Building Healthcare Brands: Storytelling Opportunities with Kerchanin Allen

Hi. Welcome to the episode. My guest today is Kerchanin Allen. She has spent the last ten years working as a marketing expert, implementing comprehensive marketing strategies for organizations in the health care space. She's got some great insights and tips on for people in her shoes and also for people in the health care industry.

Let's take a listen. Kerchanin, thank you for coming on board and and having a conversation with me. I'm looking forward to talking about your experience and and your journey in marketing in the health care world. So fill me in. Tell me what you've been doing and and some of the interesting areas you've been practicing in.

Yeah. Hi, Yves. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be on. You know, the health care industry is is one of those industries that's constantly changing.

And for a marketer, that's really fun. You know, I've been doing this for about ten years, ten years and some change in the health care space and have been fortunate enough to have a lot of different experiences. So I've been at the payer level. I've done some utilization management. I've done some care coordination and continuum stuff.

And most recently, I was working with high needs ACO REACH, which those are are very, very interesting and a lot to learn. You know, it's it's almost purely Medicare. It's the top 5% sickest population, but they account for the top 60 fifty, sixty percent of spend. So it's definitely a group of people who need help and need representation, and to be able to have worked with with that level of intensity in the health care space is is really special to me. You know, it's it's meaningful to be making change in people's lives and not just marketing overall.

You know?

Well, it's interesting. The health care industry, I think, for most people that I've spoken to anyways, is that their their first wish is to have provide some sort of positive outcome for patients, for people having problems. It's kinda where people go into it. And then at some point, they sort navigate and and move around and then go, oh, you know what? Actually, I wanna be over here doing this.

And they've they, you know, they move from, like, science or medicine over to business management or strategy or marketing. So it's kinda cool that, you know, it can attract a lot of people from a variety of different, you know, initial interest, but then you find your find your way into the system and and find your happy happy place. Right? Absolutely. I mean, how did you either did you plan on moving into health care?

I mean, you obviously you started in in you know, you did your training in marketing and and and that. So take me from there. And then how did you end up in health care?

I actually took a path that's somewhat similar to a lot of marketers in our space, but a little bit funny sounding at the forefront. When you when you look at it, I was I was in graduate school for journalism. Actually, I was doing editorial journalism and fancied myself a war reporter for, like, five minutes. Oh, wow. And I I actually did a really cool program where we went overseas.

We followed Ernie Pyle's path during World War two and visited all the places that he sent major reports from, which was really exciting and helped me realize that's not what I wanted to do. So I leaned a little bit more into the editorial side. I learned a lot of hard technical skills in the second year of my graduate program and leaned a little bit more into the storytelling aspect of things, which when you start doing brand marketing, it's really important that you're able to understand and really dig out a story from data, from individual accounts of what the company does, from, you know, experiences that that you're able to be one on one with with the people who are working with you. So it's it's nice to have that background and be able to kind of find stories in places where maybe people are like, what? There's no story here.

It's just it is what it is. You know? I'm like, yeah. But have you considered this? You know, you go off

on There's always something more than face value. Right?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's more to it. Yeah.

Yeah. So when I graduated from my graduate program, I actually did some morning reports for NPR. I was, like, doing the, like, water main reporting, like, in on the city council

That's hilarious.

Yeah. I was I mean, it was very, like, slow moving stories, but I thought it was, like, the coolest thing ever. And then

Of course. Yeah.

You know, I I did a little bit of freelance work actually right out of school, and I did some stuff with mostly web design and actually, like, marketing tech stuff. So things that people needed help with writing skills that I had from j school, you know, and all those types of things and started to figure out that, you know, I probably needed to specialize a little bit.

So Right.

When I moved to Chicago, I actually was fortunate enough to be set on top of the social media manager's pile of resumes for Health Care Service Corporation. His name's Oleman. He's a a nice guy, really good boss. But I remember when I first started there, he was like, actually, I pulled your resume because I really wanted to ask you about your name. He's like, among other reasons, but I was really curious.

And I was like, okay. Cool. So I

There's something about having unusual names. It does get people's attention.

It does. So kudos to my parents for

Yeah.

