Client: Germane & Wise Mental Health

Behavioral Health Overlay Service Marketing Campaign

Expanding access to behavioral health care at a critical time.

Setting Up Shop During Lockdown

Germane & Wise is a Willamette-Valley-based healthcare consulting and service delivery practice. Their mission is to make high-quality collaborative psychiatric care commonplace in clinics and hospital systems nation-wide.

In the Spring of 2020, Germane & Wise were poised to hit the trade show circuit to recruit clients. With the COVID-19 pandemic in the offing, however, it was an inauspicious time for in-person networking. Parachute Strategies helped Germane & Wise pivot to accommodate the limitations posed by the COVID-19 pandemic without losing money or momentum.

Direct Mail Gets Straight to the Point

We quickly started producing a series of postcards tailored to clinic administrators in western Oregon. Each piece shared a success story from the clients experience leading a major regional health system of primary care clinics through the process of adopting integrated behavioral health, explicitly highlighting the financial value of the Germane & Wise model.

Peer endorsements and nuts-and-bolts financials appealed to clinic leadership in ways more general marketing pieces couldn’t. Direct mail, meanwhile, bypassed internet security not to mention the digital messaging overload faced by busy clinicians without time to spare for promotional email and social media. This initial campaign, though simple, initiated a cascade of direct service client recruitment throughout the region.

Shoring Up Web Channels is a “Virtual” Necessity

As the postcard campaign rolled out, we took steps to prepare Germane & Wise’s digital assets for an uptick in views. We gave the website a good buff and polish, making it more user friendly and refining Germane & Wise’s pitch to potential clients (see the video pitch above).

We also set up social media platforms for our client. As we worked, we found that we needed a broader selection of logo lockups, graphics, stock art, and other brand assets to work with, so we adjusted accordingly.

Recruiting More Clinics for Overlay Services

As the COVID-19 pandemic eased its grip on the world, and with our client on firmer footing, we started work on a comprehensive, multi-channel marketing campaign designed to expand Germane & Wise’s delivery-of-care pipeline. The first step? Onboarding new clinics.

A data-driven direct mail piece, based on the experiences of two real clinics, illustrates how much time, work, and money can be saved by working with Germane & Wise versus setting up behavioral care without help. We helped our client identify and prepare for in-person networking opportunities like conferences and trade shows. Ads were published in local and national behavioral healthcare focused publications.

Meanwhile, on the digital front, we worked with our client to establish a client record management (CRM) system, optimized their website with search engine-targeted content, seeded success stories across Facebook and LinkedIn, and deployed a targeted ad campaign across Google Ads and local healthcare media outlets.

Encouraging Host Site Clinicians to Make Patient Referrals

Once overlay services have been set up, primary care providers often need a little push to start referring patients. To support this behavior change, we:

Created “calling cards” to share with Primary Care Providers (PCPs), connecting them with the Germane & Wise providers serving their clinic.
Designed and wrote quarterly mini newsletter called the “Mental Health Break,” which is circulated among PCPs. It touts the benefits (to both PCPs and their patients) of collaborative care and reminds readers to make patient referrals.

Educational Flyers Prepare Patients for the Collaborative Care Experience...

Delivery of care, especially in behavioral health, can break down after a patient’s first appointment. To curtail this trend, we developed a communications kit geared toward patients.

Flyers in English and Spanish, with different content for adult and pediatric patients, explain the collaborative model and how it works. They also answer common questions about insurance coverage, scheduling, and more.

Host-clinic branding helps circumvent any confusion about where care will be received.

...and Practical Promo Items Help Keep Them on Track

Sticky notes remind patients that they have an upcoming follow-up appointment. As with the flyers, host-clinic branding appears front and center.

Germane & Wise branded mood pencils round out the kit. These pencils can be used by patients to make notes during telehealth appointments with their mental health care team.