A Secret “Trick” to Add to Your 2018 PR & Marketing Strategy
With Thanksgiving around the corner, it got me thinking: one day simply isn’t enough to contemplate all there is to be grateful for. Especially when adding our professional blessings to the mix, like the partners, colleagues and employees who contribute to our success. So let’s give thanks for more than just one day and create an ongoing thankfulness program as we plan our 2018 marketing and public relations initiatives.
Giving thanks and showing gratitude is an obvious yet often overlooked gesture in our fast-paced work day. Too often, we just shoot a quick text or email (if that) and check it off the “to- do” list. Remember the days when we actually went to the Hallmark store and bought a card and wrote a personal note? I had one team member who actually took the time to write me a four-page thank you note recently. WOW! It truly meant the world to me and is something I won’t forget anytime soon.
Now imagine if we all took the time to regularly give those who impact our professional success that same “wow” factor. If sincere, it can have a tremendous impact on performance, sales and overall happiness.
Let me give you another example. Last month, we celebrated our 14th anniversary at Amendola. We commemorated the milestone with a companywide retreat, bringing together all 20+ employees to collaborate, brainstorm and unwind for a couple of days. We spent so much time and money planning activities, entertainment, meals, hikes, etc. but at the end of the event, what was the activity that had the most positive feedback? The awards ceremony!
This fun event gave me the opportunity to demonstrate my gratitude to each member by sharing stories, memories and anecdotes about how each team member is a unique and valuable asset to the organization. As the crowning touch, I presented each team member with a certificate that included their own unique designation.
For the veteran PR account director who I know won’t rest until she gets her client a coveted media placement or top tier speaking engagement, I presented with the “Commitment to Excellence” certificate. For the young millennial social media manager who lives, sleeps and breathes new ways to create huge online followings for our clients, I presented with the “Rising Star” certificate. And for the tireless media relations wiz that regularly gets PR mentions in publications that for others are impossible to crack, I presented with the “Winning Streak” certificate.
And so on for every Amendola team member. I wanted them all to know that they are appreciated and that their efforts don’t go unnoticed. Our tremendous growth and success would not be possible without each one.
You will need deep pockets for public relations, social media, content marketing and marketing communications activities (hint, hint!) to stand above the crowd in 2018. But don’t forget about your most important assets: your team, clients and partners. As you plan for the holiday season and into the trade show blitz, I urge you to put aside some time and some budget for personal notes/direct mail, emails and blog posts giving thanks and gratitude to your internal and external clients.
Of course, you may want to implement an awards program, too, or donate money in your clients or team’s honor. Whatever approach you take, just remember that a personal thank you goes a long way and will be remembered with appreciation.
Happy Thanksgiving, and a special thank you for all who have helped me and supported both me and Amendola Communications along the way! I am so grateful for my team, clients, prospects, media, analysts, and of course, my family.
Public relations is not something easily learned in the classroom. PR/marketing principles and practices are best learned on the job. Amendola Communications recently hosted a “shadow day” five high school students to see what the PR agency world is like and to spark an interest in PR. In this video, the students share what they learned. Look out future PR world!
A few years back, I made a minor ripple on the internet okay, make that a very minor ripple when I dashed off a plaintive lament about the use of the word “content” in content marketing. As I noted at the time, the industry couldn’t have picked a more lifeless word to describe using interesting, informative, persuasive information to educate prospects and turn them into buyers.
Three years later, I feel exactly the same as I did in my original rant, reprinted below:
If there is one profession that should understand above all others that messaging matters, it’s the field of marketing. So why on earth have we all collectively agreed to label our messaging as “content” which brings to mind nothing more than inert filler, largely there just to take up space?
If you don’t think buying into this phrase won’t have an actual effect on your messaging, just look at some of the advice out there from the “content marketing” experts.
Over and over I see the suggestion that marketers repurpose older web copy and blog posts to use for other “content marketing” pieces like brochures and white papers. Never does this recommendation remind marketers to heed the target audience’s current stage in the buying process, the audience’s level of technical understanding, or for that matter, any other qualifiers.
No, this is standalone advice, often among the first offered, which is giving marketers the impression that as long as they put something out there for prospects to read on a regular basis, the qualified leads will follow.
