As part of our 2024 Digital Healthcare Marketing Trends Survey, we asked healthcare marketers how their budgets are faring in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.  

Four years after the pandemic’s initial hit, many organizations are beginning to bounce back financially. However, too often, the last place that recovery is felt is the marketing department — our survey found that just 30% of organizations expect their budgets to grow this year. One in five healthcare organizations continue cutting their digital marketing budgets to mitigate more significant financial issues. 

If you’re on the marketing or web teams at one of these organizations, where you’re given a budget that doesn’t allow for much wiggle room or investment into new digital initiatives and staff, you’re not alone. And you’re not entirely out of options, either. 

Making progress toward your marketing goals is possible without breaking the bank or hiring more employees. Here are a few ways you and your team can get the most value out of your marketing budget, no matter its size. 

Prioritize user experience

To get the most bang for your buck, you need to identify the most impactful changes you can make to your marketing program that will help it resonate with consumers and, in turn, drive conversions. 

One of the most effective ways of doing this is through a user experience (UX) assessment. Through this process, you (or an agency partner like Geonetric) will gather pain points, successes, and other vital patient journey information from various stakeholders to create a persona. 

Using this persona, we can get an idea of their journey from prospect to patient and share observations, best practices, and competitor notes to help identify the problem areas you’d want to put your marketing resources toward first. You can also take it a step further through user testing, which utilizes real consumer feedback on things like the navigability of your website.  

By leveraging the power of user insights, you can work through your budget and staffing challenges with impactful, informed solutions that will provide maximum results. 

Tackle low-hanging fruit

Sometimes, the most significant marketing impact can be made from minor fixes that require little effort or resources.  

Think broken links, pages that return an error message, incorrect page tags — these are small issues that may seem inconsequential but can completely derail a customer’s journey if they visit your website or search for your services online.  

Take the time to audit your site for these errors, and fix them as soon as possible. You may be surprised by the results you’ll get in exchange for a relatively low effort! 

Make incremental website changes

Depending on your budget and staffing situation, a full website redesign may not be on the table right now. But that doesn’t mean you have to let your website grow stagnant! 

You can keep your site up-to-date and able to solve consumer’s pain points through iterative updates. Taking an iterative design approach rather than launching into a complete redesign allows you to make continuous improvements over time. 

Examples include updating the information on your location landing pages to better answer patients’ questions, creating a careers microsite to attract and inform prospective employees, or launching a content hub to provide helpful information and improve your site’s search engine optimization. 

By taking on smaller web updates as needed, your next redesign — whenever you’re able to take it on — can start with a strong foundation instead of a website that’s grown outdated. 

Track results

No matter your budget, you’ll want to monitor how the marketing efforts or improvements you can implement are performing.  

By analyzing data like website visits, conversion rates, and search rankings, you can tell what efforts are showing results and worth allocating resources toward — and which ones aren’t.  

You can also loop in some user experience (UX) insights by looking at statistics like bounce rate and site search terms to identify areas of your site that might not be meeting users’ expectations.  

Those areas could be candidates for the “low-hanging fruit” to tackle as soon as you can — think creating an FAQ section to answer users’ common questions, fixing broken images, etc. — to see results while you’re waiting on the resources to tackle larger-scale projects. 

Ready to get more out of your marketing?

At Geonetric, we’re helping healthcare organizations at all stages of their financial comeback see results from their marketing strategy. For expert insights on marketing tactics like user experience and iterative website design, contact our team today! 

We also help healthcare marketers do more with the resources they have through our VitalSite® content management system. VitalSite® is designed specifically for healthcare organizations to make managing their websites flexible and intuitive, no matter the size of their marketing department. Schedule a demo to see firsthand what VitalSite® can do for your organization!   

There’s one aspect of your digital presence as a healthcare provider that’s universal across all organizations, whether standalone hospitals with more than a century of history or a recently formed health system with hundreds of locations: brand. 

Your brand is what sets you apart from your competitors, communicates your mission and values as an organization, and reassures patients that they’ve come to the best place to receive care. 

But like any part of your marketing strategy, your brand should evolve to fit changing consumer expectations, your organization’s growth, and your overall mission and marketing goals.  

If you’re about to embark on a rebrand or aren’t sure if your organization is due for one, check out these best practices to help guide you through the process. 

What is a rebrand?

