Branding And Business Positioning In Healthcare With Susan Meier

Susan:

So while it feels like, especially if you’re a small business owner, it can feel terrifying the idea of turning down work. But you have to remember that the space that you create by not taking the wrong work is space that you open up for taking the right work. And that’s actually what’s going to make your business grow.

Sliman:

Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen to the Care Frontiers podcast, the show where we bring healthcare professionals to share with us their own experience running a successful medical business. Joining me today, the brand strategist and the founder of Susan Meire, healthcare branding studio, Susan Meire. Susan, welcome to our show.

Susan:

Hi, thank you.

Sliman:

Thanks for taking the time.

Susan:

Thanks for having me.

Sliman:

Susan, you occupy very special job title, and that is brand strategies. And as you know, when you’re working as a brand strategist, you get in charge of the logical side of the strategy and on the creative side of the strategy. Can you tell us a little bit about you and how you’re using these both skills to build authentic healthcare brands?

Susan:

Yeah, well, you really hit the nail on the head both about, you know, sort of what branding is, to me anyway, and what brand strategy is, and also, as it happens, what drew me into the discipline, so I’m a visual artist, but I also trained as a strategist. And I started my career in one of the big strategy firms Boston Consulting Group. So I have this kind of two sides to what interests me, that kind of analytical, logical thinking, as well as the visual piece. And so that’s what really led me into branding. And I believe very strongly that that’s what a good brand strategist does. And, you know, if you’re thinking about how to evolve your own brand strategy, as a, as an organization, it’s really important, I believe, to marry those two sides. I think a lot of times, companies, particularly small companies, with, you know, budget constraints, as we all have, are tempted to jump right into the visual expression, or the or the messaging, you know, hey, let’s design our logo, we need to get our website up.

Susan:

And those things are important. But taking just a little bit of time and resources to think through your strategic priorities. And why you want to say what you want to say, and kind of who you are, as an organization, what you bring uniquely to the table is so valuable, and it will save you the effort of having to go back and do that later.

Sliman:

Yeah, exactly. And you just touched on something I really want to dive deep into and that is, what is a brand exactly? Because there is this cloud of uncertainty when it comes to brand. When people hear brand or the word branding, they instantly think of visuals and aesthetics and pretty colors. And there’s not much awareness about the brand strategy. And what is branding. So how would you define branding?

Susan:

Yeah, it’s such a good question. So for me, a brand is actually a relationship. brand is the relationship between the organization that has the brand and their audience, and that may be multiple audiences. But when you think about the analogy that helps me is, you know, like on social media, right? A brand has an Instagram handle a brand has a Facebook page, just like an individual human being, that’s your friend. And so if you think about it from that perspective, why does that work? And why does that make sense? Because we’re actually kind of friends with the brands that we engage with, right? We have a relationship with them, they make us promise, they deliver on that promise, and we’re happy they don’t, we’re not. And maybe we end the relationship. So I always think of it from that perspective. And from that perspective, when you’re talking about the logos and the colors and stuff, that’s the brand identity, and that’s a really important part of the relationship because it’s how you communicate with the world and with your audience, but the experience is the other side of it. So the experience that your audience has with your offering, you know, like if you’re in a medical practice, What experience do they have with that every single thing from just to take that example from the moment they call to make an appointment? What is that interaction like when they walk into the waiting room or now days into the virtual waiting room. What is that experience? Like? How does the interaction go? What’s the tone and tenor? And, you know, how much time does the practitioner spend with them? You know, we’re in like a product based business, let’s say you have a medical device, every single thing about that, not just the user experience, like as we think of it from a programming perspective, like, what is the screen look like? And how do I navigate around it. But every single thing about that, I want to touch points, I think we call them and branding, typically, every single way that your product or service touches, the people who are using it is part of your brand experience.

