by Grant Evans | Aug 18, 2021 | Blog
So, you want to engage a PR agency to help get the word out about your solutions or services.
Sounds like a plan. Sounds easy.
But the process can be daunting, time-consuming, and expensive. And, most importantly, it may not help you achieve your goals.
If this sounds oddly pessimistic coming from someone in an agency, bear with me. I’m here to share some considerations, observations, and best practices gleaned from over three decades split between agency and corporate marketing gigs. Avoiding the mistakes of others can save you time and money, and result in a productive, positive working relationship with your agency.
Know what you want to accomplish.
Do you need straight-up media relations? Industry analyst engagement? Help with messaging and positioning? Social media strategy and support? Editorial and content development? Speaking opportunities? Is there the potential for crisis management? Will your executives require media training?
Having a grasp of your near- and longer-term objectives can help you narrow the field. Most agencies will claim to provide a full menu of such services, but the quality and scope of the offerings can vary wildly. Be skeptical and do your due diligence.
PR Agency? Full-Time Employee? Freelancer?
There are pros and cons to each of these approaches, and your organization’s budget, timeline, and internal processes will dictate the best approach.
Agencies can be expensive, depending on the retainer structure or the billable rates of your account team, but can actually be more cost-effective than the alternatives. They also bring a wealth of expansive and deep marketing expertise, along with a solid bench. They are often very good at helping determine what you need (see above), are responsive and reliable, and 100% dedicated to your agenda. Agencies also provide access to a host of services––from art/creative direction and design, to web development, digital marketing, and social media strategy and support.
Full-time employees are great because they are invested in your success and are in it for the long haul. But they often require substantial budget outlays, and can take months to identify, recruit, sign, and onboard. Once they are thoroughly steeped in your offerings, they can be outstanding brand ambassadors and stewards, and can also work on other marketing initiatives as needed. But once they leave, you’re back to square one.
Freelancers can be nimble hires––they often have excellent credentials, can start right away, and hit the ground running. But they typically operate with minimal resources, have no back-up, and must dedicate hours to other clients. They also can be brutally hard to integrate into existing systems (HR/accounting, project management, content management). They also are prone to terminating their arrangements abruptly (which can also work in your favor if you only need a limited engagement).
One size does not fit all.
Yes, big agencies have big resources, but don’t let claims of a national footprint, local presence, global reach, or head count sell you on an ill-matched relationship. Think expertise, applied experience in your market, and skillsets that dovetail with your agenda. Access to creative resources is a plus. Know how many hours are available to your account each week or month.
Who’s on the team?
This consideration also hinges on knowing what you want to accomplish. If you’re looking for a clip shop to get you mentioned in every low-value round-up article, then seniority matters little. But if you’ll need responsive counsel with expertise in and contacts spanning your market, look for senior-level account team members. Ask the tough questions: What’s the average tenure of your account team? Where have they worked? What companies have they represented? What results have they generated? How many former journalists are on staff? How many accounts do they manage at once?
Mind the old switch-a-roo.
Let’s assume you’re down to a few final candidates and are evaluating pitches. For these meetings, most agencies will send out the big guns––often including the person with his/her name on the door. But will you ever see or hear from these folks again? Many times, agencies get a bad rap by orchestrating a senior executive dog-and-pony show, only to later hand the account over to junior staffers (or even interns) who, while eager, often require more direction and a longer ramp-up period. Get firm commitments on your team’s composition, and don’t hesitate to challenge if you aren’t sold on the match. You want them to operate as an extension of your team.
Beware of scope creep.
Will the agencies you are considering be able to accommodate your needs as your marketing strategy evolves? If your program may eventually require social media support, make sure the agency of record has the capabilities––and not just an intern with a huge stable of Instagram followers, but applied expertise in cultivating an online presence with a custom mix of organic and paid content. Ditto for the media training and crisis communications mentioned earlier. Otherwise, you’ll be saddled with the chore of evaluating and enlisting additional vendors.
