by Administrator | Oct 17, 2017 | News
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., Oct. 17, 2017 Amendola Communications, a nationally recognized, award-winning healthcare and healthcare IT public relations and marketing agency, announced today that GlobalMed, an international provider of telehealth solutions, has selected Amendola to be its communications partner.
GlobalMed is the world leader in telemedicine, enabling more than 3 million telehealth consults each year in more than 55 countries. Many of the world’s leading medical groups, healthcare enterprises and government agencies partner with GlobalMed to deliver best-in-class patient care using the company’s unparalleled expertise in creating sustainable, integrated and connected telehealth programs.
“We are delighted to have Amendola and their experienced team to assist us in communicating the value that GlobalMed brings to their clients and partners,” said Patrick LaVoie, Chief Operating Officer of GlobalMed. “We selected them after a careful review and are confident that their deep healthcare expertise and content marketing experience will provide invaluable guidance and insights.”
Amendola will provide public relations, social media and content marketing services to advance the GlobalMed brand among key stakeholders in the U.S. healthcare industry and other commercial markets.
“GlobalMed is well-known as the telehealth provider to the White House, the Veterans Administration and many other government agencies across the world, but less well-known outside of the public sector despite their size, experience, and unique value proposition,” said Jodi Amendola, CEO of Amendola Communications. “We are excited to introduce GlobalMed to media and key stakeholders in the commercial healthcare industry. Our proven track record in promoting healthcare technology companies will help to elevate the GlobalMed brand among journalists, industry analysts, prospective clients, and the healthcare community at large.”
About GlobalMed
GlobalMed‘s evidence-based telehealth solutions power the largest telehealth programs in the world, facilitating 3.5 million consults each year, enhancing diagnostics and improving patient outcomes in 55 countries. GlobalMed is the only vertically integrated provider of products and technology that deliver HIPAA-compliant video collaboration among healthcare professionals and patients, regardless of location. GlobalMed partners with leading medical groups, healthcare enterprises and government, and is the telehealth provider for the White House.
Founded in 2002 by a Marine Corps Reserve Veteran still serving as CEO, GlobalMed is proud to be a Veteran Owned Small Business (VOSB).
Media Contact Marcia Rhodes | mrhodes@acmarketingpr.com | 602-793-1561
by Lisa Chernikoff | Oct 4, 2017 | Blog
As you work on your content strategy, think about this: According to a recent study, the average person now loses concentration after only eight seconds. I would ask you to pause and think about that but then I’ll risk of losing the remaining seconds of your attention entirely if I haven’t already. As a “fun fact,” researchers noted that even goldfish which are “notoriously ill-focused” have an average attention span of nine seconds.
So, whether that fact is fun or concerning is still be determined, but it really isn’t that shocking. This study simply quantifies the impact of a highly digitized lifestyle on the human brain. After all, we live in a world where our phones are constantly buzzing with emails, texts, news alerts, and social media notifications. We live in a world where”
Sorry, I got distracted for a moment. Did you know that Kim and Kanye are expecting their third child via surrogate? My phone just vibrated with that “breaking” news, as well as four work emails, three personal emails, and two trivial text messages. And even if celebrity gossip isn’t your guilty pleasure, you’re likely experiencing a similar scenario every hour of every day.
But to be clear, the aha moment from this study is not that goldfish are smarter than us. It’s an aha moment for us as marketing and public relations professionals. The study has profound implications for those of us who communicate for a living. To be successful, we must adapt our strategies and tactics to the reality of eight second attention spans.
Why evolving content doesn’t mean dumbing it down
In today’s world of digital and information overload, crafting content that is relevant and meaningful for your target audience is mission-critical. Remember that having shorter attention spans doesn’t mean that your customers are not decision-makers. It doesn’t mean that they’re less intelligent. It doesn’t mean that they don’t have the same pain points. It just means that they need to absorb information differently. It just means that despite downloading your white paper, they’re probably not getting past page one. There’s no shame. It’s the new normal.
