by Brandon Glenn | Aug 7, 2024 | Blog
We all understand that the role of a corporate marketing department, among other things, is to promote its company, educate potential customers, and strengthen the company’s brand image – with the ultimate goal of driving higher sales.
Most marketers know how to articulate the benefits and value proposition of their company’s products, and, generally, they do a solid job of it.
What fewer marketers understand is when NOT to talk about their companies – particularly on social media. (For the purposes of this article, we’ll focus on LinkedIn because it’s the most valuable social site for business users.)
It’s important for marketers to remember that social media platforms are intended to encourage two-way communication, as opposed to functioning like a megaphone used to blast messages.
Accordingly, corporate social media must focus on providing value to followers. Indeed, corporate social media success requires putting followers’ wants and needs above the company’s own objectives.
The 80/20 rule for social media success
The 80/20 rule is the answer for keeping marketers focused on delivering value to their audiences. This cardinal rule for social media simply holds that 80% of the content posted to a social account should deliver value to the audience (think general industry news, opinions, and observations) while it’s ok for the other 20% to be blatantly promotional.
In my experience, most corporate marketing departments have mastered the 20% aspect of the rule but tend to struggle with the 80% part. Admittedly, it can be a little daunting in the beginning to understand and figure out how to fulfill this goal.
First, start with a list of keywords that pertain to your company’s niche in the industry. For example, if the company works in the virtual care space, create news alerts and perform searches for keywords like “telehealth,” “virtual care,” “virtual nursing,” “value-based care,” “healthcare staffing shortages,” and “healthcare burnout,” for example. Relevant hash tags can also help to surface third-party articles that discuss industry trends.
These articles make up the 80% of non-promotional content, while the other 20% can consist of product and technology-related information specific to the company.
Professionals go to LinkedIn when they need information, making it a great place to demonstrate thought leadership by sharing insights, stats, and case studies. These users want to discuss topics in their industry, cultivate professional connections, and better themselves as professionals along their career trajectory.
By adhering to the 80/20 rule, brands can help LinkedIn users accomplish these objectives. Just keep in mind the cardinal rule of social media: It’s not all about you.
by Grace Vinton | May 1, 2024 | Blog
Sometimes you say what everybody is thinking. And when that happens, the reaction can be tangible and immediate.
I was a member of a panel at the recent HIMSS conference and was talking about misinformation. At one point I observed, “Healthcare has a B2B problem, but it’s not business to business; it’s boring to boring.”
All of a sudden everybody started snapping their fingers. I hadn’t seen this reaction before and asked whether people were trying to get my attention. It was confusing! Someone said, “No, you’re on fire.” It seems they agreed with what I said and wanted me to keep going, but didn’t want to interrupt me by clapping. Hence the snapping.
That interesting cultural moment wasn’t about me, but about an awareness clearly shared by most healthcare PR and marketing professionals: Healthcare technology companies and their buyers are mired in boredom. Boring problems. Boring solutions. Boring conversations.
The sad reality is that both healthcare technology companies and their customers – providers, payers, and third parties – are afraid to express a strong opinion or point of view for fear of losing business opportunities.
We’re all sick of boring. Still, I get it: Clients don’t want to confuse or concern a potential customer by saying something audacious or expressing bold thoughts. Healthcare tech companies want to focus their message on what their product does and the problems it can solve for customers. No point in straying from focused thought leadership.
While I understand the strategic impulse toward boring, companies that want to stand out from their competitors need to get more creative with their messaging without confusing buyers or pigeonholing the company as providing a specific solution to a specific problem. Otherwise they may continue to float anonymously in a sea of boring.
Below are some tips for healthcare marketing and PR pros to help their clients and organizations inject some personality and perspective into their messaging.
Connect on a human level
This is healthcare. By definition, it’s about people; serving people and connecting with people. One of the best ways to connect with people is to tell a compelling story. People love hearing stories and are drawn in by a narrative arc that features a journey with highs and lows, challenges and triumphs, and lessons learned.
Great storytellers are relatable and interesting and thus able to connect with an audience. Their stories create a whole world that provides context, rather than running an audience through a tedious list of specific product features and use cases. To sell your product, tell your story.
Go multimedia
Storytelling is about more than the written word. Audio and video are powerful mediums for healthcare technology companies to tell their stories. Not only do some audience members absorb information more efficiently through multimedia, allowing them to see and hear the people behind a healthcare technology company leverages that human connection we all seek.
Even a great infographic or data visualization provides a multimedia tool that can help you articulate a story and emphasize key points. Audience members have diverse learning styles and digital literacy skills; adding a multimedia element to your message will broaden its reach.