In the end, it’s entirely up to you, and highly dependent on your organization’s budget, processes, and requirements. And remember, the old adage, “Fast, cheap, or good? You can only pick two” applies here as well. If you want something fast and good, it won’t be cheap; if you want it cheap and good, it won’t be fast; and if you want cheap and fast, it won’t be good. Choose wisely.
by Philip Anast | Aug 4, 2021 | Blog
While searching for a high-school graduation gift this summer, I came across a book called, “Learn Like a Pro, Science-based tools to become better at anything.” Primarily a guidebook for students about how to learn, study and prepare for tests, it also has application for all who desire maximizing their learning abilities regardless of age.
The authors, Barbara Oakley and Olav Schewe, are university professors who share their failures along the way and how they transformed themselves into skilled learners.
As a PR professional for an award-winning PR and marketing agency, I wanted to give this book a “test drive” to see if it could help me in my own work, as well as provide colleagues with best practices.
One of the methods they recommend is the Pomodoro Technique, where an individual sets aside e-mail, mobile phones and other distractions for 25 minutes of uninterrupted study or work. The technique avails itself of the focused mode of learning, where the brain tackles an assignment or problem intently. After the focused period, the doer takes a five-minute break so that the diffuse mode of learning can continue working in the background while the person listens to music, takes a walk, gets a snack, etc. The idea is to rinse and repeat. The diffuse mode, incidentally, is the part of the brain that spurs creativity.
Focused and diffuse modes of learning help build connections between neurons, the brain’s building blocks. The links between neurons are synapses. The stronger the neural connections, the stronger knowledge, understanding and insights take root in long-term memory.
Exercise also plays a part in these neural connections because it produces a substance called brain-derived neurotrophic factor BDNF, a type of fertilizer for the brain.
The Pomodoro Technique may even mitigate procrastination by giving the user a set amount of time to focus intently on a task with a built-in reward at the end of the period. For those struggling with a particular task, like an essay or math problem, stepping away to do something else allows the diffuse mode to continue pondering the issue at hand. Often, new ideas emerge in our brains when we return to that task.
In a new business presentation, for example, the authors might recommend that team members review materials for one hour a day, every other day, in the week before presenting. The breaks allow the diffuse mode to do its thing. As that presentation day approaches, reviewing materials and rehearsing the presentation grow in frequency.
For the chapters on self-discipline and motivation, who better to reference than Theodore Roosevelt to make their points. In 1912, the former President sustained a bullet wound by a would-be assassin in Milwaukee. The shot missed Roosevelt’s vital organs, and while still bleeding, he continued speaking for over 90 minutes! Roosevelt, from a young age, pushed himself to read, study and exercise at a breath-taking pace. He is said to have read one book a day during his eight years in the White House.
Their point is that not everyone has self-discipline or that type of sheer will. But there are ways to improve one’s chances of success at assignments and getting things done.
The way to do it is by limiting the distractions and temptations that require such self-discipline in the first place. Again, removing mobile phones during focused work, limiting the distractions on one’s desk and workspace are great starts.
To be deep learners, the authors have several recommendations while reading books and other materials: The first is to skim a book chapter or white paper for section headings, executive summaries, graphics and bold-faced copy to get a feel for the material. Later, with focused reading, it’s important to turn your gaze away every few pages to engage in a method called recall (or retrieval), which entails summarizing, in one’s own words, what has been learned. Studies suggest this method of reading breeds greater retention than reading materials repeatedly, where the strong neural connections often don’t form because one hasn’t really absorbed the material.
To aid in this process, the authors recommend taking notes on the right 2/3 of a notebook, leaving the left 1/3 to summarize key words and thoughts later in the day. This helps in the recall/retrieval process.
Another area impacting effective learning and time management is the writing and editing process. The authors assert not to confuse the two. When one is writing, one ought to pour one’s heart into writing without worrying about everything being perfect. It’s essential to get thoughts on paper and digital screen. The editing process takes place later and is more effective as its own discipline.
Setting process, milestone and long-term goals also go a long way to sowing a path to success. To establish goals and fulfill them, one must develop good habits and weed out the bad ones. This exercise can be accomplished by finding the triggers to bad habits and resetting them so that there are positive cues and then rewards at the end of the tunnel.
