Welcome Teeraphol Ambhai, Head of Search Experience at Bumrungrad International Hospital sharing his insights on MarTech innovation in healthcare as part of the MarTech Thoughts series.

How do you describe your job to a 5-year-old?

My main task is to manage Search Experience, which mainly focuses on SEO & SEM.
Let’s start with SEO. Imagine it like an encyclopaedia—a big, thick book that contains A-Z information about our products and services, filled with colourful content like articles, infographics, videos, and podcasts. If a page in this encyclopaedia is missing or outdated, we need to fix it. This helps our “Best Seller Encyclopaedia” continue to generate revenue.
On the SEM side, if our encyclopaedia is hard to find in the library among many other books, we can invest in brochures or leaflets to direct people to the right row where our encyclopaedia is located.

What is the one platform/app/solution you can’t live without? Why?

PAM is the one Technology Platform I can’t live without. Let me tell you more about it.
In today’s digital marketing world, PAM (Personalized Automated Marketing), a Thai MarTech Real CDP Platform, is designed to assist marketers in almost every possible way.
It’s not just a Customer Data Platform but also an E-Commerce platform that helps you manage your storefront and back office. Additionally, it has a coupon portal that allows you to create sales promotion campaigns more effectively. Most importantly, everything is under the same PAM system, enabling easy management in one place. This platform systematically collects and analyses various data with maximum efficiency.

Currently, what are you primarily looking for in your digital marketing efforts? Awareness, engagement, conversion, or retention? Why?

Conversion is our primary focus because it provides us with valuable data on customer behaviour and interests based on their activities on our website. We can then modify our advertisements based on these conversions to attract additional customers. Conversion can occur through multiple channels, and creating conversion goes beyond just measurement—it requires skill and understanding. Here are some examples of conversion:

• Purchasing Goods
• Subscription
• Subscription to news information
• Reading articles on the web
• Credit card payments
• Downloading

Among these, the conversion of “purchasing products” is the most valuable and beneficial to the business. However, other conversions are also important as they help gather information about potential customers. This data can be analysed and tracked to encourage the target group to purchase your products and services eventually.

How do you see the skillsets needed for the marketing profession changing?

I categorise the necessary skills using AI, separating them into A and I:

Start with A

Adaptability: The ability to be flexible and adapt to a rapidly changing world and behaviours, such as technological change (digital disruption) or globalisation. Those who can adapt are resourceful.

Analytical Skills: The ability to think analytically and solve complex problems to make decisions that achieve the best results. This involves breaking down various elements of information or problems into smaller, manageable parts.

Attention to Detail: The foundation of creating quality and meticulous results. When working with AI, it’s crucial to carefully review from a human perspective, regardless of how advanced the technology is.

Activeness: Always ready to learn new skills, eager for opportunities, and thinking ahead. “Stay hungry, Stay foolish.”

Agility: Emphasising the completion of work in small increments, making it easy to adjust and change. Quickly receive user feedback, improve incrementally, and view mistakes as learning opportunities. “Fail Fast, Learn Faster, Do Fastest.”

End with I

Initiative: The first step to success is creativity and understanding. These are among the must-have skills for the 21st century.

Innovation: Focusing on concretely creating new solutions to old problems and creating valuable and useful outcomes.

Interdisciplinary Knowledge: Having skills in just one area may not be enough. Therefore, having multiple skills can help enhance other skills.

Imagination: When aligned with real action, imagination is what makes humans essential in the age of AI.

Ingenuity: Intelligence, wisdom, and wit from diligent learning, coupled with an awareness of all aspects.

Understanding and being open-minded to the application of AI, both externally and within the organisation, is crucial for effectively improving life in the future. This leads to the creation of Digital Literacy, which drives Digital Transformation.

What will be the next evolution in marketing technology that we can expect in the coming years?

Hyper-personalisation involves using Big Data to analyse customer behaviour, thereby improving the efficiency of communication and personalised services. This allows businesses to define marketing and service approaches effectively and better respond to customer needs.
Hyper-personalisation is not a new concept, as large organisations abroad have already implemented it. However, in Thailand, only a few organisations have begun analysing data for Hyper-Personalization. With technological advancements and innovation in the modern era, Hyper-Personalization is no longer difficult to achieve. Big Data is one of the tools that can be effectively used for Hyper-Personalization, from data collection methods and analysis to creating Machine Learning and AI models. The analysed data is then applied to Hyper-Personalised marketing, measurement, and improvement. With Big Data’s capabilities, organisations can enhance customer service efficiency, improve resource allocation, and win the hearts of existing customers while attracting new ones, ensuring superiority in the fierce competition of the digital business era.

What are the best social listening tools and strategies? Why?

Wisesight is the best social listening tool in Thailand. It was founded in 2007, coinciding with the arrival of social media platforms in the country. Wisesight has collected the most extensive market data sources and continuously developed the most advanced technology tools, providing a wide range of social media analytics solutions to help brands unlock the potential of social data to better care for their customers and seek new market opportunities.

High Expertise in Social Data Analytics

Their team of analysts, developers, and business development executives are all equipped with the expertise and technical knowledge to turn social media data into valuable insights.

Most Advanced and Secure Tools

They are the leading company in advanced technology, ensuring the fastest, most powerful, and precise system for collecting, processing, and analysing data. Their technology is highly reliable, utilising AWS services, the world’s most secure infrastructure.

Largest Volume of Market Data

The number of active social media users in Thailand is growing every year. Therefore, the social media data they collect represents the Thai market, allowing users to understand not just their brands but also competitors and consumers in the market.

Best-in-Class Service

At Wisesight, they work towards a single goal: to create the best experience for their clients.

Has AI played a role in your influencer marketing? How have AI-driven technologies changed your influencer marketing strategies?

