B2B Healthcare Marketing: Leveraging Thought Leadership for Strategic Success with evolvedMD

Announcer: Welcome to the Ignite Podcast, the only healthcare marketing podcast that digs into the digital strategies and tactics that help you accelerate growth. Each week, Cardinal’s experts explore innovative ways to build your digital presence and attract more patients. Buckle up for another episode of Ignite.

Alex Membrillo: Good morning, afternoon, evening to our five to seven listeners. Thank you for joining us today. Oh, this one’s fun. Oh my gosh, you guys hear me say we’re going to have a good time. You know we always have a good time, boo. This is going to be a little break from the mold because we’re going to get to talk about B2B.

We’re going to talk about engagement on a different level. We’re going to talk about different care models. We’re going to talk about behavioral health. I’m pumped. You’ve already seen this gentleman all over LinkedIn. He’s the most popular guy in all of healthcare/marketing. Sentari, welcome to Ignite.

Sentari Minor: Thanks for having me, man. This is going to be so fun.

Alex: I love this. It’s the best part of my day. Don’t tell my colleagues.

Sentari: I won’t tell anyone.

Alex: They know. They’re like, “Gosh, we have this client escalation.” I’m like, “Don’t care. Go and interview Sentari. Let’s talk–” I’m just kidding, clients. I love you all equally. Sentari, tell us where you hail from and what do you do.

Sentari: Oh, my goodness. Sentari Minor. I am based in Phoenix, Arizona, which is where I’m actually from. Not that many natives around, but this is where I grew up. Then I am chief of staff and head of investor relations at evolvedMD. We are a behavioral health integration company. We place therapists on-site, in-person, at primary care clinics and health systems around the country.

Alex: I love it. Chief of staff has a lot within it because I think you touch marketing. I think chief of staff, I’m like, that’s organizing the leadership team and the employees like a chief of people. Tell us what goes in there.

Sentari: Just because of the size of our organization, my chief of staff role is pretty encompassing. I think about three verticals within the company, which is strategy, overseeing our company’s strategic plan and how do we move forward.

Administration, so you’re right, prowling the executive team, understanding who’s doing what, and herding all the cats. Then marketing is actually rolls up to me. I have a team of five marketers that are on staff. From content to branding to PR, I oversee it all.

Alex: I love it. Tell us more about Evolved. Who is the ideal client? A large behavioral group? Is it the PCPs that– What is it?

Sentari: Our ideal client is a large health system or a large primary care group. What we do is we become the de facto mental health solution for any primary care client. We go in, we recruit, hire, train ongoing management of licensed clinicians, put them in a primary care, and then they work collaboratively on patient care.

It’s actually a model that we use out of the University of Washington called psychiatric collaborative care. Our team is part of a larger unit that wraps around the patient. Hopefully, great physical and mental health outcomes.

Alex: I love it. Finally, mental health is getting better. I didn’t make this up, but mental health is health. It just goes hand in hand.

Sentari: Exactly.

Alex: I hope in the next 10 years we can treat a mental health issue the same way we can treat a broken arm. Maybe we’ll get there. I don’t know. I’ve been seeing a therapist since it wasn’t in Vogue, before Simone Biles was saying anything. I love it. For 10 years, Veronica has kept things from breaking instead of fixing what’s broken. That’s what people don’t realize. It’s whole health. That’s what y’all know that everybody else is finding out.

Sentari: Yes. I’ve been on a number of podcasts talking about my own mental health. I’ve seen a therapist since I was 25 years old. To your point, it’s just such good health, right? I saw my guy, Michael, on Friday, last Friday for a two-hour session. It was just exactly what I needed.

Alex: Yes. You’ve got a guy. All right. A couples therapist, it’s a different energy. It’s interesting. I love talking to Veronica because it actually impacts your physical health, too. She’ll tell me, “Alex, remember, you have crazy, weird energy. You have to exercise every morning or your balance is going to be off.” They’re still awesome at that.

