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There are many good PR and marketing reasons to write books

Don’t Judge a Book by Its Sales: Tips for turning your book into a relationship magnet

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Why should you write a book? Most busy tech executives have a hundred good reasons why they can’t spare the time for books. Their PR advisers may be tempted to concur since PR performance is judged largely on the quantity of placements secured. After all, why spend months writing one 80,000-word book when you could write 100 800-word articles for a variety of online publications?

Yet a book’s value exceeds that of even dozens of articles. With a book, you can dive into your topic in much more detail than you ever could with online content. Sure, it might not sell but sales aren’t the point: books are tools for establishing you and your company as thought leaders. They’re magnets for relationship building. An expert who is confident and knowledgeable enough to set her expertise in stone with a book will win instant credibility in the eyes of potential partners, clients and customers.

Books also achieve a few very important goals in PR:

  • Books are assets that you can share with brand advocates, customers, prospects, investors, and industry stakeholders.
  • Books can attract other opportunities to you and your company. Conference organizers, for instance, are much more likely to give a keynote to the author of a respected book even if it doesn’t sell well than to a book-less competitor.
  • A book can build trust by positioning your company as having a knowledge-based environment, rather than one focused on sales alone.

The key to making the most of a book is good promotion. At Amendola, while we don’t specialize in book promotion, we’ve learned over the years how to augment the distribution and promotion efforts of book publishers to drive PR value.

Below is a sampling of the tactics we use in helping our clients draw attention to their books and leverage them for relationship building:

  • Send the book to key journalists and bloggers and request a book review (ideally) as well as offering the author for an interview on the book’s topic
  • Pitch the author as an expert on the topic, with the book as proof of their expertise. Broadcast media love interviewing authors with new ideas.
  • Do a Google Hangout with the author to promote the book
  • Run a Tweetchat with the author leveraging a major partner hashtag to drive attendance
  • Turn the book chapters into a webinar series, with each chapter or section a separate webinar. Give the book away as enticement to register for the webinar.
  • Turn the book into blog posts: one for each chapter or section, and link to the book at the end of each post
  • Arm all salespeople with several hard-copy versions of the book as leave-behinds, or use book giveaways to drive a Salesforce email campaign to prospects in their territories
  • Hand out the book at all events where you exhibit, as well as at your end-user conference
  • Email the book to attendees at webinars, trade shows or seminars as a follow-up
  • Write a LinkedIn status update about the book and post a link to it in groups where prospects congregate.
  • Pull out keys facts or items of interest from the book and tweet those on Twitter with a link to the book and a popular related hashtag
  • Include the book in your email signature, with a link to download it for free.

If this short list helps convince you to write a book, give us a shout. We can help.

Vocera Taps Amendola for Public Relations, Social Media, and Content Marketing Strategy & Execution

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Amendola Communications, a nationally recognized, award-winning healthcare and healthcare IT public relations and marketing agency, announced today that it has been selected as the agency of record for Vocera Communications, Inc. (NYSE:VCRA). Amendola will provide a broad range of public relations and content services that promote Vocera’s mission to break down communication barriers and improve the healthcare experience for patients, families and care team members around the world.

“We knew Amendola Communications was the right agency to promote our unique value proposition to the right audiences and media outlets, with its deep industry knowledge and significant media and analyst relationships in the healthcare and healthcare IT sectors,” said Kathy English, Vice President of Enterprise Marketing. “The decision to hire Amendola was a clear and easy one to make after vetting the agency’s track record of delivering high-performance PR and marketing campaigns in our targeted markets. In just a few months, Amendola has already exceeded our expectations.”

Smartphones and wireless technology are fundamentally changing how care teams connect and collaborate, and Vocera is leading the way by supporting all types of communication, working in concert with multiple devices, and integrating with more than 70 clinical systems. The Vocera Communication Platform provides a secure, enterprise-class solution with an intelligent active staff directory that enables users to connect and communicate with each other instantly via voice communication, secure text messaging, and contextual alarm notifications. Used by more than 1,000 hospitals around the world, Vocera delivers the right information to the right person at the right time, saving valuable steps and time.

Amendola Communications is executing public relations, social media and content marketing strategy and programs for Vocera, with a special focus on the company’s thought leadership. Vocera’s leadership team is made up of widely respected clinicians and tech industry luminaries who are at the forefront of national movements in healthcare today, including offering technology solutions that address longstanding communication challenges and restoring the human connection at every point of a patient’s healthcare experience.

