by Ken Krause | Jan 6, 2021 | Blog
Case studies (aka customer stories) are one of the most powerful tools in an organization’s marketing arsenal. And for good reason.
If you are an unknown or little-known company, a great case study that names the customer can provide you with instant credibility. Many (most?) organizations are fairly risk-averse, which means they’re reluctant to take a chance on a new solution no matter how much promise it holds. A case study often gives them the confidence to overcome those fears.
If you are an industry leader, case studies are a great way to demonstrate that your reputation is not just a product of marketing hype. You are a substantial company that continues to work hard to deliver value to your customers.
Of course, all of this assumes one key factor: you have actual results to show.
What do I mean by that? Of course you have results! You created all these materials, delivered all these widgets, documented all these exchanges, etc.
Nope, sorry. Those aren’t results. Those are activities.
So while all of those things are good and necessary, they’re just the table stakes. What your readers will really be interested in is what impact all those activities had on your customers, or their customers.
Here’s a quick healthcare example. If you produced a program to help a hospital’s patients with diabetes gain control over their HbA1c levels that’s great. The fact that you produced four YouTube videos, six pamphlets and three infographics gives the reader a sense of the scope of the program.
But those aren’t results. Results would be something like 60% of those who enrolled in the program got their HbA1c levels under 7.0 and 85% lowered their rates by at least two points in the first six months.
What’s the difference? In the first example you did something that was necessary to success but it didn’t cause anything to change.
Had all those same materials been produced but not distributed there would have been no way of knowing whether they would be effective or not because they weren’t yet in the hands of the people who needed them. You might as well have blown up balloons with pictures of clowns on them.
In the second example, the materials you produced were distributed and produced outcomes among those to whom they were targeted. THAT is what your prospects want to know.
They’re not interested in your ability to produce slick materials in a variety of formats. They’re interested in whether the program achieved the intended goals.
This distinction between activities and results becomes particularly important when the case study is repurposed for a speaker application – especially a complex application for an event such as HIMSS.
While all the background and steps that were taken are important, having real results to speak to is critical. I’ve never been in the room where it happens, but I imagine that when HIMSS applications are received the reviewers immediately go to the results section. If all you have to show is activities, the application immediately gets sent to the discard folder.
I understand that securing customers to participate in case studies can be difficult, and often beggars can’t be choosers. If your only option is a customer that either isn’t tracking results (unthinkable in today’s digital world but apparently it happens) or doesn’t have quantifiable results to speak of yet, so be it.
But if that’s the case you need to recognize that the effectiveness of your case study (or speaker application) will be diminished. Prospects will leave a bit disappointed, the media will be reluctant to write their own stories about it, and event organizers will be likely to pass on your speaker application. Expectations for success should be set accordingly.
Case studies are wonderful tools, but their effectiveness is closely tied to the results you have to tout. Understanding the difference between activities and outcomes will help ensure you do all you can to deliver the best – and most effective – case studies to help your PR and marketing efforts.
by Jodi Amendola | Jun 26, 2019 | Blog
When it comes to finding the right PR and marketing agency, is bigger better?
It depends who you ask.
Early in my career as an agency leader, I was surprised that it was Amendola’s largest Fortune 500 clients who most clearly understood and could articulate the benefits of working with a smaller, boutique agency. As time passed and a few comparatively smaller clients switched to a bigger agency (often in response to reaching a major growth milestone) and subsequently came back, I realized that the larger, more well-established companies simply had the benefit of experience. They’d previously worked with one or more large corporate agencies, and already understood the advantages and drawbacks.
So why do many of the world’s largest, most successful healthcare and technology companies prefer to work with smaller, highly specialized agencies? It’s a fair question, and the answer can help healthcare/healthcare IT companies of every size find their ideal agency fit.
Depth of understanding is even more key in a complex industry
Many of Amendola’s largest clients voice frustration with the inconsistent levels expertise at big agencies, especially those that don’t focus exclusively on healthcare and healthcare IT.
As one Fortune 500 client said in our initial conversation, “We don’t feel like we’re getting any value from [large corporate agency]. They understand tech in general, but don’t really have a clue about healthcare IT. And they don’t seem to have any of the media relationships we need.”
