, I'm measuring CAC and unit economics, and I start to see those deteriorate and that's should be my North Star? What, what guidance would we give people to know, like what they're looking for and you know, be before the wall hits them, maybe having some signal that it's time to take action.
[00:12:04] Craig Blake: That's a great question, Ray. I, I think if I was gonna counsel that CMO and, and be that little person on their shoulder, I, I would tell 'em to look at different metrics that they've not looked at before. So forget about how many calls you got. Forget about how many clicks or how many engagements get, get down to the brass tax of, you know, what was that journey looking like?
[00:12:26] Craig Blake: What was that holistic consumer journey looking like, and, and what did they engage with along the way? And if they don't have all the hooks established yet to measure that, then that should be step one. They should challenge their performance leaders to, to, to build that into their mouse trap because a lot of 'em won't.
[00:12:44] Craig Blake: You know, one of the big challenges is the, the, the consumer journey is not linear anymore. What we've been hearing that for years. It's fragmented, so you have to build those hooks along the way, so you're capturing that level of intent. As the consumer works its way down from top of funnel to bottle, bottom of funnel, and the reality is they're engaging with you, you know, 17 different ways, right, during that journey.
[00:13:04] Aaron Mauck: Yeah. I think that that's, that's spot on, right? So this is, this reflects a broader evolution of the payer market, right? Where we're, we're thinking about that consumer. We're wanting to think about a longitudinal relationship, not just across each year and each annual enrollment period, but the way in which you might want to engage with that consumer.
[00:13:25] Aaron Mauck: Across multiple years as their plans may evolve, their needs may evolve, and their journey is going to have that kind of feature. Now, that's how you're gonna cultivate royalties, tracking that experience in a much more longitudinal way than we have historically done. So if you think about the evolution, for instance, of Medicare Advantage, that is precisely how Medicare Advantage plans are starting to think about it.
[00:13:46] Aaron Mauck: We're not in Greenfield growth anymore, and not all consumers are created equal. You want to really cultivate the right kind of market of consumers and marketing to that consumer base and understanding their needs is gonna be central. And that is a long process, right? So it really does shift you away from your baseline metrics, clicks, eyeballs, that kind of stuff, which is sort of fine, but really just table stakes to a very different understanding of consumer engagement, not just across the period in which you're sort of trying to attract them into a plan and get them engaged.
[00:14:21] Aaron Mauck: Next time around and the next time around after that and getting a different kind of longitudinal relationship to keep the right kind of consumer in play for you for long-term sustainability.
[00:14:34] Ray Mina: So I want to talk about, so then what, and I wanna break it up into two parts. So the first part is then what, like what should we do? And the second part is because one of the biggest blockers is that it's so hard to measure the effectiveness of these things that are not last click attribution. Talking a little bit about like how we get past last click.
[00:14:52] Ray Mina: So Craig, I'll start with you. Like what? Not theoretically, just practically. I wanna lift my head out of Google and I buy this like most people do. It's a first principle of marketing is like seven touches of marketing is like something that has been taught for, right? Like, I'm not going to, it's very rare that I'm gonna go and like, you know, go do a Google search on, you know, the orthopedic surgery.
[00:15:18] Ray Mina: I'm gonna like go find the doctor that has the best reputation. And I've learned about that over time because I've been touched by that practice multiple times in my, in my area. What, what do we do practically when we first lift our head out of Google? Like what? What advice should we be giving to those CMOs and those digital performance leaders?
[00:15:39] Craig Blake: Each CMO, he has to take a look at their market first because. If you're talking specifically on the health plan side, you have some regional health plans that are in small states. Rural states, and so you gotta look at where are my potential members hanging out? What are they doing, you know, if, if you're a health plan in the rural Midwest versus Southern California.
[00:16:02] Craig Blake: It's way different strategies and, and way different considerations as far as what that channel mix could look like. Right. So I think it's really understanding your members first, and then where are your members, because, you know, we have a client where it sounds funny, but we still send mailers out as part of an every door direct because the post office delivers it and they can get it, and they don't have internet stability in these rural counties.
