049 | When Your Best Marketer to Your HeathTech Buyer is Their Customer with Laura Yecies of Bone Health Technologies | Studio CMO

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Show Notes

Laura Yecies covers a number of unique factors that you may be facing in your HealthTech marketing.

• Targeting your end-user so you can market to your buyer
• How B2C marketing is influencing B2B marketing
• How brand plays itself out in the combination of wearable and software tool
• Why sometimes, the most compelling story to tell is the economic one

Communities, like these Facebook groups, are important to Bone Health Technologies overall marketing efforts

• Osteopenia and Osteoporosis Support Group
• Better Bones, Better Body: Osteoporosis & Osteopenia
• Living with Osteopenia & Osteoporosis
• Naturally Better Bones Osteoporosis Group

Custom photography can showcase how your solution meets a critical need for your buyer. An example from Bone Health’s website.

Laura discussed how content has assisted their efforts on the clinical side and the consumer side.

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Transcript

Mark Whitlock (00:00):

Welcome to Studio CMO. My name is Mark Whitlock, and you are at the podcast where we help HealthTech marketers understand how they can build their market position and how they can create demand generation programs that will build the number of leads and convert more business over the long haul. We’re all about you realizing your market potential. I’m joined by our host today, John Farkas. John is the CEO and chief storyteller for Golden Spiral, the agency, which brings you Studio CMO. And John, how did the rain in Nashville affect you?

John Farkas (00:42):

Our whole road was flooded. Fortunately we live on high ground, but there was basically a river washing down our road. Others on our road were not as lucky as we were.

Mark Whitlock (00:52):

Wow. And Anna Grimes, my fellow co-host is here with us today at Anna. I think we were talking before we went on to mic today about, we know folks who have been affected by this and has echoes back to the 2010 flood, for sure.

Anna Grimes (01:03):

Absolutely lucky that I don’t have three feet of water in my basement. Sorry for those who do or who are cleaning up from that. And I’m delighted to be here.

Mark Whitlock (01:13):

And we’re delighted to have you on board. You know, I was thinking about this. So my wife had a health challenge over the weekend. And what was the first thing that she did? She grabbed her cell phone and she searched online for her symptoms and for her answers. And I thought how interesting it was compared to what my mom went through. My mom had some significant health challenges in the late eighties and the number of times that she called her doctor, talked to someone at the clinic, or scheduled doctor’s appointments, et cetera, to get that information and to get those answers because there was nowhere to go except to that. So, uh, on today’s edition of Studio CMO, we’re going to be talking about some of the challenge of how consumers look at information and how they find it and how we can keep the truth flowing to those who, who need it the most.

Anna Grimes (02:01):

And today we’re glad to have Laura Yecis join us. She is an entrepreneurial leader, strategist and marketer, and has had a long background in tech, particularly starting out with Netscape and Yahoo. Right now, she is, uh, working with has been working with Bone Health Technologies since last year. And most recently, I believe Laura was named CEO. And prior to her Bone Health work, she was with Fabric Genomics as well as with SugarSync data synchronization company. So we’re glad to have her. And we’re glad to know that she has family here in Nashville.

Laura Yecis (02:39):

That’s right. And I’ve been many times I really enjoy. It’s beautiful. Good.

Mark Whitlock (02:44):

And we’re glad you’re on board with us and we’re glad that your family here in Nashville is safe from the water as well.

Laura Yecis (02:49):

Great. Yes, I was there in the 2010 flood. Well, yes, it was, uh, the week of my niece’s bat mitzvah. And we, up to the last minute we were like, “Is it on?” Well, you know, “Will the place, uh, be open?” Fortunately everyone was okay.

Anna Grimes (03:06):

So were you at West End then?

Laura Yecis (03:07):

Yes! that’s it.

Anna Grimes (03:09):

High and dry.

Mark Whitlock (03:13):

So Laura, as the newly appointed CEO of Bone Health Technologies, tell us what Bone Health is and what they do better than anybody else on the planet.

