The Thought Leadership Gap in Healthtech

Truth-ought leadership comes from a company or a brand or a person who actually has a point of view that changes perceptions, that's provocative, that's ownable only to them. So you're only a leader of the thought leader when the idea is actually ownable just to you, no one else can claim it. Welcome to the Health Tech Marketing Show, I'm your host, Adam Chirin, a summer CEO of Health Launchpad, one of the presenting sponsors. Here's an uncomfortable truth, and this is one I hear echoed by pretty much every marketing lead I talked to in the industry. Most Health Tech thought leadership is frankly interchangeable. You can swap out the logo, change the company name, and 90% of the time nobody would notice, same ideas, same language, same cautious takes, and yet we keep producing it. We keep calling it thought leadership when really it's more like thought participation. So what's actually wrong? More importantly, what does real thought leadership look like in Health Tech? And why does it matter so much right now when AI is flooding every channel with content that's getting harder and harder to distinguish from the human stuff? And that's what today's conversation is all about. Thank you to you for listening to today's episode, and if this is the first time you're listening, please do subscribe, you can follow us on Spotify and on Apple or whatever podcast application you're using. You can also find us on YouTube as well. And a big thank you to our sponsors, the wonderful people at HealthCare now radio, the online radio station that's all things health care. They also have an incredible podcast syndication network that we're very privileged to be part of. It's been a great contributor to expanding the reach of this show. My guest today is Adriana Hossford, who is the Chief Communications and Head of Marketing at Artera. They're an AI patient communication platform, and they just picked up Best in Class, which is no small thing as I'm sure you know. Adriana came up through corporate reputation at Ketchum, which is one of the world's premier PR firm, which means she thinks about brand in a way that most health care marketers may not. And she's got a reputation lens on everything and that changes how you see the problem. You tend to be a bit more critical in the way that you think about things. It's actually Adriana's second time on the show. She joined us last year with Lauren Burke for a great conversation on measurement. But today we're going to go somewhere different. We're talking about brand and about thought leadership in particular. I feel like this is such a great conversation. It's almost like thought leadership about thought leadership, hence the title of this episode. And she's going to talk about what it actually takes to build a presence in this market that buyers actually trust and remember. And she's got some great sharp takes, including some examples from the B2C world like Chase, Sapphire's launch in the middle of the Occupy Wall Street movement. I think as B2B marketers, we can learn a lot from that. So, any with that, let's get on with the show and meet Adriana. I'm Adriana Hosford. I'm the Chief Communications Officer and Head of Marketing at Arterra. And Arterra is a best in class winning this year. AI patient communication solution. So we help providers connect with patients and get them access to the care that they need. Congratulations on the class when that is some fantastic. So let's start with an uncomfortable truth. So most health tech thought leadership is pretty interchangeable. Why is that? I have some thoughts on this. Prior to leading marketing, a lot of this has to do with my history and my upbringing. So before leading marketing, I came from corporate reputation. So I led the corporate reputation practice on the West Coast for Ketchum, which is an Omnicon Agency. And so I think about everything through a reputational lens. I think one of the challenges with thought leadership is it's really hard to do it well. Most folks, not just in this industry, but all industries, aren't really doing that leadership. So I like to think of it like on a spectrum. And if you think there's three parts of the spectrum, the most basic is someone who's really a company ambassador. So that's a person who has category expertise. They're savvy within the sector. Maybe they're respected manager. That person can be a great spokesperson, but really they're just a company ambassador and they can only talk about their company. The second part would be someone who is more of a subject matter expert. And traditionally, that's a person who has some type of perspective within the category. Maybe they can translate like industry trends to economic, you know, impact. That is more of the thought leadership. I think we see in this industry, but that's not really thought leadership. That's just being a subject matter expert. It's important. But truth thought leadership comes from a company or a brand or a person who actually has a point of view that changes perceptions. That's provocative. That's ownable only to them. So you're only a leader of the thought leader when the idea is actually ownables just to you. No one else can claim it. But I think the biggest part of that leadership is you have to be provocative. And it has to be a little risky for it to actually break