Welcome to the art of marketing operations, a tailor podcast. Here you can
grow your knowledge about marketing operations, listen to ideas and strategies to help you
scale, grow and optimize your efficiency, drive your speed to market and enrich
your work life. Let's get to it. Welcome to the art of marketing
operations, a tailor podcast. I'm Glen bottomly, and today my guest is
Francisco Gunzaba, also known as Paco, who is the executive director of business
operations for Gonzaba Medical Group, a healthcare organization focused on the transformation to value
based healthcare that is physician led and focused on the needs and experiences of patients
and communities. Thanks for joining me today, Paco. Thanks, glent,
for having me. This is a pleasure. I'm really looking forward to the
discussion today, me too. Well, to get US started, let's first
review how you originally got into marketing operations. Well, and I mean clearly,
there's some proven success there. I think that's wonderful. And how,
you know, starting in it, but then moving all the way through the
adding the different responsibilities in marketing and now marketing operations, all those and so
I know that you you know strongly believe that, you know, marketing really
is the engine that is helping to drive your current growth. So can you
talk a bit more about how you've brought your organization forward into using and leveraging
more modern marketing techniques? Sure, absolutely. You know, it's interesting,
you know, in the business world, you know typically, even even here,
you know, at our prey, at the practice here, I think
marketing gets maybe a bad rap. You know, it might be considered a
department that is, you know, going to do a few social media posts
or make something pretty. And you know there is some of that right,
there's obviously there's an esthetic component, but we certainly do that also. But
ultimately it's a more than a tool, but it's something that really drives revenue
for the organization, for a lot of business. Is, quite frankly,
an Indian in any industry and you know, you have the right right side
of the brain, you have the left side of the brain, right and
and really what I needed to bring to this team, because there was already
some talented individuals, was to bring some logic as far as systems and processes
and some structure. Really we didn't really have much of a marketing department it
was really one event coordinator and a couple of field marketers that actually belonged to
the clinical operations team. It didn't really make a whole lot of sense and,
as you know, marketing is an art and a science and I had
to bring something to the table to create a structure really from the ground up,
and that's that's really where it started and with the structure that now we
have a team of about twenty five individuals, all specialized sub teams, working
together collaboratively to to hit marketing growth targets, which is essentially adding new patients
to the group. But with that structure comes the need to track everything that
we're doing. We do a lot of variety of tactics and in the past
we would. We would do these tactics like a lot of grass roots,
specifically our community, heavily Hispanic. One of our strong, try and trude
tactics is grassroots activities, events right in the community, maybe doc talks,
we take a position out there, we drop a mailer, we might even
do it an email blast to a specific area and we get that type of
activity and we get word of mouth and that typically has been very strong for
us. But we never had the ability to really measure it. So with
the structure that I brought I also introduce sales force to the team and many
of your audience members, I'm sure, are familiar with that. But really
it's been, it had to be, highly customized for our need. So
when you think of you know, we have an event and we hope people
show up and they talk about us and then they call us at a later
date to hopefully book an appointment, there's no way to really track the effectiveness
of that event, right, or that tactic. And now, with implementation
of sales force, we are we have the ability to track all attendees that
come to we have about fifty events a quarter right, and that's just with
our events team. We also have a lot of other activities in the community
and and sem strategies. It's exciting, but if you can imagine, you
know we would have these events, had no idea how many attendees came.
We were just hoping that we grew and were growing and now we can track
how many, how many attended, how many were qualified, how many were
unqualified, how many were existing patients? Right, which helps with retention strategies.
And then with that right, with now that we can measure this,
and I'm doing very high level. It's you have even it gets further stratified,
you know, with the details. But now that we have like an
idea of who attends, how was able to add a telesales team. So
now we're proactively calling these attendees, with those that qualified, that are qualified,
creating appointments to then serve up to a different team to go meet this.
HITES use the word target, but let's just say target for for for
you, gland and for you, for your audience, and will will create
an appointment with a separate team. And then, I mean it's been it's
been a game changer, right. So now we have the word of mouth,
but we also have the follow up strategy and really that's been, you
know, it's been terrific, and that's been in place since two thousand and
nineteen and it's it's pretty much perfected. But every year it gets a little
bit better, right, because now we're doing we're using an automated, doubt,
automatic dialer from contact center software and we're using high velocity sales. It's
a it's a part of sales force that helps you serve up your opportunities and
your tears. We have fourteen different tiers. For example, if we have
a patient that went to one of our events but there were a former patient
but left us, that's a number. That's a number one. You know,
we got a that's a number one high priority, because the idea that
there they left us but they're still showing up to one of our, you
know, events in the community. They're probably on the fence and considering returning
right. So we have all these protocols for follow up and it's been a
big success thus far. That's just something that's just some some of the the
stuff that's that has come with the evolution of the team that we have today.