When you think of a rebrand, your first thought might be updating the look and functionality of your website. While that’s a vital part of a rebrand (and one we’re very fond of here at Geonetric), a website redesign on its own won’t get the job done. 

Instead, a rebrand is a complete change in your corporate image that could include a new name, logo, color palette, slogan, website and print material design, content voice and tone, marketing strategy, core values, brand promise and mission statement, all in an effort to rebuild your marketing strategy from the ground up.

1. Understand when it’s time to rebrand — and when it’s not

We’ve all heard the marketing horror stories of well-known companies that decide to rebrand only to lose brand recognition or consumers’ trust in the process. 

So, how do you know when a rebrand is right for your healthcare organization? 

If your primary pain points are bringing in new patients and building your brand recognition, a rebrand might not be the answer you’re looking for. Instead, you can focus your resources on search engine optimization, search engine marketing, and content marketing to help build awareness and create connections with consumers. 

On the other hand, it’s a smart time to rebrand if your organization has: 

• Experienced a rapid period of growth, like going from one location to several 

• Begun to look visually similar to other organizations in your area 

• Merged with another organization or system 

• Refocused your target patient demographics 

• Recently updated its mission, vision and values 

• Had the same branding for years, and it’s beginning to look outdated 

If it’s been a while since you’ve last rebranded, and your brand strategy no longer feels like it’s communicating the benefits your organization delivers, it’s time for an update.

2. Get the timing right

In general, full rebrands only tend to happen every seven to 10 years since they’re quite resource intensive. But that doesn’t mean you should simply “set it and forget it” when it comes to your visual branding! 

Consider doing a brand refresh, which typically happens every three to five years. Instead of revamping your entire marketing strategy through a full rebrand, a brand refresh instead focuses on updating your visible branding, like your logo, fonts, and colors. 

A brand refresh requires fewer resources than a full rebrand, and it’s easier to take on every few years. It is not, however, a substitute for rebranding — if you’re coming up on a decade with the same brand strategy, it’s time for a full rebrand. 

Rebrands don’t always happen at the most convenient times, of course. You may have had months of planning done in advance and have perfectly timed your rebrand to roll out with a complete website redesign. Other times, you may have recently redesigned your site, but you only need to make more changes following a merger or major organizational change.  

In those less-than-convenient cases, a brand refresh can help tide you over until a full rebrand and site redesign is feasible. 

3. Know your audience

Putting resources and time toward a full rebrand won’t be worth much if your new brand strategy doesn’t speak directly to patients. 

Before you get started and throughout your rebrand timeline, we recommend conducting user experience (UX) testing so you can make informed choices and give consumers what they’re looking for. Through UX research, you can get an idea of what your patients think of your branding (and your competitors’), their first impressions of your visual brand, and how your website and overall digital presence meet their needs. 

You can conduct this research through surveys, looking at your analytics to see what areas of your site attract the most clicks from users, interviewing groups of current patients to see what resonates with them, and researching wider industry trends.

4. Focus on consistency

Once you have your rebrand roadmap and are ready to begin the actual rebrand work, it’s essential to keep consistency in mind. 

A consistent visual narrative across all of your platforms ensures that your brand is easily recognizable and can build trust and reliability in the consumers’ minds. 

If you forget to update an online listing with your new logo or still have pages on your website that use your previous brand colors or fonts, it can confuse users and muddy the idea of your brand that they have in their minds. 

This brings us back to the concept of incorporating a complete website redesign with your rebrand. A new website is crucial to accurately reflecting your brand identity and showcasing the rebranded elements you’ve created for this process.  

If your rebrand includes a renewed focus on a world-class service you offer that your competitors don’t, your website can include a dedicated service line page or microsite highlighting that service. If your new mission statement places a greater emphasis on education, consider creating a blog and newsletter that routinely shares helpful health information with patients. 

No matter what your new brand strategy looks like, a redesigned website is the perfect vehicle to show off that new branding and give patients, prospects, and employees a fantastic first impression of your organization. 

Time for a rebrand?

If your organization’s brand experience could use an update, Geonetric is here to help. Our teams of website developers, designers, and writers can transform your brand and successfully position your organization to meet whatever goals you have. Contact us today to get started! 

In honor of Geonetric’s 25th anniversary, we’re sharing the stories and successes of just a few of our healthcare clients across the United States. Some have been with us for decades, others just a few years; some are major health systems, others just one standalone hospital. But one common thread ties them all together: Geonetric has helped them take their digital marketing programs to new heights. 

