No CRM? Here’s How to Prove Marketing Impact

February 20, 2017

// By Marlene Kurban //

Nationwide Children's

If your CEO walked up to you in the hallway at your hospital next week and asked you what return on investment your hospital is getting for your marketing efforts, could you accurately answer the question?  “Four years ago we could not answer that question. Today we can,” says Alicia Shoemaker, senior account manager at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. This year the marketing team achieved an 85 percent return on investment, with the goal of 100 percent ROI in 2018.

Making the business case for investment in infrastructure, support services, and especially a CRM system can be tough in pediatric hospitals. “You’re marketing to the parents, not the patients,” explains Shoemaker. “The people you’re marketing to aren’t necessarily the people in your database. And predictive modeling is not currently readily available in the pediatric market.”

Alicia Shoemaker, senior account manager at Nationwide Children’s Hospital

Alicia Shoemaker, senior account manager at Nationwide Children’s Hospital

The need for measurement to justify healthcare marketing expenditures has never been greater, but without the right tools, it’s a challenge. So how do you make your case to leadership? Nationwide Children’s Hospital’s presentation, “No CRM? Here’s How to Prove Marketing Impact,” delivered at the SHSMD Connections 2016 conference, outlines its multi-year plan to prove that marketing has had a tangible impact. That’s not easy when your organization already has a 96 percent inpatient market share.

How did Nationwide’s marketing team capture data at the front end that tied to downstream revenue—$15.4 million in gross revenue to be exact? How did it use insights gained to optimize campaigns? In this article, we’ll look at highlights of Nationwide’s methodology, and share a case study illustrating its approach in action.


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