Adapting B2B Healthcare Marketing to Consumer Needs

About the guest

Taylor has over 20 years of experience and a proven track record of success in driving growth, brand awareness, and developing breakthrough customer experiences. Before she joined MedBridge, she was the director of customer marketing for Google Workspace and SVP of marketing at Aurea, where she built teams and set and exceeded end-to-end go-to-market efforts. She is known for bringing incomparable energy, vision, and structure to marketing teams and delivering results. She is very passionate about building teams and brands through crisp, differentiated narratives and designing data-driven demand engines at scale.

Connect with Taylor Sterling

Key takeaways

• Healthcare is becoming more consumer-driven, with patients expecting convenient digital care options
• MedBridge is adapting to changes by improving the buying journey, launching new products, and educating clinicians on digital tools
• Rebranding an established healthcare company requires thought leadership, product innovation, and change management
• Understanding customer needs and aligning marketing and sales teams on shared metrics is critical for growth
• Future trends include increased consumerism, therapy-first models, and more care delivered in patients’ homes

Quotes

“One of the massive trends that we’ve really seen, which I think sort of started in IT and has really moved everywhere, is really around consumerization. Our expectations as patients are very much similar to our expectations of how we consume any service, and we want that bar to be higher and better.”

Highlights from this episode

Can you walk us through some of the huge changes that have happened to healthcare as a whole over the past few years?

Taylor noted that the COVID-19 pandemic significantly accelerated trends that were already underway, magnifying long-standing challenges with access to care, speed of care delivery, and overall quality of care. A significant driver of transformation has been the rising tide of “consumerization,” with patients now accustomed to seamless, digital experiences across many aspects of their lives. Data shows that an overwhelming 70% of healthcare consumers now anticipate at least some level of interaction with their providers through convenient channels like smartphones. This shift in expectations is pushing even highly regulated healthcare systems, which have traditionally operated in more rigid models, to rapidly evolve in order to stay responsive to patients’ changing needs and preferences. The pandemic has served as a catalyst, compelling the industry to undergo transformative changes at an unprecedented pace in addressing these pressing issues.

Given their complexity, how are you juggling selling to different types of healthcare organizations like hospitals, private practices, etc.?

Selling to different segments within healthcare can be quite complex, given the diverse nature of organizations and stakeholders involved. Taylor explained that MedBridge primarily targets three key settings – large hospital systems, private practices ranging from small solo clinics to national chains, and home health organizations. While some products overlap across these segments, their specific needs often vary significantly. For example, private practices tend to operate more on a fee-for-service model, while hospitals are increasingly focused on value-based care. To effectively engage these distinct audiences, MedBridge has structured its team with dedicated expertise and audiences for each segment. They also consider where clients fall on the spectrum from fee-for-service to value-based models to tailor their messaging and solutions accordingly. This segmentation approach helps MedBridge better understand and address the unique challenges and priorities across its diverse healthcare customer base.

What changes are you making at MedBridge to educate clinicians and improve the buying journey?

Taylor detailed how they launched an innovative “Digital Health Academy” continuing education program to equip providers with the knowledge needed to incorporate virtual care tools into their practices. MedBridge clinicians and content experts actively guide healthcare systems through this change management process, recognizing that organizational shifts are required as adopting remote care models represents a significant departure for many. On the product front, MedBridge is developing solutions like customizable treatment pathways to encourage innovative, patient-centric thinking around care delivery. To streamline the buying journey, the company is also optimizing the user experience on its website and refining how solutions are packaged for new product launches. The overarching goal, according to Taylor, is to empower clinicians to extend quality care in more flexible, hands-off ways using virtual resources and workflows already familiar to customers from MedBridge’s trusted education platform. This multipronged strategy aims to support both clinicians and healthcare organizations throughout their digital transformation.

How do you promote alignment between marketing and sales at MedBridge?

Taylor emphasized the importance of establishing regular, structured touchpoints for data-driven alignment. To facilitate this, MedBridge developed a jointly-owned dashboard where marketing and sales leadership come together to analyze key performance metrics rigorously. This shared visibility into opportunities and challenges prevents finger-pointing by maintaining shared accountability. Taylor also stressed the value of clearly defining complementary roles and responsibilities to ensure smooth handoffs from lead generation to qualification and follow-up. In addition, MedBridge is piloting programs like account-based marketing to foster deeper relationships with existing customers. Through open communication and continual refinement informed by metrics, Taylor believes MedBridge can navigate new product launches seamlessly as the organization grows. Her emphasis on partnership over siloed activities and commitment to transparent, metrics-driven processes exemplify best practices for driving cross-functional alignment vital to business success.

What do you think healthcare as a whole will look like over the next five years, and what changes/trends do you predict?

Taylor anticipates a continued shift toward more “consumerized” models where patients take on active roles in decision-making and expect convenient digital care options. Taylor also believes there will be growing adoption of the “therapy first” approach, especially among hospital systems, as evidence shows this can improve outcomes and reduce costs when utilized appropriately. On the delivery side, she predicts the rapid expansion of in-home care will only accelerate. This reflects both consumer preferences for receiving services at home and the industry’s need to adapt to those changing preferences. Overall, Taylor Sterling’s insights suggest healthcare is on the precipice of transformative change as organizations work to better balance clinical expertise, data-driven decision-making, and patient-centric care models over the next five years.

Resource recommendations

Books:

   – Good to Great