Bryan Health is a non-profit health system based in Lincoln, NE. The system was formed in 1997 following the merger of two hospitals in Lincoln, and today has grown to include more than 70 locations, a state-wide physician network, six acute care hospitals, and more than 6,000 employees. The system is also home to the Bryan College of Health Sciences, which offers undergraduate and graduate degrees in nursing, biomedical studies, and healthcare studies, along with college credit healthcare courses for high school students. 

Bryan first began its partnership with Geonetric in 2014, after an antiquated content management system began limiting the team’s ability to update its website and accurately tell its brand story to visitors.  

A vital upgrade

We introduced our VitalSite® content management system as a solution to help enhance Bryan’s online presence and help turn website visitors into loyal patients with features like an easy-to-navigate provider directory and key service lines pages. Geonetric also stood out from other agencies Bryan interviewed for our dedication to customer success long after their initial website launch. 

“Their ongoing support was unique compared against others, and we knew even after we received a beautiful new portfolio of websites, our work together would continue with a dedicated client success manager,” explained Jenny Sundberg, Director of Marketing and Strategic Planning at Bryan.  

Bryan’s new website launched in 2015. In the decade since, Geonetric has provided regular website enhancements, such as custom location profiles, a microsite for the system’s recently opened comprehensive community cancer center, and a microsite for the Bryan Heart cardiovascular practice that would go on to win a Gold Award for Best Landing Page or Microsite in the 2023 eHealthcare Leadership Awards.  

From January 2024 to March 2024 alone, the Bryan Health website brought in more than 19,000 conversions, more than 160,000 views of its provider profile pages (a 17.8% increase compared to 2023), more than 210,000 views of its location pages (a 6.8% increase compared to 2023), and more than five million Google search impressions. 

Adapting for the future

In 2024, Bryan and Geonetric began the initial steps to redesign the system’s website again in order to match its strategic business objectives, current consumer expectations, and changes in the way patients access health information online. 

“With our current website redesign project, we’ve engaged members from across our health system to inform how we develop our next website to meet growing needs, based on their engagement with their patients and families,” said Sundberg. “With more than 80,000 monthly unique visitors to our website, the site will have great visibility, and we’re excited for the impact it will have on how users engage with Bryan.” 

Sundberg also appreciates Geonetric’s commitment to staying on the forefront of pressing healthcare and digital marketing topics, “which has proven to be beneficial as we’ve navigated data privacy and new and emerging rules and regulations in the healthcare space.” 

When asked to sum up Bryan’s decade-long relationship with Geonetric in one word, Sundberg said “partnership.” And to healthcare organizations looking for a digital marketing partner to help reach their own marketing goals, she simply responded “Do it. It’s one of the best investments we’ve made.” 

“We knew when we selected Geonetric that they would be a great partner, we just didn’t know our relationship would expand now a decade,” said Sundberg. “We’ve developed a strong working relationship with their team, appreciate how they keep us informed of the latest news and insights in the digital healthcare space and have grown alongside us.” 

Ready to experience the Geonetric difference?   

If your healthcare organization is looking for a digital marketing partner to supercharge your website and marketing efforts, Geonetric is here to help. Contact our team today to learn more about how we can deliver results for the next decade and beyond! 

Google announced late last month that it no longer has plans to do away with third-party cookies in its Chrome web browser. This announcement came after four years of work by the search engine giant to create a new solution that allows for tracking and measurement while improving users’ privacy. 

Instead of pivoting from cookies to its Privacy Sandbox API, Google said in a blog post that it proposes a new approach that “elevates user choice.” 

“Instead of deprecating third-party cookies, we would introduce a new experience in Chrome that lets people make an informed choice that applies across their web browsing, and they’d be able to adjust that choice at any time,” Privacy Sandbox VP Anthony Chavez explained in the post. No other details of this new solution or a timeline for its release were included in the announcement. 

While the move to focus on personal choice instead of deprecating cookies may seem surprising after four years of work, it doesn’t come as a shock if you remember that 80% of Google’s revenue comes from online advertising. And despite accepting user feedback and trying to create solutions that “support a competitive and thriving marketplace,” in the end, those vital advertisers just weren’t impressed with Privacy Sandbox. 

While Google’s new focus on user choice may be an attempt to make the best of a bad situation, it still raises the question of whether it will eventually develop something new to replace third-party cookies.  