For helping me out there. But but yeah. So that was kind of my first gig in health care. It's a huge payer space. There's a ton to learn.

There's five entities that make up HCSC. So I was I was busy, and I was working on they had just launched the connect community there, which is a really interesting online platform for patients and I would say and providers and their families. And I think recently they've added the Medicare space to it also, But it's still alive in writing. It sort of started as a blog and became more of an educational resource tool and engagement tool. Mhmm.

And the time I was there, had the fortunate opportunity to kinda work with a lot of really good writers in that company. So I learned a lot from them and started to think about maybe getting a little bit more niche. I felt like I was fairly separated from the patient experience, and that was not necessarily where I wanted the rest of my career to be. So I got more and more niches. We went along and, you know, now I'm basically patient level, helping helping people to tell their story to patients and their caregivers, helping people to kind of put together their brand identity in the voice that is most appropriate for them.

I help people out with sort of strategic thinking and operationalization around what their company needs as far as marketing because sometimes what you think you need and what foundations you have don't quite match. So I always make sure that they have like the right foundation set up in order for their projects to succeed. Has just been a really fun adventure for me.

That's really cool. Yeah. That's really interesting. And I mean, it's case study. The case study concept is, you know, it's it's a it's an expanded version of a testimonial.

I mean, they have so much value, you know, when when trying to introduce a product or a brand to to an audience that never heard of it before. I mean, the case study is a great way to do it, especially if you can get it to be a very genuine delivery. Right? Which isn't always easy when you're talking to somebody who's never been on camera before, never had a microphone Sure. Front of them.

And, you know, to get that real genuine story out of them because, I mean, everybody's no one's ever gonna put out a bad case study. So, of course, everyone's gonna

I mean, unless you're Wendy's and you're trying to make a make a point. Right? Like

True enough. True enough.

Well, and it's hard too in our industry that, you know, the the people I work with are very elderly. So getting getting testimonials from somebody who's got multiple comorbidities and they're 97 and they're in a long term custodial care facility. I mean, it's That's probably not gonna get a very clear story from them. So it's sometimes easier to talk to families or talk to their physician. And it's it gets a little bit complicated, but it's an important story to tell.

Absolutely. Absolutely. So that's that's kind of where your focus has been in the last little while then is is, you know, being able to pull those stories together and and deliver those.

I've been working on some individual brand identity, especially in the last company I was with. They really hadn't had kind of an organized approach to marketing yet. They've been doing a lot of project based marketing, and they had some really successful, you know, brand identity. Thanks to their private investors. They had some help there.

I had a couple of contractors before me who were very talented and left me with some really good foundations, and they just needed somebody to come in and kind of pull it all together and tie the knots, so to speak. You know, what are what are we missing? Where do we need a facelift? What conversations should we be having with our audiences that we're not necessarily having? So there's a lot of strategic conversation, a lot of growth oriented conversation.

I actually was on the growth team. It was not an independent marketing team. So I also learned a lot from them. Their sales growth and marketing was all kind of one I and identity in the company. Excuse me.

Right. And I I even worked alongside their data analytics guy who was, like, very talented at pulling data that told stories. So he and I got to work really closely together, and I'd be like, hey. I want something that shows me this. And he'd be like, give me an hour.

I'll come back with, like, all this data that basically proved either I was right or I was wrong and we have a story to tell or we don't, and it was it was really great.

Oh, that's interesting. Wow. Yeah. Do you find what do you find in in as far as marketing goes in health care? Where do you find it's the most difficult?

Like, what what do you think is the biggest hurdle in in that industry?

That's an interesting question. I think

I mean, from your experience, I mean, I'm not the entire industry, but from from your from your perspective.

Entire industry of marketing. No. I I think in the health care space, there is a a plethora of very, very smart people. And when you're working as kind of an internal marketing entity for a company with a lot of brilliant minds, there's sort of one of two things that happen. Either there's a lot of people who understand the foundations and necessities when it comes to marketing, and they're totally on board, but, like, too busy.

Right? They've got too much going on. They maybe can't ideate with you, so you need to have kind of prepared material and present that to them. And then occasionally you run into the like, I think I need to do a little bit more education outside of what performative marketing is for them because most of that knowledge around marketing does look like, you know, I I know how to write thought leadership or I know how to post on social media. But do you know why we're doing that?