[00:16:31] Craig Blake: So digital marketing's a wasted investment for them. So it's, it's, you know, kind of understanding what's going on regionally. And I'm sure everything CMO can understand that. And then balancing it with where that member journey, how it's evolved and, and then, oh, by the way, let's throw in there, what are the market dynamics that have changed because we know that it's been a, a complete evolution this past couple years.
[00:16:56] Ray Mina: Yeah. Craig, you, you tapped on something that I think is so important and often overlooked in in marketing, which is. You know, there is not a one size fits all. Like we really, it's for me in a B2B SaaS world, it's product marketing. You really, really need to understand your market. You need to understand the, the, the consumer or the buyer in that market.
[00:17:17] Ray Mina: And then you need to know where's, what's the best way to meet them with my message? How do I actually help them identify my service? Like, some things are gonna work in some markets and, and they're gonna be completely irrelevant in other markets because of that. And so you touched on direct mail, which by the way, I don't think is weird because everyone I'm talking to from some of the biggest brands to the smallest brands in rural markets, everyone's talking about direct mail.
[00:17:41] Ray Mina: It actually, it actually still works. Aaron, what are, what are other, you know, what are other things that, you know, both digital and analog that are effective? Like if I'm starting from zero and I'm like, man, I'm the CMO, I'm gonna, I'm gonna put my neck out there. And I'm gonna tell leadership we need to move out of Google.
[00:18:02] Ray Mina: And I, and I'm, I'm gonna make it work and I'm gonna measure it, but I also know I have a limited runway. I better show some proof here. I better make some, I better pick some bets that are gonna work. 'cause if my first two or three don't, I'm not gonna have that runway anymore. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna be given that leash anymore.
[00:18:18] Ray Mina: Where do I start?
[00:18:20] Aaron Mauck: Yeah, so as, as Craig mentioned, right, a lot of this is market contingent, but we've seen lots of plans even in urban markets, which you think were very digitally savvy, where you've been successful doing things like bus stop ads or billboards, right, or, or television ads, right? These are all very relevant because even when you're a digital first and the approaches so often, like that's been the sort of exuberant play towards digital first people.
[00:18:48] Aaron Mauck: Like analog and they engage with the world in analog ways all the time. Right? And ultimately the strategy that's been most successful for both big and small plans is digital and people first, right? You find ways to directly engage with folks, you know, in IRL, in your own kind of way through being real life through things like those kinds of must stop ads or billboards, which are more about brand than they may be about a particular plan.
[00:19:17] Aaron Mauck: They can also advertise a plan. You say something like, Hey, you know, your annual enrollment period is coming up. You know, we are going to advertise both the plan and a particular product that's being offered by the health plan through a particular ad, and those are actually quite successful. They don't have to have a lot of information.
[00:19:35] Aaron Mauck: As long as they direct the consumer in a smart way to where they may need to go digitally, the consumer will go there, right? They'll be interested in, and they will be able to pursue. Now there are obviously some legal limitations on what you can do for engaging with providers or other media to be able to grab folks, right?
[00:19:54] Aaron Mauck: But you can put advertisements in places you might not expect, right? You sort of put them where seniors happen to be, as long as they're not in actual care environments, right? In ways that are going to attract those seniors and make them aware. If we're talking about the senior market. And that's been very successful not only for things like Medicare Advantage where seniors are driven by choice quite a bit, but obviously for the exchanges and for, for products that are being offered on the exchanges up until this year.
[00:20:22] Aaron Mauck: And so, you know, those have a tendency to be quite successful above and beyond your kind of traditional digital channels.
[00:20:29] Craig Blake: I want to pick up on what something you said, Aaron, 'cause I, I, I think there's a, an important point to make here is you, you're hanging your hat on for a second about brand and I was very excited to hear that because.
[00:20:39] Craig Blake: This past AEP, we actually saw clients pull back on marketing because they were getting members based on market changes where they didn't have to market. People were coming to them because in some cases they were the only option available. Right? And, and they, they would get a notice, Hey, your plan is terminated.
[00:20:56] Craig Blake: Well, they're gonna go to the next logical choice. And sometimes it was a smaller local dominant plan and they're like, oh, we're getting influx of new members. We don't need to market anymore. So they turn the marketing dial down. Well, I understand that makes sense in the moment as, as a marketing professional who looks at long-term value of clients and stability of a business that can have some downstream impact that hurts you.
