How do you know if your healthcare technology marketing strategy is effective? Where should you focus your resources?
The answer lies, in part, with the data you are collecting. Sounds simple, right? Not exactly. You have to know which metrics to monitor and how to benchmark them to leverage data analytics in a way that actually moves the needle on your goals.
While it can be tempting to bypass data insights and “go with your gut” or follow a competitor’s lead, you can end up wasting money on tactics that won’t work for your audience or aren’t aligned with important goals.
On the other hand, 
data insights provide a solid foundation to test your theories, validate your instincts, and make informed decisions. So how does a healthcare SaaS marketing agency use data to inform strategy? We asked Rebecca Graves, co-founder of The Spot On Agency, to explain.
When it comes to data analytics, most companies immediately want to measure conversions — and they should. Defining what MQLs and SQLs mean for your business is a critical first step because it helps align your marketing and sales strategies and ensures your marketing tactics are sending high-quality leads to your sales team.
"You should track conversion metrics from MQL to SQL and from SQL to opportunities to determine if you have a leaky funnel. Then, you can determine how marketing can send more high-quality leads to sales efficiently."
— Rebecca Graves
However, it's a big mistake to focus on conversions if you don’t have enough website traffic. After all, you can't possibly get conversions until you get potential customers in the “door.” Moreover, testing theories requires statistically significant sample sizes. Bottom line: Don't waste your marketing dollars on generating conversions without the right web traffic. But how do you get to that point?
A well-designed website built with UI/UIX design that speaks to your audience’s pain points and positions your company as the solution to them is a starting point. From there, you’ll need helpful website content and an SEO strategy to begin attracting your target audience.
An SEO strategy for content that addresses all stages of the marketing funnel — awareness, consideration, decision, and loyalty/advocacy — is most effective. Only having top-of-the-funnel pieces, such as a blog about HIPAA-compliant billing for EHRs, won’t drive conversions without other content to address buyer considerations.
"Use content to guide your audience through the customer journey. A healthcare SaaS marketing agency has the experience and knows what works and which SEO keyword to target. We can help you answer your audience's questions, address their pain points, and connect the dots."
– Rebecca Graves
Too many companies dive straight into demos, forgetting that a potential lead needs to first understand how the solution solves their pain point — and why it does so better than others. The need to “warm up” a lead is especially true in healthcare, where broadscale change often happens with multiple decision-makers and only when the benefits of a new solution clearly outweigh the cost of abandoning an existing system.
Also, don’t neglect mid-funnel content that’s critical for nurturing conversions. Create case studies around specific challenges, like how a hospital used your software to improve OR utilization, for example. “This shows your audience how you have helped companies like theirs solve challenges, building both trust and credibility,” Graves says.
Then track the number of unique visits, time on page, bounce and exit rates for each type of content. Soon, patterns emerge, indicating which blog or page topics resonate, as well as what could be improved, optimized, or discarded.
Getting prospects to consume your content is just the beginning. Are they taking the next steps? If not, you’ll want to leverage data insights to make tweaks. A healthcare SaaS marketing agency uses behavioral analytics tools like Hotjar to see how visitors interact with your content. The software generates heat maps to illuminate user behavior, capturing how far down visitors scroll, what links they click, and at which point they leave the page — even how they move their mouse. You can use this information to make adjustments that will guide a visitor toward desired actions.
You may also need to look at how you’ve optimized the site: Does it use broader keywords that could be attracting more consumer-focused traffic instead of the B2B audience you’re targeting, for example.
Or it could be an issue with a landing page or form. "Let's say you're driving traffic to a landing page. But if no one fills out the form, we can identify issues using data and then make strategic improvements based on those insights," says Graves. Maybe the answer is to revise the content on a landing page or reduce the number of form fields to minimize friction — either way, data from A/B tests can point to the answer.
The marketing channels you use to distribute content are as important as messaging. “We use metrics to see which traffic sources bring in the highest quality prospects and identify the right channels for you," says Graves.
When it comes to email marketing and social media, these channels can be challenging to use for sales. For example, an email may not be effective on its own, but it can play a pivotal role in promoting a webinar, building anticipation for a product launch, or getting leads to download a white paper.
“The key is to treat both email and social as tools and understand their place in the bigger picture.”
— Rebecca Graves
Most healthcare SaaS companies should focus on building connections on LinkedIn instead of Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok. Social media can help you build a brand presence but not necessarily drive conversions.
Making sense of all your metrics can be overwhelming — it’s important to analyze data in isolation and with a big-picture lens. A healthcare SaaS marketing agency uses tools to quickly slice and dice the data just how you need it.
"We use Databox to pull in data from multiple sources, such as Google Analytics, Search Console, HubSpot, Google Ads, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. With every data point in a consolidated dashboard, we can see the big picture view, identify trends, and turn insights into action," says Graves. With the big-picture view, an agency can create content to take prospects down the funnel and accelerate the sales cycle.
Healthcare technology marketing has many moving parts, and a SaaS marketing agency can help you bring everything together for a holistic approach. "Your SaaS marketing agency should track all your monthly, quarterly, and annual metrics. They should be the first to tell you if you aren't hitting your goals and help you re-evaluate the strategy to get where you want to be," says Graves.
Additionally, an agency must be transparent about the data and processes. "They should share everything — the good, bad, and ugly. If you only receive good news, you're probably not getting the complete picture," adds Graves.
By leveraging our data expertise along with years of healthcare marketing experience, we help our clients build a strategy-first SaaS healthcare marketing plan. Could we help you? Schedule a time to chat with us!