That’s why evolving your content marketing is not about dumbing down the information. It’s not about simplifying or going back to basics. It’s about making your content snackable. In fact, your new bite-sized content can still convey the same concepts and ideas as the longer pieces but that content must be more concise and free of fluff.
Even more importantly, it must provide just a taste to satisfy their brief hunger and keep their interest. It must leave the audience wanting more of your content snacks. That’s what marketing is all about.
How to create tasty content snacks a recipe for success
Snackable content for the eight second attention span is just a new way of creating, organizing, and promoting content. To create tasty content snacks, you don’t need to start from scratch. You don’t need all new ingredients. Your content kitchen is likely full of big, heavy content meals which can be remixed and reused to fit the new snackable content mold. The good news is that one content meal equals several content snacks.
Now, let’s enter the content kitchen and see how to turn those content meals into content snacks. Here are three examples:
- Transform your white paper into an infographic and a cheat sheet with must-do’s.
- Transform your case study into a checklist of best practices, or a series of checklists that span everything from implementation to training and optimization.
- Transform your 30-minute webinar into a sequence of 30 second videos that highlight that key learning objectives.
And rather than being sad about the lost of art of white paper reading, keep in mind that multiple content snacks derived from the same content meal not only convey the same messages but also can easily become a lead nurturing campaign or useful follow-up references for your sales team to share with prospects.
I think it’s time to stop mourning the white paper. Instead, it’s time to cook up some bite-sized content. After all, it’s just waiting to be eaten.
by Philip Anast | Sep 27, 2017 | Blog
As we strive to be better communicators and storytellers, it often helps to get out of our comfort zones and read inspirational literature that can teach us new things. We often find those types of books in classical literature, or from the latest fiction and non-fiction books. Sometimes, “How-to” guides also help.
That happened to me recently when I picked up the book, “A Mind for Numbers: How to Excel at Math and Science (Even if You Flunked Algebra).” You may be asking yourself, “Why would a PR guy be reading a book about math and science?” Isn’t the reason you pursued journalism and then PR in the first place is that you stunk in those other areas?
Well, as it turns out, author Barbara Oakley, Ph.D., did, too. But through a gradual retraining of her brain, she earned a Ph.D. in systems engineering after completing bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Electrical Engineering, and Electrical and Computer Engineering, respectively. She now teaches engineering at Oakland University in Detroit, and is a leading educator in the area of STEM education.
While her book is primarily geared toward helping high school and college students successfully navigate the aforementioned disciplines, it’s ultimately a guide to improving skills and techniques for learning how to learn. And that can be useful for people in any profession, including PR.
Two modes of thinking
For instance, Oakley describes the two modes of thinking: the focused and diffuse.
The focused mode is like the flashlight setting that casts a bright light in a narrow area. It’s a direct approach to solving problems that requires rational, analytic and sequential ways of thinking. When we’re working intently on a project, like writing a white paper or drafting a PR plan/strategy, we use the focused mode of thinking.
But the diffuse mode also plays an important role in those projects. It taps other parts of the brain and is akin to turning your flashlight setting to casting a wider yet less powerful light. As its name suggests, the diffuse mode is wider and big picture. It’s a resting state in our brains. It works quietly in the background and allows us to form new insights. It kicks in when our minds wander, or when we take a break from a focused task to walk, jog, listen to music, sleep or play video games.
Oakley’s point, backed by the hundreds of research studies that inform her book, is that we must maximize both types of thinking to learn and tackle problems.
If we’re working on a specific assignment, it’s important to step away from that work at intervals to allow the diffuse mode to enter the picture. By pursuing a leisure activity or working on some other job assignment, we allow our diffuse mode of thinking to continue working on the first task at hand and lend new insights. The diffuse mode opens up possibilities that we may not have considered in the focused mode and prevents us from believing that only one approach to a project is the single way of accomplishing it.
