by Jessica Smith | Mar 2, 2022 | Blog
Recently, I was listening to a podcast featuring the CEO of a healthcare tech company that’s doing fantastic things in a new way—an actual innovator, as much as that word is overused. The podcast wasn’t sponsored, so the line of questioning was broad and geared toward thought leadership. In response to the host’s first question, the CEO launched into a detailed explanation of the issues with just a quick “At [Company Name], we deal with [thorny topic] all the time, starting with A and B.”
The rest of the conversation bounced around from there, and it was a decent interview overall, except for one thing: I never found out what the CEO’s company did, exactly. I agreed with many of his sentiments about the industry and was already predisposed to think highly of his company, but the onus fell on me, the listener, to search online for more info. That CEO had one shot to make a first impression, but he failed to take advantage of it: he didn’t introduce his own brand.
As an account director, I see clients fail to effectively communicate their corporate message. When prepping for an interview, clients tend to focus on which successes to share. They talk about how to answer tricky questions that might come up, and discuss whether a data point from Client 1 or Client 2 would be best. But they don’t focus on the messaging basics: how to say what you do as efficiently as possible, in a variety of settings. Your leaders need to agree on the language they’ll use to give a quick introduction, and they need to practice this phrasing until it becomes second nature.
When I was listening to that podcast, if I had heard something like this: “At [Company Name], we provide [innovative feature] to [type of customers] to help them [accomplish this result]” before the CEO continued with “So we deal with [thorny topic] all the time…” I would have had a context for all the insightful things Mr. CEO said from then on. I would have been properly introduced to the company, grounded in what they provide to a particular market.
You Need More Pitches Than You Think You Do
At large companies, marketing departments will hammer out corporate messaging templates with several components: the top 3 bullets that describe the company’s accomplishments; the 25-word elevator pitch; the 50-word elevator pitch; the 100-word boilerplate; the corporate mission; the list of values. Smaller companies, being nimbler and more mission-driven, tend to think of such messaging docs as unnecessary—and completely disconnected from what their leaders will say to the press.
They’re not. Just as all companies must determine their market positioning, they must also determine their specific language: how will we introduce ourselves? Your company’s oral and written messaging needs to include both features and benefits. What do you make/provide/enable for customers, and how does that feature benefit them?
Once you’ve got your messaging down, you need to spend time iterating it in multiple formats. Contrary to popular belief, the best 25-word intro to your company is not the first sentence of your “About Us” page on your website. Be thoughtful about each version, and note who it’s for: 50 words to describe us to investors; 5 bullets to include on slides for existing customers; 3 key messages for trade shows; etc. This legwork will pay off in spades as you apply for awards, send reporters background information, complete RFIs, connect with potential clients, and more.
Lastly, don’t forget to train your leaders in the verbal version of your messaging for conversations and interviews. While it doesn’t need to be exact every time, you should certainly have at least one or two phrases that are consistently said aloud by your executive leadership.
Revamping Your Boilerplate
Found at the bottom of all press releases, a company’s boilerplate is a standardized paragraph that describes the organization’s purpose, size, and presence. It often includes details such as the year the company was founded, its annual revenue and/or financial backers, and market share or angle. Your boilerplate should also incorporate a few key words—or even better, a unique phrase—to enable search engine optimization.
Unfortunately, many companies write their boilerplate once and then forget to refine it as their messaging evolves. Along with your messaging, you should review your boilerplate at least once a year. Does it reflect where you are now? If your key phrases aren’t getting any traction, but your customers all respond enthusiastically to one specific value prop, consider the SEO version of that value prop. Will it work in your boilerplate? Is it clear and meaningful, or did you accidentally jargonize it?
While this is not an exhaustive how-to post about how to write an excellent company boilerplate—for that, see this post from PR expert Dmitry Dragilev—I do have a few tips for you.
#1: Don’t be aspirational.
If your company makes teapots, but your five-year plan involves the creation of compostable coffee, tea, and mimosa single-serve pods, you’re not an “major vendor in the eco-friendly breakfast beverage supply chain”; you’re still a teapot manufacturer.
Startups in particular are frequently tempted to include their overarching vision in their boilerplate, as they can’t yet do what they mean to do – and they want everyone to know the scope of their ambition. While this is understandable, companies run the risk of undermining their own success if they stake their reputation on future-state aspirations. Potential clients may simply want a beautiful teapot; they need to know that your company makes them.
Don’t let your excitement about what your company will eventually do overcome reality; market what you have now, and market it well. If you’re afraid that your company will be discounted because everyone’s talking about single-serve beverages, then find a way to incorporate your proximity to the Hot Topic without overselling what your company does in the present moment.