That’s a perception that just cheapens the value of your marketing message. And if you don’t value your own message, do you honestly think prospects will?
Incidentally, it also makes the deadly mistake of over-estimating the ease of capturing your prospects interest.
Here’s another irony: one of the key jobs of a marketing communications professional is to bring clarity to a subject, yet confusion reigns in the field as to what “content” marketing actually means. Really, ask a number of marketers to define the phrase. I assure you, you’re going to get a number of different answers.
The term is just a vague and vapid generality; nothing more. And as a writer, that especially makes me shudder.
My complaint was hardly an original one; as Ryan Skinner from Forrester noted at the time, I wasn’t the first and wouldn’t be the last to have a gripe with a term. Still, it caught some attention, and even some hearty applause from people like Jeff Molander, who emphatically agreed the term doesn’t do us marketers any favors.
So imagine my dismay when four years later, we’re still using it! Well, like I said, my ripple was just that, a ripple.
But I still hold that “content” marketing is a completely inadequate term. It implies quantity over quality, which is a serious misrepresentation of how this form of marketing works. Yes, the typical B2b prospect intensively researches before buying, and yes, having a widely-distributed library of information to satisfy that research is important.
But it’s not going to get widely read if it’s not actually readable. Quality matters. I don’t just say that as a writer, but as a buyer. I do plenty of research online before I make certain purchases, too .we all do now, for small and big ticket items alike. I’m not too likely to buy from a company that puts out badly explained “content.”
What does content marketing even mean?
It’s also worth noting that confusion still reigns on the right definition of “content” marketing. My colleague Tim Boivin does a nice job explaining it and clearing up some common misconceptions.
However, for a relatively mainstream method, it’s amazing to me that there is still a level of confusion surrounding it all these years later. I lay a good part of the blame on the meaningless name. Think about it. Is there the same widespread confusion about what public relations is? Or branding? Or even social media marketing? No because their names are insightfully specific.
It’s a shame because content marketing really is an effective means for nurturing interest and trust in a company’s offerings – and generating good leads. It’s also one of our specialties here at Amendola. I love the strategy; it gives me a chance to write meaningful information that helps guide people to making an informed buying decision. But I think that it deserves a better name.
Some proposed replacements for the term “content marketing”
So what should we call this method of marketing instead? After making such a fuss about changing the name, I admit I understand why the word “content” was settled on it’s a catch-all expression for the articles, infographics, guides, videos and more that are used to catch a prospect’s interest and hold this interest throughout the buying cycle.
“Demand generation” and “inbound marketing” are sometimes used interchangeably for content marketing. But they shouldn’t be – they’re not the same thing. With that, here are some substitute terms I like but am not in love with:
Brand journalism
Editorial marketing
Company journalism
Informational marketing
Guided buying/Guide marketing
Knowledge marketing
If you have a great idea for a replacement, let me know I will personally make it my mission to make it stick!
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., Sept. 13, 2016 Amendola Communications, a nationally recognized, award-winning healthcare and healthcare IT public relations and marketing agency, announced today that it has been selected as the agency of record for Connecture (Nasdaq: CNXR), a provider of web-based information systems used to create health insurance marketplaces. Amendola will effectively serve as the company’s public relations arm, leveraging its many relationships with industry media and analysts to broadly publicize Connecture’s brand, solutions and thought leaders, and aggressively pursue top-tier speaking and award opportunities.
“Amendola comes highly recommended to Connecture as the health IT industry’s premier public relations agency,” said Stephanie Meyer, Connecture’s Chief Marketing Officer. “We’re looking forward to putting those assets to work for us.” The agency will provide full account management, media relations, content for earned media placements and other PR and marketing resources to establish the Connecture brand at the forefront of the healthcare insurance marketplace.
Publicizing an emerging trend in the payer market
The influx of millions more insured consumers has arrived in tandem with what is shaping up to be a permanent, but still evolving trend in the healthcare payer market more tailored health and financial coverage. Connecture offers carriers, brokers and employers an intuitive platform they can use to create a personalized benefits shopping experience for their own targeted audiences.
“Connecture develops technology that helps consumers achieve health and financial security and make informed, intelligent choices about their healthcare and ancillary coverage,” said Jodi Amendola, CEO of Amendola Communications. “Offering tools that enroll millions of consumers in such plans helps healthcare achieve its holy grail of better outcomes at a lower cost an exciting message that Amendola can’t wait to publicize.”
