by Tim Boivin | Apr 5, 2016 | Blog
There is still a misconception that persists among many PR and marketing professionals today that analyst briefings are not worth doing unless their organization has a paid subscription with the analyst firms. We often find that analyst relations is one of the first things that marketers want to cross out of our PR proposals.
Our take Vitare loquitur coniectoribus periculo tuo.
Or, for those former parochial school students like me still struggling with Latin: Avoid opportunities to speak with analysts at your own risk.
Even if your organization does not have a paid relationship with an analyst firm, we strongly believe it is worth your time to do an “earned” briefing similar to the earned opportunities your PR team is proactively seeking from the media outside of the paid/advertorial opportunities that those outlets sales teams are pitching. As long as the privilege of an earned briefing is not abused, analysts are usually open to scheduling calls or even in-person briefings. But make sure you have something important to say, and that you are prepared for tough questions about your company’s direction, target markets, customers, and even its financials.
Analyst recommendations are among the most important influencers for those executives looking to make significant buying decisions about healthcare technology solutions. With all the noise in the marketplace from walking around the HIMSS show floor last month, there are too many companies to count who lay claim as the answer to population health, or personalized medicine, or care coordination it is critically important that your organization is included among vendor recommendations when your prospects check in with analysts.
Yes, you’ll probably have to take a sales call along with the briefing. But the intrinsic, long-lasting value of getting in front of key analysts who decides to make out the lineup for recommendations makes the briefing makes that 30 extra minutes listening to a sales spiel about their services and events well worth the effort. Plus, the media often turns to analysts for expert insights, and while they usually don’t reference specific vendors in their quotes, you do want them to be aware of your positioning so when they are quoted in the media your organization’s vision and positioning are helping to shape the thinking behind their comments.
Which are the key analyst firms you should consider targeting for “earned” briefings? In general, the most well-known firms are still Gartner, IDC, Forrester, Frost & Sullivan and Ovum. But it is just as important to hold briefings with other analyst firms who also have significant influence over buying decisions in the healthcare technology market, including (but not limited to) Chilmark, IHS and Alterum.
Your analyst relations strategy should incorporate regularly scheduled briefings with the relevant analysts at these firms. The first step is to reach out to the analyst firm to request a schedule of reports they plan to publish in the next year. Then, build out a briefing schedule, not only based on those reports, but also based on significant milestones you expect to hit with your corporate positioning and/or roadmap.
Keep in mind that analyst briefings do have a much longer lead time, so it is important to know the process through which briefings are coordinated. For instance, Gartner, IDC and Forrester have central bookers who schedule the briefings. Even if you have spoken by phone or in person with an analyst previously, you or your PR firm will still need to contact the booker or fill out a form on the analyst firm’s website to schedule the briefing. Give yourself 6-8 weeks lead time, so if you have a big launch coming up three months from now, you should be requesting a briefing now.
So you got the briefing booked. Now what? We’ll be covering the Do’s and Don’ts of preparing and holding a briefing in our next blog post, as well as the follow-up that is needed in a timely fashion to make the briefing a successful one.
Check back next week for our next post on prepping for and holding a briefing, as well as how to handle action items that need to be addressed coming out of a briefing. But in the meantime, share your insights in the comments below on:
- Which analyst firms you find have the most impact?
- What works well with analysts based on briefings you have participated in?
- What are some of the common pitfalls of doing analyst briefings?
by Todd Stein | Mar 29, 2016 | Blog
In my 12+ years working with CEOs of healthcare technology startups, I can count on a single hand the number of opening discussions that didn’t include this phrase: “We want to be in the New York Times.”
The expectation among tech entrepreneurs that the nation’s newspaper of record will jump at the chance to write about them is as common as it is unrealistic. This is especially true in healthcare IT, where only a handful of companies sell directly to consumers.
The Times coverage of healthcare IT seems to consist almost entirely of IBM Watson Health (it helps to be one of the world’s great brands) and the IT initiatives of large health insurance and pharmaceutical companies. Conspicuously absent from their coverage is your average startup with a Series A round in the low 8-figures and two or three marquis clients who may or may not be willing to talk to the press.
The odds of such a company getting ink in the New York Times are slightly worse than the odds of being struck by lightning while speeding.
Lightning Strikes
And yet, sometimes, under the right circumstances and with the right preparation lightning does strike.
Case in point. Zipongo is a three-year-old San Francisco-based startup with about 50 employees, $10 million in funding, and one brilliant idea. Founder and CEO Jason Langheier, MD, MPH, helped launch the pediatric obesity clinic at Boston Medical Center. The weight loss program was a great success but Langheier wasn’t satisfied. Millions of overweight American kids could benefit from the program, he knew, and yet it just couldn’t scale within the hospital setting.