Anyways, let’s get back to business. You guys are going after health system and trying to get them to integrate behavior. What does that involve from a marketing perspective? You’re trying to get from the conferences or it’s putting out good [unintelligible 00:03:48]? What do you guys do?

Sentari: That’s a great– We’re strictly B2B. When I came in and built out the plan, it was we’re never going to have enough marketing dollars to capture on the broad B2C side. What we can do is show that we are experts in integrating behavioral health into primary care.

Our marketing strategy has always been content and thought leadership. How do we get in front of the right folks and let them know that we’re the experts? You’ll see a lot of our stuff on our own channels, our blog, but also on LinkedIn. We’re doing some stuff with some large periodicals, some health care pubs this fall.

The idea is that showing that evolvedMD is the solution if you want to integrate behavioral health. That’s been so helpful for us. When our sales process, our sales team can say, here are the three things that we can point to showing that we know how to do this. We know how to do this well. We’re the industry leader.

Also, by the way, our folks that are involved are experts in this. That’s been the best way to sell. It becomes a big flywheel of just momentum of word of mouth. All these customers know each other. It’s been like, you do this, so we’re going to do this. It’s been wonderful to be part of that sales process on the marketing side.

Alex: Yes, that’s fine. As marketers, we do have to be part of the sales process too. That’s the point of what we do, right?

Sentari: That’s right.

Alex: Whether B2C or B2B, that’s the whole point of what we do. If we don’t understand, there are issues where you are less useful. It started with creating all of the right content so that there was something wonderful to send a prospective client to that educated them on why we are awesome.

What’s your favorite leadership piece or thing you guys have done in the last year that helped engage a bunch of prospective clients?

Sentari: One of the things that I’ve been really proud of, I have a great marketer, a great writer that is on my team. His name’s Evan. He’s crazy about content. He’s a wonderful writer. He’s been talking about he wants to be a little bit more cutting-edge or a little bit more snarky in his writing.

We’ve said, all right, we’re at this point where we can get a little bit more edge around it. He wrote this piece along with our CEO called, What if Healthcare Was Simply Giving a Damn? It’s about, we’re so successful as evolvedMD because we actually truly care about the patients. He partnered with our CEO to write this great, great piece that got so much traction on LinkedIn.

It was great to see how content, 500 words, can go so far. I wish marketers would realize that content marketing is so important. You can have all that other stuff, but you’ve got to tell a good story. That’s what we did with that piece was told a really good story.

Alex: Did you post it direct to LinkedIn or was it going to a website linked back out of LinkedIn? That’s a nuance, but I’d like to know.

Sentari: I’d have to go back and look. I think we posted from our website onto LinkedIn.

Alex: Website and then promoted?

Sentari: Yes.

Alex: All right. Back to the topic. We create B2B marketers. Our market is an ocean of sameness with content. You guys said, we’ll stand out by creating a unique piece that also has an opinion. It is an opinion piece that the model is broken and what if we looked at it more simply?

Sentari: Exactly.

Alex: Do you think that’s why it got traction? It just wasn’t the same that we constantly put out.

Sentari: I would say actually probably yes. We understand that they were part of the healthcare system. We don’t want to alienate too much, but we also realized that we are very much differentiated. A word that we’d like to use around here is radical, which is actually pretty radical to use in healthcare.

We want to lean into it more, especially as we think about healthcare has to change. It’s clearly not working. We know that. How do we show that we could be a solution for it and how do we show that we can be a solution within the ecosystem in the right way? I think that piece did a really good job of that.

Alex: What you said really resonates with me, “We really cared about the patient.” You guys actually really care about healthcare. Healthcare seems like it’s in vogue and tons of money has flowed in. It’s so easy to tell when a platform, a person, a partner doesn’t give out this, it’s not going to help.