“We felt an instant connection to Vocera’s impressive team and look forward to promoting their initiatives and successes in this high-tech market where we have deep expertise,” said Jodi Amendola, CEO of Amendola Communications. “Our team is leveraging both Vocera’s thought leaders and clients to convey their important value proposition to the healthcare industry that critically depends on teamwork and the right information in order to globally dismantle communication barriers across even the largest healthcare enterprises.”

About Amendola Communications
Amendola Communications is an award-winning national public relations, marketing communications, social media and content marketing firm. Named one of the best information technology (IT) PR firms in the nation 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: Tara Stultz | 440.225.9595| tstultz@acmarketingpr.com

How PR agencies were Cloud before Cloud was Cool

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Cloud technology gets a lot of deserving recognition for equipping organizations with a modern IT infrastructure at a fraction of the time and upfront cost it would require to build one in-house. In an interesting paradox, the value of hiring a public relations agency is less perceived, even though the benefits are much the same professional expertise and tools (and not to mention, valuable media relationships) all at the ready, priced at a pay-only-for-what-you-use basis. Yet PR agencies are often asked, “Why should I hire you instead of adding a full time employee?”

As it happens, there’s a quantifiable difference. While there’s no doubt that a full-time, senior-level or even junior employee can bring value to an organization, there’s a decided limit in experience, media relationships and hours in the week. By contrast, a public relations agency like Amendola typically assigns a team of five people to each client account. On average, each team member has 15+ years of experience in one or more niches such as account management, strategic counsel, crisis communications, social media, media relations, content development and more all of which won’t necessarily cost more than bringing on a single full-time employee. In addition, when employees call in sick or go on vacation, you may be caught short. Not so with an agency team behind you, where PR activities are constantly covered.

Hiring the PR agency brain trust

One of the most compelling reasons to hire an agency like Amendola is that our employees come from a variety of backgrounds, giving our clients access to broad expertise. Some of us hail from agencies, while others are former TV, newspaper and radio reporters. Others come from the client side, including provider and payer organizations, healthcare IT companies and industry trade associations. What this means for Amendola’s clients is that instead of having one person with some degree of knowledge in multiple areas, they can put multiple experts to work in many different areas.

For example, a client that’s been focused on the provider side may at some point want to enter the pharmaceutical space. That’s no problem at Amendola, where we can quickly add strategists or writers, social media or media relations experts–deeply versed in life sciences to the existing client team. We even have market intelligence researchers who can uncover valuable information about newly targeted spaces. When it comes to gaining insight and a foothold on new markets, the power of an experienced PR agency works faster than just one or two insulated employees.

Strategy driven by business goals instead of personal comfort levels

Speaking of the in-house bubble, very often whoever drives public relations and marketing in these departments makes decisions based on their own expertise, comfort and convenience. This isn’t a criticism so much as the natural propensity of humans to do what they do best even if it’s not necessarily best for the company’s business objectives. And so, these professionals end up spending all of their time/energy/budget on their favorite or most familiar strategies, and neglect other often important areas.

At Amendola, we offer expertise in all areas of marketing communications, branding, PR and content, which no single person can possibly provide. This enables us to determine and deploy strategies that are most likely to meet our client’s business goals. If that includes social media, we’ll assign a social media expert to the account. If brand awareness, we’ll bring in a well-connected media relations. We will customize our services to meet your business objectives.

The rewards of resource sharing

You might be skeptical that all this access to public relations expertise really can be had without investing in a sizable in-house department. But as a PR agency that works with many different clients, Amendola is able to spread the business costs across this extensive client portfolio another commonality with cloud services vendors that spread the cost of infrastructure across multiple accounts, sparing any single customer from having to shoulder the entire cost. While we offer a full range of services, including some that are a la carte, the majority of our clients have monthly retainer agreements in place that are comparable to the monthly payroll of a single employee, minus the costs of training and other in-house employment expenses, such as health insurance.

Again, these clients benefit from the experience already gained by our work for others; very rarely do we encounter a completely unfamiliar topic in the realm of healthcare or healthcare IT. And when we learn something new, all of our clients benefit sooner or later. That’s the power of “public relations-as-a-service” it brings top-tier public relations services to all.