Another prospective client put it more wryly: “We spend half our time explaining value-based care, and the other half reminding them to stop talking about it like it’s brand new.”
To be fair to larger agencies and the hardworking folks who make them hum, it’s all but impossible for anyone to be an expert on multiple complex industries. Especially if one of them is healthcare. In fact, that’s why Amendola serves only healthcare and healthcare IT clients, and has since the outset. There’s always something new to learn in healthcare, and always something on or just over the horizon that will impact the industry in unexpected ways. If you don’t eat, sleep, and breathe it, how could you possibly keep up?
Still, I can understand these clients’ frustration. If an agency needs constant coaching on what’s happening in healthcare, the best case is that the relationship becomes more time-consuming for the client.
The more realistic case? Missed opportunities, muddled messaging, and even missteps in the market.
It’s harder for large and multi-industry agencies to develop strong healthcare/healthcare IT media relationships
Clients also often mention that a larger agency they worked with was unable to secure high-quality (or even very many) media opportunities. I’m never surprised to hear it. After all, any junior PR professional can pitch journalists all day every day every…but how effective can they be if they don’t really understand the story they’re pitching?
Yet inconsistent expertise isn’t the only contributing factor. The fact is, large agencies have several things working against them when it comes to healthcare/healthcare IT media relations.
Imagine you’re a healthcare reporter. You’ve just been assigned a 1,200-word article about how healthcare organizations are screening for unmet social needs and addressing SDoH, especially within their high-risk/high-cost patient populations. Your editor would like to see you include perspectives from at least three different organizations. Either vendors or providers, but at least one of each. Oh, and it’s due tomorrow. End of day today would be better.
Now ask yourself who you’d reach out to:
- The comparatively junior contact you have at a big corporate agency you know, the one who keeps pitching you out of the blue about the same one or two clients.
- The comparatively senior contact you have at a smaller, healthcare-specific PR agency you know, the one with a diverse client portfolio who can probably be your one-stop shop for all three of the interviews you need to conduct.
Actually, any chance you could turn the article around sooner? It’d be great to get it out on social ASAP.
The hotter the topic and the busier the news cycle, the higher the demands on journalists’ time and attention. During the weeks preceding HIMSS, it’s not uncommon for a healthcare reporter at a top-tier publication to receive well over 200 pitches a day. From a purely practical standpoint, the only way they can wade through the noise is to focus on their most reliable agency contacts (who, by the way, have been regularly pitching and checking in on HIMSS opportunities for months, not weeks).
How much of a difference do strong media relationships make? Consider the Fortune 500 client I mentioned earlier.
In our first month working together, we secured more media opportunities for them than their most recent large corporate agency had secured over the course of three years.
Now, did our agency-wide expertise in healthcare and healthcare IT enable us to craft higher quality, more sophisticated pitches and thought-leadership content? Absolutely. Did we also do a better job targeting the right reporter/editor/publication with the right pitch at the right time? You bet your bylines.
But the wealth of opportunities we had to choose from were partly a function of a fundamental truth about healthcare/healthcare IT PR. As a boutique agency exclusively serving healthcare and healthcare IT clients, we hear about opportunities that larger and less focused agencies don’t because healthcare journalists’ lives are already hard enough.
Another key difference: Who’s *really* doing the writing?
The complaint I hear most frequently from prospective clients is the amount of time they spend rewriting the content their current agency produces. The shared sentiment is, “in the time we spend rewriting everything, we could have just drafted it ourselves.” And that isn’t just an idle thought for many companies when I spoke with a large publicly traded company last week, they explained they use their current agency for media pitching only, having brought all content creation back in-house after years of constant rewriting.
Obviously, any agency of any size can hire bad writers. And, at least conceivably, any agency with the resources to do so can hire good writers.
So where’s the breakdown?
First (and this is the last time I’ll mention it), lack of expertise plays a role. If the writers assigned to the account aren’t strong on healthcare/healthcare IT, there’s no covering it up. Especially if they’re writing based on input from deeply knowledgeable subject matter experts.