Determined to help reverse the nation’s obesity epidemic, Langheier built an application in his “spare” time while earning a medical degree from Duke in three years. And so Zipongo was born. The full story is slightly more complex but Langheier had hit upon an idea whose time had come. Zipongo helps self-insured employers and payers keep their employees and members healthy by making it easy for them to eat healthy.
Read All About It!
I could tell you how they do it but why bother when you can read a much more compelling description of Zipongo’s success with customers like Google and IBM in the Feb. 21, 2016 edition of the New York Times: Wellness App Aims to Improve Workplace Nutrition, by Times staff writer Stephanie Strom.
Wade in! You won’t be the first. Within one day of the story’s appearance in the national edition of the Times, Zipongo had received 40 hot inbound leads and Langheier’s inbox was overflowing with congratulatory notes from folks who’d crawled out of the woodwork to restart old business conversations.
How We Did It
There were at least three primary ingredients involved in Zipongo’s New York Times debut.
- A Lot of Preparation (identify news trends). Our first job in targeting the Times was to prepare a solid news pitch designed specifically to appeal to national mainstream business journalists. The strategy we ultimately developed was the byproduct of an hours long brainstorming session to assess Zipongo’s market appeal and identify supporting news trends. Zipongo had already decided to build a marketing campaign around new nutritional requirements of the Affordable Care Act. An evergreen news topic, the ACA made the perfect news star on which to hitch the Zipongo wagon. But a trend is meaningless to journalists without living examples. We needed an A-list Zipongo customer who would verify that Zipongo fit the trend (in this case, that they helped employers satisfy the new ACA requirement more cost effectively than they otherwise could). Here luck played a role. IBM had just become Zipongo’s newest customer, signing up to provide the app for their tens of thousands of U.S. employees. The agreement with one of the world’s top brands hadn’t been publicized, so it made the perfect fodder for a New York Times pitch.
- Target Beyond the Obvious. When pitching a story about a major technology company like IBM, the obvious route is to pitch Steve Lohr, the Times IBM beat reporter. While we’ve worked with Lohr on numerous occasions, we decided to focus instead on the paper’s food business writer, Stephanie Strom. Strom has a history of covering big brands and nutrition, so the Zipongo story was likely to appeal to her interests. A little research revealed that she would be moderating a panel at a Napa, Calif. food conference where Langheier was scheduled to speak in the coming weeks. We let fly the pitch and – Bingo! Strom agreed to meet Langheier in Napa and hear what he had to say.
- Let Your Client Work Their Magic. This is definitely an ingredient in the Zipongo story but not one for which we can take any credit. The best that a PR agency can hope to accomplish is to put your client in front of a top journalist and let them make the sale. For phone interviews, it’s imperative to prepare novice media representatives with some hefty media training. In-person interviews, on the other hand, live or die with the interviewee’s ability to establish an emotional connection with the interviewer. Here, Langheier more than held up his end. He so wowed Strom that she ended up interviewing not just IBM but Google and several Zipongo end-users as well. The result was better than we could have hoped for a full-fledged company profile that ran to 24 paragraphs.
Admittedly, the stars aligned for this win. Very few small startups have a product as cool as Zipongo’s, and one that aligns with a major national news story like the ACA. Fewer still have an A-list customer like IBM whose brand commands mainstream media attention. But without the right preparation and execution, and lacking a keen understanding of what drives coverage, even Zipongo’s amazing story would have gone untold by the New York Times.
by admin | Feb 26, 2016 | Blog
Our own Matt Schlossberg was quoted in the article below, which originally ran on www.acefitness.org.
Written by Carrie Myers
“Everyone is doing it,” says Jimmy Craig, M.A., video marketing and viral expert and co-founder of MethodLoft, LCC, based in Boston, Mass.
What is Craig referring to? Put simply: video marketing.
“Video isn’t only great at connecting to and converting visitors,” Craig adds, “it can significantly boost your visibility online. Google displays blended search results, too, making it easier for businesses with video to get the coveted spots on the front page.”
Shawne Duperon, Ph.D., six-time EMMY-award winner and founder of Project: Forgive, agrees. “Video is the fastest and easiest way to create relationships in business. People do business with people they trust and like. Video is a medium that builds trust and likeability.”
Not quite convinced video is for you? According to James McQuivey of Forrester Research, the value of a one-minute video is equivalent to 1.8 million words. Here are a few more convincing facts compiled by Adelie Studios and Syndacast:
- 70 percent of marketing professionals report that video converts leads into customers better than any other medium.
- The average Internet user spends 88 percent more time on a website that include videos than on websites that do not contain videos.
- Nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of consumers are more likely to buy a product after watching a video about it.
- Featuring video on landing pages has been shown to increase conversions by 80 percent.
- If a video lasts one minute or less, 59 percent of viewers will watch it all the way to completion.