[00:21:24] Craig Blake: So for example, if you pull back on the brand lever now, what happens five years from now, if you never turn that on with that 60-year-old who's now aging into Medicare five years from now at 65? They're not gonna know who you are. So you gotta be thoughtful of how you're pulling these investment levers, whether it's brand or performance, to make sure it's always a balanced mix.
[00:21:48] Craig Blake: Because if you, if you turn brand off, that's not gonna end well long term. It may help today and may help the budget and the balance and all that thing the CFO cares about, but the longevity of the sustainability of a brand that will have negative impacts.
[00:22:03] Aaron Mauck: Well, I wanna jump on that just for for a second 'cause I, I am in total agreement, right? So one of the challenges I think we see, and you, you just were underscoring this small regionals have a tendency to double down on performance sometimes at the expense of brand. 'cause they don't need to focus on brand if you're the only game in town essentially.
[00:22:22] Aaron Mauck: You, you don't need to. And also if you're a smaller plan, your budget is limited and you're going to focus on bottom of funnel more than you're going to necessarily focus on the sort of bigger brand recognition kind of elements. You don't need to compete there where you feel like you don't have the dollars to compete there.
[00:22:39] Aaron Mauck: Fine if you're in a market which doesn't have a lot of competition. But to your point, Craig, that is a short-term play that can have very adverse long-term consequences, both in terms of consumer awareness. Of course in terms of future competition, right? So you know, you may be the only game in town or the dominant player in a small regional market at one point in time until a large commercial competitor decides to come in or another regional comes in.
[00:23:06] Aaron Mauck: That doesn't always happen, but it does from time to time. There are each year fewer and fewer non-competitive market out there in that regard. And ultimately this becomes this kind of classic Eisenhower Matrix problem where focus on brand is a non-urgent but important entity. Entity, you know, target that often enough gets disregarded if you don't have the marketing dollars to, to put towards it.
[00:23:33] Aaron Mauck: And as a result, it kind of gets kicked down the road again and again, ultimately leading their consequences when things suddenly do become competitive and no one knows who you are.
[00:23:43] Ray Mina: I think that's what many organizations are, even for marketing leaders who want to invest in brand and awareness, they have a limited budget.
[00:23:52] Ray Mina: They have, you know, one, one person told me recently have, you know, champagne appetite on a beer budget. And so then, you know, performance is the thing that they end up investing. And by performance, once again, we're really talking about paid search is where they're investing their dollars and they just don't have enough budget to move outside of those tools like Google.
[00:24:10] Ray Mina: Craig, because you, you brought up, you brought up an indication of one way, like direct mail is working in some markets. I've, I've heard that, I've heard that from at least a dozen different leaders recently that direct mail in, in some form or another, is an effective tool for them in generating demand.
[00:24:30] Ray Mina: Not just capturing intent, but generating demand. Let's assume the starting point is that, as Aaron described it, I have a limited budget like. First of all, is there a minimum threshold? Like let, I'm just make up a number. Let's say I have a total marketing budget of $3 million to spend in digital advertising, and most of that's in Google today.
[00:24:53] Ray Mina: Maybe a little bit of meta, but it's mostly Google. Do I need to commit to a minimum amount for this to even work at all or does even a little bit moving out of the, if I don't get any more budget, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna take from that bottom the funnel budget of 3 million. I'm gonna put some into some longer term play that I hope is gonna show up at the bottom of the funnel by making it more effective.
[00:25:17] Ray Mina: Is there a minimum amount? Like is, am I wasting my time if I'm only gonna put 100k out of the 3 million? Like, I'm just curious if you have a view there.
[00:25:25] Craig Blake: Yeah, so what I would do is first we can't, and we've been doing this for decades in marketing, we can't treat every prospect the same. Right? So we gotta have the intelligent models built that help identify the cream of, of, of, of the milk, right?
[00:25:43] Craig Blake: So then we want to talk to that cream, the highest converting off audience, different than everybody else. So I would spend a little bit of money in the data analytics, understand the cream, and then market to that audience and invest extra dollars there because then you're doing a, a smart investment, not a, a cavalier one.