Do you know why there's a value add to that? Can I show you how that ties into all of the other other strategies that we're launching here and how what you're doing is really advocacy for the company outside of just doing a marketing thing? So I think for for me in the past, the biggest challenge has been helping people to understand the difference between what I would call cosmetic marketing versus strategic or operationalized marketing, that there's a deeper value and a deeper meaning to the things you already know how to do well. And I love to teach people that. I think that's a really fun part of my job because you see this, like, light bulb go off when you're like, I'd love to do a piece on thought leadership.

And they go, yeah. Absolutely. Let's do the piece. We write the abstract together. They start to write the piece and they go, you know what?

This could be a series. And I'm like, this could be a series and a podcast and a news article. And and they're like, you're like, ah, you're you're with me now. You know? So I I love that moment.

And for me, it's it's somehow, like, both kind of a challenge, but also very exciting. The flip side to that is that there are a lot of very smart people, and sometimes they're kind of shy about showing how smart they are. Right. So you have to, like, convince people, like, no. You should really be a voice for this.

This is and they kinda get like, well, you know, maybe I could write something I got you could just brand it as the company though. I'm like, no, I want to put your name on it.

This is funny. Yeah. They just don't want their face attached. So they're just

so I know. It's it's I've been blessed in a way with that because it's it shows that a lot of folks in this industry are very humble. They're really here for the patient well-being. They're not here to be famous and well known and, you know, they they really wanna do good. Right.

And I feel like there's a lot of value in that when you're trying to present somebody as kind of like a hero in the space. You're like, hey. They're not they don't want you to know who they are, but I want you to know who they are. So here you go.

I think that's great. I like that I like that approach. And and you're right. I don't think it comes necessarily natural to a lot of people to be able to do it, whether it's I mean, writing, sure. Yeah.

Go to write oh, here. I'll write something.

But they're all good writers. Yeah. Yeah. They're great writers. Yeah.

You

know, you when you think about that, it's like, you know, getting you know, so you're basically priming somebody or grooming somebody to be a sort of a spokesperson when their natural instinct is to not do that. It's to be a Yeah. Behind the scenes tech you know, scientist to, you know, doing all the thinking in the backstage. But people do wanna hear about them. They wanna see who is behind all this stuff, and I I think there's a lot of value there.

And, I mean, you're also talking about organizations or companies that are have multiple audiences, which I think is very interesting is that, you know, in some some companies are are marketing to the patient, the providers, and Yeah. And several other stakeholders and then investors. Right? Like, and and each one of them has a different message and is wants to hear something different and understands a different perspective. But yet Mhmm.

We're talking about one brand or one product or you know? And that's confusing, isn't it?

It can be, you know, especially when you're looking at some of those places that have, like, a much longer care continuum. You know, one one example that I can give you is when you're trying to build a website, for example, you know, your your homepage needs to be really clearly oriented for your primary audience. Well, if you're a company that has multiple primary audiences, as a person building a digital footprint and really trying to develop brand identity Mhmm. You have to be able to demonstrate in less than three seconds, basically, how those audiences are all important. Right?

So that's that can be challenging. And and when you're presenting materials, being able to both create differentiated stories for each one of those audiences while still telling one cohesive brand story. It can Mhmm. It can be a lot to navigate. Yeah.

For sure.

For sure. So when you were talking earlier, you were saying, you know, it sounded like that your approach is a little more strategic, that you try and get these people to think a little bit more purposeful around their marketing. So give me, you know, one strategy that you've particularly liked and and and enjoyed implementing when it came to marketing with a with a company because they don't always buy into marketing strategies. They kinda like to throw things at the wall and see what sticks, but it's nice to have something that is a little bit more thought through. Right?

So tell me what you think about that.

I'm a question driven person. I like to understand more kind of the impetus behind and ask for something. So for me, it's a lot easier to deliver on what's being asked of me if I can understand what you're trying to achieve. So, you know, I've done a couple of different projects where I might be asked for, hey, I want I want testimonials from patients or hey. I I really wanna update our website.

