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Amendola Brings Home 3 Awards for Outstanding Health Tech PR & Marketing Programs

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Leading Healthcare, health tech-focused agency also a finalist for Ragan PR Daily Agency of the Year

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., Nov. 14, 2023 – Amendola Communications (Amendola), a nationally recognized, award-winning healthcare technology and life sciences public relations and marketing firm, has won three MarCom awards and is a finalist for Agency of the Year in another top awards program.

Amendola won two Platinums and one Gold in the Public Relations category of the MarCom Awards, one of the largest global creative competitions in the world. The first Platinum was for work the agency did on behalf of KeyCare, the nation’s first virtual care platform built with Epic’s EHR platform. Amendola designed and executed a strategic PR plan that successfully launched the startup in a crowded marketplace, including creating sales material, an e-book, news release, and securing multiple interviews and article placements.

“We chose to work with Amendola because their people are great and they have a long track record of success in healthcare,” said Lyle Berkowitz, MD, CEO of KeyCare. “As a new company in a crowded space, we needed to make sure every one of our potential clients knew who we were and how we were different. Amendola came through amazingly well by navigating us through strategy, helping us create fantastic content and ensuring a huge array of placements. As a result, our message is getting across, clients know who we are, and our company is growing tremendously.” 

The second Platinum win in MarCom’s PR category was for helping DrFirst launch an awards program to recognize healthcare organizations using technology in innovative ways to improve patient care. Gaining recognition for a new awards program in a field crowded with them required Amendola to call upon its years of experience and solid relationships throughout the industry.

“Our collaboration with Amendola has spanned several years, and their expertise ensured a strong launch for our Healthiverse Heroes Awards, as well as well-deserved attention for the honorees,” said G. Cameron Deemer, CEO of DrFirst.

Amendola won Gold in the PR category for helping Equality Health showcase its value-based care model by writing compelling thought leadership articles and placing them in leading healthcare industry publications.

Amendola also has been named one of four finalists for Ragan PR Daily’s Content Marketing Awards’ prestigious Agency of the Year. This competition honors the most effective and productive teams in public relations and marketing. The winner will be announced at the end of November.  

“What a wonderful way to celebrate our 20th anniversary,” said agency CEO Jodi Amendola. “Winning the three MarCom awards and being named a finalist for Agency of the Year is the result of two decades of refining our practices and honing our skills to produce the best possible results for our clients. We’re proud and excited to be recognized for our hard work and dedication and look forward to continued success.”

About Amendola

Amendola is an award-winning, insights-driven public relations and marketing firm that integrates media relations, social media, content and lead gen programs to move healthcare, life sciences/pharma and healthcare IT decision-makers to action. The agency represents some of the industry’s best-known brands as well as groundbreaking startups that are disrupting the status quo. Nearly 90% of its client base represents multi-year clients and/or repeat client executives. Amendola’s seasoned team of PR and marketing pros understand the ongoing complexities of the healthcare ecosystem and provide strategic guidance and creative direction to drive positive ROI, boost reputation and increase market share. Making an impact since 2003, Amendola combines traditional and digital media to fuel meaningful and measurable growth. For more information about the industry’s “A-Team,” visit www.acmarketingpr.com, and follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Media Contact:

Marcia G. Rhodes, mrhodes@acmarketingpr.com

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And The Award Winner Is…You!

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Industry awards that recognize a company’s achievement are a valuable, yet sometimes overlooked, component of a successful PR campaign. Winning is fun – but that’s not the only reason to consider seeking industry recognition for your organization, products and services, and employees.

Winning an industry award is an excellent way to promote your brand and build credibility, as well as strengthen your employee recruitment and retention efforts.

Companies seeking award opportunities have an endless number of options, including awards that highlight specific products or campaigns, or honor the outstanding achievements of an individual or organization.