Taking a better approach
Here are some other practical tips that I gleaned from the book that we can translate to our own profession and help us do our jobs better:
- Avoid procrastination because it prevents the diffuse mode from helping a project or media campaign. While the luxury of time is not always possible in our profession, especially in crisis communication situations, building a timetable of assignments and deadlines, with thoughtful consideration, can help improve the overall response and results.
- Don’t cram to memorize a speech or the big PR plan presentation in one day. Rehearse and study over a series of days and/or weeks. Research shows that we retain the material better, avoid reading the screen verbatim, and make more genuine presentations.
- Avoid reading literature or meeting notes over and over again to learn the material. Instead, use a technique called “pause and recall,” i.e., turn away from the literature and notes after each page or several pages, and describe the concept in one’s own words; that’s the way we build chunks that form strong neural connections in long-term memory.
- Take a 21-minute nap to refresh the brain (but don’t tell the boss). The brain’s neural networks need to be reset from time-to-time, which freshens our outlooks toward problem-solving
- “Lady Luck favors those who try.” Sometimes, we feel downtrodden if a media pitch fails to elicit that desired interview, for example. Perhaps it’s time to let the diffuse mode help; alternatively, we could pick up the phone, be persistent (within reason), and converse with that target reporter directly. In my experience, with professionalism and respect for the journalist on the other end, the odds are good.
As in any learning endeavor, Dr. Oakley’s observation rings true: “The better I got (at math), the more I enjoyed what I was doing. And the more I enjoyed what I was doing, the more time I spent on it.”
by Ken Krause | Sep 20, 2017 | Blog
Having worked across a number of industries during my career, I feel pretty safe in saying no industry loves it jargon (and acronyms) like healthcare. The general technology industry probably comes in a close second, but for pure technical mumbo-jumbo you can’t beat healthcare.
Part of it, I think, is that the healthcare industry is filled with a lot of smart people. Because of that, everyone feels like they have to sound like the infamous “smartest person in the room.” So they load up their content or their speeches or even their everyday conversations with a lot of jargon designed to give that impression.
Nowhere does that become more apparent than when I go to check the website of a new client or prospect to start familiarizing myself with their business. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve come away after reading page upon page asking “But what do you do?”
Yes, you’re open and interoperable. Yes you follow evidence-based best practices. Yes, your methodology is transformative and sustainable. Yes, your subject matter experts have a wealth of experience in solving the toughest problems facing the industry. But again, what do you do?
If I, who has an employment-based incentive for comprehending your inscrutable jargon can’t figure out what you’re trying to say, what do you think happens to the typical prospect doing a fly-by? They see a bunch of words and terms they’ve heard 100 times before. They try to determine if they’re in the right place, looking at the right company.
But if it doesn’t come to them immediately, odds are they just move on. You lose.
Keep it simple
You’ve probably heard this quote, often erroneously attributed to Albert Einstein: If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough. Ol Al may not have said it, but there is a lot of truth to it nonetheless.
I know this from personal experience. Thanks to my work here at Amendola Communications, I have had the opportunity to speak with some incredibly smart, accomplished people. They are the kind of people who are leading all of healthcare toward amazing new discoveries and ways of working.
While they come from different backgrounds and have expertise in very different areas, the one trait they all had in common was their ability to get their point across in a way that the average person could understand.
Some were talking about advanced analytics and machine learning. Some were talking about the nuances of health insurance. Some were literally talking about curing cancer. But you never walked away from the conversation wonder what the H-E-double hockey sticks they were talking about.
Instead, you walked away energized and inspired. Not to mention excited about the possibilities for the future and how their companies were creating them.
Learning to speak/write plainly
Becoming a clear communicator like that isn’t easy. It actually takes a lot of work to make your communication sound effortless yet on-target.
The first step, quite honestly, is not being afraid that people won’t think you’re smart if you don’t pack your content or your spoken words with industry jargon. In business there are no points awarded simply because you sound “smarter” than everyone else. The money goes to the people who show they understand the problem and how to solve it.