[00:26:03] Craig Blake: And, and we see this, you know, you, you've gotta have the paid search. That's your baseline foundation, then invest in direct mail. You know, there's a reason why siv, as a full service agency owns our own direct mail. We do half a billion pieces of mail a year. Mail's not dead. It's, it truly isn't. And so, but, but mailing to everybody the same way is, is not the way it was.
[00:26:26] Craig Blake: That was 20 years ago. It's identify that really good audience, that highest converting audience, and go after them hard. You know, a, a as a person that leads growth here. I'm not talk, I don't have time in my day to talk to every prospect. I go after the ones that have the highest likely to convert. We gotta think the same way as marketers, right? Think as a salesperson.
[00:26:46] Ray Mina: This is the disadvantage of Google, is that it's intent driven and the advantage of what you talked is I can create a target audience that I know is has the highest value. And I can develop strategies that go reach that market specifically. And in that case, I don't have to spray and pray.
[00:27:02] Ray Mina: I can be very, very, very targeted in that effort.
[00:27:05] Craig Blake: And Ray, I can take that same audience and take that online and talk to them online as well, and invest those additional digital dollars above and beyond Google. So get out of the search, get into perform. You know, digital and I can talk to them that way.
[00:27:19] Craig Blake: That's where we're seeing really strong value is when you're hitting them in the mailbox, you're hitting them on their cell phone, you're hitting them on their connected devices in their house. That's where it's really strong.
[00:27:30] Ray Mina: So Craig, you, you mentioned, 'cause you talked about direct mail as one of the potential ways to lift out of Google. And it's, it's, it's not like an experiment. You're, you're doing a big volume of, of direct mail for, for your cl your clients. Well you also mentioned you could reallocate some of that spend in digital outside of Google. Like where, where to start. Like where If I wanted to do it in a limited way, I can't spray and pray.
[00:27:52] Ray Mina: I've gotta like be targeted. Where do I start? What other, what other channels? And maybe talk to me about like what kind of campaigns I would do.
[00:28:01] Craig Blake: Yeah, so, you know, the options are literally endless. There's so many opportunities today. You know, we're, we're serving ads up in doctor's offices, on digital billboards.
[00:28:12] Craig Blake: We're serving 'em up in pharmacies, gas stations, you know, those little ads by the gas pumps. But that's all intent driven. It's all based on where we know that consumer we want to talk to is going to be. You know, streaming audio at buying ads there, you know, people are consuming a lot of media podcasts, right?
[00:28:29] Craig Blake: So that's another opportunity for budget. Of course, there's meta, right? We, we can't not mention meta, you got targeting on there, but, you know, there, there's restrictions. We gotta be thoughtful about how do we do that in a compliant way? And I know obviously, you know, in fresh paint, you guys are all about making sure that can happen.
[00:28:45] Craig Blake: But long as you're mindful of what can and can't be done, you know, you'll, you'll keep yourself in, in the right lane. So there, there's so many things. You know, there running things on P max, there's a lot of AI driven tools now, which helps you create creative in a more efficient way. So lots of options for people to invest their budget smartly.
[00:29:05] Craig Blake: But what I would always make sure is regardless of what the shiny penny is that you're gonna spend money on, make sure it's following, you know, the. The things we know and believe in that has made marketing work. Who's the audience? What's gonna get them to respond and, and making sure that there's an offer there that gets them interested, right.
[00:29:24] Ray Mina: The, the thing I'm curious about is that when I talk to marketing teams about this challenge, like lifting their head out of Google, and Craig, you've clearly been successful here, supporting your customers with direct mail and things that are not Google, they're spending money on something that's not Google and not paid search.
[00:29:40] Ray Mina: This is a hard conversation to have because. If they have to go to their leaders, their, their CFO, and they have to prove that this investment is delivering the desired outcome, which oftentimes is the enrollment or, you know, is the revenue at, at the bottom of this journey, what advice do you give them?
[00:29:58] Ray Mina: Like how, how do they get out of this paradigm of being stuck in last click attribution and how do they get to a world that they can prove that this other work is actually influencing results?
