VCU Health Lays Down a Solid Foundation to Take Digital Marketing Campaigns In-House

// By Jane Weber Brubaker // 

When you’re ready to manage your digital campaigns internally, finding the right partner is key.

Small marketing teams often lean on third-party providers to run their marketing campaigns. As these teams develop skills in digital marketing, they gain the confidence to staff up and bring campaign management in-house.

Jennifer Vazales, director of digital marketing and engagement at VCU Health

By 2020, VCU Health’s digital marketing and engagement team had grown to eight and it was the right time to make the shift to managing campaigns internally for the enterprise. “We oversee the digital marketing operations for the entire health system, providing governance for other teams that might be doing some digital marketing work,” says Jennifer Vazales, VCU Health’s director of digital marketing and engagement.

The health system had been using Salesforce CRM for four years by the time the decision was made to manage CRM initiatives internally. “Salesforce now requires an implementation partner,” says Beth Cronin, digital marketing manager. “Jennifer and the team looked at a number of vendors and chose Cured. We partnered very closely with them on implementing our Salesforce instance.”

Cronin comments, “They’ve definitely encouraged us to become more self sufficient, so this is a journey we’re taking together as we are learning more about how to own and use the system. They’re really our partners in helping guide us on that.”

Beth Cronin, digital marketing manager at VCU Health

VCU Health recently implemented Epic as its EMR, and this was another reason the digital team chose to partner with Cured. Andrew Sawyer, CEO of Cured, and his cofounders all came from Epic. The focus at VCU Health today is mainly on generating leads and converting them to patients, as well as engaging current patients. Once the organization has completed the Epic installation, the plan is to leverage the EMR and the CRM to engage current patients as well.

“We have seen VCU advance significantly in their digital marketing initiatives, ultimately creating better outcomes for their patients and driving revenue to the health system,” says Carolyn Williams, vice president of customer delivery at Cured.

The digital marketing team is just scratching the surface of what’s possible and has already chalked up some wins, attracting broader attention within the organization.

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