Ignite: Healthcare Marketing Podcast

Healthcare marketing doesn't have a lead problem. It has an operations problem.

In this episode of Ignite, Ashley Petrochenko, VP of Brand Marketing at Cardinal, sits down with Colleen Mulder, a Multi-site, Private Equity Marketing Consultant and Fractional CMO, to explore why patient acquisition depends on far more than great marketing. Colleen shares how the fastest-growing healthcare organizations align marketing, operations, finance, and providers to turn patient demand into measurable business growth, instead of losing patients somewhere between the click and the appointment.

You'll walk away with:

• Why patient acquisition depends on operational readiness, not just marketing spend
• How to measure marketing using completed visits, revenue, and EBITDA instead of vanity metrics
• Why referrals and direct-to-patient marketing should work together across one patient journey
• A practical framework for scaling campaigns across multiple locations without creating operational bottlenecks

If you want to prove marketing's impact beyond leads and build a stronger healthcare growth engine, this is the episode to queue up next.

RELATED RESOURCES

Connect with Colleen - https://www.linkedin.com/in/colleen-mulder-94717310/

Marketing + Operations: Why Total Alignment is Vital to Growth - https://www.cardinaldigitalmarketing.com/healthcare-resources/blog/healthcare-marketing-operations-alignment/

Why Capacity-Driven Marketing Is Non-Negotiable - https://www.cardinaldigitalmarketing.com/capacity-driven-marketing-media-investment-strategy/

Is Your Organization Actually Ready for Marketing? - https://www.cardinaldigitalmarketing.com/healthcare-resources/blog/marketing-readiness/

What is a Patient Journey? Examples to Grow Your Practice - https://www.cardinaldigitalmarketing.com/healthcare-resources/blog/what-is-a-patient-journey-grow-your-practice/

Patient trust is becoming one of the biggest competitive advantages in healthcare, and reducing friction is where it starts.

On this episode of Ignite, host Rich Briddock, Cardinal's Chief Strategy Officer, sits down with Pete Deutschman, CMO and Chief Partnership Officer at patient.com, to discuss why one of healthcare's biggest challenges isn't clinical quality, it's administrative friction. Pete shares how confusing benefits, repeat paperwork, and fragmented digital experiences create real barriers to care, and why trusted, AI-powered navigation will define the next era of healthcare marketing.

In this episode you'll learn:

• Why patient trust has become a key driver of healthcare growth
• How administrative friction hurts both patient experience and provider performance
• What patients actually fear about AI recommendations in healthcare
• Practical ways healthcare marketers can build stronger, long-term patient relationships

If you're looking to better understand how patient trust and administrative friction are shaping the future of healthcare marketing, this episode is worth a listen.

RELATED RESOURCES

Connect with Pete - https://www.linkedin.com/in/petedeutschman/

What is a Patient Journey? Examples to Grow Your Practice - https://www.cardinaldigitalmarketing.com/healthcare-resources/blog/what-is-a-patient-journey-grow-your-practice/

2026 Healthcare Marketing Trends: The New Rules Redefining Growth - https://www.cardinaldigitalmarketing.com/healthcare-resources/blog/healthcare-marketing-trends-2026/

Harnessing the Power of AI Marketing for Healthcare - https://www.cardinaldigitalmarketing.com/healthcare-resources/blog/harnessing-ai-marketing-for-healthcare/

How to Build a Full-Funnel Healthcare Marketing Strategy - https://www.cardinaldigitalmarketing.com/healthcare-resources/blog/healthcare-full-funnel-marketing-strategy/

Healthcare marketers often know what needs to change. Getting the organization to act on it is the hard part.

In episode three of The Strategists' Corner, host Rich Briddock sits down again with Ben Dutter, Chief Strategy Officer at Power Digital, to explore why the biggest barrier to better marketing isn't strategy. It's organizational change. Together, they unpack what actually drives resistance inside marketing teams, how to challenge long held assumptions with evidence, and how to build a testing culture that earns leadership trust.