Not sure that seeking awards is worth the time and effort? Consider some key benefits of winning an industry award:

  1. Elevates your brand. When you win an award, you raise awareness of your company or products in the industry, which is especially beneficial for lesser-known players in the market.
  2. Builds credibility. Winning an award from an independent third party may carry more weight than the words of your best company spokesperson. Many awards include a serious vetting process, requiring the company to provide detailed information on the organization, its products, leadership team and overall success. Having outside validation can help customers and prospects feel comfortable that they are making the right choice when selecting your company and its solutions.
  3. Increases employee morale. Everyone likes a winner, including your employees. Winning an industry award can improve employees’ morale and camaraderie, especially if they are involved in the entry process. Furthermore, being an award-winning organization can help with employee recruitment and retaining existing staff.
  4. Creates new PR fodder. Once you’ve been named a winner, you can get the PR wagon rolling to realize big benefits. Make sure your employees, customers and prospects know about your achievement, perhaps starting with a press release highlighting the news. Add a blog post to your website summarizing the reasons you were selected over other worthy applicants. Consider sending an email blast to further amplify the message with customers, prospects, and investors, and note the win in your company newsletter. Don’t forget your social media channels and ask your employees to repost the news as well.

Once you are convinced of the benefits, you will find no shortage of award opportunities. To narrow your choices, consider your key objectives. For example, if you want to raise awareness of your company and products for potential prospects, awards that are tied to your industry vertical might be the best option. Often these awards are sponsored by trade publications, such as Becker’s Hospital Review and Modern Healthcare for healthcare and health IT organizations.  

If your focus is attracting and retaining top talent, look for awards that honor the achievements of individual contributors, or consider one of the many Best Places to Work awards. Some of these programs are segmented by industry, while others target specific geographic regions.

Another way to find relevant awards is to check your competitors’ websites and see if they have been recognized by any programs that align with your goals. Professional associations, such as HIMSS in healthcare or PRSA in public relations, also have award programs that target the talents and achievements of their members. Finally, if you work with a public relations firm, ask your PR professional to help research opportunities on your behalf.

As you identify options, you will realize that application processes vary from fairly simple online forms with no entry fees, to programs with rigorous guidelines, pricey entry fees, and detailed applications that take considerable time to complete. Before applying, vet the various programs by researching previous winners and making sure the program sponsors adequately recognized winners across social media and/or in press releases. Finally, to ensure success, make sure you dedicate sufficient resources to prepare a high-quality application. And if you need tips for writing an award-winning award entry, check out a few here.

Industry awards can give your business a PR boost that supports organizational goals and raises awareness with your target audience. Winning awards is also fun – but as the saying goes, you can’t win if you don’t play!

Thought Leadership Strategies Are Crucial For Startups And Disruptors

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The first-to-market companies who see a problem or need and develop tech to expertly solve it, aren’t always the ones that win in the marketplace. Why? Because they often are so focused on doing the good work that they miss the opportunity to broadcast their success to the world. They fail to achieve recognition and get the credit they are due as first-movers and capture mindshare, while others flood the market with similar technology, bigger budgets and gain market share.

That’s why thought leadership marketing and communications strategies are crucial to startups and first-to-market disruptors to give a startup street cred and drive online awareness in the marketplace.

Thought leadership will continue to be crucial strategy in the B2B tech space. It’s a go-to strategy anytime technology is transforming, modernizing and disrupting. This is happening in a lot of industries right now — especially in healthcare — where the pandemic has ignited long-overdue, massive digital transformation, from the back office to the OR and to connective home care to life sciences. 

In working with a range of healthcare tech companies from startups to publicly traded entities, our recommended thought leadership campaigns include strategies to drive credibility and massive awareness with targeted audiences and the general public. Campaigns typically include strategic news/content, analyst relations, collaborations, awards, high-profile speaking engagements and, of course, focused efforts to secure earned media coverage for client thought leaders and subject matter experts through interviews, podcasts, webinars, and contributed byline articles.

Many of our clients have seen a white space opportunity — such as a chronic challenge in healthcare — and have solved it with tech. That’s leadership! Creating thought leaders within the client organizations who can share their expertise, amplify and broadcast their solution stories, and even help other peers by sharing their learning, is powerful.