It’s totally broken. We just got insurance rates for a renewal 50% higher. It’s like this doesn’t work when we’re already paying 2K a month per person, bro. It’s not.

Sentari: It’s not better care. You’re going to pay more for not better care.

Alex: No. You’re going to get care that is symptomatic instead of making sure we stay well. Americans, the first thing that happens when you go see a therapist, okay, sorry, psychiatry, psychology. “All right, I’m going to prescribe you to something to fix,” but we didn’t talk about, “Are you taking walks? Do you exercise? Have you called it?”

I don’t get it. Americans are backwards. All right. I love it. You’ve got a lot of content outreach and stuff. Tell us about your favorite tools. What are you using to keep it all straight and get in front of these health systems every day, every week with content?

Sentari: For us, HubSpot is our best friend. That’s a great CRM that we’ve used. LinkedIn is a really big source of our content in our own channels. A piece that is also just as important as selling into this health system is that we have to hire a lot of therapists.

We have to cut through the noise on getting therapist counselors into the organization. A lot of our work is on recruitment branding. A lot of things on Indeed there. Mostly the tool that we use as HubSpot to just organize it all for us.

Alex: How do you manage to get so much out there so quick? These five people internally, what are they doing? Is there one content strategist and then he has a contact list?

Sentari: It’s so funny. About a year ago, the best compliment to us was they were like, we thought your team was much bigger than we actually are. We have one person dedicated to writing and content. That’s his whole job. He writes.

We have a senior brand specialist to make sure that we’re on brand visually and in the messaging. We have a head of marketing that reports to me that oversees it all. We have me, and then we have a couple of other admin folks that do some ancillary marketing work. We have one writer, and then I pop in on some of the more difficult pieces. We put out a lot of content. I’m very proud of this team.

Alex: Yes, and a lot of good differentiated content, not just the same we read, everybody. Let’s talk about LinkedIn because everybody’s on it. There are tons of lurkers, but people are afraid to put themselves out there. How have you scaled it, if you will? You post a lot. Does anyone else from Evolved?

Sentari: We post a lot on behalf of our brand. Right now, we’re working through the strategy of how do we get our CEO who posts sporadically. That’s one of my Q3 goals or KPIs, is how do we get him more exposure nationally? That’d be something where we’ll spend a little bit more time and dollars into making sure that there’s more exposure for him there.

Alex: It’s a guy. I think the best thing for me, if you want to know inside, number one, it drives the biggest leads because people, it’s like the new relationship building. If you see– What’s his name,?

Sentari: Eric.

Alex: If Eric wants to be on planes less and see his family more, post more to LinkedIn because you’ll get the leads and you’ll get the visibility nationwide and you wouldn’t have to fly around.

Sentari: Yes.

Alex: It’s giving me more time with my family because I’m building relationships. When I get on calls and say, “We feel like–” Yes. I’m like, “Oh cool. I’m Alex.” It has to be bought in from the top, and you’re leading the way. It is hard to get other buy-in because it’s like, I have to do another thing and it takes a ton of work and thinking. Do you have it blocked out on your calendar every day?

Sentari: I’m just naturally a writer. I love content. Content’s my outlet. I usually try to spare out some stuff on Sundays of like, what am I going to– I have a running Word document of just articles that are interesting. I comment on those.

I try to do a long-form article at least once a month. I’ll have one posted this week about just learnings from 2024. I try to spend a significant amount of time. One, because it’s a great outlet, but I also think it’s a great platform for the work that we’re doing, the work that I’m doing. It’s a great way to reach out.

One of the things that I’ve always been very intentional on is being super authentic to me. You’ll see work stuff. You’ll see I posted a picture of me and my mom at Janet Jackson last week. It was awesome. I’ve always been a believer in work-life integration, not even balance. They’re both one and the same for me. You get to see all of me on LinkedIn, which I think people really appreciate.

Alex: They love it. It’s going to have this weird couple of years where it’s like, how are we there? is it going to-

Sentari: How are we different than Facebook? Yes.