Second, depending on the agency, even a reasonably large healthcare or healthcare IT company might be comparatively low-priority when it comes to resource allocation. The bigger and less healthcare-focused the pond, the more likely that other accounts or client-types will be seen as the truly big fish. And the big fish gets the worm, which in this modified idiom represent the more senior writers.
It sure would be nice if there was a just a checklist of what to look for in an agency
Wouldn’t it? I’ve always thought so. So here are consolidated insider tips and key questions you can use to streamline your search for the perfect agency.
- Expertise – Do they know your space? Do they understand the lingo? Have industry connections? Will they have senior level executives on the account, or will you be delegated to a junior team? Check references and make sure the agency is everything they actually say they are. If you’re making your decision partly based on writing samples, make sure you see the samples of the writers you’ll actually be working with.
- Range of Services – Do you need a PR firm only, or are you looking for an integrated marketing communications firm that can handle all of your marketing needs? If the agency only handles one service line, do they have partner agencies for other areas?
- Team – Make sure you ask to meet your team. Very often with a big agency, the high-level execs you met at the presentation aren’t the team who will be working on your account. That’s unfortunate, because experience and compatibility matter. Ideally, at least one of the people who would be on your team will also be at the initial presentation. If they are, chat them up. Are they someone you would enjoy working with on a regular basis? Remember this is going to be a close relationship, so comfort and rapport are key!
- Budget/terms/scope of work – Be sure to compare apples to apples when assessing services and quantities/deliverables. Are you going to engage in an annual retainer program or project work? Will you be billed by the hour or by scope of deliverables? Based on my experience, the latter will get you more value. Teams won’t be clocking out the second your hours for the month are used up; instead, they’ll work tirelessly to successfully execute your campaigns with no limit to the time they put in. And don’t get caught in the trap of assuming a higher retainer equals better service, especially if you aren’t going to be one of the agency’s largest accounts or if they don’t specialize in healthcare or healthcare IT.
The fit matters
Once you’ve narrowed the field of potential agency partners to a fully vetted top five, you can reasonably assume that any of them are capable of handling the nuts and bolts of PR and marketing. That’s why I recommend focusing on the fit to help you make your final decision. Does it feel right? Is this the company and are these the people that you want to serve as an extension of your own team? And where do you fit in their agency world or to put it another way, what’s the pond look like?
Ultimately, every organization has to decide what’s right for them based on a host of factors. Understanding how agencies differ beyond the simple metric of size will help ensure the strengths of the PR and marketing agency you do select align with the work you want them to do and the results you want them to deliver. In some cases, a bigger agency can be better but as many of the largest healthcare and healthcare IT companies already know, it isn’t always best.
by Ken Krause | Jun 12, 2019 | Blog
Whether you personally believe trade shows are the land of opportunity or merely a relic of a bygone era where primitive being skulked through the aisles without the benefit of a smartphone, there is no question that they are still a fact of life for many of us. In fact, some (such as, oh, I dunno, HIMSS?) are not merely a minor blip on our radars but a huge disruptor to the otherwise semi-orderly flow of our lives.
Trade shows can be a time-sink as well as a budget-sink, so if you’re going to make that type of investment, it’s critically important that you be sure the organization gets something out of it. Something more than “exposure” and free leftover pens, tote bags and the kind of hard candy your grandmother gives you when you come to visit, and that you only eat when there is absolutely no other choice. Love you, grandma!
Toward that end (getting something out of your trade show investment, not getting hard candy), Amendola Communications CEO Jodi Amendola has written a blog post in her role as a member of the Forbes Agency Council. “Trade Show ROI: Four Ways to Make the Most Out of Industry Events” offers some great suggestions for ensuring marketers get a pat on the back rather than a kick in the backside for the results of their organization’s trade show efforts. The four tips include:
- Ensuring you have a well-honed elevator pitch that carefully walks the line between proper and over-the-top self-promotion
- Making Twitter your go-to social media platform for engaging other attendees
- Hosting a reception for clients and prospects
- Being sure you do something with all those leads you capture
Obviously there’s more to it than just those four bullet points, so it’s well worth giving the post a full read. You can do that here.
Whatever your personal feelings about trade shows, however, they still loom large in many industries – especially healthcare. So if you’re going to do it, do it right.