Sliman:

That’s right, because branding is more just than a visual and you nailed it when you said it’s about relationship, because that’s the closest thing you can get to a definition of a brand. It just encompasses too much too, to limit it to something small as visuals, and they really like your definition. And what begs my question is that, as you know, healthcare is a complex and closely related industry, and you have a lot of experience working with medical professionals and health care providers. What would you say is the main difference between branding in healthcare and other, let’s say fast moving markets?

Susan:

Yeah. So I kind of so called grew up in consumer goods, which is typically the bread and butter when you think about the branding ecosystem. Most brand agencies serve, like you said, fast moving consumer goods. So I did a lot of health. Sorry, I did a lot of food and beverage, a little bit of personal care. those tend to be the organization the Pepsi’s and cokes and Unilever’s of the world, are the sophisticated brand marketers, they you know, talk about their their products, as brands, and boy did I learn a lot from from working in that world. But then when you jump over into healthcare, it’s really more and technology also, as well bears this, this footprint, where your products are being developed by scientists, right, who are coming up with breakthroughs, or being delivered by physicians or you know, practitioners who, you know, are also scientists, right? Like they went to medical school. And they’re thinking of what they do in the world from very different perspective. You know, they’re there to help people. They are excited about breakthrough technologies. And they’re not thinking about things through a marketing lens. And so and as you mentioned, it’s a very complicated ecosystem, which is, you know, whoever you are playing within the world of healthcare, you’re thinking not just about the kind of company customer relationship, but then there’s the insurance providers and regulatory right. And so all of that is really what got me excited about working in healthcare, it was, for me, the next level of, you know, how can I do something that’s even more challenging and engaging, and that has this really positive impact on the world, you know, moving on from marketing cereal, or marketing soda, too, and taking the learnings in the great sort of creative discipline from that sphere, and applying it to the healthcare sphere.

Susan:

So a lot of the work that I find I do with my healthcare clients, is helping them think like consumer marketers, and interpret that kind of consumer marketing discipline, in a way that’s relevant for their world. So you know, as an example, you know, if you’ve created a digital technology in the healthcare sphere, you’re pretty excited about that technology. A large part of your organization are, you know, the engineers and tech folks who develop that technology. And you’re typically a product driven organization. Same thing, if you’re a biotech company, right? you’ve discovered a molecule or, you know, you have this groundbreaking therapy. And so your organization is really based around the scientists. And so helping them see that when they communicate with the public, they still need to communicate in exactly the same way that you know, a serial brand does, they still need to speak in a language that those people understand? They still need to craft a message that’s clear and consistent and differentiated from the other folks in their world. And that’s a really big mind shift. Typically, for those healthcare brands.

Sliman:

Yeah and I really like one article you wrote, and that is about choosing empathy. And in it, you actually talked about this exact same concept that you have to put yourself in Choose of your customers, and how disregarding the your audience’s feelings might lead to misalignment in your company’s communication. Can you tell us how healthcare businesses can convey their messaging more effectively, and avoid such conundrums?

Susan:

Yeah, I mean, and by the way, I think it’s not just the messaging is the overall experience, right, like by call my doctorate, so I may have a doctor just to take one example. And this is probably an example. That’s from my personal experience, and maybe a lot of hours, I have a doctor who I love, right, like who, when I actually get into her office, she’s amazing, she’s empathetic, she’s warm, she’s smart, she’s provided me with good care. But when I call her office, perhaps I can’t get anyone on the phone, or I’m on hold for a long time. Or maybe they’re just not very nice and friendly when they talk to me. Or maybe when I go in for a visit, I wait forever and ever in the waiting room. Or maybe afterwards, I have trouble accessing my medical records, or, you know, I have to call and call and call to get the test results. All of those things are part of the experience that as as a doctor, I might not even really think about or might not even realize how important those things are. So yeah, it’s the entire experience.

Sliman:

So it’s more of a holistic approach you’re taking?