[00:30:09] Craig Blake: Yeah. Where, where I would recommend they do is, and you know, it, it's interesting when you take a look at healthcare globally, I think you see your, your hospital systems, your multi-location practices, they're the ones that are really hung up on the Google search, right?
[00:30:23] Craig Blake: On the Google. I think if you take a look at the Medicare Advantage, they have a more robust playbook of of other channels because they grew up on the direct mail side, right? So seniors, for years, all they would do is mailings. They, they brought digital in where you're, you take a multi-location, take an urgent care.
[00:30:41] Craig Blake: They've been Google first, so they, they've been hooked on the Google, right? So it's hard to get 'em off that. So I think it's just, what I would recommend is, hey, talk to a CEO, CMO in a healthcare adjacent space to see how they've positioned that. Because they all have CFOs, they all have boards, they all have investors.
[00:31:03] Craig Blake: How have you positioned that investment appropriately?
[00:31:08] Aaron Mauck: Well, I'd say you have to, in, in some circumstances, prepare for a crucial conversation on the underperformance of the existing, you know, sort of Google search approach, right? So you can show the data year over year and the challenges that we're kind of seeing in terms of conversion. But I love, I love what Craig has said, like, there, there's ways to show analogs, right?
[00:31:29] Aaron Mauck: So healthcare adjacent organizations. How they've approached it or even out of industry approaches that you're seeing that might be relevant and say, look, we're seeing a wholesale evolution in the way in which marketing is, is going in X industry. Right? And the reason why we're seeing it is because they're looking at Google search and they're seeing under performance right here, here.
[00:31:51] Aaron Mauck: And where is the investment going? The investment is going first into a smarter way of understanding your market and your consumer. That's wherever investments you go source better understanding. What your market is, who your consumer actually is, right? Making sure that you're getting banged for that.
[00:32:07] Aaron Mauck: Marketing dollar becomes the first and central focus. Then once you've made those investments, you're deliberately kind of rea reallocating dollars internally to having some kind of smarter approach to consumer itself. Then you know that every dollar going out the other end is going to be more effective because you're meeting those consumers only.
[00:32:25] Aaron Mauck: They actually, and to Craig's point, there are lots of then channels that are available. You, you need fewer dollars in some sets because those, each one of those dollars is far more effective because you've done your homework in the meantime to really understand your consumer and where they go on for guide.
[00:32:42] Ray Mina: I love that. 'cause a lot of people are in this world right now of like doing less with more, or at least being heavily scrutinized on the input and the output. And what you just described is like. A more surgical approach that may require less dollars, but you know, is maximizing output. That's a, that's a great formula for getting, you know, answering the question of how do I do, how do I do more with less?
[00:33:05] Craig Blake: Yeah. Ray, there's another thing here that, that's, I, I think, important. I was reading a research paper the other day from the Health Management Academy, and it was talking about the profile of a CMO at a health system, and there was a stat that jumped out at me, and this was 75% of CMOs. Come from another, or come from within the health system ecosphere.
[00:33:26] Craig Blake: So they've spent their whole career working at a health system. 50% of those have worked at the same health, health system their whole career. So I think there's an opportunity for collaboration with healthcare adjacent and other industries to help build a better mousetrap on how to approach this and how to get the buy-in from your senior leaders who, who ultimately control the budget.
[00:33:52] Ray Mina: I love that. I mean, some of the most innovative marketing I've seen in healthcare is from marketers who've come from the e-comm or direct to consumer world and, and brought some of those, you know, as we always say, they have to like learn how to do it in healthcare because of privacy concerns and disconnected, disconnected data sets and limited budgets.
[00:34:10] Ray Mina: Yeah. But they've brought a lot of creative knowhow and can do to, to a market. So I, I couldn't agree more about that. You know, my background is B2B SaaS, not healthcare marketing and not, not payer marketing. What I've noticed is like the amount of energy that goes into the active enrollment period for payers.
[00:34:27] Ray Mina: It's like all in, don't call us, don't talk to us, like stakes are super high. And then after that you can talk to us. But I think you both have said like Q1 is actually after active enrollment. This is a really critical moment for your marketing cycle. Can, can we talk, can we spend a few minutes to talk about that?