(Apologies to the Ask a Manager readership for the teapot analogy. This site answers reader questions on workplace dilemmas, and it’s well worth your time: the letters are often hilarious, and writer Alison Green gives useful advice for navigating difficult work situations.)
#2: Keep it modest.
This is not the time for verbs like ‘transform’ or ‘revolutionize,’ nor for adjectives like ‘impressive’ or ‘powerful.’ Your boilerplate should state what you do and why you do it, but not offer its own opinions on how well you do it. We don’t include self-referential compliments when we’re introducing ourselves for a reason. While you may call yourself “adept” in a cover letter, you don’t say it in conversation; your boilerplate should not be the corporate version of “I’m Jessica, a skillful communicator!”
You should also stay away from superlative phrases like “the industry’s leading platform” or “the world’s largest system,” especially if you’re relatively unknown. Even if your software has twice as many users as your closest competitors, comparative phrases invite readers to respond with skepticism. There should be nothing in your boilerplate that is arguable; your statements should be clear, simple, and unassailable.
If you work for Amazon, then sure, you could say you’re the world’s largest online retailer—but readers would know that already. For everyone else, it just sounds like a humble brag that may or may not be true. If you want to show size or range, opt for facts instead: “used by 65% of U.S. health systems” is more believable than “the industry’s leading platform.” If you’ve won a prestigious award, make sure to include it in your boilerplate. Let others do your bragging for you!
#3: Avoid nonsense taglines.
My husband’s favorite tagline of all time was for the beer Stella Artois: “Reassuringly expensive.” For 25 years, the company used this phrase in television and print ads in the U.K., where it hit just the right note: this beer tastes so much better than its low-end counterparts that it’s not even in the same category—nor are you, discerning drinker!
In corporate America, and especially in healthcare, there’s a tendency to choose random inspirational words for your tagline. Often these aren’t even connected to what the company does, but just a collection of positive qualities or actions: “Collaborate. Innovate. Accelerate.” Taglines should be clear, practical, and instantly relatable to what your business does, according to this advice from entrepreneurs.
In healthcare, I’ve seen many variations along the lines of “We move care forward” or “We put the care in healthcare.” Avoid stating the obvious (nobody moves care backward), and avoid being cheesy. Your tagline requires real thought and a sense of what sets your company apart from competitors. This is where you can get creative and evoke your company’s higher aspirations (as long as they relate to what you do now). Where do you want to be in ten years? What mission connects your present and your future?
You won’t be able to encapsulate every last thing that you do in one tagline, but you should be able to come up with an evocative phrase that distinguishes your approach. Don’t be afraid to test it out across your company, or ask your employees for help brainstorming. Once you have a good tagline, use it to close out your boilerplate, along with a link to your website. Now, you’re ready for prime time: You have everything you need to make a good impression.
by Adam Beeson | Sep 1, 2021 | Blog
Are you talking at your customers, or are you speaking their language and partnering on their mission? This is a question that every marketer, communicator and sales team member should be asking regularly.
We all have some level of brand loyalty in our lives. For me, those brands are Nike, Honda, Jersey Mike’s, Apple, Aurora Health Care and The Wall Street Journal. My allegiance to those brands is based on quality, style, company mission, customer service, product consistency, availability and ethical business practices (there was a time when I liked Volkswagen – they ruined that).
But more importantly, those brands align with what I am striving to accomplish in my life as a father, husband, professional, coach, and member of society.
I’m sure you have a similar list of your own.
The same is true in the B2B space and we frequently see this in the vendor space. A simple example is the technology brands that a company buys for its employees. One business is an Apple buyer, another HP, and yet another swears by Lenovo. And yet computers can largely all run the same software – it’s the set up and components inside the devices that slightly differ. Logically when the devices can all do the same thing, this would seem like an ideal scenario to purchase based on price or recent quality achievements–but the B2B brand loyalty remains.
So how do you establish this level of brand loyalty with B2B customers? How can you be “sticky” when your competition is providing a very similar product?
You need to be more than a vendor. You need to demonstrate that you are an ally on their mission.
Let’s consider a healthcare technology vendor – pick one, there are plenty. They’re solving for the difficult problems in healthcare, like access to mental health services, providing telehealth services, building an improved billing platform, managing opioid prescribing, simplifying decentralized clinical trials….and the list goes on. And this is what their team concentrates on every single day.