through. And I think in healthcare, we're a very risk-averse industry, whether that's in the clinic or in our marketing materials. And so often that's why thought leadership isn't really breaking through as much as it could in this industry, because we're very risk-averse. And I think folks like to say what they know and they focus on their expertise. But it's not provocative. It's not transcending this industry. It's not making you question, great thought leadership, almost sparks debate. Someone saying, "I just agree with what this CEO or what that brand says." I don't like the way that they're doing that. So let's go outside of healthcare. Give me some examples of why that was great thought leadership. As opposed to provocative, because Elon Musk is provocative. Yes. But that's not thought leadership. That's Elon Musk. Yes. What's some good examples of provocative thought leadership? Well, unfortunately Elon Musk is actually an interesting example of this because sometimes it's not just about being provocative, but it's about the big bets that you claim actually coming through to fruition. So competitors either follow you or get out of the way. Probably an early example of this that might be a little stale now is Netflix. Netflix seemed extremely provocative when they first came out with streaming and what they were doing seemed really wild to everybody else. And now every other major network or movie studio has followed them. So any examples of where people have really not just disrupted an industry, but actually changed the way the business is done. I would say those are good examples without leadership. Yeah. Outside of healthcare, when I think about thought leadership, I think of McKinsey or Boos or BCG, which is kind of academic stuff. I mean, they published their own publications and they stack up against HBR to a certain stuff. I mean, it's not HBR, but actually, I remember working with lots of strategists who would make sure they would get whatever the McKinsey quarterly would be along with HBR. So it's just sort of interesting that if you look outside of you look at media, the economists, it's like, I mean, they're one of the ultimate thought leaders, but actually been pretty stayed in what they've done. They're only now doing video in a compelling way. So it's sort of interesting how some companies have sort of out media, the media, but not in healthcare. No, no, no, definitely no. Well, and all your examples right there, the product they're selling is thought leadership. That's true. I think what's interesting sometimes when a business does it or a brand does it is they're selling some other product, right? And the thought leadership, ideally, if you're thinking about it through the reputation lens, whatever claim they're making, if it comes to fruition, of course, you would hope that then the product helps support that vision of the world. But McKinsey, Bane, like all the consultants, that is what they sell. Their product is thought leadership. And so I do think it's harder for companies who are selling something unique to do authentic thought leadership because often people just want to sell their product. Yeah. You know, everyone just wants to hock their wares. And that also makes it kind of in authentic. So I got a dumb question. Why do it? I mean, if you're selling, you know, you're selling patient engagement software. What's the role of thought leadership that? Well, I mean, the role of thought leadership for patient engagement software is that a lot of software or AI agents, a lot of them are the same. So how do you pick between a lot of products that are very similar and at Dartara News. way, we believe it's not just the product you're buying, it's the partnership, it's the people who've done this for 10 years, it's the people whose mission, which our terror mission, is to make healthcare number one in customer service. Like we want healthcare to be as amazing as when you're, you know, texting united on your app to reschedule a flight, you know, we want like hospitality level service and healthcare. And so that began is our thought leadership platform. And at the time 10 years ago, that actually was a provocative idea that healthcare should be patient centric, that it should revolver on you. That you should be able to communicate in your own language on the channel you want, whether that's email or text or phone, you know, that it should be on your terms. And that was the beginning of our thought leadership. And then obviously that thought leadership, if you, if that broke through to you and you were someone who read an article about that and said, "Gosh, I agree with that concept." Well, then the next step would be, "Oh, maybe we should work with that company that also believes in that concept." So that's why you would do it. So I have, you know, I kind of, I have a very ABME way of thinking about everything. And so I think about the stages of the buyer journey. And so, you know, there's a lot of data that shows, you know, the vast majority of buyers, 80 plus percent of buyers, when they start the buying process, they've already got a short this and they've already got their favorite kind of. And it's a very small number of buyers that are actually in market at any time. And so you've got to use thought leadership to connect with them and develop a relationship in their brain before