How CIENCE Powered Lead Generation for DoctorPodcasting
Sales Development
Key Takeaways
- An effective approach to outbound starts with extensive data research dedicated to the ICP and outreach strategies.
- A company can benefit from outsourcing to find new sales opportunities in a niche market.
- Product-oriented services can focus their energies on product development by outsourcing to lead generation professionals.
About Client
DoctorPodcasting is a pioneer in podcast production for healthcare organizations. Its unique turnkey system provides the full package: scheduling, professional talk host, recording, editing, and distribution to the popular platforms. The company offers further assistance in marketing across social media, websites, radio, and earned and paid media to its clients.
Within the last four years, the popularity of podcasts has increased by 60%, making them an efficient marketing and communications tool for many companies. However, producing a good quality podcast in-house—especially for healthcare organizations—can be time- and money-consuming.
DoctorPodcasting offers a cost-effective solution to help healthcare companies reach out to their communities by marketing their services among patients, engaging peer-to-peer referrals and knowledge sharing between doctors, and streaming internal communications.
The Story of DoctorPodcasting
DoctorPodcasting remains the only turnkey podcast solution targeted at healthcare organizations: Its process involves hosting the podcast, interviewing the doctor/provider, editing the segments, publishing it to the hospital website, and then distributing it to all podcast apps.
Being one-of-a-kind in their niche and already establishing long-term relationships with their clients, DoctorPodcasting had not until recently actively pursued lead generation services. It had previously hired a sales specialist who contacted hospitals by phone and email to attract new clients.
It had also participated in a series of offline marketing events sponsored by the American Hospital Association (AHA) and other organizations.
DoctorPodcasting knew it needed help with outreach. Its database was relatively small and only a handful of offline events had been attended by a small percentage of hospitals. The occasional attempts at advertising via social media had not produced any significant results—it was time to try outsourcing with an established partner who could bring its outreach to life.
Challenges & Scope
For DoctorPodcasting, the main challenge began with how to strategically expand its niche product into the healthcare industry. To reach out to new clients and close more deals, it needed to implement marketing strategies, methodologies, and channels best suited for its target market.
Challenges
DoctorPodcasting was particularly struggling with how to build sufficient databases to reach out to thousands of potential clients. In addition, its one-on-one sales meetings (demos) were falling flat as many hospitals remained skeptical of using podcasts, not understanding the real value of its services. Budgetary restraints and other red tape were also getting in the way. By knowing how to find qualified leads, DoctorPodcasting was hoping to avoid these setbacks and close more deals.
Need
DoctorPodcasting was looking to drive increased quality leads into their sales funnel. They needed a team of specialized sales development representatives (SDR) to provide qualified research targeting to the marketing departments of healthcare organizations. The campaign required a more extensive database, assistance in coming up with new strategies, and analytic capacities to test them out.
Raising awareness among doctors was also a top priority. By exposing this essential group to the growing popularity of podcasts and services, they may be able to move the needle and get more hospitals on board.
Opportunity
By partnering with CIENCE, DoctorPodcasting could test out different ways of engaging potential clients and raising awareness about its services among healthcare professionals. While CIENCE's team worked on research and outbound strategies, DoctorPodcasting's team could concentrate on developing their product and supporting their clients.
Why CIENCE?
CIENCE's data-driven approach to lead generation attracted DoctorPodcasting immediately. The initial idea was to conduct research to identify healthcare organizations most likely to receive Doctor Podcasting's value proposition. Only then would they reach out to prospects to secure appointments. This was precisely what DoctorPodcasting was looking for.
DoctorPodcasting found a partner with the agility it needed. CIENCE was able to access the niche market and create the precise ideal customer profile (ICP) based on the many variables that DoctorPodcasting had provided.
“There was a learning curve for them to understand our industry and our target leads, but they caught on quickly,” said Tim Disa Jr., co-founder of DoctorPodcasting. “It's to be expected since our service is unique and to reach a niche market.”
DoctorPodcasting was also impressed with CIENCE’s multichannel approach to the campaign. The team of highly involved managers, SDRs, and a campaign strategist used many channels and messaging strategies to ensure outreach success.
“We've checked out other similar companies but rolled the dice with CIENCE and are delighted with the positive results,” said Disa. “[They were] worth the investment for sure.”
Results
In a highly regulated healthcare industry, changes do not happen quickly. To advertise a new service in this industry, DoctorPodcasting had to raise brand awareness and use extensive data research to find qualified leads.
“Working with CIENCE, their team has delivered high volumes of quality leads for our company,” said Disa. “We offer a fairly niche product with a finite pool of consumers, so CIENCE has gotten quite creative in finding and reaching the right buyers.”
After enriching the database, referrals and re-engagement turned out to be highly effective in attracting potential clients.
CIENCE's data-driven analytic capacities allowed them to pinpoint the most suitable prospects, with phone calls and emails channels proving most successful.
Nuanced targeting, powered by CIENCE, brought DoctorPodcasting approximately 80 demos with healthcare marketing teams. CIENCE was able to raise awareness among specialists and doctors, offering DoctorPodcasting's unique solution, an affordable option that could be applied to many areas of business.
The overall results of the campaigns showed long-term potential, with successful lead generation strategies that DoctorPodcasting could apply in the future.
Partnership Success
Finding that right connection was the driving force behind success. DoctorPodcasting appreciated CIENCE's loyalty and persistence: “They have diligently worked to smooth out the wrinkles and assemble the right team for us,” said Disa. “We truly see them as an extension of our own sales team, and value their input and advice.”
The teams also went through rebranding together (from RadioMD to DoctorPodcasting), learning how to collaborate and sell a niche, product-oriented service. "We had an excellent, open-minded communication that helped us to navigate all those changes," said Amanda Schaar, campaign strategist at CIENCE.
CIENCE worked to reinvent the campaign plenty of times, especially during the times of COVID: "I am proud that we never gave up on trying to find new ways to continue to work in the same research pool,” said Michael Shure, project manager at CIENCE. “We were always looking for new routes and ways of arranging the demo meetings.”
The partnership became an insightful experience for everyone. “We did everything we could possibly think of collectively, and we also went outside of the team to try to find ways to bring the results,” said Shure. “We were never settling—we were constantly grinding to be successful."