But you know what? These solutions are only a small piece of what healthcare providers are concentrating on. The industry has three or four vendor competitors solving for the same problem. And they all tout similar features, such as integrations with big EHR providers like Epic and Cerner. As much as the tech vendor is going to point to a certain feature or new rating, the healthcare provider would rather move on to bigger issues.
And that’s where the opportunity lies: the customer’s bigger mission.
Newsflash – every healthcare provider has a similar objective and a mission statement along the lines of: ‘provide healthcare services that help individuals, families, and communities live longer and healthier lives.’
Now, if you want to be the healthcare provider’s long-term partner or ally, guess what they want you to help them accomplish? Hint: it’s not just integration with an EHR or tracking how many opioids have been prescribed.
If you want to be a provider’s valued partner, you must demonstrate how your solution will help them achieve their mission of saving lives and creating healthier populations.
If your solution is designed to solve for challenges in the mental health space, for example, an everyday vendor will demonstrate how their solution tracks a patient through their care and identifies patients at risk for pharmaceutical addiction.
But a valued partner is going to do those things, plus help track patients as they navigate multiple care providers and the justice system. The valued partner will demonstrate how their solution is improving care adoption for patients battling anxiety and depression. The ultimate outcome of a valued partner’s relationship will focus on improved community care statistics, decreasing arrest rates, and an overall healthier community.
As a health IT vendor seeking to align with a healthcare provider, communicating your story is critical and requires distinguishing yourself and your offering as a partner:
- Create a core narrative that explains how your brand is advancing overall industry mission priorities. Use this content internally and externally to drive your brand message. Refine and update this message on a quarterly basis.
- Leverage your core narrative to create thought leadership content. These new pieces of content can be leveraged in the press, distributed through your marketing nurture campaigns, posted as core blog content, drive your social media efforts, and sales teams can share this content widely with prospects and clients.
- Empower a leader as the owner of your vision for the industry mission. This person, or people, should be named as the author of your content. Further, leverage your PR agency to establish these leaders as a valued interview with industry reporters and then make them easily accessible to the press.
- Engage with your customers and tell their story as examples of how your efforts are advancing industry change and helping to accomplish their missions.
- Survey customers and prospects to better understand their priorities, and where they stand on efforts to move their business mission forward. Share survey data publicly to help the industry define next steps. Leverage this new business intelligence to engage with customers and prospects on how your products can help to achieve their mission.
- During regular meetings, ask clients where they stand on their mission priorities and how your solution can further help with those efforts. Provide insights on additional opportunities from your perspective. And then follow through.
Each of these key steps will redefine your brand and drive brand loyalty from your clients and your prospects. More importantly, this repeated process will allow you to demonstrate your commitment to being the company’s valued partner, time and time again. You will have aligned with their mission, demonstrated the success, and publicly committed to one another’s future success.
by Grant Evans | Aug 18, 2021 | Blog
So, you want to engage a PR agency to help get the word out about your solutions or services.
Sounds like a plan. Sounds easy.
But the process can be daunting, time-consuming, and expensive. And, most importantly, it may not help you achieve your goals.
If this sounds oddly pessimistic coming from someone in an agency, bear with me. I’m here to share some considerations, observations, and best practices gleaned from over three decades split between agency and corporate marketing gigs. Avoiding the mistakes of others can save you time and money, and result in a productive, positive working relationship with your agency.
Know what you want to accomplish.
Do you need straight-up media relations? Industry analyst engagement? Help with messaging and positioning? Social media strategy and support? Editorial and content development? Speaking opportunities? Is there the potential for crisis management? Will your executives require media training?
Having a grasp of your near- and longer-term objectives can help you narrow the field. Most agencies will claim to provide a full menu of such services, but the quality and scope of the offerings can vary wildly. Be skeptical and do your due diligence.
PR Agency? Full-Time Employee? Freelancer?
There are pros and cons to each of these approaches, and your organization’s budget, timeline, and internal processes will dictate the best approach.
Agencies can be expensive, depending on the retainer structure or the billable rates of your account team, but can actually be more cost-effective than the alternatives. They also bring a wealth of expansive and deep marketing expertise, along with a solid bench. They are often very good at helping determine what you need (see above), are responsive and reliable, and 100% dedicated to your agenda. Agencies also provide access to a host of services––from art/creative direction and design, to web development, digital marketing, and social media strategy and support.
Full-time employees are great because they are invested in your success and are in it for the long haul. But they often require substantial budget outlays, and can take months to identify, recruit, sign, and onboard. Once they are thoroughly steeped in your offerings, they can be outstanding brand ambassadors and stewards, and can also work on other marketing initiatives as needed. But once they leave, you’re back to square one.
