PR’s Dynamic Duo: Thought Leadership and Content Marketing

PR’s Dynamic Duo: Thought Leadership and Content Marketing

by | Nov 13, 2024 | Blog

When these two titans join forces, your brand can’t lose

 In the fast-paced world of PR, two heavyweights reign supreme – thought leadership and content marketing. These two strategies are often seen as the Batman and Robin of the marketing world, each with its unique strengths, but unbeatable when working together. If your brand is looking to build awareness, nurture relationships, and drive sales, it’s essential to understand how these two superhero strategies differ and why they should join forces.

The Power of Thought Leadership: Be the Batman of Your Industry

Thought leadership is like Batman – the brooding, strategic hero who relies on intellect and influence. It’s all about positioning your business or executives as the experts in your field. Thought leadership doesn’t push products; it pushes ideas. It starts conversations by offering groundbreaking insights, deep industry knowledge, and forward-thinking solutions to industry-wide challenges.

Think of thought leadership as the superhero who swoops in with a compelling, well-researched article that makes people sit up and say, “I never thought about it that way.” It’s designed to build trust and credibility over time, often appearing in high-profile publications or at industry events. The goal is to create a direct connection with the audience through valuable information, not a sales pitch.

This approach is particularly powerful for companies with complex solutions or those trying to establish themselves as visionary leaders in their market. Like Batman’s utility belt, thought leadership is packed with research, statistics, and innovative ideas that can help a business make an unforgettable first impression.

The Charm of Content Marketing: Robin Leaps into Action

If thought leadership is Batman, content marketing is Robin – the energetic, engaging sidekick who’s quick to jump into action. Content marketing focuses on building relationships with customers through consistent, valuable content like blog posts, social media updates, and newsletters. It’s a top-down communication method, designed to inform and engage the target audience with relevant information that positions the company as the go-to solution for their needs.

While thought leadership is about starting big-picture conversations, content marketing is about nurturing existing relationships. The tone is often less formal and more focused on helping the audience solve specific problems. Whether you’re targeting businesses (B2B) or consumers (B2C), content marketing aims to deliver useful, actionable content that keeps your brand top-of-mind when the time comes for customers to act.

The secret weapon here? Consistency. By regularly producing engaging content, you’re keeping the conversation alive, and that familiarity builds trust. Over time, this tactic turns prospects into customers, and customers into loyal advocates.

The Dynamic Duo: Better Together

While thought leadership and content marketing can each stand alone, they become an unstoppable force when used together. Thought leadership gets you noticed and sparks conversations, while content marketing keeps those conversations going and turns that initial interest into action. It’s like Batman swooping in to save the day, and Robin following up to make sure the job gets done. Let’s break down how these two work together:

  • Thought Leadership for Brand Positioning: Thought leadership content, such as expert opinions, research papers, bylined articles, or speeches, positions your brand as a leader in your industry. This content isn’t created to sell directly but to establish authority and trust. It builds credibility with your audience and makes people want to learn more.
  • Content Marketing for Engagement: Once you’ve captured attention with thought leadership, content marketing steps in to maintain engagement. This consistent, accessible content keeps your audience informed, addresses their needs, and nurtures them toward a buying decision. Blog posts, case studies, how-to guides, and newsletters all keep the conversation going and provide ongoing value.
  • Creating a Funnel: Thought leadership is typically used higher in the sales funnel, where the goal is to create awareness and attract a broad audience. Content marketing, on the other hand, operates lower in the funnel, guiding prospects toward decision-making by offering practical advice and solutions that lead to conversions.

The key is that both strategies ultimately serve the same goal – building relationships and driving sales. Thought leadership opens the door, creating interest and trust, while content marketing nurtures that interest until the audience is ready to commit.

Why You Need Both for PR Success

In today’s competitive market, brands need more than just a one-dimensional approach to marketing. Thought leadership is critical for establishing credibility and making your brand stand out as an industry expert. Meanwhile, content marketing keeps the conversation going, offering consistent value that turns prospects into customers.

When used together, these two marketing superheroes provide a powerful combination that can elevate your brand to new heights. Thought leadership gives you the big-picture, industry-defining ideas, while content marketing keeps your audience engaged on a day-to-day basis. Together, they form the ultimate duo, ready to save the day for your brand’s PR strategy.

3 Quick Tips for Writing a Better Byline

3 Quick Tips for Writing a Better Byline

by | Feb 17, 2021 | Blog

Of all the deliverables we routinely encounter in public relations, none presents as much of a challenge as the humble byline.

Press releases are necessarily to-the-point and formulaic. Blog posts are often quick-and-dirty shorter pieces that are meant to quickly touch on a specific topic, rather than delve in deeply. (White papers don’t qualify as “routine” as they should be employed sparingly; once per quarter, at most, and even that may be pushing it.)

