In today’s competitive healthcare landscape, expanding into new markets and maintaining a focus on customer-centricity are critical for sustained growth. Joining us to discuss these challenges and opportunities is Alice Eweida, CEO of Pandia Medical Group and Pandia Pharmacy. Alice brings extensive experience in navigating both direct-to-consumer and business-to-business models in the healthcare sector.
Alice Eweida is the CEO of Pandia Health (which includes Pandia Medical Group and Pandia Pharmacy) with over 20 years of experience. She took the reins during its seed stage and joined at a time of significant growth as the organization expanded into multiple service categories, adding menopause and developing AI that guides doctors to personalize prescribing medication to best serve the individual patient’s needs.
Prior to Pandia Health, Alice led growth and brand marketing at several Series B digital health startups leveraging telemedicine for wellness, nutrition, diabetes and substance use care. Notably, she grew Boulder Care to approximately 5,000 patients and took DayTwo through a rebrand and expanded their care program from providers to mid-sized employers and national and regional payers. At Foodsmart (formerly Zipongo), she established their B2B2C enrollment and engagement programs, growing its user base to 950,000 through an employee benefits program with Fortune 500 companies, including Disney, Google, IBM and United Healthcare.
Alice spent four years at Google where her team launched Google Home, the first device with a voice-activated assistant built in, and was responsible for the integration with YouTube Red. Additionally, she spent time in their sales department to help grow advertising investments for global brands in the beauty and media sectors across Google Search, Google Display, YouTube and Google’s Marketing Platform.
Earlier in her career, Alice led product marketing at Sky TV, now a division of Comcast, for Sky Go on mobiles, tablets and games consoles. Prior to that, she was part of Vodafone’s Marketing Graduate Program. Alice holds an MA from the Oxford College of Marketing and a BA in English Language and Media Studies from the University of Birmingham in England.
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Transcript
Note: This was AI-generated and only lightly edited.
Greg Kihlstrom:
In today’s competitive healthcare landscape, expanding into new markets and maintaining a focus on customer centricity are critical for sustained growth. Joining us to discuss these challenges and opportunities is Alice Eweida, CEO of Pandia Medical Group and Pandia Pharmacy. Alice brings extensive experience in navigating both direct-to-consumer and business-to-business models in the healthcare sector. Alice, welcome to the show.
Alice Eweida: Hey, Greg, thank you so much for having me. I’m thrilled to be here.
Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah, looking forward to talking about this with you. Why don’t we get started with you sharing a little bit about your journey to becoming CEO of Pandia Medical Group and Pharmacy?
Alice Eweida: Yeah, absolutely. Well, let me first share a story. When I was spending some of my career at Google, I had a manager who was a female manager and she used to, you know, share quite openly that she was most concerned that she may never fulfill her true potential. And I remember when I heard her say that, I was like, well, first of all, I’d never heard anyone say that before. And second of all, I was like, is that a little bit narcissistic? Like I just couldn’t quite get it at the time. And maybe I was too young, but certainly after recently becoming a mom and having my son, there was just this moment where I was like, yeah what if i never achieve my full potential and i think everyone of us has a little bit of that in us somewhere and maybe it takes the right moment in life to tap into it and so the opportunity to become ceo of pandia medical group and pandia pharmacy came up at that moment in my life and i just took a deep breath and said yeah let’s lean in let’s do this And my journey to getting there was really about mastering growth marketing. And I’d spent the majority of my career in some form of marketing, the most recent 10 years specifically in growth marketing, eight years of that in startups here in Silicon Valley. And that was really critical to this opportunity, because we started as direct-to-consumer. And you need somebody who knows how to really you know, set a plan alight and make sure those sales are coming in and that the marketing team is really well set up and established to be able to deliver continuingly aggressive goals with increased investment over time.
Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah, yeah. And we’re definitely gonna, we’re gonna get into some of that in a second here. But first, for those that aren’t familiar, can you talk a little bit about, you know, what does Pandia Medical Group and Pandia Pharmacy do?