Laura Yecis (03:21):

Well, thanks for having me on, I always am excited and look forward to the opportunity to share what we’re doing. And the reason is because we’re working on solving, what is, I think, one of the most important and unsolved public health challenges that exists today that have low bone density. So the good news is that we’ve made a lot of progress on heart disease and cancer and we’re living longer, but we’re outliving our bones. And that has a really negative impact on the quality of our life. And fractures can be deadly. So half of all, women will suffer a fracture from osteoporosis after the age of 50. And that’s more than the incidents of heart attack stroke and breast cancer combined. And it’s not just a problem for women. One in four men will have an osteoporotic fracture and I’m excited that we have something that is novel and safe. And in the early days of our clinical data, looking extremely promising as an intervention for this, uh, important can do.

John Farkas (04:24):

That’s great. Yeah. And I think Laura, it’s interesting that things have moved a lot and how we bring awareness to the market over the last 10 years, as we all know. And it’s no coincidence that somebody with a marketing backdrop is leading an organization like yours. Tell us a little bit about how you got into that conversation and why they put your experience in the context of bringing solutions to market at a position that was so high that they tagged you to lead the company.

Laura Yecis (04:55):

Yeah, that’s a good question. Um, it is because of our strategy and the fact that our go to market strategy is very much to market to patients and to get, I mean, we plan to market to doctors as well and educate doctors and publish our results and key journals, um, present at key conferences. But there’s so many people in the world that are potential patients for this. And it’s pretty hard actually to call on doctors as a sales person. Uh, many of the programs don’t allow it. The doctors don’t have time. And so we believe that the most efficient way to generate the amount of demand that we’re looking to experience is to market to patients. And we also know that these patients are looking for solutions. You’re talking about how this is how people find out about their conditions. I think it’s particularly true for our demographic: older women.

Laura Yecis (05:53):

They tend to be very community oriented. They gather online. If you look on Facebook, there’s a number of Facebook groups related to osteoporosis with tens of thousands of members and different types of groups. There’s a non-drug treatment group. There’s kind of an information support group. And so we’re excited to be able to really bring the message directly to patients. We plan this to be a prescription product so the doctor will always be involved, but that sort of demand generation, we see it as very much oriented towards the patient. So then back to your question, if you think about all the things that are important for this company to be successful, obviously the product needs to be designed well. We need to go through a regulatory process and that is a complicated process and requires a lot of experience. And we have people at the company, our CTO in fact, is quite expert at that. We have a manufacturing lead, but we have been able to accomplish many of those things. The product is already designed. We’ve already proven in some proof of concept studies, why we think it’s effective. So as the company thought long-term about what it needed to be successful, it really focused on this marketing angle.

John Farkas (07:13):

We’re really looking at the process of generating demand from the ground up a grassroots framework that is creating interest in the community that will transpose into, in the sense of the customer, informing the doctor about what needs to happen and help driving demand that direction. And hopefully obviously as more of that happens until ubiquity to where it turns the other way, where the physicians begin initiating those conversations with their patients. So talk to us a little bit about how you go about creating the story of a new technology, a new capability for a broad market like that. How are you, uh, looking at creating that story? Where are you starting in that process?

Laura Yecis (07:56):

So, you know, one thing that popped into my mind as you were posing that question, John, is, does the consumer know that they have the problem and in some marketing challenges, they don’t right. And you need to educate them, go talk to your doctor or learn more about this problem. And certainly in the world of osteopenia, there’s a number of patients who don’t realize that they have it, and there will be a long-term message get checked, speak with your doctor. But Medicare, for a number of years, has made it a protocol that at 65, you have a bone density scan. So of the women over 65 that have osteopenia 60% at least know it and probably a good chunk of the other suspected because it’s so common. Um, it’s something that they know they have to check. So fortunately, we’re starting a little bit further in the demand generation process where there’s awareness of the problem awareness of the need.

Laura Yecis (08:55):

And then the question is where are those patients looking for answers, right? So you said earlier, people look online, there’s excellent medical content online. And so that’s the first thing that we plan to do is to, um, we’ve started this, but we’re at the beginning of this journey, it’s create really high quality content about bone health and the role that we play. And then of course, there’s other things that people can do besides our device in terms of nutrition and exercise and lifestyle to improve their bone health. So I very much see a content-oriented, content-based strategy supplemented with digital advertising

John Farkas (09:38):

And Laura, knowing that in your case, in particular, many of the folks you’re talking to are baby boomers and older, not all of them are as adept at the online, but I’m guessing a lot of them have kids that are aware of what’s going on with mom or with dad and might be looking as well. Is that part of the picture?