Take the time to prepare properly, and then maximize your time on the floor – whether you’re in front of the counter or behind it. It will pay off in the end.
by admin | Feb 6, 2019 | News
Clients’ technologies to shine brightly at largest health IT event of the year
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. Feb. 6, 2019 Innovative technologies from Amendola health IT clients will be highlighted in a number of key educational sessions presented by the clients’ end users at HIMSS19, which takes place Feb. 11,15, 2019, in Orlando.
“This year marks Amendola’s 15th anniversary and the 15th consecutive year that our agency will have a presence at HIMSS,” said Jodi Amendola, CEO of the award-winning healthcare and health IT marketing and public relations agency. “It’s been amazing to see how much the conference has grown in the nearly 20 years I’ve been attending and gratifying to see the tangible results that healthcare organizations are realizing from our clients’ technologies, which will be highlighted in these presentations.”
The speakers, who in a few of the sessions are joined by the technology vendors as co-presenters, will explain how they have overcome some of the biggest healthcare challenges of today by leveraging solutions from Amendola clients, including Alliance for Better Health, Arcadia.io, Ayasdi, Bernoulli, Health Catalyst, Medicomp Systems, Recondo Technology, SAP, SCIO Health Analytics, VisitPay, Vivify Health and Vocera.
Accountable Care Organizations
Predictive Analytics for Data-Driven Care Management Beth Israel Deaconess Care Organization (BIDCO), a leading, value-based accountable care organization participating in five risk-based contracts, will discuss how to leverage predictive analytics to identify patients most likely to benefit from care coordination. Details: Presented by Sarika Aggarwal, MD, MHCM, Chief Medical Officer of BIDCO, and Bill Gillis, MS, Chief Information Officer; 2:30,3:30 pm Wed. Feb. 13, Room W208C. Highlights technology from Arcadia.io.
Building a Quality-Driven Narrow SNF Network CareMount ACO, a physician-owned multispecialty medical group participating as a Medicare Next Generation ACO in the Hudson Valley, will explain how it leveraged a population health platform to aggregate data needed to develop a narrow Preferred Provider Network of skilled nursing facilities, home health and other ancillary providers. Details: Presented by Peter Kelly, MBA, Executive Director of CareMount ACO, and Richard Morel, MD, MMM, FCAP, Deputy Chief Medical Officer; 11:30 am,12:30 pm Wed. Feb. 13, Room W315A. Highlights technology from Arcadia.io.
AI and Machine Learning
Cloud Analytics: A Fast Lane to Enable Real-World Evidence Mercy, one of the largest Catholic health systems in the country, is powering data-driven healthcare with artificial intelligence, machine learning and predictive analytics to benchmark best practices across its 44 acute care and specialty hospitals. As a result, Mercy is uncovering cost savings, improving patient outcomes, and creating new revenue streams to monetize data. Details: Presented by Curtis Dudley, VP of Performance Solutions, Mercy; 9:45,10:15 am Mon. Feb. 11, Rosen Centre Executive Ballroom I. Highlights technology from SAP.
Driving Physician Engagement and Patient Outcomes with Artificial Intelligence Vituity, a multispecialty partnership of physicians, improved population health and enhanced patient experience by developing AI-driven real-time clinical decision support tools. Details: Presented by Dipti Patel-Misra, PhD, MBA, Chief Data and Analytics Officer, Vituity, and Joshua H. Tamayo-Sarver, MD, PhD, FACEP, BCCI, CPHIMS, Vice President, Informatics; 10 11 am Thurs. Feb. 14, Room W207C. Highlights technology from Health Catalyst.
How AI Enabled a Community Hospital to Tackle Clinical Variation and Reduce Length-of-Stay Flagler Hospital saved an average of $1,350 per case, reduced the average length of stay by two days, and decreased readmissions by seven times eliminating nearly $850,000 in costs by tapping into powerful, unsupervised AI technology. Details: Presented by Michael Sanders, FAAFP, MD, CMIO, Flagler Hospital; 11:40 am 12 pm Mon. Feb. 11, Rosen Centre Junior Ballroom F. Part of the HIMSS19 Machine Learning & AI for Healthcare pre-conference symposium. Highlights technology from Ayasdi.