Well, that's it's really a powerful testimony to the work that you and
the the entire group has been doing to really bring healthcare directly to the local
communities and what a personal and impactful way of making it real, building trust,
to building relationships. I think that's outstanding. And so a question then
would be so obviously you know all of these these these pieces you're in.
You're just clearly, clearly in full growth mode. Everything is moving. So
what have you found sort of in this process over these last you know,
several years. What have you found to be the sort of the biggest challenge
that's inhibiting growth for you? Sure that's a that's a great question. The
healthcare industry is it's you know, there's a lot of activity right now in
healthcare and we have a lot of new entrants coming into our market. So
well, let me say there's a couple of of, you know, obvious
ones. Obviously, if there's another pandemic, that would be a big concern,
right. So, with regard to the new entrance coming into the market,
I'm going to back back up a little bit and just kind of share
the the type of healthcare that Gonzaba Medical Group provides is the value based care.
And and I know you mentioned that earlier, but in the healthcare in
the grand scheme of the healthcare industry, it really is something that is new.
It's no longer a trend for value based value based CARE is no longer
a trend because the the whole you know, especially in the US, healthcare
in general, is steeped in what what we call a volume based or the
more patients you see, the more dollars you make, right and and that
that is essentially different than providing quality and getting paid or bringing in revenue based
on the quality of care given. And that's that's the type of care that
that we do. It's another term for it is population health. You know,
we have a group of patients and our our our group of these patients.
They're sixty five plus Medicare advantage patients that have to qualify right, and
and we're essentially caring for the group as a whole and we get, I
don't want to say a stipend, but we get a dollar per member per
month, the dollar figure, and we have to take care of these patients
and if we do poorly, we pay out of our own pocket. If
we go over that up that allowance, right, but if we do well,
we get to keep the savings and we write. So it's been such
a it's a it's a great opportunity and we're doing really well with it.
There for other entrants are coming into our market and looking to do the same.
So certainly that is that is a threat when you consider, you know,
when we're looking at you know, when we do a Swat analysis and
you entrance in the market, that's a that's a big one, because they're
also trying to deliver the same care that that we do, and they can,
essentially on the surface, but do they have that that that infrastructure and
place to be successful at it? You know, you have a lot of
these groups coming in there there backed by private equity, deep pockets, and
we're we're privately owned, you know, independent medical practice that is done very
well, but we don't we're not a large entity backed by, you know,
by other, you know, corporate interests in difference from different states,
you know. So that also helps us because when you consider another group coming
into our market, that that points to all the the importance of having a
culture, and the culture that we have here it's unique to the demographic,
that to the demographic that we're trying to add as patients. You know,
Hispanic, you know warm our tag line is more than a tag line,
it's really how we treat one another and our patients go more familia and something
like that. The patients feel. Yes, we have strong on brand equity,
but but we also appeal in such a way to the to the demographic
here, that it's easy to market. Let me say, you know,
I try to optimize all our strategies and bringing as many as possible right.
But you know it doesn't work if you have a bad product. But the
product that we have here it's fantastic and others are trying to replicate it in
their own way and they're coming into our market, but we're still growing at
such a tremendous rate that I you know, I'm just lucky to be a
part of it well. And I think what's interesting about what you said was
that you know there's a specific type of patient, the Medicare advantage patient that
you had mentioned, that you're trying to attract. So for those in our
audience who are not working in healthcare, obviously they would look at this as
their customer as opposed to patient per se. But regardless of you know whether
it's patient or customer, what advice can you give in terms of how to
target specific buyers in crowded and, as you've described here, very highly competitive
markets? Sure that's a great question, right and it's there's going to be
some common principles that everyone can use, but everyone's market is different. Obviously
starts with knowing your target demographic. I mean you have to know what appeals
to them, what appeals to their so for us, our target demo is
sixty five plus seniors. We see other patients also, but the sixty five
plus really brings in the majority of revenue for us. So that's what we
that's what we target and that's what we do really well here and as far
as delivering care. But we also have to appeal to their care takers.
So that's something you know, you have to understand the influencers for the target
because you know they can hold a lot of weight with their input and their
guidance. oftentimes we have the care takers bringing their their loved one, their
mother, their father, into the office for further doctor's appointment, right.
And so we you can't lose sight just on what is the target demo.