That’s all for now. My Pomodoro session has now concluded, and it’s time for a break.
by Megan Moriarty | Jul 21, 2021 | Blog
Most people working in communications are familiar with the idea that storytelling creates the most impactful and memorable messages. Feeling a human connection to a story is what makes it resonate with us, and what makes us care. Working in the healthcare communications field makes it easy to tell great stories because we’ve all had our own healthcare experiences. Healthcare is personal and we can relate to any number of situations because of that.
When pitching/covering/writing about health IT, it’s important to center around the human element. Amendola CEO Jodi Amendola has shared that the best PR is personal, and the human connection is what makes any story relatable. My colleague Margaret Kelly also recently wrote about her perspective on health IT as a patient. Connecting the features of health tech to end users (physicians and other care providers) and to the ultimate benefits to patients makes stories more powerful and demonstrates the value of technology.
In the health IT world, there’s so much innovation and so many new tools, programs and systems that can improve the healthcare system. But the most important stories in health IT are not about the technology but instead about the patients who ultimately benefit from the technology. Patients are the ultimate beneficiary of all the innovation happening in healthcare, from safety, to efficiency, to patient satisfaction and ultimately improved health outcomes.
If, like me, you’ve had a telemedicine appointment this year because of COVID-19, you’ve experienced health tech innovation firsthand. While telehealth was not initially conceived as a method for delivering health care to prevent viral spread during a pandemic, it’s an unexpected use case for an innovation that was originally thought of as a convenience. The rapid adoption of telemedicine during the COVID-19 pandemic has likely changed health care delivery, and telemedicine is likely here to stay in a bigger role moving forward.
I can look at my own career in PR and see real-world examples of how healthcare technology benefitted physicians and patients in unexpected ways. I live in the Kansas, which is right in the heart of “Tornado Alley.” No, I’ve never actually seen a tornado, but the sirens are a familiar part of spring and summer in the Midwest. Tornados are destructive and can be deadly – you may remember the horrific destruction of the EF-5 tornado in Joplin, Missouri in 2011 which killed 161 people and badly damaged the local hospital.
Even though there were reports of X-ray films being blown 70 miles away, patient records were also digitized. When the hospital was closed due to the extensive damage, the community set up temporary facilities to care for patients and the clinicians were able to electronically access medical records for those patients. Prior to the widespread adoption of electronic health records, this would not have been possible.
I was also working in health IT when a devastating tornado ripped through a medical center in Oklahoma in 2013. The roof was torn off and the medical center had to evacuate patients to other locations within the regional health system. Before EHRs, this situation would have left clinicians without access to the health records for the patients in their care. But thanks to the digitization of medical records and a regional health information organization (RHIO) for which my employer remotely hosted the records, patients could be transferred to other nearby facilities and physicians could access patients’ records for treatment.
This second example was actually a cover story in Modern Healthcare that highlighted how technology makes our healthcare system better and benefits communities and patients. It may have been an unintended use case for health information exchanges (HIEs) and remotely hosted records for disaster preparedness, but sometimes unforeseen events help to prove the efficiency and value of certain innovations.
Finding a meaningful way to communicate how innovations benefit people makes health IT messages more memorable. To make your health tech story resonant with audiences, always look for the human connection.
by Chris Nerney | Jul 7, 2021 | Blog
Successful marketers are persuasive. Whatever their medium – print, audio, video – the content and messages they create consistently prompt their target audience to take action.
There are multiple schools of thought about effective marketing, not to mention plenty of marketing and copywriting “experts” (legit or self-proclaimed) willing to offer you their insights through books, online courses, subscription newsletters, and other revenue-generating vehicles. Many of them offer excellent advice.
But there also is a seemingly unlimited amount of free online advice offering sound tips and strategies for writing deeply persuasive marketing copy. The advice ranges from the theoretical to the practical. I’ve pulled together five that jumped out at me for one reason or another. They are in no particular order. Let’s get going.
Know your audience
OK, right off the bat I lied, which admittedly isn’t a great long-term marketing strategy. The truth is, this first item – know your audience – actually is the most important piece of advice on the list, which now (so far at least) has a semblance of order!
You simply can’t hone an effective marketing message if you don’t know who it’s intended to persuade. One copywriting advice guy I read says “the key to great copywriting is to like your audience.” I understand where he’s coming from, but I would instead suggest it’s better to understand your target audience, particularly their needs and pain points that could be addressed by your company’s products or services.
