Award-Winning · Integrated Health Marketing
Bariatric
Program Revamp
& Campaign
Program Revamp
& Campaign
A comprehensive overhaul of a bariatric weight loss program — website redesign, intake process optimization, and a full multimedia campaign built on empathy-driven creative — delivering a 40% reduction in acquisition costs and a 16% increase in qualified patient leads.
Healthcare Marketing
Campaign Strategy
Lead Funnel Optimization
Website Redesign
Intake Process
Multimedia Creative
Patient Acquisition
Empathy-Driven Messaging
The Challenge
High cost, low conversion,
and a broken intake.
Bariatric programs face a patient acquisition challenge that most healthcare services don't: the audience is motivated but cautious. People considering weight loss surgery have often spent years thinking about it. A generic ad campaign doesn't move them — the right message at the right moment does.
The existing program had both a messaging problem and an infrastructure problem. On the messaging side, the campaign lacked emotional resonance — it was clinical and feature-forward where it needed to be empathetic and transformation-led. On the infrastructure side, the intake process and website were creating friction that killed conversion before it ever reached a clinician.
Acquisition costs were high because media spend was being absorbed by a leaky funnel. Fixing the campaign without fixing the intake process would have improved leads without improving outcomes. The revamp had to address both problems simultaneously.
The result was a two-pronged initiative: a fully redesigned patient journey from ad impression to booked consultation, and a multimedia campaign built around real patient transformation stories that gave prospective patients a reason to take the first step.
Challenge 01 · Messaging Mismatch
Existing creative was clinical and feature-forward. Bariatric patients respond to transformation and empathy — the campaign needed a complete voice and creative shift to match the emotional state of a prospective patient.
Challenge 02 · Broken Intake Funnel
Media spend was arriving at a website and intake process that created unnecessary friction. Leads were dropping before reaching clinical staff, inflating the apparent cost of acquisition.
Challenge 03 · Multi-Channel Coordination
Digital ads, print placements, magazine features, and broadcast commercials all running simultaneously with inconsistent messaging. Every channel needed to carry the same story.
Challenge 04 · Clinical Alignment
Patient success stories required clinical approval. Every claim, every patient narrative, and every outcome reference needed to pass compliance review without stripping the emotional resonance that made the campaign work.
My Role
Campaign & operations, together.
📊
Campaign & Creative
- Guided the full campaign strategy — defined the empathy-driven messaging platform, patient story framework, and channel-specific creative direction across all formats
- Developed the Empower creative series — the campaign's emotional anchor, built around transformation narratives and patient success stories designed to connect with patients who had been considering surgery for years
- Produced multimedia asset suite — digital ads, newspaper and magazine spreads, broadcast commercials — all unified under the same brand voice and campaign platform
- Managed clinical collaboration for patient narrative approvals — coordinated compliance review without diluting the emotional effectiveness of the creative
- Built rollout schedules and budget management across all channels and phases — tracked spend against lead quality, not just lead volume
🔨
Digital & Operations
- Led the website redesign — overhauled digital touchpoints to prioritize lead conversion and patient education, reducing friction between first contact and booked consultation
- Redesigned the intake process end to end — identified and eliminated drop-off points that were inflating acquisition cost without being visible in the campaign metrics
- Built patient education architecture into the digital experience — designed content flows that addressed common patient concerns before they became objections during intake
- Implemented segmented media targeting — used behavioral and demographic data to reach prospective patients at the consideration stage, not just the awareness stage
- Tracked performance at the qualified-lead level — held the campaign accountable to conversion quality, not just impression volume, enabling the media mix to shift toward highest-performing channels
The Approach
Fix the funnel first,
then fill it.
Five stages — infrastructure before creative, so every media dollar arrived at a conversion-ready experience.
01
Funnel Audit
Mapped the existing intake journey from ad impression to booked consultation — identified every friction point inflating acquisition cost.
02
Intake & Web
Redesigned the website and intake process around patient education and conversion — built to reduce the gap between arrival and action.
03
Messaging Platform
Developed the empathy-driven campaign platform — transformation-led storytelling designed to resonate with patients at the consideration stage.
04
Multi-Channel Build
Created digital, print, magazine, and broadcast assets under one unified voice — with segmented targeting aligned to patient intent signals.
05
Launch & Optimize
Tracked performance at the qualified-lead level — shifted budget toward highest-converting channels as data came in during the campaign.
The Initiative
Two pillars.
One connected strategy.
The revamp addressed both sides of the acquisition problem simultaneously — neither alone would have moved the numbers.
Campaign & Creative
Empathy-driven storytelling across every channel, built around real patient transformation narratives and a unified “Empower” brand platform.