Machine Learning to Predict Risk and Enhance Efficiency A regional health system in New York applied machine learning to multiple data sources to create a risk model that identifies high- and low-risk patients to reduce 30-day readmissions. Details: Presented by Simer Sodhi, Director of Data Management and Analytics, Westchester Medical Center; 10:45 11:05 am Mon. Feb. 11, Rosen Centre Junior Ballroom F. Part of the HIMSS19 Machine Learning & AI for Healthcare pre-conference symposium. Highlights technology from Health Catalyst.
Inpatient Monitoring
A Business and Clinical Case for Continuous Surveillance Virtua Memorial Hospital leveraged continuous capnography monitoring in a medical-surgical unit to detect adverse clinical events while also mitigating artifacts related to patient movement, suspect measurements and other medical device-generated alarm signals. Details: Presented by Leah Baron, MD, former Chief of the Department of Anesthesiology at Virtua Memorial Hospital, and John Zaleski, PhD, CPHIMS, CAP, Chief Analytics Officer, Bernoulli; 10 11 am Thurs. Feb. 14, Room W206A. Highlights technology from Bernoulli.
Improving Sepsis Care with Data Analytics Allina Health developed and implemented a comprehensive, data-driven approach for early identification and reduced variation in sepsis care. Details: Presented by Mischa Adams, MSN, RN, CCRN, Clinical Standard Coordinator, Allina Health, and Sarah Jenson, MS, Analytics Director, Health Catalyst/Allina Health; 1 2 pm Thurs. Feb. 14, Room W206A. Highlights technology from Health Catalyst.
Patient Experience
Restore Human Connections with Collaboration and Technology The University of Chicago Medicine designed effective approaches to improve the human experience, collaborating with clinical and information and technology leaders to drive positive human connections and transformative change in healthcare. Details: Presented by Sue Murphy, RN, Chief Experience Officer, University of Chicago Medicine, and Diane M. Rogers, CPXP, ACC President, Contagious Change, LLC; 11:30 am 12:30 pm Wed. Feb. 13, Room W204A. Highlights technology from Vocera.
Population Health and Chronic Condition Management
Enhancing Patient Care with Physician-Driven Documentation Phoenix Children’s Hospital’s ongoing clinical documentation improvement initiative enables efficient, structured documentation, but also allows the organization to harness patient data to create real-time clinical dashboards for more effective care for patients with chronic disease. Details: Presented by Vinay Vaidya, MD, Vice President and Chief Medical Informatics Officer, Phoenix Children’s Hospital, and Michael Shishov, MD, Division Chief of Pediatric Rheumatology; 1:30 2:30 pm Tues. Feb. 12, Room W311A. Highlights technology from Medicomp Systems.
Cracking the Code to Better Quality and Financial Outcomes Rush Health describes how it used advanced analytics to improve the way it manages risk, resulting in improved patient care and enhanced revenue. Details: Presented by James Grana, PhD, Chief Analytics Officer, Rush Health, and Bala Hota, MD, Chief Analytics Officer, Rush University Medical Center; 1:30 2:30 pm Tues. Feb. 12, Room W206A. Highlights technology from SCIO Health Analytics.
Remote Monitoring Shows Significant Pop Health Benefits University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and the Ontario Telemedicine Network utilized remote patient monitoring to improve patient engagement and outcomes for chronic disease management. Details: Presented by Andrew Watson, Vice President, Clinical Information Technology Transformation, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, and Laurie Poole, Vice President, Clinical Innovation, Ontario Telemedicine Network; 10:30 11:30 am Tues. Feb. 12, Room W315B. Highlights technology from Vivify Health.
Patient-Centered Referral Workflow Automation Steward Health Care Network automated referral workflows improve efficiency, care coordination and patient satisfaction. Details: Presented by Heather Trafton, PA-C, MBA, Senior Vice President of National MSO Operations, Steward Health Care Network, and Kristin Ottariano, MS, Director of Medicaid Operation; 2:30 3:30 pm Thurs. Feb. 14, Room W206A. Highlights technology from Arcadia.io.
