Improving Business Results in the Post-Acute Care Space
Helping Kindred Healthcare achieve a 9.3:1 ROI
CHALLENGE:
As a national post-acute care company covering 46 states and more than 2,600 sites of care, Kindred Healthcare includes transitional care hospitals, inpatient rehabilitation hospitals and home health and hospice services. While NDP’s relationship with Kindred began in 2009 and initially focused on referral-based, healthcare-professional-focused lead generation campaigns, consumer research conducted by NDP in 2013 identified an opportunity to increase admissions by going directly to the consumer.
EMPATHIZING WITH OUR TARGET:
With two key targets at the center of Kindred’s consumer business–the Caregiver and the Senior in Need– NDP’s research indicated the targets simply lacked the information and resources necessary to make difficult decisions regarding post-acute and senior care. Compounding the issue, Kindred as a brand was new to consumers. NDP recognized that the key factors for these two targets to elect care were different as the caregiver–often a younger loved one or child of the Senior in Need–wanted to ensure the right care was available and that the cost of care was a value, whereas our Senior in Need recognized they needed more help than they did in the past and they cared more about the level of care than the cost. As there was an age difference between the Caregiver and Senior in need, our target-centered research helped us identify some key similarities and differences between our targets, which we could use to create synergies.
UNDERSTANDING THE MINDSET IN THE MOMENTS TO CHANGE BEHAVIORS
• Heavy consumer of television and print
• Moderate consumer of digital and radio
• 24% more likely to obtain medical information online
• 4 times more likely to call the toll-free number listed in a healthcare ad
• Has been caring for Dave daily for ~ 3 years
• Feels unprepared to make care decisions
• Hoping Dave can get care at home, but concerned about costs
• Reluctant to turn over care to anyone, but curious about options
• Heavy consumer of TV and Print
• Light consumer of digital
• 49% more likely to discuss with a friend after
seeing a health care ad
• Lives alone but has lots of visits from Patricia
• Hospitalized in the last year for complications
• Has a set schedule he likes to keep
• Need for care stems from aging and dementia
• Regrets not thinking ahead about healthcare
SURROUNDING THE TARGET: A DAY IN THE LIFE:
Illustrates how we can reach each audience as they move throughout their day with overlapping media habits highlighted
SOLUTION:
In 2014, NDP developed a consumer pilot campaign that ran in two mid-sized core markets. Based on target audience insights specific to those markets, the media mix included print, radio and digital media as well as Kindred’s first-ever television campaign. We positioned Kindred’s Contact Center, which was staffed by registered nurses, as a resource for questions related to post-acute care, and we collected sourced data from each person who contacted Kindred in order to track admissions tied specifically to the campaign. Based on the successes of this pilot program, the advertising budget doubled in 2015, and the campaign expanded into eight markets for additional testing. We also partnered with a Media Mix Modeling firm that created a regression model to go beyond year-over-year comparisons which allowed us to isolate admissions due to advertising.
RESULTS:
Positive results enabled us to increase Kindred’s advertising budget again in 2016, and the multimedia campaign was extended into 28 markets. Additionally, since many caregivers live long distances from those they care for, we launched Kindred’s first national digital campaign to reach them as they researched care options for their loved ones.
- 15,348 incremental admissions attributed to advertising
- 9.3:1 ROI
- Aided brand awareness improved across the board, ranging from a 5 -13% increase across the test markets where media ran
In 2017, Kindred and NDP added a Multi-Touch Attribution (MTA) partner to further enhance our campaign analytics. MTA involves the analysis of large volumes of information generated across digital and television mediums. By tracking individuals across each channel, we are able to see a clearer picture of how each channel impacted the others, rather than attributing the result to the consumer’s last touch.
- Shifted markets
- Company-wide ROI of 7:1
- National digital campaign ROI of 11:1
- Over $2 million in media savings and added value
Through MTA, we were better able to optimize each dollar allocated to a given channel for a better understanding of how media impacts our consumers’ journey throughout every stage of the marketing funnel. Those findings were applied to our 2018 campaigns for Kindred. Due to Humana’s acquisition of Kindred midyear, admissions data was not provided for year-end summaries.