they're even thinking about, you know, months, years before they're even in the market for whatever you do. But, yeah, I just, I wonder if it's a better way to do that because you're, I mean, you're essentially, you're using thought leadership as a way to build the brand. Yeah. So I just want to re-zit the most effective way of doing it for the market that we're in. Well, I mean, it depends how well you're doing that. I believe that thought leadership or any kind of authentic, unique, onable ideas will become more and more important. Now that's so many teams, especially marketing teams, are using AI prolifically. A lot of folks are producing AI Slop, which everybody talks about. So in some ways, AI, although there's a lot of fear around it replacing the human touch, you could argue that AI is going to make it even more important to have that human interaction, to have that person who you know, give you an endorsement of this brand or this product. And in some ways, I think thought leadership will help you see what the company believes. I mean, we always talk on our team about how a website is the external representation or manifestation of the company. So when you go to someone's website and it's a little confusing and you can't see what they stand for, often internally. It's like that, right? Yeah. And in some ways thought leadership is similar, right? If it's a company that doesn't have a thought leadership platform or the ideas that they think are just groundbreaking, don't seem that provocative to you. That probably is a representation of the culture as well of like who they are and how they think. So, Adrienne, before going to come to work for our Tara work for a big global PR firm. And so you've got experience. I worked for a couple. Yeah. Okay. So you've got experience across multiple many different industries. Yes. What are some of the ways that other industries build brands? And you kind of wish we did in health care technology. Well, one of my favorite clients and favorite brands that I helped launch was Chase Sapphire. I don't know if you're Chase Sapphire Cardholder. Yes. Very wonderful. I hope you are. So we launched Chase Sapphire in 2009, which was the height of when folks were occupying Wall Street. And a big part of the discussion was how do we launch in theory like an affluent travel credit card at a time when literally folks are protesting like affluence and Wall Street and all these other things. And the folks at Chase, no surprise Jamie Diamond is kind of a legend. And everyone there is fantastic. They're super smart. They're very committed people. They knew that they had to tie the credit card to meaningful experiences. And this seems pretty obvious now. But then that wasn't an obvious thing. You know, people were excited about having a black card like they really kind of wanted to tie affluence to just stuff. Yeah. And Chase was like, it's not about stuff. The point of this credit card and the point of making any money is so that you can have great experiences for yourself with your friends, with your family. So for them, their thought leadership was very tied to if you had a Chase Sapphire card, one, you could call the number and you get a live human. That was a mind blowing idea at the time. And then two, you got access to experiences you couldn't buy. Yeah. So you could go behind the scenes of the Sundance Film Festival. You could meet John Hamm at the premiere of Mad Men, which I did. You know, right? So cool. They really just gave card members and we would put on these events for them and pitch media and organize it. And these card members would come. And they would say, I thought I was buying a sing for Mad Men. I didn't realize I meet the cast, you know. And now the card is, and at the time, it was actually a pretty small market of who they would go after. Who could was eligible for this type of credit card so they knew they had to make it special because Amex arguably had done a great job at that. You know, so that's, I would say, Chase often does it really well. Yeah. They've also built a strong brand around security and fraud. I don't know if you've ever had any fraud issues. I've got two choice credit cards. One's up personal one and one's my business one and I'd change one of them whatever year. Yeah. So you have ink for business? No, it's a united card. Oh, yeah. I also have the United mileage plus. Yeah, we go. I'm also the resident Chase card. I could tell people a lot about different cards. Well, it's just as ironically, when you were working at Chase, I was working at an agency with my biggest client and literally 100% of my life was Bank of America. Oh, yeah. And they had a very different reaction to everything that, because 2009 was not a great time to be a banker. Yeah. And I remember having a conversation with the legendary Anpanouka who was, you know, one of the greatest marketing people in banking and saying, Hey, at the risk of staking the office, you've all got to regain the consumer's trust. I think the way to do it is to provide education. Just to say, just is to put information out there that's going to help the consumer get control of what's going on. And they did a lot of that. I mean, I'm going to say that they just listened to me to do it. It's pretty obvious. But wow, what an interesting time to be in banking. So what can we do in healthcare in terms of