[00:34:46] Ray Mina: Maybe I'll start with you, Aaron, and get your take here.
[00:34:50] Aaron Mauck: So a AEP is the time to scramble, right? Q1 is the time to ponder in some sense, but what we should be the time to ponder. I think what we find often enough is the time to rest. You know, so often enough because the anyone period is, is so exhausting that when it comes time to really deliberately think about future strategy.
[00:35:13] Aaron Mauck: People are ready to tune out a little bit and you return to this call, the status quo, ante. People go back to the things they did last year because you know you are out of the cycle. And now now's the time. To kind of rest a little bit, I think the most successful plans are the ones are really on overdrive all the time, and thinking very deliberately about next year's annual enrollment period.
[00:35:39] Aaron Mauck: First thing afterward, you take your Christmas break or holiday break, and then you're kind of moving into really thinking deliberately about what the next year should entail and, and really thinking beyond the the period itself, right? So knowing that consumer journeys are different, focusing what's ahead of that enrollment period, thinking deliberately about trying to capture that consumer.
[00:36:04] Aaron Mauck: First thing and then keeping your existing enrollees happy are, are really sort of central to this. And, and obviously, you know, often enough marketing I think is separated out from, you know, member management issues. But really we're talking about one and the same in these, this is a service industry basically at this point.
[00:36:21] Aaron Mauck: Payers are, are much more a platform for supporting enrollees across their whole healthcare journey, not just their insurance coverage, but their care as well. And under those circumstances, having a non-integrated marketing function doesn't make any sense anymore. We don't, let's not set it and forget it the way it may have been 20 years ago.
[00:36:40] Aaron Mauck: Much more hands-on. And that means really getting out of that cyclical approach and, and having a different, more continuous approach to market.
[00:36:48] Ray Mina: This is such a trend, this blend of like used to be like marketing's job is, is acquisition. Like how, how can we just drive more enrollments? And so many CMOs now have the experience title as well because they recognize that like, I need to get into that life cycle beyond just getting the enrollment.
[00:37:09] Craig Blake: Well, 'cause it's changed. The market has changed, right? So if you think back several years ago, people with war, with plans for. Decades, right, that they would, they would be on the employer sponsored plan, and then they convert over to the Medicare plan. And as long as the drugs didn't change, or their doctors didn't drastically change, they kind of hung out and didn't really pay much attention to AEP.
[00:37:28] Craig Blake: You know, they went to their broker and they just signed the forms for the next year. Right? Well, with the disruption, we've seen the focus on a full lifecycle marketing of retention. Acquisition as one full holistic cycle is so critical. You know, one thing I'd challenge marketers to do CMOs that are paying attention and listening to this podcast is look at your year one retention because you, they all got a lot of new members and some they might not have wanted, but they're and 'em anyway because of market disruption.
[00:37:58] Craig Blake: But take a look at year one retention. That's really gonna be. How viable a plan is because the reality is, is some people went to you because they had no other choice and if you don't take care of them, they're gonna go somewhere else. 'cause we're now conditioned them to shop. The market disruption is conditioned, the consumer to shop.
[00:38:15] Ray Mina: That's a great, I was gonna ask you what, what's some sage advice to give people at the beginning of the year to give those marketing leaders and, and one thing you gave is look at year one retention and make sure that you're shoring that up because. If you're churning out a, you, you've got a really systemic problem.
[00:38:32] Ray Mina: If you're churning out a lot of those enrollees that you won this year, what's the other recommendation that we're gonna give CMOs to focus on in, in this first quarter? Like, what should they, what else should they get ahead of?
[00:38:44] Craig Blake: So this one hit me last night, so I get a newsletter every day that I read.
[00:38:48] Craig Blake: It's just kind of a summary of news. It's Mo News, if you ever heard of it. Great summary of all the daily events. The headline was about seniors in their use of AI, and I said, oh, I'm gonna use this tomorrow during the recording of this podcast, and I posted on LinkedIn today and 5% of global queries are healthcare based.