Here are some thought leadership strategy tips to consider:

Analyst Relations

We all know these firms by name – Gartner, IDC, Forrester, CBInsights, Frost & Sullivan, KLAS, and Constellation Research, among many others. They provide consultative services and publish helpful reports that are distributed to their paid client base to help organizations understand the latest technology solutions, where and why to apply these solutions, who the tech vendors are, how they stack up and who to consider in a technology purchase decision. The job of industry analyst is challenging – they have to stay on top of all the many players in several niche areas, even as new players pop up every nanosecond.

  • Tip #1: analysts and their teams take introductory briefing calls to get to know new vendors, which is a smart first step to being included in an upcoming report – earned analyst relations (AR) exposure. 
  • Tip #2: understand your prospects and which firms they rely on the most as analyst firms can play niche roles.  For example, KLAS is among the top trusted resource in healthcare!

Collaborations

As consumers, we see these regularly in the mass market. Right now the hottest collaborations include Cheetos and Kentucky Fried Chicken…Sharpie and Nike…Lego and the streaming series Stranger Things. The formula behind this idea is 1 plus 1 equal more than the sum of the parts, and that brands and businesses can borrow the credibility and equity of each other, shape an exciting and creative story, capture media attention and drive awareness and buzz.

That principle holds true in B2B marketing and communications too. Beyond the obvious – a vendor and a client coming together to tell their success story — we’ve seen creative forces come together for webinars, high-profile speaking engagements and social media and PR campaigns. One of the best examples was in 2011 when Ford and Toyota – two thought leaders in the newly disruptive automotive tech space – teamed up to innovate on hybrid cars.  In healthcare, two thought leaders in a specific movement, say value-based care and AI tech — that aren’t in direct competition for the same geography or niche application space, could join forces to help drive the change. Again, 1+1=3!

  • Tip #1: be creative and look for alignment to execute a mutually beneficial, cohesive collaboration and together tell a powerful industry-changing story.
  • Tip #2: if you come together for a webinar or speaking engagement, don’t stop there! Be sure to repurpose that high-value content, maximizing it across as many paid, earned, social, and owned (PESO) channels as possible. So drawing from the webinar content, consider doing a co-bylined blog post or contributed article, an exclusive co-interview with a media outlet, and social posts tagging each other.

Recognition

Submit your thought leadership work for awards which are not only feel-good recognition for the team, but also lend credibility and generate earned coverage and online buzz. Awards from prestigious organizations like Inc., Fortune, CNN, Forbes and Fast Company and industry-specific awards from the likes of Modern Healthcare or Fierce Healthcare offer high-profile cache and elevate a company’s brand.

  • Tip #1: tell a story in your award application in a way that people will enjoy reading. Recently creating application content, I ran into a question – describe your company to a Martian – which I thought was a stellar approach to demystify the company’s technology story. It forced us to tell the story in new ways and that content made its way back into other channels like the website, sales collateral and more.
  • Tip #2: showcase real-world impact, especially with data, stats and metrics, to round out your application story.

As long as technology continues to advance – AI, ML, VR, G5/6G and more – and startups keep disrupting industries, thought leadership strategies will be an integral part of any successful PR program. From what we can tell, that’s not easing up any time soon.

Amendola Communications Wins Three MarCom Awards

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Boutique Healthcare & Health Tech PR Firm Wins Two Golds and an Honorable Mention for Campaigns for ABOUT, Verana Health and 4medica.   

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., Nov. 1, 2022 – Amendola Communications, a nationally recognized healthcare and technology public relations and marketing firm, has won three MarCom Awards for work on behalf of clients.

Amendola won Gold for campaigns for ABOUT and Verana Health and an Honorable Mention for work for 4medica. The annual international awards sponsored by the Association of Marketing and Communications Professionals honor excellence in marketing and communications.  

“We’re thrilled to win the MarCom Awards,” said agency Chief Executive Officer Jodi Amendola. “While we measure our success in the results we produce for clients, recognition from your peers is gratifying because they, better than anyone, know how much work and creativity goes into a winning campaign.”

Amendola won Gold for helping ABOUT (formerly Central Logic) raise awareness of the importance of care orchestration. Amendola created a 120-day plan that shaped the narrative with key stakeholders and established ABOUT’s reputation as a thought leader in care access and orchestration. Tactics included press releases, byline articles, executive interviews, blog posts, and social media.