grand building? Like, what would be the sorts of things that we wish we could do to help get the buyer of next year or the year afterwards to be, I'm going to make sure that they're on the list. Maybe you're already doing it. Yeah. I mean, we're trying like everyone else. I think sometimes in, I mean, P2B is very, it's a special type of marketing. And I've always loved it. I remember talking with a more traditional brand person before. And they were telling me how hard they thought it was to market without a product. And I always kind of thought the opposite. I thought it's the easiest way to market around thought leadership in like a belief system. Like the product was sort of secondary. And I always thought it no, it really should be about a belief system and a set of values. I think we can learn a lot from great consumer brands, but translated here. I mean, just because we're in healthcare and it's highly regulated, which is part of the reason why I think so many people for financial services fit easily in healthcare, financial services like you and I. It's a little bit more fun. They take a little bit more risk, but it's still very highly regulated, right? But I think we could do more exciting things in this industry. It's not that healthcare people are not boring. Right. I mean, they want amazing, unique experiences. They want to need John Ham. You know, everybody else. So, I mean, I think that that's one of the things that we could be doing more of in healthcare. And I would say some of the companies that have done it, maybe I can think of a couple. I don't really want to name them, but I'll say one or two companies that were sort of known for that turned out to be kind of like all sizzle, no stage. Yeah, right. Yeah. And so, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So maybe folks have a bad taste in their mouths. I don't know, but I mean, there's fun things we could be doing. A personal story. So before I started health launch about I had a healthcare technology company, doing clinical communications. So we were competing with companies. The company was called Unified Health and it was small. We competed with companies like Perfect Serve and Tiger Connects, Tiger Text. Yeah. And I was, I thought it was fascinating. They were taking a very SaaS-oriented approach into marketing, but sort of like almost can be to see SaaS. Yeah. So very much sort of small selling to doctors as small customers sort of made sense because they built their original base of customers actually based on physician practices, but they carried that upstream to the big healthcare system. And it really worked. It worked well for them. It drove me crazy because as a marketer running a software company, I didn't have the way I would all to compete with that. But they did, they took that approach work for them. I think they evolved it into a much more cemented price model over time, but it got them started. Okay. Last question for you. So, you're a member of the health tech marketing network and so you get to meet some people. What if a CMO told you they're brand isn't cutting through and ask for an uncomfortable truth. What would you tell them? It's tough. Maybe what would you ask them first? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'd want to understand a little bit about their product, right? Who their ICP is and what they're doing to reach those folks. I do think one of the challenges that a lot of SaaS marketers have, especially B2B SaaS and a lot of companies in general, is that we over rely on the product. Like everyone loves the product so much and B2B SaaS is why you're here to start up. People leave them the product or jazz about it. That almost we think the product sells itself and the product doesn't sell itself. Not unless you have a great product and then you have a product-led sales motion where you can test the product online. You can upgrade online. Most SaaS products are not that approach. Most of us are taking more of a sales-led sales motion where if you want a demo of the product, you must speak to a sales person. But then we're not matching it with a sales-led marketing approach. That's why I often think is the mismatch is a lot of marketing teams are potentially under resource because folks think, "Oh, well, the product sells itself." But our buyers are really busy. They're really sophisticated. They don't have time to explore and figure out what our product is and why it's better than another one. They don't always have time or want to set up a demo. That's a very high stakes request. But I think I would go back to definitely their ICP. Do they really understand them? I evaluate companies on, do they have, when I was looking at roles coming to different tech companies, do you have a customer or a small customer base who loves your product and is wild for your product? That to me is always a good sign. I guess the other thing I would say to them is like, what marketing strategy are they using? On our team, we have a three-pillar strategy. The first is make the customer the hero. So everything we do is customer-led. It's all about the customer being the one to show the story. We're not the heroes they are. They're just a product they use to help them achieve their goals. The second is drive the narrative with data. We have to have data in everything we do. The third is elevate human voices. Every