Episode Summary
AnnaMaria Turano is Vice President of Marketing at Synzi, a company that was facilitating telehealth services before it was cool — or, rather, before it became an overwhelming necessity because of COVID-19.
“In late 2017, entering 2018, we figured out Synzi was the right name, the right brand. And then we determined the look and feel of what that brand identity should be, including the colors, including the font, etc., to be markedly different from everyone else in the telehealth space,” AnnaMaria says. “We saw ourselves as having been a pioneer of bringing forth a different type of solution and a different way of thinking about how that solution would actually work in a provider organization.”
Because Synzi started using the term “virtual care” before other telehealth providers, AnnaMaria and her marketing team knew it was important to establish the company’s unique identity.
On this episode of Tech Qualified, AnnaMaria discusses marketing’s role in making a company stand out, the importance of maintaining customer relationships (and adapting based on their changing needs), and how helpful it is to think of varying marketing objectives as working hand-in-hand rather than achieving separate things.
“We’ve got all these things we’re doing at once. They’re all important. They all feed into each other, and there is no reason to just put one aside versus the other,” she says. “You can’t drive lead gen without strengthening brand awareness, and at the same time … you’re going to have to enable sales and make sure that your sales force has the right tools they need to close the deals, but also the right tools they need to get the customer started.”
Guest Profile
- Name: AnnaMaria Turano
- What she does: As the Vice President of Marketing at Synzi, a virtual care company dedicated to improving healthcare outcomes through telehealth technology, AnnaMaria uses her background in marketing and strategic consulting to increase brand awareness, drive lead generation and enable sales.
- Company: Synzi
- Noteworthy: AnnaMaria has worked in financial services, technology, software, healthcare and consumer goods, so she’s confident in her ability to market a wide array of products and uses that background daily at Synzi.
Key Insights
- Meet your customers’ needs and adapt when those needs change. AnnaMaria says it's vital to recalibrate a marketing team’s outreach, messaging, creative and content to sync with whatever customers are facing — right now, that’s a pandemic.
- All marketing objectives work hand in hand. According to AnnaMaria, you can't drive lead gen without strengthening brand awareness. Similarly, when your lead gen is working, you still have to make sure your sales team is properly equipped to convert leads into paying customers.
- Marketing is all about standing out. AnnaMaria says the last thing you want to do as a marketer is to repeat what competitors are saying or model the look and design of your brand off someone else. Instead, be intentional about making your company unique. That includes all the fine details, from your company’s name to its logo color and font.
Episode Highlights
- How Synzi works as a telehealth and virtual care company
- Adjusting Synzi’s marketing approach to address new pain points
- Red tape isn’t always a bad thing for marketers
- Standing out from competitors during the rise of telehealth popularity
- Understanding customer priorities is always a challenge — especially now