That's probably the cleanest one. Right? Really wanna update our website. I need a new website. Has gotten that one.

Right. Right. Yeah.

And my question actually, there's a really recent example of this. My question was why? You know, what's what about the website now isn't working for you? And we had a conversation that that kind of was like, hey, well, you know, it's it's sort of carried over and there were previous goals attached to some of the things that on their previous performance metrics that are on there. And I'm like, so I'm hearing that there's incorrect content on it.

You know? That's that's probably the the first issue. Right? Let's address that first.

Current current content. Very important.

Yeah. And Mhmm. And as you're kind of trying to build that story, then you say, okay. Well, what's what's the correct numbers around this? Well, we don't know yet because because the way that Medicare releases data, it's it's sort of backlogged.

Right? So you may or may not know this, but the the Medicare data comes from the previous year.

Oh, I see. Right. Yeah.

So you might be saying like, oh, our results this year, but you're talking about 2023. Right. Yeah. And that's that's confusing. Right?

That's it's a confusing way to present data, but it's really the only way you can present Medicare performance, especially in, like, the reach space and reach is a very small part of the ACO network. So it's Right. It's even more, like, kind of specific. And when you're presenting that data, it it has to be clear what you're saying. Right?

Because you could be talking about, you know, being a top performer. You could be talking about specifically in, you know, quality metrics. You could be talking about gain share. You could be talking about so there's all types of, like, first place ways that you could be performing. Right?

Right. So presenting that in kind of a clear and really tidy way is helpful, and these companies often do that. They do that really well. The problem is if you don't have somebody full time monitoring that, then the numbers are wrong after a year or, like, somebody has to go update that. So how can we kind of reposition that and reframe that so that you don't have to update that regularly?

You know, how how can it be sort of constantly true? And let's let's look at the foundation that you have already that's informing that. Well, when I got into the company, there was a lot of material. Right? There was, like, a lot of material for me to review.

There was, like, a pitch deck. There was a previous style guide, all these other things, and none of them said the same thing. So I was like so this is the the truth here is the story. Right? I need to know where are we now because I have multiple materials that say different things.

And it's really telling of health care. Right? There's there's a lot of data, and it it sometimes shows different angles of all of it being true, but it's like, one do we wanna focus on?

Right. And

so the the most successful stories I find are, like, let's take one of these things at a time and tell that story and then tell the next one and then tell the next one and then put them all together and tell a brand story publicly. You know, we we have to work internally first to make sure that everything kind of agrees and ties together nice and clean. Mhmm. And then we've got a full story to tell about specifically our ACO reach. Then, okay, well, how does that tie to our other five branches of the company that are active?

You know, how does that tie to our med group? How does that tie to our post acute services? Does it tie to those services, or do we have now another marketing story that we need to tell? So I think helping to kind of differentiate what what your truth is is is a really good place to start, especially in an industry that's as complicated as Medicare.

Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. It well, I mean, the whole health care system is complicated. I mean Yes.

Does. Yeah. It

doesn't matter what area you're in. It's it's all extremely complicated and and Yeah. You know, particularly for patients trying to navigate their, you know, their their own experience with their illness. Now they also have to navigate an entire industry that they've never, you know Yeah. Maybe not spend a lot of time in.

So

Yeah. And there's some really fantastic companies out there that are trying to help do that. You know, like it's like, for example, Harmony Cares, they they have a full continuum. I mean and you try to you try to keep people kinda moving in a straight line in services that you know are going to give them what they need. Right?

But there's there's complications that arise because of, you know, availability of services or qualifying for services if certain patients maybe don't qualify for certain types of services because of their coverage. So it becomes more and more complicated to make sure that people are getting the care they need at the right time and in the right space.

Right. What's your favorite what's your favorite your favorite area in marketing that you like to hone in on and as far as, know, I I know you're talking about you like to do the storytelling aspect, but what's your favorite way of actually delivering the stories Yeah. To an audience?

There's well, a story is there's a lot of ways to tell a story. Right? And I think the most successful stories are the ones that you can tell in multiple ways, and it's still interesting. So I love anything that I could do that starts you know, maybe it's maybe it starts as a social post, and we're like, wait. There's so much more to this.