It's also the decision makers that impact that target demo and also how they what
appeals to them. So sixty five plus, they may not be as Internet
savvy as someone who's, you know, fifty, thirty five, you know,
so you also have to know what appeals to them. And regarding you
know, is it print ads? Are we going to, you know,
get go after paper? Click campaigns? Is it? You know, and
really for us, you know, for it's been most successful for the grass
roots kind of strategies mixed with branding out of home billboards, you know,
just to kind of make sure that our brand is felt throughout the city billboards
and key areas and, of course, our commercials, and you know that
that's big for us. But really knowing, knowing your target demo, knowing
what appeals to them, knowing how they consume their news were or there,
how they would even encounter your brand. Is it in the car? Is
it reading the newspaper? Is it, you know, commercials? Do you
have to take more aggressive approach and do outbound call campaigns right, because you
just want to target a wider, larger amount and you just want to,
you know, kind of push through them. You know, for us,
you know, with healthcare at such a sensitive product that that we're trying to
connect with our we're trying to bring in our patients with this, with with
the ideal healthcare for them. It's such a personalized situation that that you can't
we have to be warm with it and we have to be considered and we
know it's a big it's a big deal. I mean we're talking about healthcare,
whether they're going to, you know, live for another, you know,
thirty years or they have chronic conditions and they're, you know, obese
or diabetic and they could die soon, you know, potentially. So it's
a very sensitive thing. So just having the compassion also for for your target,
I think it can give you insight on how best to approach them.
Well, in everything that you're saying here too, is so what's so powerful
here is it's exactly you're looking them. You're looking at your customer not just
as a patient or a patient number, but as a person. You know,
they they have lives, they have families, etc. And so,
just as you were saying about how in important it is that you're bringing healthcare
to them in the community way you were describing this is you're also bringing the
brand to them and you know directly to them whether it is, you know,
how are they going to, you know, interface or interact with the
brand? Is it on a billboard? Is It on a magazine? Is
it a print ad or is it digital? Which which way you going?
So I love the fact that how you're both approaching bringing healthcare into the community
as well as how you're bringing the brand to your patients as well. Thank
you. Yeah, it's it's great to be a part of you know,
I really enjoy doing what I'm what I'm doing and of course I'm over other
departments as well, but marketing really is key because it's, you're right,
where where the front facing team to the community that may not be familiar with
us. So taking the brand to them and trying to share with them our
differentiator and why they should join us. Sure, and now when you're talking
about those other departments. So let's actually shift a bit here then. So
when we talk about centralized marketing, corporate, let's say, versus a decentralized
marketing, I know you had mentioned there's a sort of a large field marketing
group as well. So in your career, what have you found to be
sort of the most effective mix between the centralized marketing in decentralized marketing and and
how have you found the best ways to ensure that those two functions are optimize
to sort of maximize revenue? Well, it's in it's an interesting question because
we have, we're a bit of both right. We have the centralized part
of it is essentially driving a lot of the strategy. It's has a lot
to do with, you know, adjusting our brand messaging. You know,
whenever we do that year after year we adjusted ever so slightly just to keep
it fresh, to evolve it. But with the field marketing it's a different
type of mindset. It's more of a bed to be mindset. But we're
not interacting necessarily with another business. It might, it might, you know,
provide some context if I explain a little bit with the field marketing team
does for us, you know, in order to it's interesting. It's an
interesting component when you think about at a growing or adding patients to your your
business or to your healthcare group, because it is marketing, yes, and
bringing them in and your reputation. But there's also a key process. To
get them to join our group. They have to be eligible for a Medicare
advantage plan, right. That's one. So if they are eligible, they
have to sign up for that plan and we don't. We can't sign people
up. That's where where we provide services healthcare. You can't mix both.
So what who signs up a patient for a insurance plan? It's a health
insurance broker, right. So the field team, what they do is they
build relations and ships with health insurance brokers in the community so that whenever the
broker and counters a potential client, we are top of mind as a medical
group so that, you know what they're going to know that, while you
know Gonzaba Medical Group, they have urgent care, they have a full imaging
suite, they have physical therapy, they have specialty care. They're going to
know that and they're going to share that, that story essentially to their client
and the client ideally would then say well, that's the place for me right.
So the field team really is a relationship building team so that the health
insurance brokers in the community really know, are familiar with our differentiator and all
our different services. We even have developed like a directory book where we have
all our services, all our physicians, and we give it out to all
the health insurance brokers in the community. And what that does is it is
it helps. It's another channel to help grow because honestly, you know,
we depend heavily on those relationships because you know, if all the marketing that
we do, we can't sign up patients. So we depend heavily on them.
Right in. Another another thing that really benefits is these health insurance agents.
They if their client is happy wherever they're placed, it's a they have
to do less customer service for their client because their client is happy, but
if they're unhappy, they have to oftentimes work with their client to to melsewhere
and that's just more work for them. So they really like working with us
because of our the field marketing component is a link for the health insurance agent
to to the medical to the medical side. Like, if their client has
a problem getting an appointment, they're going to reach out to the field team,
we're going to reach out to our clinical team and we're going to try
to get them in say look, we're we run a risk losing these patients
over here because of x, Y or Z. that's the link to help,
you know, optimize their patient experience so that we can retain them and
ultimately, if we retain them, their their health insurance brokers also happy with
that arrangement. Yeah, they're happy to and so and so with the with
the the the decentralized marketing of the field marketing team. We talked about that.
