The Pulse on Healthcare Marketing w/ Stewart Gandolf

What’s the key to growing a healthcare niche marketing agency?

If you ask today’s guest, Stewart Gandolf, the answer is quite simple. It’s all about deep domain expertise. But simple doesn’t mean easy, and in this episode, we break down just how Stewart built his expertise - and his agency.

Founded in 2006, Healthcare Success is a 40-person agency that today works with multi-location healthcare providers from medical specialty to dental offices, as well as health systems providers and medical device companies.

Stewart shares his story, going from working at agency giants like JWT to founding his own shop in 2006, immediately skyrocketing to the top of Google search results, and what ensued after.

If you leave with one takeaway after listening to this episode, it is that winning agency leaders understand their niche at a deep level. When it comes to medical knowledge in the healthcare industry, there’s no such thing as winging it. Stewart’s success has stemmed from being able to truly act as the healthcare marketing expert his clients can trust.

Aside from expertise, what makes Healthcare Success unique as an agency is that Stewart hasn’t built it to follow the same path many others are on; their philosophy isn’t about scaling the business at all costs, so they are able to offer more flexible service to their clients.

This episode dives into topics like communicating expertise, evolving your agency business to serve larger clients, and why passion in any given industry makes for a great hire.

Here’s what Corey and Stewart discuss in this episode:

• What it means to be a leader, the good and the bad.
• How he bootstrapped his agency by driving business with SEO.
• How Stewart’s team was doing content marketing before it was popular.
• How to communicate true expertise in a niche, and why achieving it is not easy.
• How to add value to your clients outside of your core offering.

Here are some actionable key takeaways for agency founders:

• Asking insightful questions can double as credentials.
• Everybody wants expertise but not everybody wants to pay for it.
• The bigger the client company, the more sophisticated service you need to deliver.
• Niches are small, so reputation is everything for an agency.
• Figure out a repeatable process to sell to not start from scratch every time.

The resources mentioned in this episode are:

- Connect with Stewart on LinkedIn Here

- Learn About Healthcare Success Here

- Subscribe to Stewart’s Newsletter Here

Join us as we discuss healthcare marketing and verticalized agencies as a whole.

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