Let's write an article. Wait. There is so much more to this. Let's get somebody in the news. Wait.

Hold on a second. We should do a series on it. Wait. This means, like, let's do a video. You know?

Let's do Right. Let's go all the way down the line. I would say that for me, having the opportunity to work with as many third parties as I've had the opportunity to work with and really learn from them about the creative and about the bits and bobbles that I might be missing. I've learned so much over the past, I even say five years, just working with people who are way smarter and more talented than I am in the art side of marketing because I I'm probably a fairly decent writer. I mean, I can write words and they are typically true and the grammar's good, you know.

Right. But the the the real story there is that, like, how do you elicit the mood that you want from that? And I have had this just amazing opportunities to work with people who are so incredibly talented and learn kind of like, hey, there's a piece missing here. And I can start to see that now when I'm telling a story. You know, it's always about learning and growing.

Right. But I'm like, there's a really good video opportunity here, and I totally missed it the first time.

And Yeah.

It's that's probably been the most fun for me is is being able to kind of collaborate with other creatives on a side of marketing that maybe is a little bit more behind the scenes because people in companies tend to typically see, like, just the output and then the performance metrics. And if they're really interested, like, that that actual nitty gritty data that tells you how things did, you know?

Mhmm. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. And I mean, it's the buyer's journey is it's no secret.

It's an emotional experience. It doesn't matter.

You you don't set what is the phrase? You don't you don't market a product. You market a feeling.

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. It doesn't matter if it's mascara or chemotherapy. Right?

Like, there's something that is it's it's it's unique to each individual, and it's finding that secret sauce that what you're gonna say is gonna is going to connect with that with that person who actually Yeah. Who needs

to watch you. To balance too. Right? So, like, sometimes sometimes the mood that you're selling is kind of sad. Yeah.

And it's Yeah. Especially Fear. In my space, you know, you're talking about people who might be on their way to hospice or people who have been in and out of the hospital for six or eight months and they're not sure how they're gonna do. You know, it's our goal ultimately in the past couple companies I've worked for is to keep people out of hospital. You know?

That's that's not really like a fun message to sell, and you can't really, like, put a hospice ad in, like, the movie theater. That's just not that's not correct. You just don't do it. So it's it's a little bit of a juggling act in that sense of, you know, how how do I sell the feeling of, like, relief tied to a feeling of sort of anxiety around whether or not, like, how's mom doing? You know?

Right. It's tough.

There's an emotional place where they're at and then it's the emotional place where they want to be.

Yeah. And you don't want to prod. You don't want to prod the bad feeling as much, you know. You

want to relate with them, but you don't want to. Yeah, exactly. And so when you're you know, in your experience, have you when you've come up with this idea and said, oh, you know what? I think this is a great idea. We need a series.

Like, do you you knew when some of these ideas and maybe that they're these are initiatives that they've never actually embarked on before. Do you get pushback, or do you get resistance as to, well, I don't know. Is that gonna work? Or it sounds really expensive. And, you know, like, how do you how do you pitch these ideas and and and and get a sex a successful outcome?

I always start with two things, and actually, is somewhat of a recent lesson that I've learned. I, in a previous life, would always kind of go to my leadership and say, like, hey. I've got got this idea. Here's kind of the full project scope. Here's how much it'll cost.

You know, you do it like how you do a project. Right? I've adjusted that approach somewhat, and now my project scopes are actually based on kind of more company goals. So if the company has released KPIs or if they've got, you know, quarterly OKRs, I'll start to tie those project scopes into those OKRs, and that helps to kind of convince people that, like, oh, this is actually, like, supporting something that we're trying to accomplish as a business. The flip side of that, my first stop is always compliance, especially since I work with Medicare.

I call up the legal team. I try to have a good relationship with them. I you know, they they are way smarter than me when it comes to understanding what is and is not going to fly. And especially if the project is going to be communicating to patients in any capacity

Right.

They always go to them first. And I'm like, I have this idea. And if they're like, you have lost your mind. I'm like, okay. We're just gonna pass on this one for now.

Good thing I checked in on with you first.