Doing Well by Doing Good: Finding the ROI Social Care Programs This invitation-only roundtable focuses on the outcomes and ROI of treating social needs. The session will focus on identifying disconnects in the current system, and the opportunities for innovations in technology and collaboration to play an important role in the solutions. Details: 3 4 pm Tues. Feb. 12, Hyatt Regency, Room Hyatt Rock Springs II. Highlights key thought leaders from Alliance for Better Health.
Revenue Cycle Management
How Web Bots Freed $20 Million from a Billing Bottleneck Avera Health improved cash flow by $20 million dollars in its first year, while reducing aged A/R accounts by almost half, after automating claim status follow-up with healthcare insurance companies using AI technology. Details: Mary Wickersham, MHA, Vice President, Central Business Office Services, Avera Health, and Ryan Ayres, Vice President, Product Management, Recondo Technology; 4:15 5:15 pm Tues. Feb. 12, Room W308A. Highlights technology from Recondo Technology.
The Patient Behind the Bill: Creating a More Satisfying Financial Journey St. Luke’s Health System in Boise fundamentally re-imagined the patient financial journey, creating a personalized experience that offers patients transparency, choice and control over billing obligations while turning bad debt into consistent payments. Details: Presented by Michael Rawdan, Senior Director, Revenue Cycle & Patient Experience, St. Luke’s Health System; 11:00 11:35 am Mon. Feb. 11, Rosen Centre Grand Ballroom D. Part of the HIMSS19 pre-conference Revenue Cycle Solutions Summit. Highlights technology from VisitPay.
Media Contact: Marcia Rhodes, Amendola, mrhodes@acmarketingpr.com
by Jenna Warner | Oct 3, 2018 | Blog
On this blog we often talk about how to use PR and marketing to help build the brand and drive sales for healthcare and healthcare IT (HIT) products. Most of the time the activities we discuss require some significant effort. But there’s an online event coming up next week that can actually pay big dividends with considerably less of an investment on your part: National Healthcare IT Week. Here’s the skinny”
Who: Thought leaders, Health IT companies and future Healthcare IT entrepreneurs
What: National Healthcare IT Week #NHITweek
When: October 8th – October 12th
Where: Online and locally
Why: It’s easy, relevant, it’s a great cause and great for building trust as a brand
Founded by HIMSS and the Institute for e-Policy, U.S. National Health IT Week (NHIT Week) is a nationwide awareness week focused on catalyzing actionable change within the U.S. health system through the application of information and technology. The week-long event is celebrated through partner-driven, national and local events along with online conversations through social media. It’s easy to get involved, so what’s the holdup?
Social media is often misunderstood as an unnecessary evil, especially in healthcare, but it is an amazing tool that allows you to reach your audience in a way that was never possible before. While developing and maintaining an online community does take time and resources, events like this allow users to reap some of the benefits quickly.
Even if you don’t have an internal social media coordinator or an amazing agency managing your online presence, you can still participate in National Healthcare IT Week and other similar events. Here are six reasons to jump on board if you haven’t already.
- Engage with like-minded people and companies. These types of events create a community around the cause. By finding like-minded people you may be able to make beneficial connections that wouldn’t be possible otherwise.
- Gain a better understanding of the conversation. Conversations during these events come from a variety of perspectives. It’s common to get stuck viewing the world with tunnel vision by reviewing the same new sites, having favorite writers and viewpoints.
- Find new influencers. Participating in events like this including tweet chats are a great way to quickly find people with similar ideals with your company. You might find people experiencing problems you can solve.
- Gain trust with your target market. Trust is one of the most important aspects of the customer experience. These events offer a condensed time-frame that allows you to be a part of the conversation. It’s a great opportunity to show other users that your company actually wants to help. Humanize your brand and spread awareness for the cause.
- Stay top of mind. Your competitors are likely participating in these events. Stay top of mind with your prospects and target market. Bonus: you will be top of mind with good sentiment.
- Take advantage of scalability. These events allow your organization to really adjust your involvement based on your resources. Participate in every aspect or do what you can with the time you and your team have available.
Here’s how you can get involved:
- Become a partner
- Share on social media
- Share your story
- Create or participate in an event locally
Be sure to let us know how you participate in the comments below too!