Laura Yecis (09:59):

Um, it is, but I’m maybe more optimistic than you are about, um, the, the fact that, uh, these patients are online, especially after what’s happened for the last year to get information. The other thing is this is an enormous market. Okay? So there’s 44 million Americans with osteopenia. Now they’re 10 million with osteoporosis. So our challenge in the first couple of years is to start and start successfully with the right patients and having them use the product well. And I believe that, you know, you get the first few thousand or 10,000 patients with better DEXA scan results a year later. And you, I think this thing is going to go wild. So we don’t need to be able to reach every patient online. We need to reach the early adopters online. Um, and then this will become, I think, more of a, uh, word of mouth type product.

Mark Whitlock (10:58):

Anybody who watches television today sees this phenomenon that’s come on in the last decade or so of, of pharmaceutical companies marketing directly to patients and then telling them to go talk with their physician or their healthcare provider. It’s always seemed odd to me. Why would a patient be the better person, the better informed one to ask for that pharmaceutical from a provider? So I’m curious, why do you think that plan, that tactic is so effective? Because we know it is because more and more pharmaceutical companies have jumped on the bandwagon and have done the same thing. So what what’s making that a powerful tactic in today’s world.

Laura Yecis (11:41):

I see a couple of reasons behind that. And if you look at the history of the pharmaceutical will being advertised direct to patients, the first ones were for problems that patients oftentimes don’t bring up to their doctor, you know, which is unfortunate because ideally patients would feel completely free and unembarrassed about whatever issue or problem that they have. Um, and I do think most doctors want their patients feel to share all their problems or issues that they can solve them. But the reality is if a patient doesn’t bring it up, doctors are usually not mind readers. And so they won’t know about it. And so those, uh, products, so were very much things that if people weren’t aware that there was a solution, they wouldn’t bring it up to their doctor. So you needed to really motivate the patient to go to the doctor. And then over time, I think what became clear is, you know, it’s, it’s actually pretty efficient because me as a patient, let’s say I have two or three health conditions that are on my mind, I’m going to pay close attention to those ads and hopefully learn about what might help me and bring it up to my doctor.

Laura Yecis (12:54):

You know, those doctors, especially primary care doctors, you know, have hundreds of things that they need to stay up on and all of the medications and interventions. And so in terms of getting mindshare, I think it’s actually pretty effective to go to the patient, you know, and, and they can be smart about it, right? The sleeping pills are being advertised at two in the morning when people can’t sleep and you can reach them at the right time and place.

Laura Yecis (13:26):

Not just one step further, but many steps further because, um, people are expressing more specifically what they’re concerned about. You know, you advertise at two in the morning, a sleeping pill, and it could be that I can sleep. It could be, um, uh, you know, because I have a baby I’m just walking around and I have no problem sleeping. Right. Um, but if I search online for sleeping pills or some type of intervention, um, you know, applications, you know, now that’s a hot thing. Um, you know, sleeping pills are actually not great to use all the time. And so there’s now applications for CBT and other approaches to help these sleep. And so I think it’s really exciting that you can be really effective at getting the right people, the right information. I mean, the other side of it is, I mean, you pose doing a or B, right?

Laura Yecis (14:16):

And I talked about why a, why market to the patients? Well, if you look at why not market to the doctors, and I do think actually we do plan to market to the doctors, but what we don’t plan to do is hire thousands of salespeople to go call and doctor’s offices. And that world has changed. You know, if you think of the large health systems, many of them don’t even permit their doctors to receive sales people’s calls, even if they’re very informational and training oriented, they feel that it’s distortive so they don’t allow it. And even in the, where it’s allowed, it’s just very, very expensive. And especially if you’re calling on primary care doctors, they’re a large number of them. So, you know, you want to spend your marketing dollars reaching the people who are looking for that information and need it.