- Only 24 percent of brands are using online video to market to consumers.
- Using the word “video” in an email subject line boosts open rates by 19 percent and click-through rates by 65 percent and reduces unsubscribe rates by 26 percent.
- Business-to-business and business-to-consumers marketers both say video is among the top three most effective social media marketing tactics.
- 52 percent of marketers believe that video is the content format with the highestreturn on investment.
- By 2017, 74 percent of all Internet traffic is predicted to be video.
- 69 percent of smartphone users say videos are a perfect solution for smartphone viewing, as it offers a quick way for consumers to grasp an overview of a product.
- Three out of four brand marketers and ad agency executives expect original digital programming to become just as important as television programming within the next 3 to 5 years.
PUTTING YOUR FEARS TO REST
I know what you’re thinking. You don’t have the budget to produce videos. Or you can’t stand the way you look on video or the sound of your voice. Or perhaps you feel you’re not enough of an expert to be on video.
Let me put your fears to rest. First, you do not need a Hollywood budget to create videos that will market and promote your business, skills or products. In fact, says Duperon, “your phone is perfect, especially if you’re doing little one-minute video blogs with tips.”
“The bottom line for health and fitness clients are client results,” explains Scott Sobel, president of Media and Communications Strategies, based in Washington, D.C. “You don’t necessarily need to dress up those kinds of videos. As a matter of fact, demonstration and testimonial videos that appear to have been shot by a home user demonstrate honesty and simplicity of method. You see what you get.”
“High-quality equipment is surprisingly affordable today,” adds Craig. “Even smartphones have incredible video cameras now, too. I think that the most overlooked piece of equipment is a reliable audio recorder. If you’re working with little-to-no budget, at least pick up a cheap wired lavalier (lav) microphone, because most on-device audio recording capabilities are severely lacking. You might be surprised how much quality audio will improve a video.”
Don’t have a website to upload video to? Our experts overwhelmingly suggested YouTube as one of the best platforms for video marketing. Matt Schossberg, senior account and content director for Amendola Communications in Scottsdale, Ariz, recommends integrating your YouTube account with your other social media channels to get the biggest bang from your video time and buck.
As an example of this big bang, Duperone says, “You can start a channel on YouTube and repurpose your videos to share on your social media. When I post a video on our Facebook page, it’s getting shared up to 15,000 times. It’s deeply impacting my business.”
According to YouTube’s own statistics:
- YouTube has more than a billion users, which is almost a third of all people on the Internet. Every day, people watch hundreds of millions of hours of YouTube videos and generate billions of views.
- Each year for the past two years, the number of people watching YouTube each day has increased by 40 percent and the number of hours people spend watching videos on YouTube has increased by 60 percent.
THE NUTS AND BOLTS
As far as lighting and make-up go, keep it as natural as possible, suggests Schlossberg. “Unless you have a budget and expertise, try to use natural lighting. Avoid fluorescent lights or spotlights that shine directly down over your head.”
If you’re a man with a shiny face, Schlossberg recommends splashing some water on your face and drying it off or do a light dusting of translucent powder. “For women, their normal amount of make-up usually works fine.”
Try to make sure there are no shadows on your face, points out Duperon. “If your face is hard to see, it actually has the opposite impact of trust. You literally appear shady and untrustworthy!”
Duperon also suggests keeping your eyes steady and your chin down some. “People have a tendency to raise their chin and it will come across as arrogant,” she says. “People tend not to buy from a person who feels arrogant. It’s actually an act of vulnerability to keep your chin down, similar to how TV news anchors are trained.”
Keep it short and simple. “Keep the topic high level and the message succinct,” recommends Schlossberg.
“Ideally, keep your video under a minute,” Duperon advises. “Research shows more than 50 percent of the audience leaves after 10 seconds. When someone starts watching your 60-second [or shorter] video, they tend to stay with you and the video, because the time investment is so little. Think about how many times you dropped out of a video that says it’s three minutes or longer.”
Lastly, make it personal and speak directly to your audience. “When talking on-camera, talk to one person, just as though you were at [a coffee shop], says Duperon, and use the word you.
If you still feel a little skittish at the idea of going on video, here are a few final words of wisdom from Duperon:
“Dance in the discomfort! For newbies, it takes some getting used to [performing on video]. That’s normal. The more conversational you are and the more authentic, the better. Perfection is overrated. You don’t have to do it perfectly. My motto is that 80 percent is good enough.”
by admin | Feb 26, 2016 | Blog
Attention runners, joggers and power-walkers early morning is a fantastic time to hit the famous Vegas Strip! According to Melissa Farrell of the group Las Vegas Runners, if you get out early enough before HIMSS, you can run along the Strip without worrying about pedestrian or car traffic.