time we can have a human in the mix, we can share data. We have the customer to tell the story. I will say I don't know if it's lack of customers, but even in our own space, I see very few competitors in our space having customers tell their story. I see the competitor telling the story. This is why we're great. This is why our product is great. This is why you should buy us. In healthcare, healthcare decision makers don't want to hear that from the company. They want to hear it from another person who they trust who also does their job. Not from me. They want to hear it from someone who's like them in another part of the country or serving the same type of patient. That to me feels very obvious, but maybe that's something that folks are missing. I think there's a lot that goes into it. Adrian, that's I think a great place to leave this. That's Adrian Haasford. I don't know about you, but I found this conversation really insightful, really clarifying. We throw the phrase, "thought leadership around constantly in this industry." I think Adrian put a finger on exactly why so little it actually really lands. Let me give you four key takeaways from this conversation. Take away number one. There are three levels of thought leadership, and most health tech companies are stuck at level two. Adrianne shared a framework that she uses to think about thought leaders. Number one is the company ambassador. This is someone who knows the space and can speak to it, but ultimately it's just representing the company. Level two is the subject matter expert. This is someone who can translate industry trends into business impact. That's genuinely valuable, but is it really thought leadership? Probably not. Then there's the real thing, which is level three. This is a point of view that's ownable, that only you as a company can credibly claim. That point of view is provocative enough to actually make people disagree. Most of what we produce in health tech sits at level two, and we're not going to stand out there. Take away number two. Thought leadership has to carry some risk to break through. This is the part which I think most of health tech marketers are uncomfortable with. For good reason, we operate in a regulated industry, which is high stakes. Adrianne's point is that risk-averse ideas produce risk-averse results. If nobody can push back on what you're saying, it probably isn't interesting enough to build a brand around. The companies that have made it work, for example, Netflix, changing the entire media industry, Chase Sapphire, tying affluence to experience rather than status and doing that at the height of the financial crisis. These companies did it because they were willing to plant a flag in a position that felt genuinely exposed at the time. Take away three. In a world of AI-generated content, the human voice becomes a competitive advantage. Adrianne made the point that as more and more teams reach for AI to produce their content, and a lot of them are producing what we all started to call AI Slop. The bar for what feels authentic and trustworthy actually can go up in this world. Thought leadership that reflects genuine, vulnerable point of view delivered by real people is going to matter more and more as the content environment gets noisier and noisier and more AI-generated. Take away number four. Make the customer the hero, not the product. Our terrace, three-pillar marketing strategy, customer-led stories, data-driven narrative, and human voices, front and center is something I think a lot of health tech teams could learn from. Adrianne made an observation that's that with me. Healthcare decision makers don't want to hear from the company why the product is great. They want to hear it from someone who does the same job as they do, maybe in a different part of the country. Yet if you look across our competitive landscape, most companies are still telling their own story rather than amplifying their customer's voices. That's a gap that's there to be closed if you can get your customers to talk on your behalf. Through line in everything Adrianne said is this, brand isn't a deliverable, it's a reflection, it reflects what the company actually believes, how it actually operates, what it's willing to say, and what it's willing to say out loud. You can't build credible thought leadership on messaging that doesn't connect to something real underneath. In a market where buyers are more skeptical, more sophisticated than ever, authenticity isn't just a nice to have, it's how you get on the short list before the buying conversation even starts. If this episode got you thinking about where your brand actually sits on Adrianne's spectrum, I'd love to hear about it. If you want to dig deeper, whether that's brand strategy, ABM or the AI pipeline growth work we've been building at Health Launchpad, there's a link in the show notes to book a call with me. No pressure, nothing for sale here, just genuinely happy to compare notes. If you liked what Adrianne has to say, do share it with your friends and colleagues using the share button, and again, please subscribe, it will mean a lot. By the way, if you like this show, please give it a rating. A five star rating on Spotify or Apple goes a long way to making sure that people can find the show. Thank you so much for listening. I'm Adam Trenus and I'll see you on the next one.