Would a new solution look different from this attempt? Or is the potential wrath of advertisers enough for Google to stay away and keep cookies in place for the foreseeable future? 

What does it mean for healthcare marketing?

For now, Google’s announcement to stick with third-party cookies shouldn’t change anything about your marketing strategy. Everything will remain status quo until we hear more about this “new experience.”  

What this move does call into question is how Google and other tech companies like Microsoft will handle their efforts to incorporate artificial intelligence solutions into their search engines.  

The rollout of features like Google’s AI Overview hasn’t been a resounding success so far (today, AI Overviews only show for about 7-8% of searches, compared to 64% when the feature first launched in 2023). The efforts tech companies have made to incorporate AI into their search engines may look very different — or cease to exist entirely — if they don’t raise market value enough. 

Our advice? Keep focusing on the fundamentals of good content that will continue to drive ROI across paid and organic strategies. Don’t ditch AI entirely, but use it as a tool when a project calls for it instead of putting all of your eggs in the AI search basket.  

As for advertising and analytics, in the healthcare world, your efforts should still be on gathering valuable consumer data in a way that doesn’t run afoul of HIPAA regulations. You can stay tuned to the Geonetric blog for HIPAA updates and other useful healthcare marketing tips, or check out our Geonetric Privacy Filter to supercharge your marketing efforts with compliant analytics. 

This is the fifth and final article in our series highlighting the technological breakthroughs that shaped healthcare, marketing, and our work at Geonetric over our first 25 years in business. You can go back and read the other articles in this series, which cover 1999 – 2003, 2004 – 2008, 2009 – 2013, and 2014 – 2018. 

When looking back on the history of digital healthcare marketing and healthcare in general, you’d be hard-pressed to find a period in history that has brought more rapid change than the last five years. 

If you’re in the healthcare industry (and if you’re reading this, you probably are), you don’t need reminding of the ways the COVID-19 pandemic challenged your organization. 

However, the pandemic brought along with it technological and marketing changes that persist today and will likely remain woven into our marketing strategies for years to come. 

On top of that, these five years also brought with them a greater emphasis on mobile web functionality and a little piece of HIPAA guidance that threw us all for a loop.  

2019

On July 1, 2019, Google started indexing new sites for mobile first before indexing the desktop versions. 

This shift made it especially vital for digital marketers to ensure that any new websites they launched worked well on mobile and had quality content, images, videos, links, structured data and other metadata, in addition to functioning well for desktop users. 

“There had been a couple of design trends at different points over the years where we’d say, ‘Ok, if 60% of our traffic is mobile, we should design the mobile experience and then back into what the desktop experience is going to look like,” explained Ben Dillon, CEO of Geonetric. “We’re seeing some app usage out there, but today, we’re certainly in a place where mobile web is a dominant piece of the experience.” 

2020

The COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020 and served as a catalyst for many healthcare organizations to pursue digital transformation — and pivot their marketing strategies to address virus, testing and vaccine information. 

“It’s hard to wrap your head around the scope and just how major the shifts were going on,” said Dillon. “We’d have clients who said, ‘I need to put a project on hold because next week we’re opening a military-style field hospital in the parking garage, and I need to oversee that now.'” 

For many healthcare marketers, the pandemic also identified gaps in their strategies for communicating with patients. Some organizations, Dillon recalled, didn’t even have a way to send email communications to all of their patients. That had to change, and fast, as communities turned to their local health systems and hospitals for guidance. 

“For a lot of our hospitals, they became one of the central hubs of communication and information around the crisis in general. There were a bunch of things along the way that were really challenging from a communication perspective,” said Dillon. “I think marketing and communications got a seat at the table at the executive level that, in many cases, they hadn’t before that point in time because they didn’t think of communications as being a strategic asset to the organization. And suddenly, that lifeline to the community was really key.” 

2021

As the COVID-19 pandemic continued, telemedicine options grew in popularity — by April 2021, 27% of American adults age 18 and older were utilizing telehealth services. However, with the rapid expansion of telemedicine also came the challenge of how healthcare organizations could master the technology, build patient trust, and explain the benefits through marketing. 

“It was interesting to see as an industry that traditionally has thought of itself as not being particularly nimble and not really being able to adapt and innovate. We had clients with five-year plans to grow telemedicine that they were able to blow past within a few weeks once COVID-related shutdowns started,” said Dillon. “In terms of adoption of the tools and the ability to push it through multiple specialties, there was a rethinking of ‘What are the places where I actually need to go in and see you?'” 