Alex: Post the farm and talk about the farm. It has to have a work twist and a real– That’s what gets the most traction. LinkedIn, you’re rewarding me for posting the personal stuff. I don’t know what to do. Hey, listen, what I heard there, Sentari is working on Sundays on the thinking creative work.

When you’re not getting blasted by emails, it’s okay to work Sunday on the thing you care about if there’s something you care about. Should I also say, if there’s nothing that you care that much about to think about a little bit on Sunday, you might not be in the right job.

Alex: Part of the thing that I’m writing this week is a top 10 thing of things that I’ve learned. One of the actual learnings is that you have to set additional time for creativity and strategy. Usually, that’s me on Sundays. I can sit back and think about, what do I want to write? What are the things I want to do? That fills my cup.

I would say that some people, and I also respect and appreciate it, that their weekends and nights are sacred. That’s also totally fine. That just doesn’t work for me because I’m all over the place. If you want to set that line and set that boundary, I think that’s also cool too. Either way, just find some time for strategy and creativity and thinking through the next thing so you’re just not always behind the eight ball.

Alex: Whatever sparks you, find time for that. For us, maybe it’s Sundays and weekends and stuff. You’re right. A lot of people, it’s not, and that would drain them, but we have to fill our cup because it just gets strained all week.

Sentari: All the time, yes.

Alex: Have something that sparks you and dedicate time to it. It must be on the calendar for me, or I just know I won’t do it. It’s something else.

Sentari: You won’t do it. For sure.

Alex: I love what you said. You told me something about PowerPoint. Tell the listeners. This cracked me up.

Sentari: I think the question that you asked was, what’s your most controversial marketing opinion? I think it is because I love storytelling so much, I think my most controversial opinion is that you should be able to sell anything without a PowerPoint deck. Dude, you’re in the agency world. Agencies love PowerPoint-

Alex: We love PowerPoint. We love PowerPoint, baby.

Sentari: You love a deck. I would just like a story about how you’re going to elevate my brand. Yes, on the back end, there should be some collateral and the pricing, but people go so hard on decks. I just think if you actually have a compelling story, you don’t need that.

Before this, I worked for an organization where I led purposeful CEOs around social impact and policy. My CEO was really adamant. That’s like, “Hey, we don’t show them a deck until they’re on the other side of this.”

My entire sales to these CEOs was either over coffee, one-on-one just having a conversation about like, what are you passionate about? What are the interests that you have? What do you feel like you want to make an impact on?

Never was there any collateral that was part of it because I got to tell a compelling story. I got to hear what they wanted to do. Just from that, I thought that you should be able to sell, at least somewhat, based on just a conversation.

If you’re passionate about it and you actually have some depth around the topic, marketing agencies always come to mind because like they just 15 pages for like, we’re going to do this landing page for a website. It’s like, you could have just told me that. We didn’t have to do this. That’s where it came from.

Alex: We love it. I love that. I’m going to take that. I may send this out to my team because I’m like, guys, go visit the client. [crosstalk]. No, we’ve got to bring eight people on and have a pre-

Sentari: No, just go talk to them.

Alex: No. Just go talk to them. I think that takes a certain level of experience and people are nervous to do that. I’m like, “Dude, they just want to work with people that understand.” I love that. I’m going to take that one to heart and think on that. How could we change our initial sales process to be less deck-focused? We’re not winning much this year anyways. Might as well do something different.

Sentari: What happened to the deck, you just started having conversations about people’s true pain points, and they get to get to know you. That’s probably going to be the best sell than whatever fancy deck you can put together.

Alex: Sentari, you should consult leaders like me and companies like mine.

Sentari: Yes.

Alex: You can do that?

Sentari: Yes. Part of my spare time, one of my favorite things is– you can read this in my bio– is bringing the best out of people and organizations. I do some consulting with some folks around the nation and send a couple of boards and advisory boards, but really helping people think through how do they make the most impact.

