Some hospitals and clinics are turning to Binary Foundation, a company in McLean, Virginia, that uses natural language processing, or NLP, to extract “actionable insights and trends” from comments patients write in post-care surveys and third-party review sites.
The data fuels a kind of virtuous cycle by helping hospitals understand what matters to patients so they can tweak operations and boost their patient satisfaction scores, which they can then advertise to attract more patients. Hospitals and clinics have moved up plans to offer valet parking and changed staffing at their front desk as a result of insights gathered by Binary Foundation, says senior VP of marketing Aaron Clifford.
Research has repeatedly shown that improvements in patient care lead to lower churn rates and better profit margins; something not often seen in other industries. The correlation is likely to accelerate as employers and the government push more healthcare costs on to consumers.
“The rise of smartphones and instantaneous feedback has created a tremendous volume of comments and transparency not only in the service industry, but with healthcare providers,” Clifford says. “People are using that to get the most money with higher deductibles.”
Daniel Yaffe co-founded AnyRoad to help marketers capture and analyze content consumers generate during live events. Marketers have sponsored festivals, concerts, sporting events, trade shows and museum exhibits for centuries on the hunch that they build brand loyalty. The San Francisco-based company is helping marketers calculate return on those investments - often for the first time.
One brewery used AnyRoad to measure what might happen if it began charging for its tours. After finding it had a positive impact, the brewer opted to invest more to promote the tours.
By founding AnyRoad, Yaffe essentially was placing a bet that experiential marketing, and more specifically live event marketing, will thrive in the Engagement Economy.
“Think about how many times you are marketed to throughout the day, from the radio on the way to work to the Starbucks cup to signs on buses, billboards and LinkedIn ads,” Yaffe says. “Research suggests people see between 200 and 800 ads per day. We are overloaded with messaging and branding, so engagement is going to drive much more opportunity than more passive forms of marketing.”