You'll learn:

• The three real blockers stopping marketing teams from changing course
• Why provocation often works better than education when driving change
• How long to actually run a test before you call it a failure
• How to build testing roadmaps that earn stakeholder trust and improve performance

If you've ever struggled to get your team or C-suite on board with a better way forward, this is the episode that gives you the tools to make the case.

RELATED RESOURCES

The Search Plateau Problem: Why Healthcare Providers Need Incrementality Testing - https://www.cardinaldigitalmarketing.com/healthcare-resources/blog/healthcare-incrementality-testing/

RevRx™: Unlocking the Power of Media Mix Modeling - https://www.cardinaldigitalmarketing.com/healthcare-resources/blog/media-mix-modeling-revrx/

When & How to Expand Your Healthcare Media Mix - https://www.cardinaldigitalmarketing.com/healthcare-resources/blog/expanding-channel-media-mix-strategy/

How to Build a Healthcare Marketing Roadmap That Drives Patient Growth - https://www.cardinaldigitalmarketing.com/healthcare-resources/blog/how-to-build-digital-marketing-roadmap/

Your Meta targeting isn't reaching who you think it is, and your creative is why.

On this episode of Ignite Healthcare Marketing Podcast, Cardinal President Lauren Leone sits down with Group Media Director Brandon Wilhelm to break down why creative is now the most important media decision you make. As AI-driven platforms like Meta and Google take over audience selection, the concepts and assets you load into a campaign have become the primary signal determining who sees your ads. If your creative brief isn't being built alongside your media strategy, you're already behind.

You'll walk away knowing:

• Why Meta's Andromeda update shifted targeting power to your creative
• How to build distinct messaging pillars that actually move performance
• What a 3x performance lift looks like when creative strategy leads the build
• How to unify creative concepts across paid social, search, and programmatic

If you're still relying on audience targeting as your main growth strategy, this conversation will change how you think about media performance.

RELATED RESOURCES

Performance Creative: The Key to Paid Media Success - https://www.cardinaldigitalmarketing.com/healthcare-resources/blog/performance-creative-the-key-to-paid-media-success/

How Meta's Andromeda Changes Healthcare Marketing Forever - https://www.cardinaldigitalmarketing.com/healthcare-resources/blog/meta-andromeda-update/

Mastering Performance Max (PMAX) for Healthcare - https://www.cardinaldigitalmarketing.com/healthcare-resources/blog/performance-max-pmax-healthcare-guide/

The Meta Strategy That Reduced Acquisition Costs by 73% - https://www.cardinaldigitalmarketing.com/healthcare-resources/blog/meta-strategy-patient-acquisition-case-study/

AI won't save a weak creative strategy, it will just produce more of it, faster.

Cardinal's President Lauren Leone sits down with Sr. Creative Director Jean Zhang on the Ignite Healthcare Marketing Podcast to break down what it actually takes to make AI work in healthcare marketing. From Meta's Andromeda update to real production tests comparing AI video against traditional shoots, this conversation covers the creative shift that's quietly reshaping performance marketing.

You'll walk away knowing:

• Why creative diversity is now a targeting signal, not just a design preference
• How to use AI for production speed without losing brand authenticity
• Where AI genuinely falls short in the creative process (and what to do instead)
• Quick wins in-house teams can act on right now with limited resources

If you're trying to keep up with the changing role of creative in healthcare marketing, don't miss this conversation.

RELATED RESOURCES

How Meta's Andromeda Changes Healthcare Marketing Forever - https://www.cardinaldigitalmarketing.com/healthcare-resources/blog/meta-andromeda-update/

Performance Creative: The Key to Paid Media Success - https://www.cardinaldigitalmarketing.com/healthcare-resources/blog/performance-creative-the-key-to-paid-media-success/

Harnessing the Power of AI Marketing for Healthcare - https://www.cardinaldigitalmarketing.com/healthcare-resources/blog/harnessing-ai-marketing-for-healthcare/

Mastering Performance Max (PMAX) for Healthcare - https://www.cardinaldigitalmarketing.com/healthcare-resources/blog/performance-max-pmax-healthcare-guide/

Most behavioral health marketers are talking to patients in a language patients don't speak, and it's costing them admissions.