Initiate and be part of a conversation
Rather than just relentlessly pumping out marketing collateral, healthcare technology companies should strive to be thought leaders in their sector. Having a voice in an ongoing conversation establishes credibility and puts a human face on the company. Healthcare is a mission-based career, so advocating for your mission and what you believe in resonates with a like-minded audience. People don’t follow companies; they follow other people with great ideas.
Bylined articles published on respected healthcare websites are a great vehicle for demonstrating sector expertise and thought leadership. When potential buyers think you really “get” their challenges, they’ll remember you and your company.
Social media also provides an excellent platform for conversations and idea exchange. LinkedIn probably is the best for healthcare professionals, though many also actively use X. Healthcare technology leaders also can connect with their community through organizations like HIMSS or CHIME.
Finally, some healthcare technology companies have been successful in using podcasts to tell their stories. Some are even launching their own podcasts to provide another venue for interacting with an audience.
Speak the truth (with humor)
The great comedians find humor in everyday life. They also find humor in the truth. If healthcare technology leaders speak the truth to their audiences and find a way to inject humor into the message, they will stand out from the crowd. Humor that is informed by a deep understanding of the industry and the challenges of a particular sector can be memorable. If your humorous truths support your value proposition, all the better.
Conclusion
Healthcare technology companies that hide in the herd and play it safe get ignored. To rise above the boring noise and get your message across, you need to inject your marketing and PR initiatives with a strong storyline framework that employs passion, humanity, humor, and a distinctive voice. Sincerity sells because it’s real and conveys a compelling message: We’re all in this together.
by Megan Moriarty | Jan 5, 2022 | Blog
One of the foundational PR rules that any communications professional learns is to avoid the use of jargon – the technical terminology or characteristic idiom of a special activity or group, as defined by Merriam-Webster. In my years working in PR for healthcare and health IT organizations, this has been a permanent item on my list of interview tips, and any media training I’ve conducted has included guidance to avoid the use of jargon.
When communicating to a general audience, this is sound guidance and standard practice. Jargon is unnecessarily complicated, can confuse your audience and cause your audience to lose interest. If your audience has tuned out because they don’t understand what you’re telling them, they won’t hear or read your message.
It may be tempting to include technical language to demonstrate proficiency and credibility with particular subject matter. This is an especially tricky trap for those of us who work in specialized areas like healthcare and health information technology. But there’s a fine line between using familiar terms and wading into the murky waters of jargon.
As with any marketing content, one size does not fit all. Public relations and marketing must be specific to your audience. Using technical language can demonstrate competency and help build credibility, if the audience can understand it. That’s why it’s crucial to do your homework, research your audience and their level of understanding.
Get to Know Your Audience
In a recent Amendola Communications blog post, my colleague Jack O’Brien reminded us that PR representatives should take time to do their research on the journalists and outlets that they’re pitching. Not only will this help you target your pitches to topics of interest, but it will also help you tailor your language to the journalist’s readers and the publication’s audience.
This is especially true for any media relations professionals who work in a specific industry, as we do at Amendola Communications. We work with a variety of reporters – from those who write for publications focused on a specific medial specialty, to trade reporters with a deep focus on health IT, to healthcare beat reporters at major national publications, to general assignment reporters at daily newspapers. The audience and level of understanding for each of these reporters and publications will be different, and so should each pitch. As you can see, one size definitely does not fit all.
Write in a Manner the Audience Will Understand
Once you’ve done your homework and you understand your audience, you should also delve into their level of familiarity and understanding of the topic you’re pitching. For example, if a publication targets physician executives, you can safely assume the audience will understand basic medical terminology because of their medical education. A physician discussing cardiovascular health can thus feel confident that the audience will understand the term “myocardial infarction.
However, if that same physician is instead speaking to the general public about heart health, it would be more appropriate to use the more colloquial and widely understood term “heart attack.” A good rule of thumb when pitching to and writing for a general audience is to avoid using language that your Aunt Sally wouldn’t understand.
Always Keep the Reader in Mind
I’ll offer some sage advice that one my college professors, Steve Kopcha, shared from his decades of experience in strategic communications: “Say it square, then say it with flair.”
It’s easy to get so caught up in figuring out how to “say it with flair” that we forget to first “say it square.” In the simplest terms that Aunt Sally would understand, how can you communicate what your client’s product or service does? What problem does it help to address? Why does this matter for the reader?
