Giving Social a Healthy Pass
This is the last but not least of my interviews in preparation for our panel called Why CMOs Won’t Invest More in Social Media at The Social Media Shake-up. This time, Bill Koleszar, CMO at American Family Care, gives me the prescription for overcoming his primary marketing challenges which currently exclude social media. That’s not to say Bill doesn’t see social playing a more prominent role down the road, just give him a bit more time to settle in!
Drew: I know you just arrived at American Family Care — can you talk a little bit about your business and your role?
Sure, AFC is actually a pretty remarkable story. Our founder, Dr. Bruce Irwin, was born the son of a cobbler in rural Alabama. Nevertheless, his curious mind and a tireless work ethic landed him in medical school. After a stint as an ER physician, he opened his first urgent care clinic in 1982. Thirty-three years later, with more than 140 clinics and 500 in-network physicians caring for more than 2 million patients a year, American Family Care is the nation’s leading provider of urgent care and family care. My role in this effort is simply to tell our story – and help us become one of the most widely known and admired brands in healthcare.
Drew: What are your top priorities as the CMO? (You talked about building and flying the brand at the same time!)
We have 3 broad marketing priorities. Drive patient volume to new and underperforming clinics. Invest in creating a national brand. And, lastly, solidify our Marketing infrastructure, primarily through implementing better processes and applying more marketing science to what we already do.
Drew: You mentioned reputation management as a top priority. Can talk about this a bit?
Our company is totally dedicated to providing quality healthcare. It’s in our corporate DNA and it comes right from the top. Our goal is 100% patient satisfaction. As a result, our patient complaint rate is just 0.35 instances per 1,000 patients – amazing low for any business, but especially healthcare. Some of those complaints end up online or in other venues, which actually helps us by making us aware of dissatisfaction, but doesn’t tell the whole story of who we are and what we do. We simply need to do a better job of highlighting the stories of those we’ve helped – and in some cases lives we’ve literally saved.
Drew: What role then does social play for your business right now?
We certainly monitor it, but we have not taken full advantage of it.
Drew: For organic social to become a top 3 marketing priority for you, what would need to change? For example, if social media could suddenly become a measurable source of clinic traffic, would that move it up the list?
Social would need to become measurable, scalable, and cost-effective above and beyond other areas we invest human and financial capital. Having just 2 of those three would fall short relative to our goal of driving clinic traffic.
Drew: You mentioned wanting to have American Family Care on the list of most admired brands. What role if any could social play to help you achieve this goal? Can it help you engage with Millennials?
Our goal is to land on Fortune’s list of most admired companies by 2023, and I am sure that social media will play a significant role in achieving that vision. However, the most important thing we can do is to simply focus on our mission – provide the best healthcare possible. If we continue to deliver quality, compassionate healthcare when we have 500 medical centers and are seeing 10 million patients a year – many of which will be millennials – I am confident that our efforts we will be recognized across social media channels.
Drew: Is there a social channel (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) that works better than others for your brand. If so, which one and why do you think that’s the case?
Facebook is clearly the channel that patients use most. I think the reason is that many people look to their Facebook friends for advice, even for their health-related issues. Of course, it’s also a venue for sharing positive and negative experiences across a broad spectrum. We certainly update our own presence regularly, but I also know we can do better – and we will.