Freelancers can be nimble hires––they often have excellent credentials, can start right away, and hit the ground running. But they typically operate with minimal resources, have no back-up, and must dedicate hours to other clients. They also can be brutally hard to integrate into existing systems (HR/accounting, project management, content management). They also are prone to terminating their arrangements abruptly (which can also work in your favor if you only need a limited engagement).
One size does not fit all.
Yes, big agencies have big resources, but don’t let claims of a national footprint, local presence, global reach, or head count sell you on an ill-matched relationship. Think expertise, applied experience in your market, and skillsets that dovetail with your agenda. Access to creative resources is a plus. Know how many hours are available to your account each week or month.
Who’s on the team?
This consideration also hinges on knowing what you want to accomplish. If you’re looking for a clip shop to get you mentioned in every low-value round-up article, then seniority matters little. But if you’ll need responsive counsel with expertise in and contacts spanning your market, look for senior-level account team members. Ask the tough questions: What’s the average tenure of your account team? Where have they worked? What companies have they represented? What results have they generated? How many former journalists are on staff? How many accounts do they manage at once?
Mind the old switch-a-roo.
Let’s assume you’re down to a few final candidates and are evaluating pitches. For these meetings, most agencies will send out the big guns––often including the person with his/her name on the door. But will you ever see or hear from these folks again? Many times, agencies get a bad rap by orchestrating a senior executive dog-and-pony show, only to later hand the account over to junior staffers (or even interns) who, while eager, often require more direction and a longer ramp-up period. Get firm commitments on your team’s composition, and don’t hesitate to challenge if you aren’t sold on the match. You want them to operate as an extension of your team.
Beware of scope creep.
Will the agencies you are considering be able to accommodate your needs as your marketing strategy evolves? If your program may eventually require social media support, make sure the agency of record has the capabilities––and not just an intern with a huge stable of Instagram followers, but applied expertise in cultivating an online presence with a custom mix of organic and paid content. Ditto for the media training and crisis communications mentioned earlier. Otherwise, you’ll be saddled with the chore of evaluating and enlisting additional vendors.
In the end, it’s entirely up to you, and highly dependent on your organization’s budget, processes, and requirements. And remember, the old adage, “Fast, cheap, or good? You can only pick two” applies here as well. If you want something fast and good, it won’t be cheap; if you want it cheap and good, it won’t be fast; and if you want cheap and fast, it won’t be good. Choose wisely.
by Chris Nerney | Jul 7, 2021 | Blog
Successful marketers are persuasive. Whatever their medium – print, audio, video – the content and messages they create consistently prompt their target audience to take action.
There are multiple schools of thought about effective marketing, not to mention plenty of marketing and copywriting “experts” (legit or self-proclaimed) willing to offer you their insights through books, online courses, subscription newsletters, and other revenue-generating vehicles. Many of them offer excellent advice.
But there also is a seemingly unlimited amount of free online advice offering sound tips and strategies for writing deeply persuasive marketing copy. The advice ranges from the theoretical to the practical. I’ve pulled together five that jumped out at me for one reason or another. They are in no particular order. Let’s get going.
Know your audience
OK, right off the bat I lied, which admittedly isn’t a great long-term marketing strategy. The truth is, this first item – know your audience – actually is the most important piece of advice on the list, which now (so far at least) has a semblance of order!
You simply can’t hone an effective marketing message if you don’t know who it’s intended to persuade. One copywriting advice guy I read says “the key to great copywriting is to like your audience.” I understand where he’s coming from, but I would instead suggest it’s better to understand your target audience, particularly their needs and pain points that could be addressed by your company’s products or services.
While liking them might help get you there, doing some research would be even more illuminating and productive. Another way to help sharpen your understanding of the target audience is to create a profile or persona based on demographic data.
Know your message (and tighten it)
You can’t market effectively if you 1) don’t know what you’re marketing and 2) how to explain it in various levels of detail. The latter can be particularly challenging for healthcare technology companies that have complex platforms or services. There’s a lot to explain! One cofounder I know told me he knows the exact moment when he loses potential customers as he tries to explain his startup’s technology: “I can see their eyes glaze over.”
Eye glazing is never a good sign. Make sure you can explain your technology – and, more importantly, what problems it can solve – clearly and concisely. That’s a struggle for some technologist entrepreneurs, which is why many of them hire marketing and PR professionals to help them shape and deliver their message.
Write about your audience (not about what you’re selling)
Your content needs to read as if you’re personally addressing your target audience, as if you can read their minds and are on their side. The best copywriting puts the focus on the needs of the audience, not the merits of a product or service. Yes, those eventually will have to be discussed, but only in the context of solving a problem for the potential buyer. At all times, it is about the customer. A lot of “you” in your marketing content goes a long way.