[00:39:08] Craig Blake: Right now, 5% of humans are going to their AI chat machines and asking healthcare questions. So the thing I would challenge every marketing leader in healthcare, whether you're at a health system, a multi-location, or at a health plan provider, a plan doesn't matter, is what is your strategy to make sure you're relevant and being noticed in part of that conversation.
[00:39:34] Craig Blake: 'cause the reality is consumers are going to AI because they're doing some diagnosing, right? They're comparing plans. Sometimes they're there because they can't get an appointment for six months. And they wanna know what's going on with that ink or pain. So there's a lot of focus and use of health consumers using AI for healthcare needs.
[00:39:55] Ray Mina: Maybe a good place to end is, is, is AI. Like, end of the decade. Some people, there's been a lot of, you know, white papers written about super intelligence and how disruptive that's gonna be. $0 creative, the end of websites, the end of the open internet. Like, as you start to think about, you know, some of these are extreme, some of these are probably very, very real by the end of the decade.
[00:40:22] Ray Mina: How does, how does payer marketing need to shift starting now to meet that moment that's coming? Or will it not? Will it just like, we'll wait till the wall hits us and then we'll react?
[00:40:33] Aaron Mauck: Well, we don't want it to wait, and I, I, I hope it is waiting. Right. And I, and, and you know, some payers with bigger budgets.
[00:40:41] Aaron Mauck: And of course there are some large commercial payers that are very far ahead at this point in terms of advancing AI and strategy internally and externally and internally. I mean, they're using AI tools to, to better identify consumers, track trends, create predictive analytics that actually are pretty applicable for those consumers and target your right consumer base for the right product, right?
[00:41:06] Aaron Mauck: All the things that we've kind of been talking about. At the same time as they're building digital twins, developing AI agents that are going to be very effective for consumer engagement to ensure that you have ongoing consumer support for existing enrollees or or prospective enrollees, and they're pretty far ahead and you expect them to kind of go fast.
[00:41:25] Aaron Mauck: And obviously this has gone much more quickly than I think most of us expected. Its growth is clearly exponential. It is not linear. So this is going to continue. One thing to say, though, to Craig's earlier point, I don't think any of this precludes traditional channels. So you're gonna get this strange, increasing bifurcation between things that feel more and more advanced and AI driven on one hand, and things that are still emphatically analog on the other hand, right?
[00:41:55] Aaron Mauck: We're still gonna mail out to folks. We're still gonna drive, indeed, bill, to see things through billboards or things like that. All those traditional channels are still gonna be in place even as AI becomes. Really central, I think to the, to marketing.
[00:42:08] Ray Mina: Craig, what's your two minute take here?
[00:42:11] Craig Blake: Yeah. AI's here, right?
[00:42:12] Craig Blake: It's not coming. It's not a new shiny penny. It, it is here. You know, back to that article I read that there's 1.9 million million queries a week are on healthcare. So if, if you don't think it's here, that that stat should shake you and wake you that it's here, make sure you're discoverable right. Make sure you're building content for the way consumers are absorbing it today, not for how they did it yesterday.
[00:42:35] Craig Blake: The reality is consumers are are consuming video, right? The second largest search engine is YouTube. Fun fact that's been around for a while, but we gotta remind ourselves of that, right? So, you know, just make sure you're in the game and make sure you have a strategy and, and I know that it's in the healthcare world, brings up concerns of compliance.
[00:43:00] Craig Blake: You know, it, it brings up lawyers and all that stuff that you're gonna have to make friends with those folks internally so you can have a team coordinated effort to approach these problems. 'cause AI is not just a marketing thing. It should be part of your, how are you surfacing customers? How are you meeting them on the journey?
[00:43:15] Craig Blake: How are you providing information back to them? How are you providing answers? If you have any, you know, chat bots and all that. There's so many opportunities to help level up because the reality is outside of healthcare, it's happening. Don't fall behind.
[00:43:32] Ray Mina: Well, this was an awesome conversation. We got through, we got through all of our technical difficulties and all in one call for three of us.
[00:43:39] Ray Mina: So thanks for, thanks for hanging in there.
[00:43:41] Producer: Today's episode is brought to you by Frespaint. 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.