While liking them might help get you there, doing some research would be even more illuminating and productive. Another way to help sharpen your understanding of the target audience is to create a profile or persona based on demographic data.
Know your message (and tighten it)
You can’t market effectively if you 1) don’t know what you’re marketing and 2) how to explain it in various levels of detail. The latter can be particularly challenging for healthcare technology companies that have complex platforms or services. There’s a lot to explain! One cofounder I know told me he knows the exact moment when he loses potential customers as he tries to explain his startup’s technology: “I can see their eyes glaze over.”
Eye glazing is never a good sign. Make sure you can explain your technology – and, more importantly, what problems it can solve – clearly and concisely. That’s a struggle for some technologist entrepreneurs, which is why many of them hire marketing and PR professionals to help them shape and deliver their message.
Write about your audience (not about what you’re selling)
Your content needs to read as if you’re personally addressing your target audience, as if you can read their minds and are on their side. The best copywriting puts the focus on the needs of the audience, not the merits of a product or service. Yes, those eventually will have to be discussed, but only in the context of solving a problem for the potential buyer. At all times, it is about the customer. A lot of “you” in your marketing content goes a long way.
Write for your medium
How you write content for a 2,000-word white paper will be dramatically different than how you would write 150 words of web copy for a home page. People who sit down to read a white paper they downloaded have different expectations than those who are surfing around looking for something to interest them – or a solution to their problems.
For the former, you have room to delve into how your technology works, how it applies to various use cases, etc. You can geek out. In the latter case, your mission is to capture readers’ attention and keep them on your site. That requires the equivalent of emotionally hard-hitting ad copy that leads to data capture, lead generation, and potential customers.
Invite a conversation
Granted, you can’t do this with every marketing asset. But a steady social media presence can enable you to have an ongoing dialog with members of your target market. There may not be an immediate revenue payoff, but social media is about the long game. It’s for building relationships, encouraging engagement, learning about your customers, and establishing a consistent voice for your brand. Writing for social media should be relatively informal and conversational.
Conclusion
Marketers have more tools and channels than ever for connecting with existing and potential customers. To get the most out of your marketing strategy and efforts, you must understand your target audience, know how to talk to them (depending on the medium), know what to say to them, and be eager to listen and learn.
by Philip Anast | Jun 23, 2021 | Blog
A recent cyberattack on a fuel pipeline has hospital and health system officials rethinking what they need to do better to protect their own networks from breaches and the huge consequences that can result.
For communications professionals at such institutions, rehearsing such crisis scenarios and what should follow can be the difference between saving a reputation or seeing it destroyed.
The ability to respond promptly to disasters or damaging reports can build confidence in constituents that the organization is on top of the crisis and is a leader in its sector.
One thing to consider is that crisis plans should make very clear who is responsible for what. Here are some suggestions to keep in mind:
Prepare in advance with inputs from the organization’s functional areas. The time to plan for a crisis is long before it hits. A well- thought-out crisis plan is designed to help an organization communicate internally and externally with clear, succinct, and timely direction.
The goal is to minimize confusion and maintain confidence amidst whatever crisis may occur. Opinions vary and emotions are strong when the stakes are high, the book Crucial Conversations tells us. The time for addressing conflicting perspectives is in the preparation phase of a crisis plan, not during the crisis itself. While there will undoubtedly be differences of opinion in one’s approach depending on the circumstances, a detailed plan rehearsed with key players and influencers can minimize disruption when things get tense. Still, even if things get heated, the book’s authors tell us to leverage the power of dialogue with absolute candor and deep respect for others’ viewpoints to realize the desired goals.
Identify stakeholders. Designing an effective crisis management plan also requires an understanding of stakeholders and their roles. Stakeholders are all those who have an interest in the outcome. For a health system, the list is generally long and can include patients, governments, administrators, board members, and clinicians. Each might need slightly different things during a crisis, which is why each stakeholder should be considered a separate audience.
Identify a communications chain of command. Crisis plans should – in advance – identify all of those who will be involved with managing a crisis, what areas they are responsible for and who is ultimately responsible for making decisions. Then, all of those involved should receive the training they need to be effective in their roles. For example, specialists from all functional areas of the organization should be available to lend their expertise should the need arise, and executive spokespeople should receive media training.