Amendola’s second Gold was for its work promoting the launch of Verana Health’s VeraQ™ population health data engine and curated, disease- and therapeutic-specific Qdata™ modules in three therapeutic areas. Amendola helped to position VeraQ and Qdata as a source for quality insights, specifically targeting trade press within three medical specialties. Tactics included: press releases, blog posts authored by clinical experts, targeted media outreach and interviews, social media promotion, and analyst meetings through which Amendola positioned Verana Health as a key innovator.

The Honorable Mention was for helping 4medica raise awareness among healthcare providers of patient safety problems caused by duplicate records and how 4medica can solve them. Amendola created and executed a comprehensive plan to put the problem squarely on the radar of the target audience and position 4medica as a solution. Tactics included: press releases, bylined articles in relevant media outlets, interviews, blog posts, social media and email campaigns.

Amendola also won two Golds and an Honorable Mention in the 2019 MarCom Awards.

Amendola has built a loyal customer base among the healthcare, health IT and life sciences industries by delivering significant, measurable results for healthcare, healthcare tech and pharma-focused organizations, many of whose leaders have hired us at successive companies. To see other awards Amendola has won and to learn more about the agency, click here.  

About MarCom Awards

MarCom Awards honors excellence in marketing and communication while recognizing the creativity, hard work, and generosity of industry professionals. Since its inception in 2004, MarCom has evolved into one of the largest, most-respected creative competitions in the world. Each year about 6,500 print and digital entries are submitted from dozens of countries. MarCom is administered by the Association of Marketing and Communication Professionals (AMCP). The international organization, founded in 1995, consists of several thousand marketing, communication, advertising, public relations, digital, and web professionals. AMCP administers recognition programs, provides judges, and rewards outstanding achievement and service to the community. Entrants are not charged entry fees for work they create pro bono for nonprofits. In the past few years alone, AMCP has contributed more than $250,000 to charitable causes.

About Amendola

Amendola is an award-winning, insights-driven public relations and marketing firm that integrates media relations, social media, content and lead gen programs to move healthcare, life sciences/pharma and healthcare IT decision-makers to action. The agency represents some of the industry’s best-known brands as well as groundbreaking startups that are disrupting the status quo. Nearly 90% of its client base represents multi-year clients and/or repeat client executives. Amendola’s seasoned team of PR and marketing pros understand the ongoing complexities of the healthcare ecosystem and provide strategic guidance and creative direction to drive positive ROI, boost reputation and increase market share. Making an impact since 2003, Amendola combines traditional and digital media to fuel meaningful and measurable growth. For more information about the industry’s “A-Team,” visit www.acmarketingpr.com, and follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Media Contact:

Marcia Rhodes

Amendola Communications

mrhodes@acmarketingpr.com

Bulldog PR Awards 2022 Honors Amendola for HSBlox Value-Based Care Campaign

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SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. July 7, 2022 – Amendola announced today that it has won a 2022 Bulldog PR Award in the Best Thought Leadership category for its HSBlox campaign, solidifying the company’s reputation as a top public relations (PR) and marketing communications agency for healthcare and health IT. The Bulldog PR Awards, which celebrate the best and brightest corporate communications and PR efforts, honored Amendola with a Bronze award for a campaign it developed to increase awareness of HSBlox in the value-based care (VBC) space.

The overarching goal of the campaign was to communicate the challenges of VBC models and the ways in which HSBlox uses contract modeling, network build-out, contract administration, permissioned data exchange and payment technologies to integrate traditional medical networks with non-medical ones (i.e., social services agencies, community-based organizations) to bring VBC administration to fruition. Amendola set on a course of creating third-party references by engaging industry analysts and media outlets. The firm researched top healthcare industry analysts, reporters and publications covering VBC, social determinants of health (SDOH), and health equity. Amendola then built a weekly cadence of media campaigns, alternating among proactive, issues-based pitching; HSBlox news; and thought leadership. 

