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Using Artificial Intelligence for Brand-Building 

All great stories start with a character (a hero protagonist) who has a problem that needs to be solved. But forces are conspiring against them and the world is somehow broken. In this case, it’s a healthcare brand-building team in a smaller health system, stand-alone hospital, specialty physician practice or medical practice – who seeks to attract and solve a problem for patients.

The world that is in disrepair (at least from a hospital marketing team’s perspective), is the healthcare landscape that is drastically changing around them…

• local/regional health systems that are both joining forces and acquiring individual hospitals
• national health systems who are both acquiring and divesting
• not-for-profits who are converting to for-profit
• technology stalwarts like Amazon and Apple with strong consumer followings in the hunt to capture share
• retailers like Walmart and CVS becoming front-line healthcare providers
• health insurance organizations who are now operating medical practices
• alternative medicine, such as functional medicine and integrative medicine, quickly gaining popularity
• among others

It’s a world where everyone is scrambling to solve our nation’s healthcare challenges, and where achieving brand relevance is driving the thinking and actions of healthcare leaders and healthcare marketing teams.

Add in High-Tech

As great stories unfold, a hero is empowered by some kind of mentor (some kind of support and guidance) to help them solve a problem. Today, these mentors might include the multiple technology initiatives that continue to impact how healthcare consumers experience care. And these experiences factor into perceived brand relevance of healthcare providers, and how consumers choose where to go for their care.

From apps to at-home monitoring, biometric and wearable devices – all contribute to enhancing…

• the patient experience
• improving patient outcomes
• reducing patient readmissions
• impacting the seemingly ever-increasing cost trend
• preparing health systems for their transition to value-based care

It’s this digital technology and its application that will continue to differentiate the healthcare brands that are ahead of the curve in 2020. Which harkens back to winning the battle for brand relevance. 

Branding Evolved

Branding has always been built (at least it should be) on individual interactions coming together to create a cohesive and distinguishing experience (and memory) that builds value for a brand, customer and a business, both on the ground and increasingly online. For organizations that are trying to integrate more technology-driven interactions into the customer journey, this opens up far more opportunities to build relevance, participation, personalization and ultimate value. Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of these ways, and it’s changing what it means for healthcare brand-building because it brings a whole new definition to human connection. According to Techgrabyte:

Artificial intelligence is the biggest commercial opportunity for companies, industries, and nations over the next few decades and will increase global GDP by up to 14% between now and 2030, which means that AI latecomers will find themselves at a serious competitive disadvantage within the next several years.

An interesting question then becomes – how can brands still remain truly, authentically human (at a time when this has never been more valued) while utilizing essential AI technology?

How Healthcare Providers Can Take Advantage of Voice Technology 

AI offers exciting opportunities for healthcare providers and their healthcare marketing teams to connect with patients in their day-to-day lives and help them gain access to critical healthcare services. If you’re a healthcare marketer who believes that your healthcare brand-building should provide a platform to better people’s lives, it’s a really exciting time. A few examples of how AI can help you achieve this – for both your organization and your prospective and current patients – include:

• offering easy access to medical information plus everything from voice-activated personal care routines to meditation techniques (and now that Amazon Alexa is HIPAA-compliant), it promises to take mHealth to a whole new level; e.g. medication reminders and pharmacy refills. Using Amazon Alexa for healthcare services is also a natural next step for patients who already use the device in their day-to-day lives.
  
  
• helping patients locate and gain access to their local providers — via voice technology. For example, a prospective patient might ask, Alexa, who is the top-rated cardiologist near me? In response, Alexa will conduct a search of local business listings, ratings, and reviews, and then report back with a suggestion.
  
  
• for medical providers and ultimately for the benefit of patients, the rise of artificial intelligence may help lessen the burdens and stresses placed on physicians (with more than 40% of physicians—and 50% of female physicians—being burned out, according to Medscape’s 2019 National Physician’s Burnout & Depression Study). For patients, the benefits are being able to count on their doctors to be more attentive to their individual needs versus feeling overlooked or ignored. Patients who might otherwise decide to take their care elsewhere.  
  
  
• AI can analyze consumer behavior and search patterns, and use data from social media platforms and blog posts to help providers understand how customers find their services. One outside category example is Deloitte’s Blab tool. This intelligence tool mines data from over 50,000 sources, for instance, social media platforms and the news, and then predicts themes and topics that will characterize what consumers will be talking about in 72 hours. The tool has shown 70% accuracy. With such information, the enterprise creates a strategy to customize its services in line with upcoming trends before they even take off. 
  
  
• AI can impact content marketing, by analyzing user data and helping marketers make sense of user intent. Examples include…
  – automatically generating content for simple stories such as air-quality/pollen-level/UV-index updates
  – deploying chatbots (computer programs that use artificial intelligence to mimic conversation with users) to carry out conversation-like interactions with users, answering queries and concerns in real-time
  – creating a better customer experience (think IBM’s Watson versus Siri), as Watson doesn’t just make suggestions based on what it learns from requests and questions, it has the ability to process language commands and respond to them in a human-like manner, either verbally or via text. As Watson understands, reasons, learns, and interacts, he’ll be able to direct patients to relevant marketing materials that the user may need in the future.
  – And then there’s email personalization: as AI-powered systems make it possible to set up automated or drip campaigns that are driven by customer data and are based on what stage someone is at in the customer journey.  

Brand-Building in an AI World

Artificial intelligence enables marketers to focus more on the customer and take care of their needs in real-time. Data that algorithms collect and generate makes it easier for marketers to understand how to target customers, and which channel to use at which time. This is important because your customers are ultimately your greatest competitive weapon. How your healthcare brand-building creates and grows customers determines the long-term success of your healthcare organization. 

Since 1999, Trajectory has partnered with healthcare + wellness organizations to help their brands rise above the noise, to create future value and growth. Reach out for a conversation.