Alice Eweida: Yeah, we’re the number one rated hormonal care clinic. We provide asynchronous telemedicine services for birth control through the menopause and we treat symptoms in between such as acne and some sexual wellness with STI testing and treatments soon to come. We believe that women deserve the highest quality care possible and a lot of online businesses are really delivering telehealth 1.0. Their delivery models are through a team of low-cost clinicians And often it means hustling cheap pills, which are synonymous with side effects. So we really believe in improving the standard of care. And that’s why our team is made up only entirely of doctors who are specialists in hormonal health. And we managed the last mile by owning our own pharmacy, which means that If a patient messages us at 1 a.m. saying, hey, I’m about to run out of birth control pills, we can get back to them within an hour or two because our team of patient care advisors are based globally and we can prescribe the same day here in the U.S. So, you know, timing is everything when it comes to hormonal health sometimes, particularly in this current sociopolitical climate where it’s never been more important to not get pregnant if that’s your goal.
Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah, yeah, right. Well, yeah, let’s let’s dive in here then. And we’re going to start by talking about exploring new markets. And as you mentioned in your intro, I always think it’s interesting when CEOs come from that marketing background. I think that’s certainly a trend I’m seeing as well in several industries. But So definitely looking forward to talking about this. So, you know, exploring D2C, B2B, B2B2C, we’ll talk a little bit about all of this. So, you know, let’s start with the direct-to-consumer or DTC market. So, you know, could you explain a little bit about how Pandia Medical Group and Pharmacy approach the DTC market and, you know, what unique challenges and opportunities does this model present?
Alice Eweida: Yeah, so first of all, in terms of opportunities, I think it allows you to do your best work. It really requires a very well-rounded brand and a complete marketing strategy across organic and paid techniques. I think it’s everything from smart use of data with audience lists and remarketing, also storytelling. So making sure it’s full funnel approach to content, and you’ve got things covering the top, the middle, and the lower part of the funnel. Sometimes it’s about discounting as well. And it’s really how you put all of that together that really makes an impact. So for example, for us, 40% of new patients come from organic channels, which are for us, SEO, email, lifecycle, and patient to patient referrals, which are really strong. And then the other 60% of that balance is paid advertising. And one thing we’ve really learned on the journey is that when it comes to content, your content really needs to have a point of view to help your brand differentiate. And we’re really lucky that our chief medical officer, Dr. Sophia Yen, is a passionate advocate and influencer for reproductive rights. So having her as part of the team means that she has a really clear perspective for things like the O pill, which is the first birth control pill over the counter, and how that can work in complement with telehealth services like ours. And so it just means you’ve got this endless opportunity to create really standout content from webinars, downloadable guides, you know, everything that you can do to create as much first party data as you can, and then measuring how that data transitions into patients over time.
Alice Eweida: And then you mentioned challenges. I wanted to make sure I covered that one. Cause it’s not all rosy. Direct to consumer requires a lot of dollars. I mean, really you need a heavy, heavy investment and a big marketing budget. And of course, if you don’t have, and that’s to win, you know, to be the number one or two in your industry. But if you don’t have that, there’s an awful long way you can go with great content and organic with a little bit of paid thrown in.
Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, as you, as you said, you know, direct to consumer, uh, you know, not, not easy on its own. Certainly there’s, you know, there’s lots, lots of opportunities, but lots of. lots of strategy and work that needs to be done, but that’s not the only approach that you’re taking. So, you know, you’re also B2B and B2B2C as well. So how do these differ from your direct-to-consumer? I mean, there are obvious, there’s some obvious things here, but also just, you know, how do you approach them in a different way than direct-to-consumer and, you know, what adjustments do you need to make to succeed in those areas plus D2C?