John Farkas (15:09):

So I think that that is a, is a pretty interesting sea change that you’re talking about there, because it is true. Getting into providers is really difficult. I think that, uh, when you look at the number of solutions that are available now and the amount of people who are going for a market and Mindshare in that space, it is extraordinary. And I do think you’re right, that those well-trodden trails of yesteryear, of the expensive staff lunches and things that salespeople did to promote whatever they may be interested in selling into that space are impossible right now for a number of reasons within the context of what’s been happening with the pandemic, but certainly less effective than they have been in, you know, even without the pandemic getting access, trying to fight the barrage of different people, trying to get in is really hard. So I think that there’s a real important move away from the traditional sales model into a more marketing-focused, demand generation framework, where you’re helping people working to make a clear case and tell a clear story and help people into the value proposition. So I I’m really interested, Laura, as you guys are creating that story, as you’re putting the pieces together and understanding that this approach, I mean, what you’re doing, if I’m understanding the science behind it, what you’re doing is, is pretty different than the typical ways that those things are addressed. What are you doing to help people into that part of the value proposition? How are you approaching the market? Knowing that the product itself represents a different way of looking at the problem from a lot of the conventional approaches?

Laura Yecis (17:04):

I think some things that we’re doing are similar and there are things that I would do for a new osteoporosis medication for the doctor, part of it. They want to see the clinical evidence. So we’ll publish that in the best journal that we can, we’ll present it at the appropriate conferences relative to osteoporosis, hopefully we’ll have, and we believe we’ll have compelling results. The publications have focus on new developments in osteoporosis and the clinicians tend to be endocrinologists, but the reality is a woman with osteoporosis will get to an endocrinologist probably further along the journey. And we’re hoping to reach these patients earlier on when they’ve started to lose bone density, but before they get so down that path, right? Think about it’s comparable to cardiology. So one has high blood pressure. Their primary care doctor will take care of them. And hopefully they don’t get to the cardiologist with the heart attack or more advanced disease.

Laura Yecis (18:02):

So we want to reach these primary care doctors. So they’re following a lot of conditions, but let’s hope that we’re in one of their journals. They see an article about it. It piques their curiosity, but they have a lot of things to worry about. And maybe they didn’t have time to come to our website and read in depth. Let’s say a patient comes in and says, I heard about this new intervention. They’re like, “Oh yeah, I saw it on Medscape.” Or “I read about it. I’m going to look into this.” Now what’s the best thing to do hope that a sales person happens to call on that doctor that week when they’re prime to be curious about it, of course not. Whereas we can have, you know, something that they can read in five or 10 minutes online on the website. Hopefully it’s very good content.

Laura Yecis (18:52):

And if they’re further interested, I, as a marketer would love to create a really polished 15- or 20-minute downloadable webinar that they can watch. And then maybe there’ll be interested enough to participate in something live. So I think we can have really good quality content for some of the key parts of this journey that is going to be more timely than a sales rep calling and where I, as a marketer can put my best foot forward in terms of content. We can have our experts do it. We can make sure it’s sort of just the right length in the content that they’re really looking for.

John Farkas (19:32):

What have you seen be most effective? Is there a particular modality? Is there a particular channel that you see working better than others?

Laura Yecis (19:40):

I do think that our demographic is highly oriented towards seeking information online, and I think they’re very community oriented. So that’s one of the things that we plan to do is give them places and opportunities to have community and discuss what they can be doing to improve their health and support each other.

John Farkas (20:01):

So more of a forum type of discussion opportunity in some sense, maybe.

Laura Yecis (20:06):

Yeah, I think it’s on our website. You know, one of the pictures that we showed to illustrate the product is two women. There’s not a static picture. It’s in the video, it’s, you know, two women who are using the device going for a walk together, right. That was deliberate, right. Because there’s a pretty good chance that depending on your age, your girlfriends also have low bone density and how you can be supporting each other on your health journey. Right. Right.

Anna Grimes (20:34):

And walking is one of the most frequently recommended interventions.

Laura Yecis (20:40):

Yes. Walking is great. It’s good for you. I love to hike. But the challenge is that in terms of bone health, you need more right to improve bone density from an exercise point of view, optimally, you would be doing high-impact exercise, jogging jumping, because it’s that impact that sort of stimulates the bones and the bone cells to remodel in a way that promotes bone density. And many of our target patients are at a stage in life. Either they’ve hurt their knees or they’re afraid of falling where it’s very hard for them to do high impact exercise. And so, uh, the vibration technology can essentially give them a similar benefit.