Amendola drafted pitches and contributed content that added new elements to the media and analyst coverage over the last few years.  For example, while most coverage focused on the need to address SDOH in VBC program models, fewer articles discussed the challenges of incorporating digitized unstructured data in a way that made it part of a patient’s entire medical record for whole-person health. Lastly, Amendola pitched briefings with top analyst firms covering VBC and the payer markets. 

The campaign secured 17 briefings with eight different analyst firms over a 10-month period. Those briefings resulted in four analyst reports or blog posts, 19 pieces of vendor-neutral contributed content, and five podcast appearances. 

“We are proud to be recognized for the hard work that our team put into executing this brand awareness campaign,” said agency CEO, Jodi Amendola. “Our PR initiatives enabled HSBlox sales leaders to leverage the earned content created by the campaign to escort prospects through the sales funnel and underscore the importance of the digital infrastructure needed to successfully achieve VBC models.”

About Amendola

Amendola is an award-winning, insights-driven public relations and marketing firm that integrates media relations, social media, content and lead gen programs to move healthcare, life sciences/pharma and healthcare IT decision-makers to action. The agency represents some of the industry’s best-known brands as well as groundbreaking startups that are disrupting the status quo. Nearly 90% of its client base represents multi-year clients and/or repeat client executives. Amendola’s seasoned team of PR and marketing pros understand the ongoing complexities of the healthcare ecosystem and provide strategic guidance and creative direction to drive positive ROI, boost reputation and increase market share. Making an impact since 2003, Amendola combines traditional and digital media to fuel meaningful and measurable growth. For more information about the industry’s “A-Team,” visit www.acmarketingpr.com, and follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.

About HSBlox

HSBlox is an Atlanta-based technology company empowering healthcare organizations with the tools and support to deliver value-based care (VBC) successfully and sustainably.  HSBlox’s CureAlign® platform enables healthcare organizations to administer value-based programs, including contract modeling, network build-out, contract administration, permissioned data exchange and payment. Recently, the company released CureAlign 3.5, combining its Contract Builder and modeling capabilities with its Contract Library for seamless deployment of value-based programs. Along with CureAlign’s one-of-a-kind hierarchical approach to VBC participant onboarding, alternative payment models can combine global reimbursement programs with episode-specific arrangements to deliver unparalleled transparency in pursuit of the Quintuple Aim for healthcare improvement.

Follow HSBlox on LinkedIn to see the latest about value-based program administration or visit www.hsblox.com to read more about scaling of value-based programs.

Media contact:

Marcia Rhodes

Amendola Communications

mrhodes@acmarketingpr.com

Bulldog Awards Honors Amendola Communications for Appriss Health OpenBeds Media Campaign

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SCOTTSDALE, Ariz.—June 3, 2021 – Amendola Communications today announced it has won a Bulldog PR Award in the Best Healthcare Campaign category, further enhancing the company’s reputation as a top, innovative public relations (PR) and marketing communications agency for healthcare and health IT.

Bulldog Awards, the only PR awards program judged exclusively by journalists, honored Amendola with a 2021 PR Silver Award for a media campaign designed to raise the profile of Appriss Health through coverage of OpenBeds, an Appriss subsidiary that offers a comprehensive behavioral health capacity management and referral technology solution to help create trusted treatment networks that improve support and care delivery to patients in need.

“We are elated to be recognized for the creativity and energy our team put into this campaign, especially in a year with a record number of entries,” said agency CEO, Jodi Amendola. “Given how COVID-19 dominated healthcare news in 2020, raising the profile of a client focused on substance abuse solutions was a challenge. But our team did a superb job of telling the inspiring story of OpenBeds and, in the process, building awareness of Appriss Health as a public health partner for states to address substance abuse and behavioral health needs.”

Amendola’s strategy leveraged Appriss Health Senior Vice President and OpenBeds Co-founder Nishi Rawat, MD, whose experience as a critical care physician unable to connect patients with needed behavioral healthcare inspired her to start OpenBeds in 2015 with her father, a systems engineer. Dr. Rawat’s compelling story and the work done by OpenBeds would fill a growing need among healthcare journalists for compelling COVID stories.