2022

In December 2022, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued guidance on the use of marketing trackers, like Google Analytics or Meta Pixel, by HIPAA Covered Entities such as health systems and hospitals. 

The guidance stated that Covered Entities are “not permitted to use tracking technologies in a manner that would result in impermissible disclosures of [protected health information] to tracking technology vendors or any other violations of the HIPAA Rules.” 

This development raised the question of whether healthcare marketers could continue to use analytics to craft effective marketing messages and understand their audiences without running afoul of HIPAA. 

Earlier this year, HHS released an updated guidance that raised more questions than answers, and the American Hospital Association recently received a summary judgment in its lawsuit that claimed the guidance exceeds HHS’ authority.  

While we wait to see how things pan out, we encourage marketers not to make any knee-jerk decisions regarding their compliance tools and strategies. Instead, consider a tool like Geonetric Privacy Filter to give you peace of mind that your marketing strategies can be effective without compromising patient privacy. 

2023

Generative AI has been creeping into marketing conversations for years now, but 2023 was the first year it truly became widely available for professional workflows. Companies like Apple, Adobe, and Canva have implemented AI tools across their creative suites, while many industries have argued over the ethics of incorporating AI into their daily work. 

AI continues to be a hot topic for healthcare marketers, according to the results of our 2024 Healthcare Digital Marketing Trends Survey. Many marketers are wary of incorporating AI into their marketing efforts when they operate in such a heavily regulated industry, while others claim that it’d feel like “cheating” to use AI to generate content for their websites. 

Whether you’re on board the AI train or not, it will play a major role in the marketing landscape over the coming years — we suggest reading up on how it will impact things like search engine optimization so you can learn how to use it in tandem with your marketing tools and prepare for the rise of AI search. 

2024… and beyond

A lot has changed over Geonetric’s 25 years in business, and we anticipate even more rapid change over the next 25. If you want more insights into the future of healthcare marketing, be sure to download our 2024 Digital Healthcare Marketing Trends Survey eBook to learn how your colleagues are reacting to hot tech topics like generative AI, personalization, HIPAA compliance, and more. 

If your organization is looking for a digital marketing guide that can help you meet your marketing goals and weather whatever tech changes are coming down the road, Geonetric is here to help. Contact our team today to learn more about our marketing and web development services, Geonetric Privacy Filter, and content management systems. 

Geonetric is thrilled to announce that CEO Ben Dillon has been named the 2024 recipient of the Society for Health Care Strategy & Market Development’s (SHSMD) Leadership Excellence Award. 

The prestigious award honors leaders in healthcare marketing, communications, public relations, planning, and business development who have become standouts in their field and have demonstrated stellar achievements over the course of their careers.  

In their recommendations, the nominators for this year’s Leadership Excellence Award highlighted Ben’s decades of digital experience, thought leadership, and work helping healthcare organizations across the country adapt to healthcare and marketing trends — all of which we’re proud to have a front row seat for here at Geonetric. 

Regarding Ben’s expertise and insights in digital marketing, technology, and healthcare, nominators remarked that he’s been “an informative and friendly source of trend watching and information in an increasingly hostile and confusing landscape” and “a sherpa where we often felt caught in a storm we couldn’t control.” 

Geonetric is honored to be led by Ben, who joined the agency in 2000, just one year after it was founded. In the years since, he has served as an influential voice in the field of healthcare marketing through his speaking engagements and writings. Ben became CEO of Geonetric in 2023. 

In addition to his outstanding work at Geonetric, Ben was also a member of the SHSHMD Board of Directors from 2011 to 2019 and served as president in 2018. He has also been a part of SHSMD’s Digital Engagement Task Force, Nominating Committee, Editorial Advisory Board, Annual Conference Planning Committee, Social Media Trends Task Force, and Bridging World Core Team. 

One award nominator who served on the SHSMD board with Ben praised his “leadership, commitment to advancing the profession, and how he lives the Society’s values of collaboration, accountability, respect, excellence and innovation.”  

Nominators also appreciate Ben’s “candor, sincerity, inclusiveness, and dry sense of humor” in the way he shares industry updates, even when addressing “the most complex and challenging topics of the industry.” 