A former communications colleague of mine who had spent years as a local news reporter offered a helpful way to frame this concept. She would ask me how I’d explain something to my next-door neighbor, and why it would matter to them. When you find yourself struggling with whether to use technical language, ask yourself what it will mean to the person reading the article you’ve pitched. Will it help further their understanding, or does it muddle your message? Keeping the reader in mind will help you to walk that fine line between technical language that helps to inform and jargon that muddles your message.
by admin | May 5, 2020 | News
Healthcare PR and marketing agency offers guidance on getting your message out to a significantly reduced pool of reporters
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., May 5, 2020 The global COVID-19 pandemic continues to dominate almost the entire news cycle. And with good cause, given its devastating impact on every aspect of our lives. Still, it poses challenges to break through, compounded by mass furloughs in the media of reporters, producers and other staff. That makes it harder to get messages out about any topic, especially those unrelated to COVID-19.
To navigate this difficult news environment, Amendola Communications, a national public relations, marketing and social media agency, offers several key suggestions. The agency has successfully used a number of strategies to secure placements for clients in outlets that include the Boston Globe, Business Insider, Computerworld, ABC News–Dallas, CBS News-Chicago, Forbes, US News & World Report, Wall Street Journal, Yahoo! News, Fierce Healthcare, Healthcare IT News, HealthLeaders, MedPage Today, STAT, and dozens of other national and trade media outlets.
“Pitch feel-good news. People need to hear goodwill stories now more than ever,” said Jodi Amendola, CEO of Amendola. “Pitch stories that educate and spark thinking. Be a true thought leader. What sorts of things will people want or need in the post-COVID-19 world to get back to normal. Start priming the pump with such stories now.”
These and other tips are included in a Forbes article by Ms. Amendola. Read the byline here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2020/05/01/how-to-break-through-an-all-consuming-news-cycle/#43e9d9346e48
Looking for additional guidance? The Amendola blog is one of the industry’s most comprehensive collections of advice on all things PR and marketing. Subscribe to the blog today.
About Amendola
Amendola 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:
Marcia Rhodes, Amendola Communications, 480.664.8412 ext. 15 / mrhodes@acmarketingpr.com
by admin | Nov 21, 2019 | News
Agency earns top honors for its “unicorn” campaign positioning client Health Catalyst for a successful initial public offering
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. Nov. 21, 2019 Amendola Communications continues its award-winning momentum with today’s announcement that it earned the “Campaign of the Year” honors in the Business Intelligence Group’s (BIG) 2019 Public Relations and Marketing Excellence Awards for its “unicorn” public relations and content campaign for client Health Catalyst. (A “unicorn” is a privately held company valued at more than $1 billion.) The organization, one of the public relations (PR) and marketing agencies for healthcare and health IT which recently celebrated its Sweet 16 anniversary, received this honor after recently taking two Gold Awards and an Honorable Mention in the 2019 MarCom Awards.
The Health Catalyst campaign, “Revealing a Unicorn: Health Catalyst Joins the $1 Billion Club,” was created to help the client broaden the traditional scope of its PR and content program. Rather than being 100 percent focused on urging more health systems to consider adopting the company’s Late-Binding Enterprise Data Warehouse and shortening the sales cycle, the program expanded to helping Health Catalyst acquire an infusion of working capital through an Initial Public Offering (IPO).
The entry details how Amendola launched a multi-pronged PR and content strategy. Amendola began setting up interviews between company officials and reporters/editors that cover the investor sector. At the same time, it continued and expanded Health Catalyst’s award-winning customer success stories program, pitched interviews with company executives who could educate healthcare leaders on general healthcare trends and timely topics, developed and pitched press releases and set up meetings with key general and healthcare-specific analyst groups. These efforts enable Amendola to snare 19 interview opportunities, produce 18 press releases, create six customer success stories and deliver three byline articles. Amendola also wrote and submitted seven speaker abstracts and six award entries in six months, all of which helped lead to a successful IPO in July 2019.
“When we began with Health Catalyst they were just a small start-up with a great idea, so earning an award for a PR and content program that helped them reach “unicorn’ status is particularly gratifying,” said Jodi Amendola, CEO of Amendola Communications. “Yet there’s also some irony in the fact that the program we developed for them is anything but a unicorn. It’s actually typical of the level of quality and dedication we give to every account, helping them address their PR and marketing needs and grow their businesses. I am proud of our entire team and the great work they do every day, so it’s nice to see some of that work recognized and rewarded by BIG.”
The BIG Public Relations and Marketing Excellence Awards was launched in 2014 to reward public relations agencies, departments and people whose work delivered exceptional performance and innovative approaches. They are designed to reward and recognize those individuals and organizations who largely go unrecognized for helping to build great brands and products of world-class organizations.
About Amendola Communications
Amendola 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:
Marcia Rhodes
Amendola Communications
mrhodes@acmarketingpr.com
Ph: 480.664.8412 ext. 15