The plan called for outreach to local media as well as to national health and trade media, with a focus on reporters and publications covering issues related to the opioid crisis and mental health. In addition to more traditional article coverage, the campaign aimed to tell a broader story of growing state efforts and proposing data-based story ideas.

Amendola also pursued a thought leadership strategy, creating bylined content for Appriss Health leadership. These included an op-ed on the need for action to address the opioid crisis amid the COVID-19 pandemic for its president that ran in Appriss Health’s hometown newspaper, the Louisville Courier-Journal, a commentary by Dr. Rawat on the need for increased access to medication-assisted treatment published on KevinMD, and a piece calling for expanded naloxone availability by Appriss Health’s pharmacy leader.

The Amendola campaign for Appriss Health generated overwhelmingly positive media exposure. Sentiment analysis by Meltwater shows that 87.1% of media coverage of the company was positive (with 0% negative coverage), while OpenBeds garnered 91.49% positive coverage and no negative coverage.

Amendola secured 27 media placements for Appriss Health in 2020, along with 18 for OpenBeds and 10 for Appriss. Total media coverage of Appriss Health last year reached a potential 8.52 million readers. The vast majority of those potential readers (6.03 million) were earned in the fourth quarter as the campaign began to show results.

The Bulldog Awards are run by Bulldog Reporter, the publishing arm of Agility PR Solutions, a provider of media database, monitoring, and PR measurement solutions designed to simplify the communications lifecycle. These annual awards celebrate excellence in public relations and communications. Any professionals involved in public relations, communications, marketing, social media, branding, product management, sales and investor relations are eligible.

About Amendola

Amendola is an award-winning, insights-driven public relations and marketing firm that integrates media relations, social media, content and lead-gen programs to move healthcare, life sciences/pharma and healthcare IT decision-makers to action. The agency represents some of the industry’s best-known brands, as well as groundbreaking startups that are disrupting the status quo. Nearly 90% of its client base represents multi-year clients and/or repeat client executives. Amendola’s seasoned team of PR and marketing pros understand the ongoing complexities of the healthcare ecosystem and provide strategic guidance and creative direction to drive positive ROI, boost reputation and increase market share. Making an impact since 2003, Amendola combines traditional and digital media to fuel meaningful and measurable growth. For more information about the industry’s “A-Team,” visit www.acmarketingpr.com, and follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.

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

Hermes Creative Awards Top Honors to Amendola Communications for Kaufman Hall Media Response Campaign During Pandemic

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SCOTTSDALE, Ariz.—May 18, 2021 – Amendola Communications today announced it has won a Hermes Creative Award, further enhancing the company’s reputation as a leading innovative public relations (PR) and marketing communications agency for healthcare and health IT.

The Hermes Creative Awards, one of the oldest and largest competitions in the world, honored Amendola with a 2021 Platinum Winner statuette for a Media Response campaign on behalf of Kaufman Hall, which provides business strategy, operational, and financial consulting services to healthcare organizations. Amendola’s award came in the Media Relations section of the Public Relations/Communications category. Platinum is the highest award given in the competition.

“We are thrilled to be recognized for the hard work and creativity our team put into this campaign,” said Jodi Amendola, CEO of Amendola. “During the pandemic, it was critical for hospitals and health systems to have public support and for policymakers to understand the immense challenges these frontline organizations were facing. Our campaign enabled Kaufman Hall to achieve its goal of advocating for hospitals and health systems during COVID-19 and raising its profile.”

As the pandemic spread around the globe, Kaufman Hall management experts began advising financial executives in various sectors on the coronavirus’ impact and what they could do to respond. For healthcare executives, Kaufman Hall focused on the pandemic’s effect on treasury markets and liquidity and how hospitals and health systems should react. For higher education leaders, Kaufman Hall offered advice on tuition planning, international students and e-learning, while consulting financial institutions on reforecasting, scenario planning analysis, and credit and liquidity risk evaluations.​

The company needed a way to increase awareness of COVID-related financial and operational consulting services in those industries. Amendola launched an aggressive campaign in April 2020 to position Kaufman Hall as experts on the financial impact of the pandemic and highlight its consulting work for clients. While Amendola had extensive relationships with healthcare publications and writers, the agency also had to implement strategies to attain placements in consumer, financial, and regional publications.
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Amendola’s PR and media relations campaign, which ran through December 2020, was a huge success. Among the prominent consumer and trade publication placements earned by the campaign were:

Other media outlets successfully targeted by Amendola for Kaufman Hall included Managed Healthcare Executive, MedCity News, Kaiser Health News, Consumer Affairs, The Bond Buyer, and Bank Business News. The total number of unique monthly visitors to the news sites where Amendola earned placements for its client was nearly 43 million.