Write for your medium
How you write content for a 2,000-word white paper will be dramatically different than how you would write 150 words of web copy for a home page. People who sit down to read a white paper they downloaded have different expectations than those who are surfing around looking for something to interest them – or a solution to their problems.
For the former, you have room to delve into how your technology works, how it applies to various use cases, etc. You can geek out. In the latter case, your mission is to capture readers’ attention and keep them on your site. That requires the equivalent of emotionally hard-hitting ad copy that leads to data capture, lead generation, and potential customers.
Invite a conversation
Granted, you can’t do this with every marketing asset. But a steady social media presence can enable you to have an ongoing dialog with members of your target market. There may not be an immediate revenue payoff, but social media is about the long game. It’s for building relationships, encouraging engagement, learning about your customers, and establishing a consistent voice for your brand. Writing for social media should be relatively informal and conversational.
Conclusion
Marketers have more tools and channels than ever for connecting with existing and potential customers. To get the most out of your marketing strategy and efforts, you must understand your target audience, know how to talk to them (depending on the medium), know what to say to them, and be eager to listen and learn.
by Grace Vinton | Aug 19, 2020 | Blog
Many healthcare technology companies are choosing to rebrand because of the impact that the novel coronavirus has had on the healthcare ecosphere. Capabilities or focus points which may not have been on the forefront before this year-long industry earthquake are now front and center. Clear company identities and market differentiators have never been more important.
When rebranding, there are 5 strategic public relations best practices that you will want to make sure you are clear on before finalizing your overall rebranding
marketing efforts and plans.
Messaging. The most common misunderstanding I have come up against when working on rebranding a company from a public relations perspective is that many communicators – even long time marketing seniors – are entirely unaware that there is a difference between marketing messaging (often, product messaging) and public relations messaging. They are sisters, not twins, folks!
Some questions that I often ask to get to the bottom of the public relations messaging rebranding efforts include: What is it that you want to convey from a
thought leadership level to the public? How does this back up your business goals and objectives and overarching communications goals and objectives?
Typically, when these questions are answered, it can be a fairly simple process to start development on a “moving” public relations messaging document that will grow and evolve as the company grows and evolves.
Audience. Do not forget to think about the people who will be impacted by your rebranding. It is important to get the message into the right hands and ears.
Who are your customers? Who are your customers’ customers? What matters to them? How are they acquiring information? Social media? A certain publication?
Being clear on the answer to these questions can help promote a strategic public relations strategy when rebranding. Showing in-depth knowledge of your
customers and customers’ customers pain points on a public scale can be impactful for building the overall credibility of your rebranded company in the
public’s eye.
Thought Leadership. What can you speak to other than your business offerings that props up the depth and breadth of your company’s position in the market?
In this vein, I often recommend that clients take time to work together to articulate which areas of the market their products impact indirectly that can be a strategic topic of reference for the company to react to on a public scale. It really helps to get specific here. Listing thought leadership topics and corresponding messages that support your company’s overarching messages can be invaluable to being ready and able to pursue high impact reputation building messages in front of the public’s eye. Be willing to tell the story of “why” the rebranding was important given the current state of the industry.
100% Buy-in across company segments. You need to make sure every sector of the company is very clear on the new messaging and branding statements. It is vitally important to get buy-in from each segment on every word and punctuation mark.
Once you do, offering each segment of a company a document or visual on how the new branding impacts how they talk about the company or how they will do their job moving forward can be helpful in getting everyone on the same page.
Buy-in needs to happen on every level from the CEO to the janitor. Each employee needs to be clear on what the company does and the best way to explain that to
whoever they need to explain it to.
Pipeline tactic development: Once you have rebranded, you also need to take good look at current tactics and pipelines to determine if they are supporting the new look and/or descriptors that you have chosen for your company.
Old communication, marketing, public relations tactics may have worked for your old way of thinking about what you did, but there may be pivots you need to take to
support the updated messaging and overall look of the company. I can’t tell you how many stories I’ve heard about rebranding where major sales documents were
not updated, yet still used, mostly due to confusion on the branding, how it effects the company, and why it matters.
Each sector of the company needs to look at the way they are doing their jobs in light of the rebranding efforts and determine if old ways of thinking need some
updating. Keep these recommendations in mind when developing your public relations strategy during a company rebranding effort. All healthcare
technology companies should take a good look at their company identity in this season.
Whether or not your company is taking on a full-on rebranding effort, it’s helpful to keep these best practices in mind.