Anna Grimes (21:23):

One of the things I’ve, I’ve heard you say, Laura is the need for a really strong content base and that, you know, quality content is a big part of your marketing strategy. If you are a pre-revenue company and you obviously maybe are kind of on a shoestring budget, maybe shoestring workforce, how do you pull that strategy through what are some things that people should be doing or that you see are effective for doing that? Despite the challenge of limited budget, limited head count?

Laura Yecis (21:59):

Well, I have always believed that quality content can shine through, even if there’s not a lot of money behind it. You know, when I was CEO of SugarSync, we had raised a lot less money than Dropbox and Box. And there were a number of years when I was there, where we were getting almost as much press coverage and really high levels of demand at a much lower spend. And I attributed to the quality of our content and as well as the quality of the product, right, the two went together and people really appreciated the features that we had. I see this as a very similar opportunity. Uh, one of our founders is a physical medicine specialist and he’s actually been writing content at a more clinical level. Okay. I’ve started writing some content and contributed pieces. Frankly. I don’t say no to opportunities like this because you have an audience that even if it’s not the patients, but it’s a way to get the word out and you are all are experts by association. That’s a great opportunity. So, you know, that’s a matter of doing the work and I love the fact that content marketing, not that it can’t be, you know, really driven by money in part, but I think a lot of it comes back to giving the people, the content that they are looking for. And if you’re smart about that, then you can be successful as a marketer.

Anna Grimes (23:24):

And I like that broader definition of content marketing too. It’s not just what you’re saying on your own channels. It’s, it’s looking at the whole,

Laura Yecis (23:33):

Oh, I think it’s especially important to be on other people’s channels. Yeah. Right. Because if you’re in a place that people, um, it’s, it’s kind of social proof, right. If they know that channel, they respect that channel, you know, of someone who has read things that you’ve written Ana your whole career. Then if you speak with someone else, then that person they’ll take us back and look at right. And vice versa,

Anna Grimes (23:58):

Social proof works so well.

Mark Whitlock (24:00):

So Laura, as you think through all of the different products and services that you’ve marketed, uh, throughout your career and you approach the current challenges you’re facing, what is something from past marketing victories that is not going to apply? And what is something new that you’re wanting to put into play?

Laura Yecis (24:22):

Well, one thing that’s new for me with this device is it has a very significant hardware component. So most of my career has been software oriented. And there’s a bunch of things that are introduced here that are both opportunities and challenges in terms of challenges, making sure people visually have a clear picture of what they’re buying and how they would use it. We have to integrate all of the logistics into the operations smoothly. And that’s, I mean, maybe it’s not exactly marketing, but as they go through our marketing funnel, when they choose to acquire the product, we need to make sure that that part of the experience is very, very smooth. You know, these are problems. People have solved before. It’s not rocket science, but it’s important to get done very, very well. That being said, I do think having a physical product introduces opportunities. So when someone wears it in public, people will see it, you know, they’ll ask about it. And I think that’s interesting for given that we’re targeting such a common problem. If I were to wear my device into the grocery store, the chances of another potential patient, seeing it are pretty high.

Laura Yecis (25:42):

And then I think there’s some marketing forums or opportunities where having a physical device is helpful. So I remember when I was, um, at SugarSync, and you know, we were growing really quickly and we actually had, um, a couple people in Harpo enterprises using our product. I mean, they had just personally chosen to use it. So I was like, okay, how can we get on Oprah’s favorite things? But if you look on Oprah’s favorite things, there’s not much software because there’s not much to show when they like physical things. And there is something intensely, more visceral and interesting or something where you have a physical product, right? So I’m excited about that.

Anna Grimes (26:30):

We are around software, HealthTech companies all day long. And like you said, they’re selling something that’s sort of, can’t see it can’t smell it. What are some of biggest pitfalls that HealthTech software companies make, particularly those who really do have to sell into the health systems. It’s a total B2B play. There is no B2C light of day. We know it’s a challenging environment, but we know that it’s an environment that’s underserved from a technology standpoint. Right?