Also just from my experience of the things of not to do, especially coaching around how do you manage a team? How do you hold a team accountable while having empathy, which is so hard for people to get? I feel like I’ve been able to squarely figure that out for myself. That’s probably what I coach most people on is like, look, if they’re not showing up, you’re not doing them a favor.

These are the things and here’s the steps to actually get them to accountability, or you’re going to have to have a hard conversation because it’s clearly not working. Those are the conversations that get me super excited. As chief of staff, I get to do that with our internal executive team, which is the most rewarding part of my day.

Alex: Guys, it’s rare that you talk to someone that can provide this consulting experience that’s actually still doing it.

Sentari: Yes, and also actually doing the work.

Alex: What is a popular– Oh, by the way, before we get off that, find you on LinkedIn, I think it’s the SentariMinor. Look for the only native Arizonian ever to be, and then you’ll find them. That could be the LinkedIn search there. What is a popular marketing tactic we’re hearing about that you think is a complete waste of time?

Sentari: Maybe it’s because I’m showing my age, but B2B that’s using TikTok. We used TikTok for a bit. It was great for employee engagement, but then I was like, “What are we doing, guys?” It’s also took a lot of time. That takes so much time when we know that our bread and butter is content comms.

If you have a huge team of social media influencers and marketers that love TikTok, go for it. For us, it was a distraction. I think that’s something, but that was just for us. I can’t imagine that it’s the best sales tool for people, but maybe. Maybe I’m wrong.

Alex: You’re not wrong. It sucks for B2B. I’ve seen great use cases for B2C, like patient acquisition. My wife, I said, “How’d you find that doctor?” “I went to TikTok and searched.” I said, “What?” Then she came to me with like, “Hey, go to this dentist.”

I said, “How’d you find him?” “I went to chat GPT and asked them for the best one.” I was like, “You’re killing me. Do you know how we built this whole life? Go to Google. You need to make sense, please.”

Sentari: Get some attribution.

Alex: Make sure they know in the, how’d you find us, make sure that you click the page without leaving the browser. The TikTok is awesome. If they don’t ban it, I guess it’ll get bought. For B2B, a long way off. For B2C marketers, I guess it’s going to have viability. Many B2C healthcare marketers can’t even do enough search or Facebook correctly yet.

Sentari: Yes, that’s going to be a while.

Alex: We’re not there yet. Sentari, any final parting words? What is the thing you are most excited about other than this election being over with? The rest of the year that you got any trend, anything you’re most looking at?

Sentari: Circling back to the start of this conversation, I’m mostly excited about the work that we’re going to do around national thought leadership. We have a great product and I want behavioral health to know what’s possible.

I think our thesis is the thesis. For us to start pushing out some things nationally on how to do integration, right, that’s super exciting for me. I get to lead that strategy and be part of getting that out to the masses. I’m very excited about that.

Alex: Yes. Cool. Man, you really love the mission.

Sentari: I do.

Alex: That is really refreshing. You love? Yes.

Sentari: Yes, I love it.

Alex: Guys, you can’t hire Sentari. Not possible except on a consultant, but if you’re in healthcare, please hire people that really care about the mission before the skill set necessarily because they’ll figure out the skill set, but you can’t fake healthcare love. Sentari, thank you for joining us.

Sentari: This is awesome.

Alex: Yes, thank you. I love that we got to talk about some B2B stuff. That’s the only stuff I know very well because we do it every day. It was a nice change. Then a lot of our B2C listeners, all five of them, have to also do the B2B like referral marketing type stuff. This was very fun. Thank you for joining us all the way from the left coast.

Announcer: Thanks for listening to this episode of Ignite. Interested in keeping up with the latest trends in healthcare marketing? Subscribe to our podcast and leave a rating and review. For more healthcare marketing tips, visit our blog at cardinaldigitalmarketing.com.