Confessions of a Nurse-Marketer – Interview with Rich Nollen, BSN, RN, Founder & CEO of Innovare HP
- Brainz Magazine
- 4 days ago
- 5 min read
If you ask most people what healthcare marketing is, they’ll tell you it’s billboards, brochures, or the occasional Facebook post reminding you to get a flu shot. Ask Rich Nollen, BSN, RN, and he’ll tell you something entirely different. He’ll tell you healthcare marketing is a form of care delivery. He’ll tell you it’s advocacy disguised as strategy. He’ll tell you it’s where human emotion meets operational reality. But he’ll also tell you what very few founders are willing to say out loud, that his company, Innovare HP, was built in the quiet chaos of near-failure – financial stress, emotional collapse, and a season where everything familiar seemed to be falling apart. Today, Rich leads one of the most human-centered healthcare marketing agencies in the Midwest, serving organizations from Michigan to California. And in this rare, vulnerable conversation, he reveals the story behind the brand, the discipline that carried him when motivation didn’t, and why the industry desperately needs less noise and far more meaning.
Rich Nollen, BSN, RN, Healthcare Marketing and Strategic Growth
Welcome to confessions of a Nurse-Marketer.
You started as a nurse. What pulled you from bedside care into marketing?
“I didn’t set out to become a marketer. I set out to become a nurse.”
“I know what 3 AM sounds like in a hospital,” he says, pausing as if replaying the memory. “The quiet hum of monitors. The shuffle of nurses who’ve already done too much. The silence between families who don’t yet know what to say.”
It’s that sound, human, raw, unfiltered, that followed him from clinical care into the world of healthcare marketing. And it became the heartbeat of Innovare HP, a Michigan-based agency that blends strategy, storytelling, and boots-on-the-ground outreach to help providers connect with the communities they serve.
What frustrates you most about the current state of healthcare marketing?
“Healthcare marketing feels like an apology for existing.” “Most healthcare marketing hides behind compliance and clichés. It’s all ‘We treat you like family’ and ‘Compassion you can trust.’ None of that means anything if people don’t feel it.”
He leans forward. “The nurse in me rebels against that. Marketing shouldn’t sanitize emotion, it should translate it. Families don’t make decisions because of billboards. They make them because someone showed up, explained options, and made them feel seen.”
Your first year in business wasn’t easy. What did that season teach you?
“The first few months of Innovare HP were brutal,” Rich admits. “There were times when I wondered if I’d made the wrong choice. I had clients who didn’t pay, projects that fell apart, and days when I could barely convince myself to keep going.”
He laughs softly, not bitter, but with the calm of someone who has already forgiven the process.
“Motivation ran out quickly. What kept me going was discipline, showing up even when I didn’t feel like it. I learned that motivation is emotional, but discipline is muscle memory. It’s doing the work when no one is watching, when no one is clapping, when you’re the only one who still believes the vision is worth it.”
That mindset reshaped Innovare HP. “Whenever things get tough, a campaign that underperforms, a client that ghosts, I remind myself that we’ve already been through worse. The company was built in struggle, so resilience is in our DNA.”
You’ve hinted that healthcare marketing saved you personally. What do you mean by that?
This is the part of his story he’s never truly said out loud.
“Healthcare marketing pulled me out of a failing relationship,” Rich shares quietly. “It pulled me out of a failing version of myself, too, one that was tired, discouraged, and honestly just existing.”
“When everything around me felt like it was falling apart, the work became something that steadied me. It reminded me that I could still build something meaningful. That I wasn’t done yet.”
That season reshaped how he defines purpose. “I learned that the purpose of marketing, real marketing, is that it moves people. It shifts something inside them. It gives them clarity, connection, or comfort when they need it most. And in all those ways, it moved me first.”
How do you balance metrics with meaning in your approach to marketing?
“At Innovare HP, strategy is never divorced from empathy.”
“The nurse in me knows data doesn’t change people. Connection does,” Rich explains. “I’ve watched entire referral campaigns succeed not because of ad spend, but because someone took the time to listen, really listen, to what a case manager needed.”
He’s quick to clarify, “Metrics matter, but they should measure meaning. A higher census number without stronger relationships is just noise.”
What does ‘boots-on-the-ground’ really mean inside Innovare HP?
“When we talk about ‘boots-on-the-ground marketing,’ we don’t mean branded doughnuts.”
“We mean being where care decisions happen, in hallways, break rooms, community libraries. Our team builds trust before the crisis hits. We partner with local organizations, host conversations, and amplify voices that don’t usually get airtime.”
That approach, he says, is what separates Innovare HP from traditional agencies.“We don’t rent space. We show up. We don’t chase clicks, we build credibility.”
How do you define the role of a healthcare marketer today?
For Nollen, healthcare marketing isn’t just a business function, it’s a form of care delivery.
“Think about it,” he says. “Every time we help a family find the right hospice, every time we make a community aware of senior resources, that’s public health communication. That’s advocacy.”
He smiles. “We’re just doing it with better design and fewer buzzwords.”
You’ve now worked with clients across multiple states. What has that experience revealed?
What began as a Michigan-based idea has grown into a multi-state movement.
Innovare HP has supported healthcare partners and community initiatives in Virginia, California, Texas, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan, each collaboration rooted in the same mission, to humanize healthcare communication and help organizations grow through trust.
“We’ve worked with hospice providers, behavioral health networks, billing firms, and senior care operators from coast to coast,” Rich shares. “No matter the state, the challenges look different, but the heartbeat of healthcare is always the same, people trying to do good work for other people.”
What’s next for Innovare HP?
As Innovare HP continues its expansion across Michigan, with its Grand Rapids branch established and a new Ann Arbor location underway, Nollen remains committed to scaling without losing soul. He’s developing the Innovare Referral Intelligence Dashboard, a subscription platform that tracks real-time referral patterns and community engagement metrics.
“It’s the tech version of what we already do, help providers understand how relationships drive results. But it’ll never replace human connection, it’ll just illuminate it.”
If you had one final confession, what would it be?
Rich thinks for a moment. “That healthcare marketing isn’t about selling services. It’s about restoring meaning to communication. We’re nurses, creatives, and connectors rolled into one, and our job is to remind the industry that care doesn’t end at discharge.”
He pauses again, softer this time. “At the end of the day, it’s still bedside care. We’ve just changed the bedside.”
Every great partnership begins with a simple hello. Reach out to Innovare HP to discover what truly meaningful healthcare marketing looks like.
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