If you could get compliance to say, like, I think that could work, you know, then you're like, okay. Now I just need to follow their bumper guards and frame it in a business output language

that

people would understand. They don't need to necessarily understand all of the creative and all of the bits and bobbles that are gonna go into making it work. I can worry about that and then give you a performance indicator at the end.

Right. Right.

What you need for me is proof that it's actually valuable to get those things to perform. Right? Like, why why should you even care about doing that?

So Well, I mean, aligning the aligning the business goals with your activities will actually also allow you to measure the data on outcome and whether that was a successful

Yeah.

Idea or not, and then also give some sort of, you know, ROI for Mhmm. For the company.

So Well, and then a second person. Right? Because if they start to update those OKRs, if they start to update their goals, you could say, ah, we could revamp this project now and have it still support that. Let's do a version two.

Right. Exactly. Yeah.

It keeps living then. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Because if yeah. If you can if you can prove that something worked, then why wouldn't they do it again. Right?

Yeah. Mhmm. Mhmm. Mhmm. That's interesting.

So what's what's the biggest what's the biggest thing you've actually done as far as marketing initiative for somebody? Did you actually

have you actually produced

a series before?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Oh, cool. Cool.

So the, you know, the connect community is still thriving. That was like a whole that was a a several year project of launching that blog series. Cool. I actually highly recommend that for anybody who's interested in understanding the health care space more. They have some really good material on there that's very clearly written by people way smarter than me.

And I've done several rebrands. You know, I've done a lot of, I I don't wanna, like, name drop anything, but there's a couple of companies that I've been working for have been bought within a couple of years of me starting to work for them. So there's been a whole lot of change management that went into that. A lot of brand facelift and update and helping to kind of create a cohesive experience when the brands were merging. There recently, you know, I rebuilt a website from several websites.

There were, like, five websites, and I was working for a group that wanted to have one experience. So that was that was actually really interesting. And I I learned a lot about web development from that, which, you know, I saw I was pretty good at that. And so to to have had the experience of of working with kind of a third party who specialize in SEO and specialize in that that capability of of pulling things together that maybe are a little bit bifurcated. It's it's really nice to see kind of progress in my own career that way.

Right. So I'm I'm starting to understand a little bit better, like, oh, maybe I didn't know how to do this as well. I should take some courses around that. Right. And then, you know, recently, almost fully operationalizing marketing objectives in a new group that had really been very contract based until now.

How have you how have you adopted any AI or any of the the new technologies that have flooded our industry over the last five years?

I I have two answers for that. Which one do you want?

I'll take both.

So the the industry as a whole, the marketing industry feels both empowered and threatened by AI. I kind of personally That's very

great way to say that.

I I think it's really funny, actually. And I I've had a conversation with a a fellow kind of freelance marketing person who she's incorporated. She's a genius. You know, she's much better at that side of it than I am. But she and I were talking about how, you know, marketing as a whole may turn into, like, making AI sound less robotic in the next couple of years and, like, really teaching AI how to AI better.

Yep.

I

know. So I love that side of it. I also think, you know, I work in an industry that is very antiquated in a lot of ways. Like, we still use Excel for most stuff. Like, it's very there's a lot of, like, old school process management when it comes to marketing and health care.

Right. We're not necessarily all, like, already on HubSpot. You know? So, know, I guess it's not it's not part of that industry. So being able to and having the skill set and and I'll say, you know, I I recently was working for a company called Care Connect MD.

They're very with it when it comes to AI. They're aware of the value of it. They're aware of the pitfalls of it. You know, they're they're protecting their data better than anyone I've seen. You know, it's they're they're very talented in that area.

They've got really skilled security. It's great people working on it, but they they also had some hang ups about AI. You know? Well, we only wanna use these two tools and and so it it was interesting for me because I it was the first time I'd really worked with a growth team that was, like, about AI. Right?

Usually, like, they're not like, hey. Go use this AI tool and ask it about blah blah blah. And I'm my my boss there was like, just throw that into chat GBT and see what it says. And I never heard that as an answer to something before, and I was like, okay. So I'm like over there, and I spent probably, like, four to five hours that day just being like, what else can it answer?