- Digital ads — segmented by behavioral and demographic intent signals
- Newspaper & magazine spreads — transformation story formats
- Broadcast commercials — patient success narrative spots
- Social creative — Empower series across platforms
Digital & Intake Overhaul
End-to-end redesign of the patient acquisition infrastructure — website, intake workflow, and education content aligned to where prospective patients actually drop off.
- Website redesign — optimized for lead conversion and patient education
- Intake process rebuild — friction removed from first contact to booked consult
- Patient education content — pre-addressed common concerns and objections
- UX improvement — mobile-first flow aligned to how patients actually arrive
Patient Acquisition Funnel
From media impression to booked consultation — where each initiative applied
Full-Funnel Revamp
The Creative
Empower —
the transformation platform.
The “Empower” campaign series was the emotional centerpiece — a visual and narrative platform built to connect with patients who had been considering surgery for years, not just those who discovered the program yesterday.
Empower — Patient Story
Empower — Transformation
Empower — Digital Winter
Empower campaign series — deployed across digital, social, print, and broadcast
Campaign Creative
Multi-channel asset · digital and print formats
Campaign Creative
Multi-channel asset · digital and print formats
Campaign in Market
Live campaign view · digital channel execution
Broadcast & OOH
Broadcast & Magazine
TV commercials and magazine spreads · not shown
Deliverables
Full scope.
Full ownership.
Every component across both pillars — from the first intake audit to the final broadcast spot.
Website Redesign
Full overhaul of the bariatric program's digital presence — optimized for lead conversion, patient education, and mobile-first UX aligned to how prospective patients arrive.
Intake Process Rebuild
End-to-end redesign of the patient intake workflow — eliminated friction points, pre-addressed common objections, and shortened the path from first contact to booked consultation.
Messaging Framework
Empathy-driven messaging platform built around patient transformation narratives — adapted for every channel while maintaining a unified campaign voice.
Multimedia Creative Assets
Full asset suite: digital ads, Empower social series, newspaper and magazine spreads, and broadcast TV commercials — all clinical-approved and campaign-consistent.
Clinical Collaboration
Managed patient narrative approvals and clinical sign-off workflows — maintained compliance without sacrificing the emotional effectiveness of the creative.
Budget & Campaign Management
Full campaign rollout schedule, budget tracking across all channels, and ongoing optimization toward qualified lead quality rather than impression volume.
Results
The stat sheet
40%
Reduction in Acquisition Cost
Achieved through intake process optimization and smarter media targeting — fixing the funnel before filling it was the operational lever that made the 40% possible.
16%
Increase in Qualified Leads
Growth in qualified patient leads from digital and offline media — tracking lead quality rather than volume ensured the increase reflected real conversion potential.
🏆
Award-Winning Campaign
Recognized for integrated health marketing excellence — evaluating both creative quality and measurable patient acquisition outcomes together.
Campaign Lens
Key decisions & tradeoffs
The strategic choices behind the revamp — and why some of the less obvious ones mattered most.
| Decision | Rationale | Tradeoff |
|---|---|---|
| Fix intake before media | The most counterintuitive decision in the revamp: rebuilding the intake process and website before increasing media spend. Pouring more budget into a leaky funnel would have improved lead volume but not acquisition cost. The infrastructure had to be ready to convert before we optimized for traffic. | Delayed campaign launch — the intake rebuild added time to the overall timeline. Accepted as the right tradeoff because the 40% cost reduction would not have been achievable without it. |
| Empathy over features | Bariatric patients at the consideration stage have already researched the procedure. They know what surgery involves. What they need is permission to believe it could work for them — which is an emotional, not informational, message. The Empower platform was built to provide that permission through patient stories, not clinical claims. | Stronger resonance with target patient — clinical audiences and compliance teams often push toward feature-forward messaging. Holding the empathy-led direction through the approval process was where the campaign differentiation was won or lost. |
| Track qualified leads, not impressions | Reporting on impression volume is a way of hiding underperformance. A campaign that drives 10,000 impressions and 50 qualified leads is worse than one that drives 3,000 impressions and 80 qualified leads. Holding the team accountable to lead quality from the start forced better targeting decisions throughout. | Harder internal sell — impression metrics are easier to report and easier to defend. Shifting the conversation to cost-per-qualified-lead required ongoing communication with stakeholders who were accustomed to reach-based reporting. |
| Patient education as a conversion tool | Pre-addressing patient concerns in the website and intake content — surgery risks, recovery timeline, candidacy criteria — reduced the volume of questions that stalled the intake process. Patients arrived at consultation better informed, which shortened the sales cycle and improved the experience on both sides. | Dual benefit — the content investment reduced intake friction and improved patient experience simultaneously, contributing to both the acquisition cost reduction and better conversion rates from the same media spend. |
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