We use Tellscore, the leading Influencer Hiring Automation Platform driven by AI/ML, which serves as the ultimate connection hub between brands, agencies, and influential content creators. Tellscore offers two distinct services to cater to diverse needs. Firstly, it operates as a full-service influencer agency with comprehensive media buy capabilities. Secondly, it provides a Software as a Service (SaaS) platform, empowering brands and agencies who prefer a do-it-yourself approach.
In Thailand alone, Tellscore boasts an impressive network of over 80,000 influencers, encompassing a wide spectrum of macro and micro-influencers across twelve distinct tribes. These tribes cover various areas of interest, such as health, travel, tech, and gadgets. By leveraging advanced technology, Tellscore’s creator content consistently outperforms manually-managed content, adding substantial value to our every campaign.

What are the top 3 things in your checklist when choosing the right influencer to work with?

There are many methods for effective influencer marketing. One of the most effective methods today is to use influencers of all sizes to cover the core of communication according to the Pyramid of Influence.

For example, in one campaign, you should work with 1-5 macro-influencers or influencers with a large number of followers (100,000 or more), followed by 30-50 medium-influencers with a moderate number of followers (10,000-50,000) to review the product or service to create widespread awareness and understanding of the overall picture. Then, we use 500-1,000 micro-influencers with followers (500-5,000) to share the content from the macro and medium-influencers who initially reviewed it. This approach further develops the trend and belief in the product or service, reaching a wider group of consumers.

The Tellscore platform has a very robust KPI measurement system that can measure results that meet the Marketer’s needs as follows:

1.Budget spent on each campaign

2.Total number of influencers working with Marketer on each campaign

3.Visibility (Reach) for each campaign – indicates the awareness of that post from unique people

4.Engagement for each campaign – indicates the total interactions on that post from the number of unique people who saw that post

How do you connect, engage and build a persistent relationship with your customers? Is the omnichannel experience consistent?

We have developed products to construct a Healthcare Ecosystem encompassing eight successful platforms dedicated to enhancing our customers’ quality of life and delivering substantial value. This includes the E-Wallet, which augments convenience and ensures customers receive the utmost benefits, and E-Payment, which expands payment options. These innovations enable individuals worldwide to effortlessly pay for services, moving us closer to achieving seamless healthcare. Telehealth has been instrumental in driving our organisation forward during the pandemic.
Bumrungrad remains committed to providing continuous care to patients globally, eliminating the need for physical travel to the hospital. This is further supported by our Digital Medical Interpreters (DMI), which offer assistance in up to five languages. Over the past year, we have served more than 17,600 recipients through our Telehealth services.

How do you tackle department silos when it comes to looking into CX proactively?

In today’s digital age, many organisations strive for digital transformation to revolutionise operations and enhance efficiency. While most focus on integrating IT principles to shift from traditional to digital methods, Bumrungrad takes a unique approach.
From the beginning, our transformation journey has been distinctive. We’ve embraced IT not merely as a tool but as the foundation for a broader strategy that incorporates a strong marketing perspective. This approach has allowed us to transcend the typical boundaries of digital shifts, leading to a more intimate and precise transformation that significantly enhances customer satisfaction.
Building a successful framework now goes beyond just gathering surface-level data or completing a product. We’ve evolved from relying on intuition to adopting a data-driven methodology. This shift facilitates in-depth data analysis, uncovers genuine customer insights, and ultimately results in superior, hybrid outcomes.
To address these challenges, we established a MarTech team that combines IT and Marketing expertise. This team is dedicated to revamping our internal processes and boosting customer satisfaction. We prioritise a customised strategy that addresses each customer’s unique needs, allowing us to optimise our operations for success and tailor solutions to specific challenges.

How important is segmentation to your personalisation strategy, and what other key components do you believe contribute to conversion?

Segmentation is absolutely critical to our personalisation strategy. Our team laid the foundation for an action plan by seamlessly blending IT and marketing perspectives. This integration allowed us to create workflows that not only meet customer needs but also address their pain points effectively.
Furthermore, we’ve developed a new business model that revolutionises the healthcare industry through a direct-to-customer strategy—a concept rarely embraced by other organisations in our field. Typically, healthcare entities rely on referral systems or passively await walk-in customers. In contrast, our model directly engages with customers, establishing a Pre-Paid Journey. This approach enables customers to finalise the purchase of health packages before utilising our services. The payment includes doctor fees, allowing customers to settle their bills in advance and visit the doctor at their scheduled appointment time. After their consultation, they can immediately return home without any additional steps.
This model is just one example of the platforms our team has crafted. Our ecosystem now includes eight successful platforms designed to enhance customer interaction across core areas: Digital Marketing, Application, Online Store, E-Payment System, Telehealth, IoT/IoMT, RPA Automation, and Calling Queue Assistant. These internally developed platforms represent digital innovation at its core.

Can you describe a successful campaign or initiative that used CDP data for personalisation?

Implementing the CDxP system has significantly enhanced our ability to deliver personalised communications. This targeted approach has not only created more positive and engaging experiences for our service recipients but has also strengthened relationships and fostered customer loyalty. The success of this strategy is clearly reflected in the tangible revenue it has generated.
In 2023, our communication efforts driven by the CDxP system accounted for a notable 7.16% of the total revenue generated across all online channels. These results provide compelling evidence of the CDxP system’s critical role in driving both customer satisfaction and organisational growth.

A big thank you to Teeraphol Ambhai, Head of Search Experience at Bumrungrad International Hospital sharing his insights on MarTech innovation in healthcare. If you want to connect with Teeraphol, feel free to reach out via LinkedIn!

See more MarTech Thoughts interview pieces here!

Last updated: August 2024