And I was like so for me, it was a really fun learning opportunity, and it was something that I hadn't really explored because I have been working in an industry that is, like, a little slow to adopt. You know? And and I I respect that for the sake of patient data and and security. You And, you know, when you're sort of bound by HIPAA compliance, you wanna be careful what you're putting into machines that are universally accessible. Yeah.

But AI can be a really great helpful tool for especially health care marketers because there's all kinds of alphabet soup out there that you might just need to throw into chat GBT and ask it what the heck that means. Right. Right. You could be a little bit more informed. You could write something that's a little more poignant.

You could maybe get a better set of bullet points than I could write because I'm not you know, I don't have a whole bunch of medical degrees.

Yeah. Like the way you brought that. It's because it's really it's simpler things. It's like saying, well, this is the statement I wanna say, but make it sound less technical and more personable. You know,

like How can I make this more approachable?

Yeah. Like, that's what I found AI is really good. Well, ChatGPT particularly is that you can actually take, you know, a message that you wanna say, but and make it sound have a different mood. Right? Have a different feeling

to it.

And so, you know, it's not like, you know, AI, I think people are dreaming of the days when AI is just gonna, like, you know, read our minds and

create stuff.

It's crazy. And then somebody said to me, they were like, why why is AI taking away all the fun shit? Like, why can't AI do all the crap? I don't want to do like my dishes laundry and fix my car like.

Yeah.

AI is taking away the you know, making images and writing and making videos. Yeah. Like,

that's the fun stuff. That's what I wanna do.

I don't wanna

machine it. I I think you can kinda tell if you're if you're a writer, you can kinda tell if something's AI. You know? You're like, okay. This is the same cadence of sentence that I learned in fifth grade.

It also learned in fifth grade.

Yeah.

But I think AI does, in some instances, take away kind of the boring stuff. You know, there's sometimes in marketing, and you're probably really familiar with this. There's sometimes in marketing where you get the feedback that's like, I'm just not feeling it. And you're like, how? Like, is it the color scheme?

Is it the shape of the graphic? Is the language not right? Is it incorrect? Like, I I don't know. You know, I this is from a SME document that I got, and I kind of pulled this, and I might have interpreted it wrong.

Right.

And they're like, I don't know. It's just not there. And you're like, okay. There are times when I would throw that into an AI tool, especially like Copilot that had access to my three sixty five stuff and say, like, okay. These parts are correct.

Keep them in there, but reframe it as though you're talking to my grandma. You know? And it would help me do that. And that was really tedious before, so I think AI helping do that is

Just AI needs an operator. I mean, it's

You have to know how to

it's artificial intelligence, but it's not artificially I don't know. What's the word? It's not, I don't know. It's not it's not conscious. Right?

Like, it doesn't have a consciousness. So you can't actually it's it's a great it it has a great tool, like you said, to to fix things or to modify things, but but you're it's not intuitive. So Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I think that's what it it still needs an operator. It still needs a human. It it you know?

It does. As long as we and

I think

You need to teach it to be human too. So you could tell it, like, make this sound more human or you could say, I need you to add more emotional language around x y and z and then it's like, oh, okay. And suddenly it sounds like a human wrote it and you're like, okay, that's a little bit better. Right. Which

funny you have to ask it that and so it's that's not a default like Yeah. Yeah. You know, like, make oh, I I should sound more human. Well, how would I sound more like a canine? How about that?

Is that

Yeah. You're like, well, this is right, but it's boring. You know?

That's funny. You talked you said something earlier I was gonna bring back was that you were working with group and they had integrated their sales and marketing. So you were you were working in marketing, you were also in tandem with sales. Right? Which is not always the case.

And and quite often, they're working at opposite ends of the boardroom table and maybe not necessarily in alignment. And I mean, our my experience is that is more of that is that, you know, we're allowed in the marketing room, but we're not allowed in the sales in the war room where, you know, where sales are happening. Right? So we're allowed to talk about all this stuff and about the messaging about how we're gonna attract people. We have no input as to once they walk through that door that we don't have any we have no input as to what's happening in there.

And so I I find more and more that that seems to be happening that the sales and marketing are actually working together. And sometimes they're the same person that are is leading both the both those traditional traditionally separate departments. Right?