About Connecture
Connecture (NASDAQ: CNXR) is a leading web-based consumer shopping, enrollment and retention platform for health insurance distribution. Connecture offers a personalized health insurance shopping experience that recommends the best fit insurance plan based on an individual’s preferences, health status, preferred providers, medications and expected out-of-pocket costs. Connecture’s customers are health insurance marketplace operators such as health plans, brokers and exchange operators, who must distribute health insurance in a cost-effective manner to a growing number of insured consumers. Connecture’s solutions automate key functions in the health insurance distribution process, allowing its customers to price and present plan options accurately to consumers and efficiently enroll, renew and manage plan members. www.connecture.com
About Amendola Communications Amendola Communications is an award-winning national public relations, marketing communications, social media and content marketing firm. Named one of the best information technology (IT) PR firms in the nation four times by PRSourceCode, Amendola represents some of the best-known brands and groundbreaking startups in the healthcare and HIT industries. Amendola’s seasoned team of PR and marketing pros delivers strategic guidance and effective solutions to help organizations boost their reputation and drive market share. For more information about the PR industry’s “A Team,” visit www.acmarketingpr.com, and follow Amendola on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Amendola Communications, a nationally recognized, award-winning healthcare and healthcare IT public relations and marketing agency, announced today that it has been selected as the agency of record for Vocera Communications, Inc. (NYSE:VCRA). Amendola will provide a broad range of public relations and content services that promote Vocera’s mission to break down communication barriers and improve the healthcare experience for patients, families and care team members around the world.
“We knew Amendola Communications was the right agency to promote our unique value proposition to the right audiences and media outlets, with its deep industry knowledge and significant media and analyst relationships in the healthcare and healthcare IT sectors,” said Kathy English, Vice President of Enterprise Marketing. “The decision to hire Amendola was a clear and easy one to make after vetting the agency’s track record of delivering high-performance PR and marketing campaigns in our targeted markets. In just a few months, Amendola has already exceeded our expectations.”
Smartphones and wireless technology are fundamentally changing how care teams connect and collaborate, and Vocera is leading the way by supporting all types of communication, working in concert with multiple devices, and integrating with more than 70 clinical systems. The Vocera Communication Platform provides a secure, enterprise-class solution with an intelligent active staff directory that enables users to connect and communicate with each other instantly via voice communication, secure text messaging, and contextual alarm notifications. Used by more than 1,000 hospitals around the world, Vocera delivers the right information to the right person at the right time, saving valuable steps and time.
Amendola Communications is executing public relations, social media and content marketing strategy and programs for Vocera, with a special focus on the company’s thought leadership. Vocera’s leadership team is made up of widely respected clinicians and tech industry luminaries who are at the forefront of national movements in healthcare today, including offering technology solutions that address longstanding communication challenges and restoring the human connection at every point of a patient’s healthcare experience.
“We felt an instant connection to Vocera’s impressive team and look forward to promoting their initiatives and successes in this high-tech market where we have deep expertise,” said Jodi Amendola, CEO of Amendola Communications. “Our team is leveraging both Vocera’s thought leaders and clients to convey their important value proposition to the healthcare industry that critically depends on teamwork and the right information in order to globally dismantle communication barriers across even the largest healthcare enterprises.”
About Amendola Communications
Amendola Communications is an award-winning national public relations, marketing communications, social media and content marketing firm. Named one of the best information technology (IT) PR firms in the nation four times by PRSourceCode, Amendola represents some of the best-known brands and groundbreaking startups in the healthcare and HIT industries. Amendola’s seasoned team of PR and marketing pros delivers strategic guidance and effective solutions to help organizations boost their reputation and drive market share. For more information about the PR industry’s “A Team,” visit www.acmarketingpr.com, and follow Amendola on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Media Contact: Tara Stultz | 440.225.9595| tstultz@acmarketingpr.com
employees to collaborate, brainstorm and unwind for a couple of days. We spent so much time and money planning activities, entertainment, meals, hikes, etc. but at the end of the event, what was the activity that had the most positive feedback? The awards ceremony!