In addition to his work with SHSMD, Ben is also a 2022 Healthcare Internet Hall of Fame inductee and an eHealthcare Strategy & Trends editorial advisory board member. 

Outside of healthcare marketing, Ben is also a co-founder, board member, and mentor for the Iowa Startup Accelerator — now known as NewBo.Co — a non-profit expanding the entrepreneurial and innovation ecosystem in Iowa. 

This well-deserved honor from SHSMD not only celebrates Ben’s outstanding professional achievements but also underscores the invaluable impact he has had on digital marketing, healthcare, and the Geonetric team. 

From all of us at Geonetric, congratulations, Ben, on this prestigious recognition! 

In honor of Geonetric’s 25th anniversary, we’re sharing the stories and successes of just a few of our healthcare clients across the United States. Some have been with us for decades, others just a few years; some are major health systems, others just one standalone hospital. But one common thread ties them all together: Geonetric has helped them take their digital marketing programs to new heights.

Hartford, CT-based Hartford HealthCare (HHC) ranks as one of the largest health systems in Connecticut, seeing more than 23,000 patients daily in more than 185 cities across the state. HHC comprises more than 500 healthcare facilities, including four behavioral health centers, two physician organizations, senior care services, and seven acute care hospitals, several of which have been serving their communities for over a century.

Search strategies

HHC has partnered with Geonetric since early 2018, initially contracting with us to work on search engine optimization (SEO) across its more than 30 websites after a new website launch led to a natural dip in organic traffic and search rankings.

“Our websites weren’t ranking as well as we would like on Google, and we knew that having an agency dedicated to SEO would be important,” said Nicole Spagnoletti, Director of Digital Marketing at HHC. “It was a lot to manage on our own, with our in-house team dedicating time to maintaining and expanding them as our system grew over time.”

When our partnership first began, our long-term strategy for HHC was to integrate organic SEO with search engine marketing (SEM), and shift toward organic SEO over time. But rebuilding those rankings wasn’t something that could happen overnight — it requires a significant amount of effort, resources and time.

To bridge the gap between where HHC’s rankings were in 2018 with where we wanted them to reach, we recommended a short-term paid marketing and pay-per-click (PPC) ad strategy. With this initial strategy in place, HHC and our team had the time to take a step back and focus on building up core competencies.

Those strategies, like any successful marketing program, evolved over time to fit HHC’s needs. But the solid foundation of SEO success — technical SEO, on-page SEO, on search results page SEO, and off-page SEO — have always been at the center of the work we do together.

In the years since our partnership began, we’ve helped reimagine HHC’s entire approach to digital marketing with a new SEO strategy to help recoup their lost traffic and search rankings.

Our team has also implemented SEM campaign best practices to bring their PPC ads back on track after “cannibalization” — ads competing with other Hartford campaigns and reducing their impact — led to an inefficient use of the money invested in each campaign.

A significant part of these initial SEO and SEM projects was identifying and remedying “low-hanging fruit” — minor fixes we could make to achieve results quickly — and ensuring all pages were functioning and tagged correctly so Google and other search engines could find and scan them.

We also identified the campaigns that were causing and reassessed and optimized them for new keywords and audiences.

Partnership results

Within the first nine months of launching HHC’s revamped paid campaigns, we saw a 57.55% increase in conversions, a 98.39% increase in impressions, a 71.75% increase in conversion rate, and a 31.82% decrease in cost per conversion.

On the SEO side, year-over-year results from 2018 to 2019 show a 59% increase in conversion growth, a 67% increase in conversion rate, and a 30% decrease in cost per conversion.

In the time since launching those initial campaigns, our team has continued to fine-tune HHC’s SEO strategy and paid efforts through new keyword-optimized content, metadata and Google Tag Manager management.

“In all of the projects we work on with Geonetric, we get such wonderful feedback from our colleagues about how easy they are to work with, how clear their expectations are, and how sound their strategy is,” said Spagnoletti. “If we ever have questions about their strategy, it’s a great conversation and learning opportunity.”

Prioritizing privacy

We also worked with HHC to implement Geonetric Privacy Filter, which allows healthcare organizations to use Google Analytics and craft effective marketing strategies while maintaining HIPAA compliance.

Spagnoletti recalled that a highlight of implementing Geonetric Privacy Filter was consistently feeling like a priority to our team.

“This particular project had a lot of visibility, and we needed answers in a clear, concise and timely manner, and they delivered,” she said.

