Data Analytics Drive Marketing Success – Usage Is Not Just for the Big Boys

by Mark S. Gothberg

“There is no industry more likely to be affected by analytics in the next five to 10 years than healthcare,” wrote Jeanne Harris, co-author of the seminal book, Competing on Analytics. Kevin Fickenscher, MD, president and CEO of the American Medical Informatics Association, said in the June 17, 2013 issue of Modern Healthcare, “The healthcare organizations that make the invest­ments in analytics are going to be the ones [that] end up the winners.” And IBM’s CMO Study in 2012 stated that more than 80 percent of marketers plan to use analytical tools over the next five years.

Everyone has heard that “big data” is here. But what exactly is market­ing analytics? asks Theresa Komitas, director of marketing and public relations at KishHealth System, an integrated system with two commu­nity hospitals in northern Illinois. “Marketing analytics closes the loop by combining multiple information sets that allow you to target, market, and measure with precision,” Komitas says. It makes use of in­ternal information (clinical, financial, and marketing) and external infor­mation (consumer demographic and psychographic data, competitive market intelligence, and market research).

“The important thing is that you don’t have to have a large scale to use these tools,” stresses Komitas.

KishHealth began using marketing analytics about two-and-a-half years ago but accelerated its use in 2013. Komitas and Jason Skinner, chief marketing officer at True North Custom, discussed marketing analytics and the experience of KishHealth in a presentation at the Seventeenth Annual Healthcare Internet Conference in November.

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