Susan:

yeah, and to really think and end about what that experience is, is what the empathy is all about, you know, putting yourself in the shoes. What is that person who’s interacting with my product, really, really going through from the very beginning of their process, where they’re searching for me to when they’re trying to get in touch with me to when they’re interacting with me directly to then the follow up, and afterwards, the whole thing? And I often have my clients early on, in our process, do customer journey, like any, excuse me an experience walkthrough? So I’ll have them map out? What do you think that customer journey looks like? Just so everybody has in their heads? Like what is that end to end experience, and they’re usually pretty surprised about how long that journey is, because they’re typically focusing on, you know, the moment they open the app and use it or whatever.

Susan:

But the journey is much longer than that. And then another really, really critical part is actually getting out and speaking to the users of the product. So you know, let’s say it’s a healthcare app, I’m talking to the people who are using it, it doesn’t have to be a huge number of them, you know, 10 or 15, people, you can get a pretty good idea of, especially if you are thoughtful about getting a range of folks, different ages, different genders, different needs states. What What do they set out, have them talk about what their experiences hear directly from their mouths, and they’re always insights that none of us thought of going in, you know, what’s important to them turns out to not be what the company thought was the most important thing, or they’re struggling with this thing that nobody anticipated they were struggling with. So I think, you know, those are the two parts, like, form a hypothesis internally, and and look really carefully about what you know about your organization. And it may surprise you, when you look carefully, and then actually go out and listen, you know, to your to your constituents and hear what they have to say about your experience.

Sliman:

That’s really interesting approach. And can you walk us through what you do after you gathered, let’s say, some of the insights from this journey mapping approach you’re taking and other research you do? How do you convert the insights you get from this kind of initiatives and turn it into a palpable strategy?

Susan:

Yeah, so we have those two streams usually going simultaneously. The one is that internal reflection piece, and the second is that external listening piece. And at, at a certain point, when you gathered enough insights from both of those things, then you have that big sort of team meeting where you put all of it together. And you know, the in the olden days, it used to be the walls were and hopefully in the future was covered in post it notes. But now we’re using other tools like mural or Miro to do similar things online. But but but the idea is, you’ve got, you know, the insights from customers. So what are the most important attributes? What are their unmet needs, things like that, map out all of those things. And then looking inside the organization, what are we really good at? What are the initiatives that we’re undertaking Right now to be better, that are relevant to our customers, what are our values? What are our, you know, what are our strategic priorities? Right, which may not be showing up today. But we know that that’s where we want to go tomorrow. And then we start bucketing them into themes. And quickly, those will well quickly, after several hours, you start to go through, you know, I have a set of exercises I take the team through, and then it starts to be a, okay, what are some of the themes that came out here, and those start to become the brand pillars, if you will. So, okay, we’re going to follow this thread about around being more efficient, or we’re going to follow this thread about being, you know, the Kinder and more caring company. And so then you start to develop a brand personality, and then action items underneath that brand personality, how we’re going to deliver on these things that we say are the cornerstones of our brand.

Sliman:

While we’re on the subject on the branding processes and your approach to conducting a brand strategy, I want to transition a little bit more towards differentiation and positioning side of things. Can you explain a little bit to the listeners about positioning and how it works? and how it can benefit healthcare professionals?

Susan:

Yeah, I mean, I think the answer, Well, the answer is the same. No matter who you are, I think some folks who are listening probably have a really good handle on this in our business school types. And, you know, differentiation from your competition to sort of business 101, right, like you want to, why should somebody choose you? Well, you have to be clear about how you have to actually be different. And then you have to make it clear to others how you’re different. But there may also be folks who are listening who aren’t business types, and they’re like, you know, I’m just really good at what I do. But what I do is not a business, I’m not a business person, I’m not a marketer. So, you know, for that crew, I’ll just say that this is the cornerstone of any strategy, right? That that you need to think from that perspective of, why would somebody choose you versus other people. And that can be a number, it should be a number of different things. But you know, you want to look at like, the actual service you provide, or the product that you have, and how is that different, but also look at, you know, in branding, we call it reasons to believe or proof points. So that could be you know, that could be your education, that could be some certifications that you have, or set of experiences that you have. And then it can also be, you know, personal attributes like the the personality that you come with, or just, you know, something that you’re going to connect with your audience on. That’s a little bit more emotional and less tangible.