“If you’re staying near the convention center itself, it’s only about a quarter of a mile via Sands Avenue to the Strip,” Farrell says. “You’ll need to be careful on that road and probably run on the sidewalk. From there it is all pedestrian bridges, sidewalks and a few stairs.”
And then, you’ll be able to count the Las Vegas Strip as one of your conquered running destinations!
In addition to heading up Las Vegas Runners, Farrell is a run coach and personal trainer. If you’re interested in getting a group run scheduled from the HIMSS convention, get in touch with Farrell at LasVegasRunners@gmail.com. Or visit www.LasVegasRunners.com for additional info.
by admin | Feb 24, 2016 | Blog
Wondering where the closest fitness facility is to the HIMSS conference? It’s right next door at the Canyon Ranch SpaClub in the Venetian Sands hotel. The spa’s fitness centers and locker rooms are open to non-guests (for a fee) and included in the resort fee for guests. Hours of operation are from 6:00 AM 8:00 PM.
For those tired feet and tension headaches, Canyon Ranch is offering HIMSS attendees 20% off Express Spa Services! Just mention promotional code TS16 and choose from an array of 25-minute services that bring quick relief and rejuvenation:
- Tension Zone Therapy
- Sole Rejuvenation
- Extremities
- Custom Facial
- Foot Doctor Express
Need more time to relax? Pamper yourself with $40 off Spa Services or 20% off at the Salon. Guests must be 14 years or older and discounted services may not be combined with other discounts or offers.
Canyon Ranch SpaClub is located at The Venetian at 3355 Las Vegas Blvd. South,Suite 1159, Las Vegas, NV 89109. For more information visit www.canyonranch.com
by admin | Feb 24, 2016 | Blog
It’s a physical and mental marathon. It’s five straight days of being on point, on message, and on your feet. It’s HIMSS and to help you survive it, here are some tips from the team at Amendola, who have years of HIMSS conferences under our belt.
Michelle Noteboom, Senior Content and Account Director: Assume you won’t get eight hours of sleep a night but find a way to get at least six. Make sure to drink a ton of water, which helps to hydrate you from all those late night adult beverages, and, seems to help a bit with swollen feet. Assume your feet will be swollen and your shoulders aching from lugging all the trinkets you collect from exhibitors. To that end, don’t forget Advil and Band-Aids for your feet. Bring healthy snacks for your hotel room, and finally, don’t skimp on coffee. That weak hotel room stuff doesn’t cut it when you have to be “on” for 18 hours straight. HIMSS requires a Venti Starbucks!
Margaret Kelly, Research Coordinator: Bring an emergency kit. For women, pack a clear-plastic and easy-to-get-to bag full of small amounts of Tylenol (or pain reliever of choice), Tums, “handitizor” (as my granddaughter calls it), bandages for the shoe blisters, safety pins, Chapstick, protein bar, and breath mints. The men’s version just substitute the safety pins with duct tape, and a fanny pack for the plastic bag!
Todd Stein, Vice President: Be sure to schedule time for lunch. Many people fill up their schedules without remembering to leave time for eating. Me, for instance. Every darn year.
Amy Koehlmoos, Senior Account Director and Resident Germaphobe suggests bringing the following:
- Raw almonds (they’re small, portable, healthy and provide good energy)
- Anti-bacterial wipes (for the trays, arm/head rests in the plane; and the faucets, door handles, light switches in the hotel room)
- Small Ziploc baggies (I put remote controls in these as those suckers are the #1 place for nasty germs in hotel rooms!)
- Hand sanitizer (you shake lots of hands at these events!)
- Earplugs (help you get a good night’s sleep in a hotel, where there are often weird sounds and loud neighbors)
- Shoes with arch support (my philosophy is you look better wearing an orthopedic pair of shoes with confidence than you do limping around with a pained expression on your face and a pair of sassy heels on your feet)
- Phone/connections to loved ones (mental health is important and having easy access to pictures of family and the ability to Facetime them at night makes it a bit easier to be away from home).
Mariesa Whitaker, Senior Writer: I do some of these exercises on long flights. They can sometimes feel brutal, but it keeps me feeling better and they supposedly prevent blood clots. http://www.seanogle.com/travel/airplane-excercises
Ken Krause, Senior Content Director and our other Resident Germaphobe:
- Drive instead of fly. Planes are breeding grounds for germs, and they keep recirculating.
- Assume everything you’re about to touch has been previously touched by a small child with a runny nose. Proceed accordingly. That goes double for your hotel room.
- Eat like your significant other is there watching you. Nothing good comes from visiting the snack machine.
- Try not to touch your eyes or nose after touching a common surface such as a doorknob until you can either wash your hands or use a cleanser such as Purell.
- Get to sleep as soon as you can rather than staying up watching TV or reading. Sometimes business travel calls for working on minimal sleep, but don’t go out of your way to get into that state.