And sometimes the it's not even called, you know, sales and marketing. It's called patient experience or it's called, you know, or retention or, you know, growth or something like that. Yeah. You know, I I find that as a part of those strategic discussions, especially if I'm expected to lead marketing or lead communications in some capacity. And marketing marketing is kind of a blanket term.

You know?

I Yeah. It is. Yeah.

Marketing is not really a thing. You're you're in social media or you're in communications or you're in internal communications or you're in, you know, brand messaging or Right. There's there's a lot. There's PR. There's Gumbrella.

All marketing. Right?

Yeah.

But I find that understanding aspects of each of those and being able to add value to those sales conversations is crucial to gross being successful. And when I start having strategic conversations with some of my clients, my conversation usually starts with, okay, how closely does sales and marketing work together? Are they both hand in hand working towards the same growth goals or do they have different Right.

Is it a purposeful and is it

in alignment? Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Similarly, you know, how tied in is marketing with IT?

Mhmm. You know, what what technology is being facilitated to help support sales and marketing as a single entity, and does that exist? So building that relationship is really important. Building a compliance relationship is really important. How tuned in is legal to what's going on as far as your digital footprint and digital identity?

Would they be okay with how sales is talking about the company, or does marketing need to help reframe that messaging to be more compliant? You know, I think those are sort of less fun conversations, but they're they're vital to getting

You can make an

operationalized program off the ground. Yeah.

Very interesting. Very cool. Well, we're coming to the end of our time here, and, this has been a great conversation. I'm glad we I'm glad we made the, made the effort to make this happen. I want you to give us one more thing.

Like, maybe it's maybe it's a bit of a a gold nugget for people in the health care who are are in are responsible for some of the marketing initiatives. Or maybe it's perhaps nugget that maybe that can be shared with somebody who actually works in marketing and works for health care organizations. What advice would you give them around how to tackle some of the challenges of of that?

Marketing in general is fluid. There's a lot of change that happens in what's considered good in marketing and what's considered, you know, the way to do it. I think in the health care space, we tend to recycle the same things over and over again because it's hard to keep up with that story and still be correct. You know, the way that you talk about a health care company is a lot different than how you would sell Red Bull. For example, you know, you next week, I could change the message around how my my perfume gets sold.

But the way that you sell health care is always gonna be the same. So finding ways to keep that fresh is very difficult. And in our space, I think it's okay to try something and have it not quite land because, otherwise, it's gonna look a lot like recycled content because it is. So if you come up with some wild and crazy harebrained idea, it's it's not necessarily too innovative for our space. Even though the story itself is fairly slow moving, we can still be as adept and agile in our space in marketing if if we're willing to take a little bit of a risk.

And, you know, the the health care space is a place of a lot of rules and a lot of regulations, and it can be handcuffs for a marketing creative. Right. And Yeah. I would just say don't be afraid to try. The worst thing that somebody can say is that they don't like it or it's not gonna work or it's not compliant or and and they're not gonna look at you like, well, you don't know what you're doing.

They're gonna be like, wow. She's she's willing to to try it, you know, and maybe that'll work. Like, let's see how we can make that compliant. If somebody says no, don't just, like, drop it. You know?

You could say like, okay. Well, how could I pivot the message then to be more compliant? Or in your vision, how does this look? You know, start asking questions and really be curious about why the no is no as opposed to just saying, okay, well, we'll just go back to doing kind of the same recycled

Right. Percent. Pushing the envelope and having some stick to it stick to itness.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

I like that. That's great. Awesome. Kuchanan, thank you so much. I really enjoyed having you on the episode, and I look forward to hearing more about what you're gonna be doing in the future.

So Thank you. Yeah. Yeah.

Alright. Thank you. I really enjoyed my chat with Kerchanin. She is an experienced marketing, professional, who has been, spending a lot of time in the health care industry, and I think she brought a really great message to the table today, and that is that the stories we have to tell around our products and our services and and whatever else, we're doing out there in the industry is that, the stories aren't always obvious. Sometimes they're hidden.

The story could be in the data. The story could be in the science. Of course, there's always stories in the people, but they may not be as obvious as you think, and you might need to do a little bit of digging. And I think it's a great message. Have fun searching for your hidden stories, and tune in next time.

Thanks for listening.