Sliman:

Yeah. Susan, can you give us some of the examples of how branding has helped one of your clients achieve great success in their business, sort of like a mini case study?

Susan:

Sure. So I do a lot of work in the digital health health space. And one of the clients I’ve worked with for many years in that space, they. So their business model, or one of their business models, their primary business model is that they offer a news feed to doctors, where doctors can come and get information about what’s going on, in general, and then specifically about therapies. And inside of that newsfeed, there are opportunities for pharma companies for brands to place their messaging. And so the technology that, you know, they’re very technology driven company, it’s, uh, you know, was groundbreaking technology several years ago. Now, there’s a bunch of people playing in that space. But they still, you know, they’re wired from that technology perspective. So kind of going back to what I was saying before about, sometimes you’re very focused on kind of what you’re passionate about, and what you’re good at, right? They’re really passionate about and good at technology, they’ve built this amazing platform that has a lot of bells and whistles that their competitors don’t have. And they’ve also grown really rapidly as a company. And so they were telling that story to these from a brand marketers. And when I went out and talked to the brand marketers, they said, Listen, we love you guys, you know, no, no problem with that story. We’re really happy for your success. And you know, it is really cool, what you’ve built, but what we actually need to hear about is, what’s in it for us and what benefits we get out of it. So can you tell more of the story about you know, how many physicians are we reaching, how frequently are they coming to your site, and and what kind of engagement levels can We get from them for our brand. And that was a real shift in the thinking, from talking about how cool the product was, and how fast the company was growing, to talking about the things that customers really, really were caring about.

Sliman:

That’s really eye opening, Susan, having now, I believe, more than 20 years, in the branding space and the digital marketing space, what’s the advice you’d give to medical professionals or healthcare executives, if they want to start develop their own brand?

Susan:

Yeah, I think start with those two simple things. One is really mindful reflection on who you are as an organization or as a provider. What do you like doing? What are you good at, ask some people around you how they see you, you might be surprised, it might not be the same things that that you think. And so do that, like internal journey? And then externally thinking about, you know, who are the people that you’re serving? And please don’t say everyone, because it’s a temptation for all of us to say, everyone, so try to narrow down to like, you know, what, I’m really good with older people, or, you know, I work, you know, I work primarily with, you know, people who have rare diseases, or, you know, like, what is your not specialty in the sense of medical specialty, but what is it that you know, you are, you know, you might say I am a really efficient person, I run on time, and that’s just something I bring to the table that’s maybe a little different than others. Or you can say, like, I’m not so good at that. But I am, like, really warm and caring, I actually want to spend, I go over, but I spend a lot of time with my patients. And that’s what I want to be known for. I actually had a doctor say to me who by the way, I loved, say, like, here’s what you’re gonna get if you work with me, because I was evaluating a couple different doctors. She said, you’re gonna wait forever in my waiting room, I’m just telling you that upfront, because here’s why. Because I really, I ran through. And I chose her by the way, she was like, but I want to really engage with each of my patients. And I’m not really allowed to do that, kind of under this model, where I was supposed to spend 15 minutes with you.

Susan:

So I just checked that model out the door, I still have to book people on a 15 minute basis, but I just don’t spend I spend more time with them, I spend as much time as needed. And so you’re gonna have access to me, as long as you want it, answer your questions, have a dialogue, I’m going to be totally focused on you until you’re done. What that means is, I’m going to be running an hour or two behind all day long. If you’re up for that, I’m your doctor, if you’re not, I’m not. And I thought that was so smart. You know, like she really knew herself, she was clear about what she brought to the table and what she didn’t. And then you know, and by the way, that’s also a very important part of branding, you’re not for everyone. And so part of you’re just as important a part of your messaging, as saying, you know, hey, look at me, you want to work with me is also saying you may not want to work with me. And so don’t sign up for this, if this is not what you’re into. And you don’t want to waste your time with people who are going to be not comfortable with your service. Right. So I think that’s a really great example of, you know, self knowledge, self awareness, this is who I am. And this is who I’m not, and good communication of like I i understand that some people will want that and others won’t. And so I want to let you know, upfront. Yeah, I think that’s those are the two parts. It’s not rocket science. It’s really just looking in and looking at putting the two pieces together.