Once you’ve bought into that philosophy, start looking through your current content, perhaps with a Business Buzzwords Bingo card in hand. If you find you are winning within the first three
paragraphs of a piece of content, especially your company website, you know you have some work to do.
Now listen to speeches from great communicators or read materials from a technically sophisticated consumer product. Whether you were a fan of Ronald Reagan’s or not, the man knew how to sell an entire nation on a concept. Is what you’re doing any different? Or as my colleague Michelle Noteboom points out, see how Donald Trump approaches the same challenge. You may not like what he says, but you must admit he has a way of stating his positions simply.
Car companies, especially the high-end ones, offer a great example of plain speaking. Even when they’re talking technical specs, they do it in a way that focuses on why you should care.
Apple has always had a good handle on that as well. While everyone else in the industry was talking about jitter rates and Hz-related info, they were telling how you could get 1,000 songs in your pocket. Everyone can understand that.
There’s the key. It’s not about the bells and whistles in your product. No one cares how much effort you had to go through to develop it. That’s your problem.
What they want to know is what’s in it for them. The easier you make it to understand that, the more intrigued they will be.
Read my lips: no more jargon
Well, very little anyway. It is healthcare, after all, and there are technical terms that must be used at times. But if you try to ensure that any jargon you use is essential to explaining your position, and that there’s no other way to say it, you’ll likely find prospects staying longer and going deeper on your website. And more willing to engage with you all the way to a sale.
by admin | Aug 29, 2017 | News
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. Aug. 29, 2017 Amendola Communications, an award-winning healthcare marketing and public relations agency, announced today that It’s Never 2 Late (iN2L), the leader in providing person-centered engagement, content and technology solutions for seniors, has selected Amendola Communications as its agency of record. Amendola will provide a range of public relations and content services that promote iN2L as a pioneer and innovator whose mission is to make life worth living for older adults by enabling them to connect, engage and enjoy life leveraging technology.
Previously, iN2L engaged Amendola to elevate its social media presence. The firm successfully executed a program that generated the following results for iN2L in the first six months: 28% new page likes on Facebook; 17% new Twitter followers and 30% new LinkedIn connections.
“I have always been impressed with the Amendola team’s in-depth knowledge of the healthcare IT, long-term care and resident/patient engagement space, as well as their strong commitment to results-oriented client service,” said Tom Bang, chief executive officer of iN2L. “They proactively hit the ground running with several earned article placements in tier one press, multiple media interviews, and strategic guidance from a team of six senior level executives. We’re delighted to be working with them again.”
iN2L works with over 2,000 senior living communities including independent living, assisted living, nursing homes and adult day programs in all 50 states and three countries. iN2L integrates the hardware, software and media with personalized educational and therapeutic content necessary to allow virtually any person with any interest in using a computer, regardless of background, physical or intellectual abilities, to do so pleasurably, engagingly and without frustration.
“A repeat client is a testament to the value we bring to our partnerships,” said Jodi Amendola, CEO of Amendola Communications. “We look forward to advancing iN2L’s mission in the marketplace and to working once again with industry leaders, Tom Bang and Jack York.”
Amendola Communications will provide public relations and marketing communications services, including social media programming, strategic counsel and media relations. The agency will also be responsible for delivering a range of content demonstrating the thought leadership and expertise of iN2L’s subject matter experts, including bylined articles, blog posts, press releases and other communication materials.
About It’s Never 2 Late
It’s Never 2 Late (iN2L) develops digital engagement technology for senior living community residents, with over 2,500 installations in the United States and Canada. The company’s picture-based, touchscreen interface provides easy connectivity to the Internet, regardless of users’ physical and cognitive abilities. iN2L’s media library offers 4,000 social, educational, spiritual and gaming content options. For more information, visit www.in2l.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 by PRSourceCode for four years running, Amendola represents some of the best-known brands and groundbreaking startups in the healthcare and healthcare IT 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:
Marcia Rhodes, Amendola Communications, mrhodes@acmarketingpr.com
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