On Ignite, host Ashley Petrochenko, Cardinal's VP of Brand Marketing, sits down with Jennifer Munoz-Callahan, VP of Digital Performance at Promises Behavioral Health, to explore how behavioral science can transform the way healthcare organizations connect with patients. Drawing from her experience in behavioral health and her personal connection to the space, Jennifer shares why understanding patient fears, motivations, and decision-making is critical to driving meaningful growth.

You'll walk away knowing:

• Why patients are the toughest persona to convert and how to actually reach them
• How speed-to-call and admissions team alignment directly impact patient acquisition
• What retention marketing looks like after a patient leaves your facility
• Why plain language outperforms clinical terminology every time

If behavioral health marketing is part of your world, this conversation will change how you approach every message you send.

RELATED RESOURCES

Connect with Jennifer - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-munoz-callahan/

The Key Behavioral Health Marketing Trends Shaping 2026 - https://www.cardinaldigitalmarketing.com/healthcare-resources/blog/mental-behavioral-health-trends-2026/

What is a Patient Journey? Examples to Grow Your Practice - https://www.cardinaldigitalmarketing.com/healthcare-resources/blog/what-is-a-patient-journey-grow-your-practice/

Marketing + Operations: Why Total Alignment is Vital to Growth - https://www.cardinaldigitalmarketing.com/healthcare-resources/blog/healthcare-marketing-operations-alignment/

Healthcare marketers are making major budget decisions based on attribution models that often tell an incomplete story.

In episode two of The Strategists' Corner, host Rich Briddock sits back down with Ben Dutter, Chief Strategy Officer at Power Digital Marketing, to tackle the measurement problem hiding inside most healthcare marketing organizations. They introduce a practical framework that reorders how marketers should prioritize evidence, and explains why the metrics teams trust most are often the least reliable.

You'll learn:

• Why last-click attribution gives healthcare marketers a false sense of confidence
• How to use marketing mix modeling to challenge assumptions about channel performance
• A proven approach to running incrementality tests without tanking lead volume
• How to get C-suite and PE-backed stakeholders bought into a new measurement strategy

If your P&L and your dashboards are telling two different stories, this is the episode that helps you figure out which one to believe.

RELATED RESOURCES

The Search Plateau Problem: Why Healthcare Providers Need Incrementality Testing -https://www.cardinaldigitalmarketing.com/healthcare-resources/blog/healthcare-incrementality-testing/

RevRx™: Unlocking the Power of Media Mix Modeling - https://www.cardinaldigitalmarketing.com/healthcare-resources/blog/media-mix-modeling-revrx/

When & How to Expand Your Healthcare Media Mix - https://www.cardinaldigitalmarketing.com/healthcare-resources/blog/expanding-channel-media-mix-strategy/

Building a privacy-safe engine for patient growth - https://www.cardinaldigitalmarketing.com/healthcare-resources/blog/health-system-privacy-safe-measurement-framework-case-study/

By the time a patient searches for urgent care, the marketing battle is already half over.

On the Ignite Healthcare Marketing podcast, host Ashley Petrochenko, VP of Brand Marketing at Cardinal, sits down with Miriam Rose Lee, CMO of MainStreet Family Care, to unpack how urgent care brands win patient trust long before the search happens. Miriam shares the brand-building, local search, and reputation strategies driving growth across 67 clinics in rural and metro markets. If your clinics are relying only on paid search to drive volume, this conversation will reframe your entire approach.

You'll walk away knowing:

• Why community presence and brand familiarity drive more urgent care visits than paid social
• How to build a local SEO and Google Business profile strategy that converts at the right moment
• The review incentive system that gets clinic staff actively asking for five-star feedback
• How to align marketing and operations so patient experience doesn't undercut your acquisition efforts

If you want to build local patient trust that holds up before, during, and after the clinic visit, this is the episode to listen to next.