Laura Yecis (27:05):

So one of the opportunities that I’m excited about as we go to market this to health systems is that I think we’re going to significantly move the needle on the cost of care for fractures. So bone density is a means to an end, improving your bone density is really a means to try to reduce fractures and fractures are extremely expensive. I think a surgery and stay for hip fracture. We’re talking $50,000 and that doesn’t count, you know, the rehabilitation afterwards and all of the care. And so we are pricing this device modestly, it’s a place where we can feel good about making a profit and building a big business, but also where the device should have, you know, at least a 10 X ROI, if someone uses it for five years. So for every 1% improvement in bone density, there’s a greater than 2% reduction in fracture risk.

Laura Yecis (28:03):

So, you know, that is a story that I look forward to telling to the health systems. Now, you know, we need to gather our data and prove it over time, prove our clinical efficacy. Um, fortunately others before us have done the connection between bone density and fractures. And we can use that in the short-term and over time we’ll gather our own fracture reduction data. Okay. And if a device doesn’t have that economic story, then they need to rely almost more fully on the clinical side. Right. Okay. Yeah. I was thinking of something else when you were talking about software being more ephemeral. So one of the things I’m excited about with our device is software just because people will interact with it more frequently. So in an ideal world, they get our device, they use it 30 minutes a day, hopefully daily, but then what do they do? The other 23 and a half hours? And they have an opportunity to do things that will improve their bone health. And so I think it’s one of the reasons why I think the software piece is important and it can remind people just seeing it on your phone can be a reminder, Oh, when I go walk the dog, I’m going to put the OsteoBoost on. So the software gives you this almost like a annuity marketing opportunity to the patient themselves

Anna Grimes (29:28):

And all that data will, uh, be helpful for a lot of different avenues.

Laura Yecis (29:35):

Sure. It’s helpful in terms of us learning how to support the patients it’s in terms of the clinical data, right? So we’ll learn who benefits the most, what companion things that they do alongside using the device. I think that’s exciting.

John Farkas (29:52):

Laura, you have got a big mountain to climb in front of you, but it’s an exciting journey. It sounds like a really great value proposition that I think is going to find a very welcoming audience. I’m really curious to track where things go from here and really grateful that you took the time to be with us today.

Laura Yecis (30:13):

Yeah. I’m really appreciative of the opportunity to be able to speak with you. I’m excited about the clinical benefit that we’re going to be able to have for so many people. And I’m also excited about the different approaches. We’re going to be able to use to get the word out and market and given all the different marketing things I’ve done in my career, the ability to put it to good use here is really exciting.

Mark Whitlock (30:36):

Laura Yecis has been our guest on Studio CMO today, and we’ve covered a lot of ground. We’ve talked about understanding the end user. So your prospects end user. we’ve talked about the B2C implications of B2B marketing. We’ve talked about brand, we’ve talked about content, a lot about content, and we’ve talked about how to tell an economic story when you might not have the personal or the human interest stories to tell if you want to check out what Bone Health Technologies is doing from a content standpoint, head on over to our website studiocmo.com/049 that’s studiocmo.com/049. And we’ll link out to some of their clinical side content pieces. And we’ll link out to some of their consumer side content pieces. We’ll also place a couple of photographs that Laura talked about, where they show the product in a way that is attractive for their users.

Mark Whitlock (31:36):

And while you’re here at studiocmo.com/049, download a copy of our free guide, our free content guide for HealthTech marketing. We have taken a look at all the pieces that you need, how they integrate with SEO to attract leads and put it into a helpful guide. You can download it right there from studiocmo.com/049. And as always, we would love to have you subscribe to the podcast. So you can be one of the first to know what’s coming up down the line, and there’s always an opportunity for you to leave us a voice message. And we might use your question or topic in an upcoming episode. You’ve heard a lot today, what you hear often on Studio CMO, and that is a concentration on the customer because we believe our core three tenants are the core of marketing to understand your buyer’s problems, lead with an empathetic understanding, do what you need to do to make your buyer the hero. We’ll see you. Next time on Studio CMO.

Mark Whitlock (32:50):

Studio CMO is produced by GoldenSpiral: market positioning and demand generation for HealthTech. We are an agency dedicated to help you realize your market potential. Our music is from Bigger Story Music, a BMG music library, whatever story you’re trying to tell, Bigger Story has the perfect music to make it better. Really. Check them out at biggerstorymusic.com.