Create real-world tools that can be modified later. One of the most valuable things to have in a crisis is a head start. Messaging, scripts, and spokespeople should be prepared in advance. The communications team or the company’s PR firm can later assist in adapting standard scripts to specific situations based on the event and fallout.
Ensure that crisis management messaging addresses various aspects of the crisis. When communicating bad news or another type of crisis, it is imperative that the organization’s spokespersons do the following:
Elaborate with the “what” – explain what happened with concise language, together with the organization’s position on the issue
Educate with the “how” – explain how audiences should respond to the situation and how the organization is responding
Engage with the “why” – explain the impact the situation has on operations so that impacts are not blown out of proportion
By giving thoughtful consideration to the development of a crisis management plan, organizations are more likely to be able to recover from bad news. In some cases, they might even exit the crisis with stronger brand relationships.
by Michelle Ponte | Jun 9, 2021 | Blog
In the 1994 book Bird by Bird, author Anne Lamott dispenses advice legendary among writers on how to write a draft worthy of hitting send. Her key gem (and the only piece of advice I recall after nearly 30 years): “Just write a “sh***ty first draft.”
That short sentence is the mantra that informs every article, case study, white paper, and…er, today’s blog post that I create. Writing on command can be challenging, especially for marketing, PR, and media relations professionals who produce copy on deadline about complex healthcare topics. There are times when that first sentence just won’t come to mind, making us fall prey to believing we have writer’s block.
However, after writing for a living for 20+ years, I no longer believe in so-called writer’s block. Why? Because that tired phrase suggests I don’t have control of the writing process. Hundreds of well-received articles, reports, and other papers would suggest otherwise.
What I finally figured out is once I write those first 100 throwaway words (okay, 200 or 300), I need to trust that the creative process will kick in sooner—rather than later—and lead me to a final, polished, client-worthy draft.
Even so, the writing process is never as easy or linear as we would like it to be. If I still can’t produce quality work after writing that terrible first draft, as Lamott suggests, I know it’s time to stop and redirect as quickly as possible. I find there are two primary reasons why writers get stuck, which are relatively easy to fix with the right approach.
Zero creative inspiration. You just came off a 12-hour writing jag, and now it’s time to do it all over again with a 2,000-word byline. While you may have a strong command of the topic and direction, you are getting stuck with the lead, introduction, or headline. This is a common stumbling block for writers because this is where your words need that spark to draw in readers. When this happens, I stop, switch gears, and do activities that will inspire creative thinking.
This typically involves browsing publications from other industries. A few of my go-to pubs are Fast Company and Wired, both of which have punchy headlines, good pacing, and well-structured articles. I also read current healthcare news for inspiration and comb through a desktop folder of well-written articles and reports I have saved for this specific purpose. I may even listen to an audiobook for a few minutes or do push-ups and squats next to my desk. The activity doesn’t matter, it just needs to help you shift from an analytical to a creative mindset.
No direction, and it’s due end of day. You have three interviews to sort through, conflicting directions from the client, and the outline in your head is spinning out of control. Been there, and yes, there is a solution. Take another look at the assignment memo or creative brief for clarity. If it still doesn’t make sense, rewrite it in your own words until it does. If guidance wasn’t provided, quickly write a creative brief for yourself that includes a one-sentence objective and three key takeaways (one sentence each).
Still stuck? Take it next level and write a one-page outline resembling the basic four-paragraph essay you learned in high school. The four-paragraph essay includes the headline and four paragraphs with topic sentences (the intro, two middle sections, and a conclusion.) After you have committed to this outline, add more paragraphs under each of the four sections and give them topic sentences as well. Drop chunks of information into each paragraph, finish that bad first draft, rename it, and move into the writing zone.
I also write down ideas in my notes app on my phone as they occur (knowing I will never remember them later), usually after a shower or before bed when I am more relaxed. Some of my best writing starts this way. Finally, I keep an editorial cheat sheet crammed with writing goodies, including a list of words and phrases I can grab and use to polish that final draft.
Need more tips to fix your writer’s block? Check out this blog from my colleague Morgan Lewis.