Now in its 15th year, Hermes Creative Awards is sponsored by the Association of Marketing and Communication Professionals, which engages senior-level experienced professionals to serve as competition judges who evaluate the creative industry’s best publications, branding collateral, websites, videos, and advertising, marketing, and communication programs.

About Amendola

Amendola is an award-winning, insights-driven public relations and marketing firm that integrates media relations, social media, content and lead-gen programs to move healthcare, life sciences/pharma and healthcare IT decision-makers to action. The agency represents some of the industry’s best-known brands, as well as groundbreaking startups that are disrupting the status quo. Nearly 90% of its client base represents multi-year clients and/or repeat client executives. Amendola’s seasoned team of PR and marketing pros understand the ongoing complexities of the healthcare ecosystem and provide strategic guidance and creative direction to drive positive ROI, boost reputation and increase market share. Making an impact since 2003, Amendola combines traditional and digital media to fuel meaningful and measurable growth. For more information about the industry’s “A-Team,” visit www.acmarketingpr.com, and follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Media Contact:    
Marcia G. Rhodes | Amendola Communications | 480.664.8412 ext. 15 | mrhodes@acmarketingpr.com   

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Amendola Named Finalist in 2020 Platinum PR Awards

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Agency honored for its work on Air Methods’ No Membership Required program

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., Oct. 22, 2020—Amendola Communications, a nationally recognized, award-winning healthcare and technology public relations and marketing agency, announced today that it has been named a finalist in PR News’ 2020 Platinum PR Awards for its strategic integrated PR, social media and digital campaign with Air Methods, a leading national air medical services company. This distinction is one of several awards the agency has earned in recent years for its ability to develop high-value content for healthcare organizations that speaks to market needs.

Amendola focused on establishing Air Methods as a leader in reforming the air medical services industry with its No Membership Required (NMR) program, created to eliminate unnecessary air medical memberships for patients and shift the focus to going in-network with health insurance companies throughout the U.S. The primary goal was to educate the public about Air Methods’ efforts and demonstrate the company’s thought leadership in industry best practices, billing reform and clinical innovation.

“Collaborating with Air Methods on this important NMR campaign is vital to paving the way for necessary changes to eliminate unnecessary memberships for patients/consumers,” said agency CEO Jodi Amendola. “We’re honored that our hard work and impressive outcomes have been recognized by PR News. The results of this campaign really speak for themselves: our aggressive outreach and content development generated 209 organic media placements and our digital campaign earned more than 21 million video plays, 25 million impressions, and more than 21 million post engagements. Most importantly, this campaign and our overall partnership with Air Methods, has led to increased awareness of the company as a visionary leader and industry trendsetter in the air medical services industry.”

With extensive media outreach, the NMR campaign outlined Air Methods’ commitment to continued high-quality air medical services as well as its focus on eliminating potential financial burdens for its patients. Amendola skillfully communicated this message to show what Air Methods has done to revolutionize medical care in the air and serve as patient advocates.

“The Amendola/Air Methods partnership has shown results from the beginning,” said Dallan Huff, Air Methods senior vice president of Marketing and Communications.  “As the first air medical company to eliminate air medical memberships, we knew we would be plowing new ground and Amendola was critical in ensuring our success.  They were able to help us create a strong narrative on why memberships were the past and how Air Methods was leading the industry into the future.”