A true partnership

Another factor that has kept HHC’s partnership with Geonetric strong over the years is our meticulous attention to detail and commitment to staying up-to-date on the latest healthcare and marketing industry trends. When asked to sum up our relationship in one word, Spagnoletti chose “authentic.”

“They are proactive in communicating with us when there are changes in the industry and offer solid solutions without overselling,” said Spagnoletti. “The best thing about working with the team is that I trust they operate with their clients’ interests in mind. Geonetric is a true partner, beyond just the services they provide. We appreciate having them as an extension of our in-house team.”

Ready to experience the Geonetric difference?

Geonetric has 25 years of experience helping healthcare organizations of all sizes meet their marketing goals and stay on the cutting edge of healthcare and digital trends.

If your team is ready to take the first step to building a marketing partnership that delivers results, contact us today!

This is the fourth article in our series highlighting the technological breakthroughs that shaped healthcare, marketing, and our work at Geonetric over our first 25 years in business. Read the first articles, which cover 1999 – 2003, 2004 – 2008, and 2009 – 2013. 

Geonetric’s 15th year in business saw the rapid rise of internet-connected mobile devices and their use by consumers to look up healthcare-related information. 

This was a crucial time for healthcare organizations and our agency to take a closer look at how websites appeared and functioned on mobile devices. They didn’t just have to look good on a smaller, narrower screen — they had to be easily navigable, and offer quick solutions for patients and visitors on the go.  

Longstanding technology like Adobe’s Flash software platform, which was used to create animations and dynamic experiences in desktop and mobile applications, became casualties in the move from desktop browsing to mobile, especially as Apple’s iPhone gained in popularity. 

“There was some shedding of technology that was really common on the desktop because more and more people were coming with mobile devices,” explained Geonetric CEO Ben Dillon. “These were all steps along the road to say, ‘Ok, the phone can actually be a fully functional front end for this internet thing.'”  

2014

Mobile usage surpassed desktop browser traffic for the first time in 2014. As the amount of time people spent on their desktop and laptop computers drops in comparison to time spent browsing via smartphone, the need for organizations to take a mobile-first approach to marketing and website design became more apparent.  

“We were very early in the movement of rethinking how to build these sites so that they work not just on a desktop but on mobile devices as well,” said Dillon. “Later, we started talking about mobile-first design and design everywhere.” 

(Scroll down to the bottom of this post to see an infographic we created in 2012 — well before smartphone usage overtook browser traffic — forecasting the future of mobile browsing, social media, and how healthcare consumers engage online.)

2015

In line with the growing trend of mobile internet usage, Google began ranking pages with poor mobile experiences lower on its search results page. 

The reasoning, according to Google, was so “users will find it easier to get relevant, high quality search results that are optimized for their devices.” 

This move was a further push for organizations to ensure their websites were responsive for visitors regardless of the device they were using to look for information. 

“It certainly had a huge impact. We’re in a place today where mobile web is a dominant piece of the digital experience,” said Dillon.  

2016

Google took its “mobile-first” mindset a step further in 2016 by removing ads from the sidebar. Ads appeared above and below natural search results, allowing search results pages to look similar across mobile phones, desktop and laptop computers, and tablets.  

This year also marked the launch of Facebook’s live video platform, which allowed individual users and organizational accounts alike the opportunity to connect and engage directly with consumers through streaming video. From a healthcare perspective, provider organizations could utilize live video to stream online classes, host virtual hiring events, provide patients and visitors with news updates about the organization, and even stream live surgeries! 

2017

The number of internet-connected devices exceeded the global population for the first time in 2017 — an estimated 8.4 billion connected devices were used that year, compared to 7.5 billion people.  

While the one billion difference between internet devices and people seemed staggering at the time, by 2024, more than 18 billion internet-connected devices were in use.  

2018

The year 2018 ushered in discussions around personal data use and social media following the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which a British consulting firm revealed that it had harvested the personal data of as many as 87 million Facebook users through a third-party app and used it for political advertising purposes without users’ consent.  

Facebook was fined $5 billion by the Federal Trade Commission as a result of the scandal, and reminded marketers of the importance of privacy in the data collected and used in advertising — something  that, more recently, Geonetric Privacy Filter was designed to safeguard. 

What’s next?

Our final installment of this 25th anniversary technology blog series will be published in two weeks, covering 2019 through 2024. 