RELATED RESOURCES

Connect with Miriam - https://www.linkedin.com/in/miriamroselee/

Marketing + Operations: Why Total Alignment is Vital to Growth - https://www.cardinaldigitalmarketing.com/healthcare-resources/blog/healthcare-marketing-operations-alignment/

Optimizing for AI Search: A New Era in Healthcare Marketing - https://www.cardinaldigitalmarketing.com/healthcare-resources/blog/optimizing-for-ai-search-a-new-era-in-healthcare-marketing/

Mastering Performance Max (PMAX) for Healthcare - https://www.cardinaldigitalmarketing.com/healthcare-resources/blog/performance-max-pmax-healthcare-guide/

Is Your Organization Actually Ready for Marketing? - https://www.cardinaldigitalmarketing.com/healthcare-resources/blog/marketing-readiness/

Perfect measurement is the goal. But it's rarely the reality.

In this episode of Ignite, Cardinal's President Lauren Leone sits down with Scott Cameron, Group Media Director at Cardinal, to get practical about one of healthcare marketing's most common and least talked about challenges—running campaigns when your data is incomplete, inconsistent, or still a work in progress.

From call tracking and form submissions to platform hygiene and manual feedback loops, Scott breaks down the step-by-step framework Cardinal uses to help healthcare groups make smarter decisions and improve performance even before they reach the ideal measurement state.

You'll walk away with:

• A ladder framework for improving tracking quality one rung at a time
• How to use call scoring and micro conversions to feed the algorithm better signals
• Why platform hygiene matters as much as the data you collect
• The one practical step you can take this week to start making progress

If you're tired of waiting for perfection before you act, this episode is your starting point.

RELATED RESOURCES

The Healthcare Marketing Audit: 6 Strategic Checkpoints - https://www.cardinaldigitalmarketing.com/healthcare-resources/blog/healthcare-marketing-audit-checklist/

How to Build a Healthcare Marketing Roadmap That Drives Patient Growth - https://www.cardinaldigitalmarketing.com/healthcare-resources/blog/how-to-build-digital-marketing-roadmap/

Is Your Organization Actually Ready for Marketing? - https://www.cardinaldigitalmarketing.com/healthcare-resources/blog/marketing-readiness/

Marketing + Operations: Why Total Alignment is Vital to Growth - https://www.cardinaldigitalmarketing.com/healthcare-resources/blog/healthcare-marketing-operations-alignment/

Growing a DSO to 100+ locations usually means trading local soul for corporate efficiency. It doesn't have to.

In this episode of Ignite, Ashley Petrochenko, Cardinal's VP of Brand Marketing sits down with Britney Long, EVP of Marketing at GPS Dental to break down how her team built the marketing infrastructure behind more than 100 dental practices while still keeping every brand local and patient-focused. From AI search and patient retention to tech stack decisions and lifecycle marketing, Britney shares the systems, lessons, and strategies helping GPS Dental scale nationwide growth without creating a "cookie cutter" experience.

You'll walk away with:

• How to decide what to centralize vs. keep local across a multi-location portfolio

• The first marketing hire that changed how GPS understood patient experience

• Why AI search optimization is now the foundation, not the bonus

• How to stop losing patients you already paid to acquire

If you're building or scaling a multi-location healthcare brand and trying to grow while keeping the patient experience local and personal, this is the episode to listen to next..

RELATED RESOURCES

Connect with Britney- https://www.linkedin.com/in/britney-long-marketing/

How to Build a Full-Funnel Healthcare Marketing Strategy - https://www.cardinaldigitalmarketing.com/healthcare-resources/blog/healthcare-full-funnel-marketing-strategy/

Marketing + Operations: Why Total Alignment is Vital to Growth - https://www.cardinaldigitalmarketing.com/healthcare-resources/blog/healthcare-marketing-operations-alignment/

What is a Patient Journey? Examples to Grow Your Practice - https://www.cardinaldigitalmarketing.com/healthcare-resources/blog/what-is-a-patient-journey-grow-your-practice/

DSO Marketing: Branded House vs. House of Brands - https://www.cardinaldigitalmarketing.com/healthcare-resources/blog/dso-marketing-branded-house-vs-house-of-brands/