Alice Eweida: Yeah, it definitely gets complicated when you throw those in. In the healthcare industry, it’s very necessary. I was really lucky to lead growth at three different startups in the Series B space of funding before this opportunity. I’ve seen all of these models a number of times over. For B2B, I think the main difference is really that you need a strategy at every stage in the sales process. Similar to the direct consumer space where we think about from top of funnel all the way through the lower funnel techniques. We need to apply the same rigor to every stage in the sales process. And one thing that really has helped my teams in the past stand out and grow is truly understanding the competitive landscape for B2B. So we spent time working up battle cards, which really go head to head with each of your competitors and calling out the things that you are strongest in that make you a differentiator versus them. So having a really narrow lens, and that gives you both your content engine Uh, something great to work with and your sales team, the ability to close those deals. The other things that I’ve seen, uh, be really valuable in B2B is an events program. I think it’s really important to be out there meeting your customer. Sometimes that can, uh, again, require medium investment. So, uh, we’ve run programs in the past that required a million dollars a year to show up at conferences and make sure you’ve thought through. all of the different touch points from, you know, what collateral they can pick up when they have an engagement with one of your team, how you capture their data digitally and then continue having the conversation online from that point forwards. And then it’s always helpful to have that human touch point. So I really believe in a sales development program where you can have some great marketing campaigns, but it’s important to try and get that person on the phone. or get hold of them by email or LinkedIn message or SMS to keep that conversation alive and make sure that a human is really understanding their challenges and the things that they’re looking for and helping them solve them. And then when it comes to B2B2C, I would say here, having a really deep partnership with whomever is paying for your services is critical. So, you know, we’ve seen success with, having a sponsor and a champion within the business. So, for example, if we’re talking about an employer, which in healthcare is fairly typical that you would sell your services as a benefit and be enrolling the employees of that business, then you need somebody who can help you break open access to indirect channels that you don’t have direct control over. So that could be their intranet and canteens, TV screens in reception, as well as digital campaigns such as email and SMS.
Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah, and to dive into that B2B2C a little bit more, you know, particularly interested with that, it seems complex, you know, versus just the letter, the amount of letters and numbers in it alone. But, but, you know, just I, we had a show a little bit ago, talking about this more in the in the retail space. So, you know, different to an industry, but still talking about some of the challenges, you know, anything particularly challenging about B2B2C and you know, are there things that you kind of need to have in place to do that?
Alice Eweida: Well, yeah, I, I, I do think it’s one of the hardest marketing challenges I have ever faced in my career. And that’s because it’s this really special set of circumstances that requires some traditional approaches, but also, you know, clever use of data and the most innovative tech stack and, you know, all of the best things that we like to do in growth marketing. And so for me, it always comes back to understanding your audience. And I can give you an example here. When I worked for a startup that was offering a benefit for metabolic health services, and this was really dietician counseling via telehealth, we had engaged a customer who was in logistics and they had about 25,000 employees across the country, of which 50% were truckers. And you typically find that instances of diabetes, for example, can be really high in blue collar communities. And so this was a great opportunity for us. It really was one of our, you know, one of the best opportunities in our sales pipeline. And when it became a real customer, it was really exciting for the marketing team. But it required us to think completely differently about how we would normally approach this challenge. So we learned through a lot of trial and error that you certainly can’t send a direct mail during open enrollment season to somebody’s home because truckers are very rarely at home. They’re busy night and day traveling across the country. Often with one piece of tech that they rely heavily on, maybe two, so it might be a phone and an iPad or a phone and some kind of tablet. And we found that it was really all about mobile optimized email. Definitely, you know, desktop was not relevant here in most cases. And then SMS. And the tricky thing about SMS is you need the right legal approvals to make sure that you’re using it in the right way. And so what mattered here is how the data had been captured by the employer. in order for us to use it for this purpose and we had a very small set of data where it had been acquired with the right permissions and it allowed us to do some really effective campaigns but we certainly needed to push beyond that in order to achieve our enrollment goals. And then what we learned from that and what I’ve continued to apply in my career is to make sure there’s a step in the sales process for securing access to the right data. And what I mean by that is not when the deal is done, when you’re in the agreement phase and you’re drafting an agreement with your customer to make sure that there is a step that says, hey, we need to pull in someone from the marketing team and ask them what they need to be successful to enroll this population and make sure that that is firmly part of the agreement and that the customer understands why we’re asking for that and how we’re going to use it. And those are two really critical elements.