No matter what the future holds for mobile devices, social media, and healthcare marketing, Geonetric is ready with a host of website design, software, and marketing solutions to help your organization stay on top of the latest trends. 

Contact us today to learn how we can help your organization navigate the future of healthcare marketing! 

In honor of Geonetric’s 25th anniversary, we’re sharing the stories and successes of just a few of our healthcare clients across the United States. Some have been with us for decades, others just a few years; some are major health systems, others just one standalone hospital. But one common thread ties them all together: Geonetric has helped them take their digital marketing programs to new heights.

San Antonio-based University Health was founded in 1917 as Bexar County’s first public hospital. In the decades since, it’s grown to become the third-largest public health system in the state of Texas, with two teaching hospitals, a Level I trauma center, and dozens of other locations across the San Antonio metro area.

University Health joined forces with Geonetric in 2019 when the organization needed a strategy and design partner for a website redesign and a new content hub to host its blogs, videos, and educational content. University Health was working with another agency at the time to handle the actual development of the new site, but Geonetric’s healthcare expertise and focus on measurable results impressed the team.

“We really liked how they approach new projects, especially that redesign, and that they are healthcare-specific. They understood our audience,” explained Selene Mejia, Digital Marketing Director for University Health.

After the successful launch of its new website, University Health continued working with Geonetric to add components and features to the website, like additional content and a dedicated pediatrics microsite.

Searching for results

In 2021, Geonetric assisted University Health with a new project: boosting the return on investment of its pay-per-click (PPC) and search engine optimization (SEO) efforts.

In particular, the University Health team needed help building on a previous search engine marketing (SEM) campaign targeting two of its pediatric locations to include 13 additional clinics. After Geonetric stepped in, the first year of the revamped campaign led to a 170% increase in conversions and a 46% decrease in the cost per click.

While Mejia had worked with previous agencies on SEM campaigns before, Geonetric’s commitment to continuous improvement and staying on the cutting edge of search technology stood out.

“We admire their proactive approach in every campaign they handle for us,” Mejia said. “Every two weeks, they introduce fresh ideas to enhance our paid advertising campaigns through A/B testing, adjusting keywords, and exploring new platform features.”

Geonetric was originally tasked with managing six of University Health’s campaigns for 15 months. After seeing the initial results, Geonetric took over four additional campaigns as well as managing the system’s SEO and personalization approach.

Promoting primary care

Today, a primary focus of Geonetric’s work with University Health is an ongoing SEM campaign focused on increasing awareness of its primary care services and boosting appointment requests.

Geonetric’s strategy for this primary care campaign embraced Google’s automated bidding system, maximizing conversions while staying within University Health’s fixed budget. The team also leveraged responsive search ads that adapt to the user and show them the most relevant message possible to help connect new patients with the primary care services they require.

While this campaign has been ongoing, a series of experiments in late 2023 — two years after it first launched — led to a record-setting number of appointment requests in 2024.

“Service line leaders are pleased with the overall results,” Mejia noted.

Looking to the future

Next up for University Health’s partnership with Geonetric are new SEM campaigns, including one focused on the back-to-school season and another on pulmonology.

In addition to future projects, Mejia also appreciates Geonetric’s proactive approach when it comes to breaking developments in the healthcare marketing and technology fields.

“I have worked with other agencies, and usually it was me bringing those kinds of things to them, like ‘Oh, have you heard about this?'” Mejia said. “In this case, [Geonetric] brings that information to us. I particularly value Ben and his team for keeping us informed about HHS guidelines regarding analytics and HIPAA.”

“They consistently innovate to ensure our users have good experiences, even when factors are beyond their control. For instance, Brad personally called our phone number to verify call functionality after noticing a discrepancy in analytics,” Mejia recalled. “For partnerships, we look for someone who can keep us up to date and at the forefront, and Geonetric does that. We’ve been consistently impressed by how they help us in staying competitive.”

Ready to experience the Geonetric difference?

Geonetric has 25 years of digital marketing know-how and healthcare-specific experience ready to go to work for you. If your organization is ready to supercharge its marketing efforts, connect with us today!

In this webinar, Geonetric CEO Ben Dillon shares a snapshot of today’s healthcare marketing space with the results of our 2024 Healthcare Digital Marketing Trends Survey, which includes input from hundreds of healthcare organizations across the country. He also highlights what leading healthcare organizations are doing to stay ahead of the curve and where we expect marketers to invest their budgets in the coming years.