Have you found that social media has been helpful with your marketing strategy and
marketing operations function as well? So actually, the tail end of last year
we really focused towards the end of the year. It's called annual open enrollment.
It's the last quarter of every year and that's a time where patients or
people can change their their plan. If they don't like plan a, they
can go with plan B. It's a time of year where they can.
So that's a big growth opportunity for us because ideally we would want to capture
a larger share than our competitors of patients wanting to try a different plan,
maybe try different medical group and then. So that's a big time for us.
So we tried for the first time significant campaign at seem campaign and we've
tried it in the past, but we didn't have the proper processes to really
measure its effectiveness. You know, we had essentially a big call center that
would call in, but we get about four thousand calls anyways from patients wanting
to reschedule, wanting to book appointments. So we couldn't identify or we couldn't
we couldn't quantify how effective those campaigns were. But we got better with our
ability to track send tracking. It's a tracking number, right, for you
went to a landing page and then they called and then went to a specialized
team Urtela sales team, right and and with that it's actually is actually been
a very effective it was a it was an effective campaign well, far and
above what I thought it would be. So it's something that we're looking to
continue going forward. But but certainly on our facebook we do our posting and
it's an opportunity for we actually see a lot of seniors. They go there
and they they interact with one another. It seems to be kind of like
a social gathering of sorts and it's nice. It's almost like we created an
ecosystem where of our patients, where they can go and interact and we interact
with them. We haven't seen necessarily growth from that specifically, but it's I
think it definitely helps with retention and engagement. But for our SEM strategy that
that we just completed at the end of the last year, it's proven to
be effective and we're looking to do more that this year well, also in
the in the theme of community. That's I mean there's not it's not a
surprise that can Zaba is doing that in building that community there on facebook as
well. It seems to reinforce the brand proposition as well. So if we
look at, you know, facebook, we've mentioned sales force. Some of
the other tools and SOB. So let's let's raise up here and look at
the entire MARTEX stact. So a question then is, you know, if
if you were on a on a desert island and you could and you could
only bring your top three most important MARTEX STAC platforms with you, which one
would you do? Well, I mean sales force would have to be one
of them, certainly. You know, to be honest, it's been.
It's been years essentially fine tuning and customizing this platform. You know, we
even have for our events in the community we have the ability to site to
automatically. Well, it used to be paper signing them main and then in
putting them into sales force later, but now we scan everything with a smartphone
and it with a driver's license and it goes directly into sales force. It's
beautiful. I'm so excited about it and it's so with all the the time
and energy focused on that sales force product. Sales Force would be one of
them, certainly. I will say another one. It doesn't necessarily it's not
necessarily marketing focused. It's business focus, but we use it for a lot
of different applications. So Microsoft Bi is a business intelligence tool and one of
the things that we've done we were able to plot out in a heat map
of the area the concentration of our patients by location, by plan, by
health insurance plan, and we're also we're also able to overlay the opportunity that
is available within a given zip code. So it's a fantastic tool that,
you know, I'm looking forward to even using further as we move forward.
We've been evolving quite a bit with these tools and it's been exciting, an
exciting ride. And lastly, I think I would use we have a creative
team. They're terrific group of individuals, very talented, and they use base
camp quite a bit and I use it because I can get in there and
I can review and approve, you know, designs and whatnot, and it's
a terrific tool and they love it, and so I would I would take
that one as well. That's great. Well, Paco, as we wrap
up today's episode, what is the one most important takeaway about marketing operations that
you would like to leave with our audience? Well, that's it. That's
EVA. That's a great question. There's a we to we touch on the
quite a bit. I will say to to really understand your product, to
understand your product when you're out there, whether it's field marketing, whether it's
call campaigns, digital marketing, to understand your product. It's really allowed us
to be effective. You know our team. They're very familiar with our healthcare
model and and how how unique it is. And and if you know that,
we're able to relay that in any medium, through any any medium,
the the differentiator and how and and how they should not only join us,
but why they should join us. And I think that's that's the most effective
thing, because with that, if you know your product, that means you're
also passionate about your product. You need to be able to relay that passion
to your target and to the demo right and if you can, then you're
going to be you're going to be just fine. Excellent, great advice of
Paco. This wraps up this episode of the art of marketing operations. Thank
you so much for joining us today, Paco, and until next time,
stay safe, take care and thank you for listening. Thank you for listening
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