Greg Kihlstrom: Switching gears a little bit here, I want to talk about another topic, staying customer centric and with your experience in growth marketing. And as we all know, maintaining a focus on the customer is critical, especially when you’re expanding, whether that’s as a startup, even as an existing company. So I want to talk a little bit about that part of things and things like customer profitability, improving customer lifetime value or CLV. So growth marketing is a term it’s certainly used a lot lately. It’s maybe one of those buzzwords that doesn’t make it not powerful, but it’s certainly being used a lot. But it’s also something that a lot of companies are utilizing. So can you talk about And I know you touched on this a little bit earlier, but talk a little bit more about how does Pandia Pharmacy and Medical Group look at growth marketing? What’s the approach there?
Alice Eweida: Yeah, thanks for the question. I mean, what it means, what it’s meant to me, what it has become to mean over many years is obsess about the data. Just always, always listen to what the data is telling you. Make sure you’re measuring the right things. Make sure you’re looking at it often enough. You know, it’s so easy to get busy in meetings and not understand the roles and responsibilities of each member of the team. You know, who is responsible for looking at which data and to try to set up the right behaviors so that they’re looking at it as frequently as possible. So really, traditionally, it’s been thought of as growth rates. So instead of just looking at like, hey, you know, we got 1000 new customers last month, you’re looking at the enrollment rate, and how much did it grow by or your conversion rate on site? And how much did that rate grow or decline by? And so, you know, data, data, data is definitely the obvious answer. But what I’ve also found to be helpful is looking at top line metrics, as well as growth rates, and so that you are really seeing the full picture. So, you know, we obsess over traffic and leads in terms of just pure volume, as well as growth rates, such as conversion rates and enrollment rates. And then I think it’s always really important when we’re talking about data to just leverage the best digital tools that you can make available and make sure you’re continually researching and understanding the tools on offer in the market. Because you’ve only got one budget, you have to invest it wisely. And so making sure, for example, if you’re using GA4, that you’re building the right conversion funnels and that you have the right skillset on the team to be able to do that. And looking at things like heat maps, you know, surveying tools, hot jar is a favorite of mine, but yeah, just making sure you always have the best tools available.
Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I definitely agree. I think looking at those, looking at growth rates and focusing on those, it definitely changes the conversation. I rather than, you know, it’s, it’s, I think it’s easy to get distracted by good looking numbers, you know, okay, we’re above average, or whatever, you know, whatever you’re comparing yourself to, but you know, the, the growth or performance rates, or whatever you want to, you know, refer to them, it’s, it’s hard to, it’s hard to argue that, you know, things are continuing to perform well, when the growth rate is not continuously improving. So I think that’s a, that’s a powerful way of looking at things.
Alice Eweida: Yeah that’s so right Greg and just one final thought on that is you know it’s also I love what you say about those attractive numbers and where I found it to be helpful as well is when things go sour you know you can suddenly have a dip and you’ve got to hustle and figure out quickly where that dip’s coming from and finding where your growth rates have been depressed is is where you find the answers.
Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah great great point yeah and so you know amidst all of that I mean definitely you know growth is critical and, and, and doing that, how do you balance that, that need for growth with staying focused on the customer? So, you know, you gotta, you gotta have the numbers or else nobody, even customers don’t benefit if, if the company’s not performing well, but you know, how do you maintain customer centricity amidst that focus on, on growth?