Sliman:

That’s a really great example. If I may have your permission, I’ll be using that example to share with my clients. Because one of the things that I noticed is that when you start focusing on narrowing down the brand, people think it’s limiting. it might limit their profit margin and the people they would work with, but in fact, it provides clarity and focus to the brand which may position it as a leader and a premium service or product.

Susan:

The future is niche. Somebody said to me the other day and it’s true. I mean, exactly. And but also, it’s just a logical thing, but it’s it on the surface of it. It seems very illogical, right? Like you want to be as big as possible as open as possible. But I know like in my own business, it took me a long time to actually put a stake in the ground and say I do health care because I was worried that it would you know limit like well, you know, still sometimes people come to me with consumer products. You know, every so often there’s one that’s really interesting, like it’s a wellness brand or whatever. And the truth is, it doesn’t actually, in my experience, it has not actually limited those people from reaching out to me. And, you know, it does a couple that one is it helps people find you better when you’re specific about what you do. You know, somebody remembers that I’m a brand strategist, like, that’s fine. But the word brand and the word strategy are both kind of squishy words, and most people don’t even even people who do brand strategy. Don’t know really exactly what it is. But when I say I work in healthcare, then people will go, Oh, I have a friend who needs help who works in health care, I’m going to send them to you. So the that like helping people remember you. And, you know, it is less of a pigeonholing than it is a helpful moniker. And then also, and again, on this one, from my experience, sometimes when you try to do work that isn’t exactly in your wheelhouse, either from a capability perspective, or an interest perspective, it turns out not to be good for anyone, you don’t enjoy the work. Maybe you don’t deliver the best product because you don’t enjoy the work, you don’t have the right experience. And then they’re not quite satisfied. And it’s just a waste of everybody’s time. And so while it feels like especially if you’re a small business owner, it can feel terrifying, the idea of turning down work, you have to remember that the space that you create by not taking the wrong work is space that you open up for taking the right work. And that’s actually what’s gonna make your business grow.

Sliman:

Yeah, exactly. Because speaking of this kind of positioning, narrowing down and niching down, I actually read the book by Blair Enns. In his book, The Manifesto, he calls positioning and narrowing down, The Difficult Business Decision because it’s really difficult to focus your brand. But once you do it, it’s such a rewarding decision. So yeah, thank you so much, Susan, for taking the time. It’s been a pleasure having you here. if you are listening right now and you want to reach Susan, you can contact her in LinkedIn at @susanhamiltonmeier, that is @susanhamiltonmeier, all of her links are in the show notes. And Susan, if you have anything you want to direct the listeners to where else except LinkedIn, they can reach you?

Susan:

Sure. My website is www.susanmeierstudio.com. And Meier , by the way is m e i e r, which is a very typical Swiss spelling, but a very atypical American spelling, so I have to spell it. And my Twitter is Susan H. Meier. So all of those places are good resources. And I’m always happy to answer questions, you can schedule a 15 minute chat with me for free. And also on my website, I have some downloadables. I’ve created a series of workbook exercises. For those who might want to try to do this on a budget on their own, you know, do it yourself. I’ve captured the methodology that I use with larger clients in a way that is shareable for you if you are, you know, a small business owner and just trying to dip a toe in the water of branding. And I have also like office hours, people want just a little bit of my time to help them through that. That’s all on my website.

Sliman:

Again, all of the links are in the show notes. Susan, thank you so much again.

Susan:

Absolutely. Thank you. This was a great conversation. Thanks for having me.

Sliman:

All right, ladies and gentlemen, that was a Susan Meier.