Bylines, however, are altogether different. To craft a coherent, well-reasoned, nonpromotional 800 to 1,000-word article that offers background, explanation and possible solutions on a pressing industry issue is difficult for a writer to do even in his or her own voice. Add to it the PR writer’s challenge of crafting the piece using the client’s thoughts in the client’s voice and the exercise becomes significantly more arduous.

In that spirit, following are three quick tips for writing a better byline.

Develop a written plan before any phone calls: To make the best use of subject matter experts’ (SMEs) time, start planning your byline long before any phone calls. What’s the major theme or “angle” you’re looking to convey to the reader? Start by brainstorming potential headlines, and then after you have a few, write out what could be the first couple sentences of the article. If you’re unable to get this far, it’s a strong sign your plan for the article isn’t solid enough, and it’s time to refine or rethink the angle.

Do your research: It’s fairly rare to find an idea that is completely new. In other words, whatever you’re planning to write about, it’s likely someone else has written about the same, or a similar, topic previously. Do a few variations of Google searches around the topic you’re planning to write about to evaluate what’s been said before. This will provide an idea of the well-trodden ground that’s been discussed ad nauseum and is better avoided, as well potentially spark ideas for new angles. Further, avail yourself of the research that other writers have performed. Good reporters will “show their receipts” in their articles with links to studies, surveys, data and other articles that can provide helpful background. Save time and boost efficiency by taking advantage of the work that’s already been done.

Come up with a targeted list of questions: Also filed under, “Don’t waste SMEs’ time.” Draw up a list of targeted questions for call participants to review prior to the call. In my experience, the top reason byline intake calls go off-the-rails is lack of preparation. Following a list of predetermined questions enables participants to remain focused and helps keep the call running smoothly. If you’re lucky, the SME will even read over the questions prior to the call and ponder potential responses, which generally helps immensely to boost a byline’s quality in the end.

Due to the nature of what we’re trying to accomplish with bylines, they’ll always be challenging to write. But there is a formula for success. Follow the three tips above to craft better bylines.

Bulldog PR Awards 2020 Honors Amendola for Air Methods Crisis Management Campaign and Vocera Product Launch

by | Jun 4, 2020 | News

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. June 4, 2020 Amendola Communications announced today that it has won two 2020 Bulldog PR Awards, solidifying the company’s reputation as a top public relations (PR) and marketing communications agency for healthcare and health IT. The Bulldog PR Awards, which celebrate the best and brightest corporate communications and PR efforts, honored Amendola with a Gold award for a Crisis Communication campaign for its client Air Methods and a Silver award for a Business-to-Business (B2B) Product Launch campaign for long-time client Vocera Communications.

“We are proud to be recognized for the hard work that our team put into executing both metrics-driven campaigns,” said Jodi Amendola, CEO
of Amendola. “From September 1, 2018 to July 30, 2019, Air Methods saw their positive PR coverage double from 28% to 45%. The success of the Vocera campaign in generating both traditional and new media hits will serve as a blueprint for future product introductions.”

AIR METHODS

“Amendola Helps Air Methods’ Reputation Take Flight” campaign took Gold in the Best Crisis Management category. Emergency air medical transport service Air Methods called upon Amendola after facing ongoing negative coverage about their pricing model which had been misrepresented by former patients in the media. Amendola took innovative steps through social media outreach, proactive storytelling, localized base engagements, and digital media to change the public perception of Air Methods and the quality of media coverage about the company.

Amendola created an all-encompassing, 40-page, multi-pronged crisis communications playbook to anticipate and help address a myriad of potential challenges. Additionally, the agency crafted a proactive storytelling pipeline that included information about Air Methods’ business goals to curb balance bills, showcased positive patient stories and highlighted the innovative clinical processes that Air Methods created that were impacting the industry. With the proactive storytelling, a large element of the strategy was to implement Air Methods’ first-ever integrated marketing campaign to leverage more channels than ever before to ensure all stakeholders received the message.

By placing a human face on the company Air Methods has been able to use their visibility as an industry leader to encourage other changes to industry practices. For example, it eliminated “memberships” that offered little value if patients were transported by a different company and is now pushing the industry as a whole to do the same.

VOCERA COMMUNICATIONS

“Vocera Calls on Amendola to Introduce Smartbadge Wearable Communications Device” campaign took Silver in the Best B2B Product Launch category. Vocera Communications, whose mission is to simplify and improve the lives of healthcare professionals and patients, while enabling hospitals to enhance quality of care and operation efficiency, launched a voice-activated communications badge, the Smartbadge. A new category of wearable communication devices, the “Smartbadge” enables clinicians to communicate using all the options available in the expanded Vocera Platform voice calling, messaging, clinical alerts/alarms and more.

With intentions of making a splash from the start, Vocera turned to Amendola to develop an integrated PR/marketing strategy that encompassed generating quick visibility during the introductory period (January-February) while also being sustainable throughout 2019. To seed early coverage, Amendola pre-pitched a press release to healthcare and national media journalists, including broadcast media and podcasts. Furthermore, the
plan called for the creation of various writing pieces as it relates to communication in healthcare, aggressive content marketing efforts for infographics, and the submission of Vocera executives for a broad range of speaking opportunities.