In addition to sharing article placements with a wide audience, a nonstop stream of social media posts delivered positive, consistent and constructive messaging that promoted the NMR program itself along with the underlying principles behind it. Amendola curated content from a wide variety of sources, even some that had been critical of prior industry practices, to further the message that Air Methods was at the tip of the spear for reforming the way the business side of emergency air transport is delivered.

PR News’ Platinum PR Awards celebrate the ingenuity and leadership behind the year’s most outstanding communications initiatives. Platinum PR Award winners set industry benchmarks for excellence across all areas of PR.

About Amendola Communications

Amendola is an award-winning, insights-driven public relations and marketing firm that integrates media relations, social media, content and lead gen programs to move healthcare, life sciences/pharma and healthcare IT decision-makers to action. The agency represents some of the industry’s best-known brands as well as groundbreaking startups that are disrupting the status quo. Nearly 90% of its client base represents multi-year clients and/or repeat client executives. Amendola’s seasoned team of PR and marketing pros understand the ongoing complexities of the healthcare ecosystem and provide strategic guidance and creative direction to drive positive ROI, boost reputation and increase market share. Making an impact since 2003, Amendola combines traditional and digital media to fuel meaningful and measurable growth. For more information about the industry’s “A-Team,” visit www.acmarketingpr.com, and follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Media Contact: Marcia G. Rhodes; mrhodes@acmarketingpr.com

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

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

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

AIR METHODS

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

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

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

VOCERA COMMUNICATIONS

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

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

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

About Amendola  
Amendola is an award-winning national public relations, marketing communications, digital and content marketing firm. Named one of the best information technology (IT) PR firms in the nation four times by PRSourceCode, Amendola represents some of the best-known brands and groundbreaking startups in the healthcare and HIT industries. Amendola’s seasoned team of PR and marketing pros delivers strategic guidance and effective solutions to help organizations boost their reputation and drive market share. For more information about the PR industry’s “A Team,” visit”https://www.acmarketingpr.com, and follow Amendola on Twitter and LinkedIn. 

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

Amendola Communications CEO Jodi Amendola Named One of PR News Top Women in PR for 2017

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SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. December 13, 2017 Amendola Communications CEO and co-founder Jodi Amendola has been named to PR News list of the Top Women in PR for 2017. The prestigious award recognizes women executives who have made bold advances in managing crises, developing brand messages, protecting and building brand reputations, and creating content for digital platforms.

Jodi AmendolaOther honorees include PR executives from the world’s biggest public relations agencies, as well as communications leaders at some of the world’s best-known companies, including Microsoft, T-Mobile, FedEx, Nissan, General Motors, GE, Southwest Airlines, Bayer and Samsung.

Jodi is an accomplished leader with 25 years of experience in developing, implementing and executing high-impact, integrated business-to-business public relations and marketing campaigns. Beginning in 2003, she pioneered an agency focused squarely on the burgeoning healthcare information technology sector. Over the next decade, Jodi transformed a boutique agency with a handful of small clients into the healthcare IT industry’s recognized PR leader a national, full-service public relations and marketing agency serving dozens of technology innovators ranging from early-stage startups to large public companies.

A hands-on leader, Jodi provides strategic direction and ongoing involvement in all phases of client public relations and marketing programs. She embodies the “client-first” dedication and “get-it-done” attitude that makes Amendola Communications both a fun workplace and a collaborative learning environment. Thanks to Jodi’s inspirational leadership and values, clients find that Amendola Communications is more than just an agency, as demonstrated by the partnership mentality and commitment to excellence shared by every member of her team.

“I’m honored to join this remarkable group of accomplished women,” said Jodi Amendola. “It’s been an amazing PR journey. I am so thankful for the many mentors, clients, business associates, employees and family members who have supported me along the way. I look forward to achieving more milestones and to continuing to help healthcare and healthcare IT companies expand their market dominance and industry thought leadership.”

Jodi and the Amendola Communications team are available to discuss your public relations and marketing needs, including media relations, content marketing, branding, digital marketing, search engine marketing, website design and development, and social media. For more information, please visit www.acmarketingpr.com or email jamendola@acmarketingpr.com.

 

Media Contact:Marcia Rhodes | Amendola Communications | mrhodes@acmarketingpr.com |602-793-1561