Client List & Portfolio

Client Background & Needs

A globally recognized leader in health care, Loma Linda University Medical Center (LLUMC) operates some of the largest clinical programs in the United States. Each year, the institution admits more than 33,000 inpatients and serves roughly half a million outpatients. With a small, multidisciplinary web team serving the entire organization, a heavily decentralized infrastructure and communications philosophy, as well as an antiquated, largely ineffective web presence, LLUMC turned to EMG to establish the vision, path and strategic directives to realize a completely new, user-friendly web presence with marketing-centric information and processes.

To serve LLUMC’s extensive patient population and its internal community’s communication and operational needs, LLUMC initially worked with EMG to produce a newly designed, organized and content managed web presence of more than 3,000 pages for its four major Southern California hospitals and service lines. Then in late 2008 – nearly a year after launch and within a more highly competitive market – the medical center approached EMG to optimize its new web presence. Tasked with expanding LLUMC’s online reach, EMG set out to improve the site’s navigational structure, using the latest cutting-edge technologies, producing a refreshing and poignant design that not only drives traffic and engages web visitors but conveys LLUMC’s mission “to make man whole.”

EMG Approach & Solution

By conducting innovative market research and workshops, establishing control of web real estate and effectively educating and cross-training LLUMC’s marketers and technology professionals on how the newest interactive online marketing trends and capabilities could contribute to their bottom line, EMG was able to bridge departmental goals and objectives while creating an actionable plan to fully redevelop LLUMC’s web presence into a robust, content managed, resource optimized, process-friendly, marketing-centric business tool.

Aimed to deliver a more flexible and user-focused web experience, the newly redesigned website is a result of many hours of user observation, multivariate testing, analysis, planning and search optimization. The site features a thoughtfully planned navigational structure, a compartmentalized layout, enriched content and multimedia. As a one-stop resource providing information in regards to health-related topics and treatments, patients considering treatment at LLUMC conveniently find relevant content at their fingertips and benefit from EMG’s logically designed website – built from the ground up from a user-centric and results-oriented approach.

Additionally, having never conducted nor relied on online, social or digitally-driven marketing in its past, LLUMC yielded a $4 million increase in revenue from online referrals alone in just the first nine months of its partnership with EMG.

Client Challenges

• Heavily decentralized governance structure
• In-house, home-grown content management solution
• Low adoption of existing content management solution
• Limited personnel and communications resources
• Pain-point driven, decision-making process
• Needed consistent brand maintenance across the enterprise
• Needed online visibility to attract new patients
• Needed more dynamic, user-focused web experience
• Needed better outreach to users

The Tactics

• Extensive emerging market research
• Recommendations for centralized web governance and uniform workflow strategy
  Integrated enterprise content management solution and training based on business needs
• Audited and revamped service line and business unit microsites
  Implemented institutional intranet
• Created custom database-driven Services Page
• Created custom physician directory and search tool
• Planned and managed full-scale online & search engine marketing
• Produced video-based virtual tour of featured services
• Integrated Google search with Baynote social search
• Enterprise analytics & multivariate site testing
• Complete institution-wide web presence redevelopment
• Licensed and integrated syndicated healthcare content including multilingual content
• Homepage optimization

The Outcomes

• $4 million+ revenue generated solely by online self referrals
• 470% increase in total physician referrals per month
• Increase in unique visitors from 50/day to 3084/day
• Page views increased from 150/day to 10,076/day
• Traffic sources increased from 70 to 1,166,468
• Increase in keyword visibility from 249 traffic generating keywords to 50,000+
• #1 Google Ranking across various service lines – up from low of #150
• 57%+ of ALL new patient inquiries coming from the web
• Online referrals converting at 15-18% vs. offline marketing at 6%

Special Features

Interactive Health Library

An easily navigable A-Z health-related encyclopedia allows users to search more than 3,600 individual articles and 4,000 illustrations and diagrams. Also, available in a Spanish-language edition, the library is a hands-on resource, allowing users to learn more about health conditions or to calculate health information such as body mass index (BMI). The Health Library also features a customized landing page and interface for each of the four LLUMC facilities – Medical Center, Children’s Hospital, East Campus and Behavioral Medicine Center.
Visit the Interactive Health Library

SEO, Multivariate Testing, Analytics & Business Intelligence

By analyzing and optimizing existing landing pages, EMG drove web traffic to lomalindahealth.org while boosting the site’s search engine ranking and heightening visibility. Baynote content recommendation technology was also implemented to increase the relevancy of search results according to overall user behavior.

In addition, EMG integrated Google Analytics and Omniture SiteCatalyst in conjunction with Optimost’s multivariate test platform to test site layout variations and to measure site performance via transactional goals. From analyzing the data and optimizing the website accordingly, LLUMC saw an increase in online lead generation. Finally, the business intelligence that is gathered and analyzed from extensive web and campaign analytics is now used as a critical catalyst for determining the direction and scope of all online and offline marketing endeavors.

Content Management System Integration

EMG implemented Autonomy’s TeamSite, an enterprise-level content management system. Within the system, custom workflows and templates were built for the varying departments of LLUMC. This allows editors to create and update content then submit it to a workflow, authorizing managers to review and approve content before it is published to the website. While the workflow ensures refined content, the templates provide a user-friendly framework and guideline that ensure consistent formatting.

Physician Directory

This application is accessible via global navigation and featured on various sections of the site. Searchable by “doctor’s name” and “specialty” as well as more advanced criteria such as “languages spoken,” the database equips users by identifying a doctor among the 675 physician profiles that can instantly address their individual healthcare needs. The directory has assisted in generating an average of 1,100 online referrals monthly.
Visit the Physician Directory

Email Marketing

To enhance LLUMC’s communication with users, EMG implemented a consumer acquisition database that records users’ contact information, building an outreach pool for segmented and targeted outbound communications. Integrated within the system is an email marketing platform that enables email campaigns to target users based on specific interests. A user can visit the site, fill out a form to register for an event or obtain more information about a certain subject matter then subsequently receive emails relevant to their topics of interest.

Intranet

From a starting point of a homepage containing over 100 links, LLUMC’s Intranet was re-architected from the ground up into a sophisticated and efficiently designed communication gateway. The redevelopment included an audit of all content on LLUMC’s intranet as well as the entire organization’s services and departments. With the findings, a user-friendly site was created that accurately represents each department and gives LLUMC’s doctors, staff and administrators a convenient means to find needed information and download documents. Staff members can manage their content based on the department with which they are associated. The Intranet is also integrated into the content management system with built-in templates and workflows to ensure easy and timely publishing of coherent and polished content.