How a Healthcare Analytics Company Used Non-Gated Content to More Than Double High-Quality Leads

Health Catalyst is a healthcare IT company, its clients range from integrated delivery systems and children’s hospitals, to community hospitals and academic medical centers.

In a crowded industry, the team needed to rise above the competition. They decided to do this through content leadership.

“The key to marketing leadership is aggressively educating while trust prospects and monitoring behavior,” said Chris Keller, Vice President of Marketing, Health Catalyst.

Keller and his team took a unique approach. They ungated as much of their content as possible, focused much of their efforts on educating prospects and the industry, and trusted sales-ready prospects to raise their hands.
 

Step 1. Build an educational library

Keller and his team built the library with a multitude of tactics, including eight that he shares in this presentation.

One major tactic is publishing client success stories. In their statement of work, the team actually requires customers to commit to participating in these stories. They feature different aspects of client’s journey and work so that prospects can discover content that fits their needs.

Another tactic that Keller is passionate about is documentaries.

“Documentaries have become a flagship part of our events. We had one the first year, two the second year and another this coming year,” Keller said. “[We] focused on stories we think healthcare needs to learn about.”

The team thought about who they would like to speak at their event, and then went to those people if they couldn’t come to the event so that their story could still be told.

While the documentaries were shown at the events, the team also used them as direct mail pieces. They sent an Amazon gift card and popcorn to the gatekeepers of the executives they wanted to reach. The gifts were thanks for passing on the DVD to their bosses.

Another tactic used by the team is webinars.

Keller shared, “Trying to stay true to our mission of providing education wherever we are, 45-50 minutes of that content is solely focused on education. At the 50-minute mark … we switch the tables for just a brief moment, and we say, ‘While our webinars are focused on education, some of our attendees have asked for more information about Health Catalyst. If you would like a demonstration, please answer this poll question.’”

A poll then pops up with the question, “How interested are you in a demonstration?
Extremely interested? Very? Somewhat? Not interested at all?”

The team then only follows up with those who are “extremely interested.” Why? Because this self-filtering process allows the sales team to focus on the most sales-ready leads.
 

Step 2. Trust the prospect

The team operated on the guiding principle that “prospects worth follow-up will ask.”

That meant they removed forms from every piece of content possible and instead focused on providing the best quality pieces they could.

The only time a lead form capture was used was if the consumption of the content required a second step, which could include needing an email or a calendar invite. For example, prospects need a calendar invite to remind them of a webinar they want to attend.

Keller suggests asking yourself, “What percentage are you asking versus what percentage are you [giving].”

He suggested 80% of the time giving and 20% asking.
 

Step 3. Monitor and call hand raisers

While there are many ways to monitor your environment, Keller focused on three:

• Website lead scoring


• Reverse IP tools


• Analysts

He also shared insights on how the inside sales teams approached prospects. The team acted like librarians. The follow-up they performed was about getting prospects additional information or content they might need. The goal of the conversations was not to schedule demos. In fact, they were instructed to not ask about demos, but to only allow prospects to ask for them.

Watch the video to learn more details behind how Health Catalyst increased leads by 300% and decreased the sales cycle by 33% using a robust content marketing strategy.

For your chance to share your team’s success onstage at MarketingSherpa Summit 2017, fill out an application for our Call for Speakers. The deadline is this Friday, June 17, 2016.

 

 

Related Resources

MarketingSherpa Summit 2017 | Aria Las Vegas | April 10-13

Inbound Marketing: Construction software company doubles submission goals in bracket contest for customer projects

Content Marketing: Healthcare B2B generates 9 million impressions through multi-channel effort

Marketing Research Data: Content preferences of 530 global executives