Alice Eweida: Yeah, that’s a great question. I really love that. In my view, I would say it’s about listening a lot. And I think there are some really low cost ways that you can do that. Just always be surveying, always be trying to understand your customer better. And it’s a bit like peeling back layers of the onion and adding flavors into your customer profiling. So for example, right now we have a renewal survey running. to help us understand why customers love us so much that they want to sign up for another year, but also understanding if they’re not signing up, again, why that is and where the gaps are. Plus, just keeping a real close eye on the competitive landscape. I think that helps a lot. And it’s easy to do. You’ve got so many touch points from socials, making sure, for example, that you’re constantly checking your competitors’ socials and seeing, what are they launching? What are they talking about? using advisors wherever possible or mentors who might have some knowledge of your competitors. Often you know people tend to center their careers in one industry and one particular topic and so it might be that when they’re later in their career and they’re becoming advisors on the board or they want to mentor younger people in the team then they have some really deep knowledge across the industry. And then for where your the leadership team of your, your competitors show up. So events, webinars, every opportunity you get to hear them speak, I think is valuable, um, to help you understand the market better.
Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah. Yeah. That’s, that’s interesting. So could you share maybe some ideas or strategies, approaches that have helped improve that customer value and profitability while maintaining your, your customer centricity at, at Pandia?
Alice Eweida: Yeah, that’s a really crucial question because as you say, those numbers only get bigger. Um, those vanity ones and, um, and you need to, you need to figure out your strategy for how you’re going to keep growing year after year. And so for us, it’s been about cross selling products, um, and understanding the needs of our customers. And so for example, we started out in birth control and very quickly realized that the most common, uh, side effect of having an imbalance in hormones is acne. And as well, we had quite a young customer base. And so it’s more typical in your earlier years, in your twenties and thirties. So we figured out how to stand up a really seamless way of prescribing medications for acne. Uh, that was very complimentary. And so we did that by cross-selling in a few different areas. So first of all, in the product experience, finding the right touch points, uh, when somebody is most respect, sorry, receptive and already. in the consideration mindset for your brand. And then also newsletters having, you know, the right modules, having dynamic email modules that can just plug into different campaigns. I’ve seen that be really, really successful. So, uh, having in like a, a machine learning program that sits in the background and says like, Hey, if a campaign is going out to this demographic of customers, then here’s the top three products that we could cross sell to them.
Greg Kihlstrom: Yeah, that’s great. Well, Alice, as we wrap up here, I want to talk a little bit about, you know, your vision for the future here and, you know, what emerging trends or technologies do you think will be playing a role in shaping not only, you know, Pandia Medical Group and Pandia Pharmacy, but also, you know, your industry in the coming years?
Alice Eweida: Yeah, awesome. So for us, I think consumer trends are providing asynchronous telemedicine for speciality care. We’ve seen a lot of telemedicine for primary care, coughs, colds, and flu. But we’re really starting to understand the value of this modality for things like psychiatry, menopause, which is one of the services that we offer. And asynchronous just means you’re not on a phone call or a video chat with a doctor but you’re just filling out a questionnaire providing some data and the doctor is reviewing that information and writing a prescription for you. So this asynchronous mode can be really effective where it’s difficult to have conversations in person and that might be things like sexual health It might be things around depression. And I think there’s tons of areas that we’ve really yet to explore the value of it for. And then as well as consumer trends, there’s technology, obviously AI. And I think what I mean by that is just software, smart software that continues to learn. It’s everywhere. It’s in everything. It’s all around us. And so we’re thinking about that for obvious things like shipping and refills in particular. But as well, how can we do the more complex tasks like our team of patient care advisors who triage messages between the customer and the doctor, helping them you know, respond in a way that takes some of the workload off them and also makes the business more efficient, as well as prescribing recommendations for doctors. We have so much data on our patients that there’s a really great way that we can be more efficient and get an outcome for the patient faster. And then full stack marketing, you know, given our focus today, I really think there’s many more opportunities for programmatic and personalized creative. I think we’re just scratching the surface there. Even Google ads is a little bit clunky in my opinion and how it puts together imagery and headlines today. And it’s a very black box for helping advertisers really understand what’s working and what isn’t. So I think we’re at the very, very beginning of that journey. This has been so fun, Greg. Thank you so much for having me as a guest. I really enjoyed our conversation.