The initiative resulted in 29 high value, single-focus features or interviews, four byline placements, three confirmed speaker opportunities, and a prestigious MedTech Breakthrough Award. Additionally, the campaign significantly impacted its Twitter presence resulting in 173% rise in @mentions received, 145% rise in new followers, 312% increase in retweets, 429% increase in click-throughs, and nearly 50% rise in impressions to 12,200.

About Amendola 
Amendola is an award-winning national public relations, marketing communications, digital 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”http://acmarketingpr.adesignfoundation.com, and follow Amendola on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Media Contact:
Marcia Rhodes, Amendola Communications, 480.664.8412 ext. 15 / mrhodes@acmarketingpr.com

Walking the Tightrope between Great Content and SEO

Walking the Tightrope between Great Content and SEO

by | Mar 4, 2020 | Blog

It may not quite be Lincoln and Douglas, or even great taste/less filling. But the debate about which is more important to a brand’s online presence great content or search engine optimization (SEO) continues to rage on.

On one side you have the writers. Especially the “old school” writers (like me) who launched their careers long before Al Gore invented the Internet.

When I started writing we used typewriters electric ones. I’m not that old. The total focus was on the quality of the content. Clever, attention-grabbing headlines that led into powerful, motivating body copy that carried the message in an interesting way was “all” that was required.

Then came the Internet, and with it the omnipotent search engines. No longer was it enough for headlines and copy to be creative and interesting. The data wonks said it also had to include certain keywords that would tell the search engines a particular page or document was relevant to the search the user was conducting.

In other words, if the user is searching on the term “crazy bunnies” it was important for those keywords to appear in the headline, and in the little words that came after. Especially the first paragraph.

While that makes sense from a data point of view, it definitely created a dilemma for writers. Having a brilliant headline was no longer enough, because you weren’t just trying to capture the attention of humans. You also had to capture the attention of the machines.

That situation set up a sort of chicken-and-egg dilemma. You could write the best website, or article, or other content in the world, but if no one could find it in a marketing world that increasingly relied on search what was the point?

On the other hand, if your document was easy to find due to liberal use of keywords but not very interesting or engaging, again what was the point? You’d lose the audience you’d worked so hard to capture.

It also led to practices such as keyword stuffing (including keywords out of context for the sole purpose of raising searching rankings) and a host of other tricks such as putting keywords on a page in the same color as the background so they couldn’t be seen by humans but would be read by web crawlers. Didn’t take long for the search engines to figure that one out.

Keeping the balance

Fortunately, Google (and other search engines no one really cares about) have continually updated their algorithms to go beyond simple keywords. They are getting better and better at determining the context of the content to ensure it’s actually relevant.

Still, keywords are important to success. So how do you reconcile the desire to write content that reaches people on a deep, human level with the need to tell the machines yes, this is the information they’ve been looking for?

Here is a process I’ve found to be effective.

  1. Start by knowing which keywords are ranking for the topic you want to promote. If you don’t already have a list, you can use Google AdWords, a free service, to plug in some terms that are relevant to your product/service. Then see which ones have relatively high search volumes with low competition. That will tell you what terms your audience is likely to be searching on, and how difficult it will be to rank high for them. The goal, of course, is page one above the fold. Be sure to check Google’s suggested substitutions too. There may be a more effective word or phrase lurking in there somewhere. Of course, if you have an agency (such as, oh, I dunno, Amendola Communications) you can hand that work off to them.
  2. Once you have your list, set it aside. Then develop the content in a way that is the most interesting and speaks to your audience(s). Don’t worry about keywords right now. Just make sure you’re telling a good story that demonstrates your knowledge and/or experience and convinces your target audience that you would be the best choice. In other words, write as though the Internet doesn’t exist.
  3. After you have great content, go back and look for places to plug in your keywords. Start with the headline and the first paragraph. Is there a way to work in your most important keyword? Then sprinkle in others throughout the rest of the content. In some cases it may require a bit of rewriting, but often you’ll be surprised at how easily a keyword can be substituted for another word or phrase. Writing in this fashion, rather than trying to write to the keywords initially, will help the keywords fit more organically, and will keep you from writing dull and, well, robotic content.
  4. Finally, when you think it’s ready to go have someone who hasn’t been involved in the process read it to ensure those keywords are fitting in as well as you think they are. Taking this extra step doesn’t just help with human readers, by the way. With the sophisticated machine learning many search engines are applying these days it will also help minimize any appearance that you’re trying to “game” the system. Instead, your keywords will fit in the context of your content, and you will be rewarded by Google, the Great and Powerful.

Walk the line

Great content and SEO don’t have to be treated as opposing forces. In fact, they can (and should) work very well together.

By focusing first on what you want to say, and then bringing in the flags that will help that great content get seen, you can bring customers and prospects to your website and make sure they’re delighted once they get there.