Healthcare IT PR & Marketing Leader Kate Donlon Rejoins Amendola Communications

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Amendola Communications, a nationally recognized, award-winning healthcare and healthcare IT public relations and marketing agency, welcomes back Kate Donlon, a “founding employee” of Amendola who worked side-by-side with Jodi Amendola to help turn the agency into one of the most successful in healthcare IT. Donlon returns to Amendola as Vice President, and will expand the executive leadership team and the agency’s content marketing, inbound marketing and digital marketing services.

“It’s such a thrill to have Kate back in the Amendola family, bringing her rare ability to strategically integrate digital, content marketing, public relations and social media into successful campaigns,” said Jodi Amendola, CEO of Amendola Communications. “As both a strategic and tactical doer, Kate is a strong complement to our existing team. Our clients will soon be as happy as I am. Kate is, hands down, one of the best marketers and communicators with whom I have ever worked.”

Donlon is a seasoned communications professional with more than 20 years of experience in delivering high-performance campaigns on both the agency and client side, from start-ups to Fortune 500 organizations. She has held numerous marketing and PR leadership positions at Intel Corporation; Mayo Clinic Health System; Ulthera, Inc.; and Aptus Health, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Merck & Co.

Deeply versed in almost every marketing and PR skill set, Donlon specializes in “integrated communications” that weave together PR, digital marketing and social media, content marketing and branding, resulting in highly impactful and evocative campaigns.

Her return to Amendola is a timely one. The agency’s portfolio of healthcare and healthcare IT clients has rapidly expanded, sparked by exponential growth within the healthcare IT industry and increased demand for integrated PR and marketing programs that drive market awareness and produce quantifiable outcomes.

“I’ve always loved working with Jodi Amendola as part of the Amendola team, from the early days as part of an ambitious start up, to what the company is today the most knowledgeable and experienced agency in healthcare and healthcare IT,” said Donlon.

She added, “Career is such a big part of my life that I have to love what I do and with whom I work! That’s easy at Amendola where camaraderie and collaboration are the norm. It’s also gratifying to work with an agency that has such a deep and broad reach within the healthcare and healthcare IT media ecosystem. Because of Amendola’s extensive media relationships, it’s not Oh, we’ll have to research that editor because, very likely, one of our team members has just spoken with that editor the day before.”

Donlon has an MBA in international management from the Thunderbird School of Global Management, as well as decades of business and cultural experiences throughout Europe, Asia-Pacific and Latin America. This globally-infused background brings an international perspective to her strategic counsel and integrated communications programs. In addition to an MBA, Donlon holds a B.A. in Spanish from Michigan State University.

To download Donlon’s photo, click here.

Tweet This: #HealthcareIT #PR & #Marketing leader Kate Donlon rejoins @AmendolaComm as VP. | http://bit.ly/2aLriaQ @kdonlon_PR

About Amendola Communications

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

Media Contact: Marcia Rhodes | 480.664-8412 | mrhodes@ACmarketingPR.com

7 Tips for Improving Your Next Webinar

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Having worked for a professional hospital CIO association for over six years, I’ve moderated and attended my fair share of health IT vendor webinars.  I’ve seen the good, the bad, and the ugly. Webinars should not be taken lightly, and should ultimately provide educational insight to attendees and your business. A webinar can help establish you as an industry expert, attract new customers, and add value to your brand.

Here are seven tips to help boost your next webinar and key mistakes to avoid.

1. Don’t be a Car Salesman

Nothing will kill a presentation faster than an overly aggressive, unsolicited sales pitch. Leave that to your sales team. If you want to be truly compelling and solidify your company as a problem solver, focus on the key issues that impact your audience and share best practices for overcoming them.  Rather than sell every bell and whistle of your product, draw upon examples of how your business is allowing existing clients to reach their goals. Focus on lessons learned.

2. Don’t Pull a Bait and Switch

Your webinar title and abstract say you are going to discuss how to build and maintain an effective population health strategy, yet you spend 60 minutes doing a product demo.

3. Be Polished and Prepared.

The best presenters are experts in their field, have a strong voice, and are experienced.  It’s always good to have a presentation outline in hand with concise bullet points for each slide. Don’t write a script out word for word. Not only will you sound like you’re reading it, you’ll end up relying on it and if you lose your place, you’ll become flustered.  Plus, it’s a distraction from the computer screen should any technical issues arise (i.e. you are on the wrong slide, a question is asked).

4. Don’t Save Questions for the End

Don’t save the Q&A until the end of your presentation. Strike while the iron is hot and take periodic breaks throughout the webcast for questions. This makes the presentation more interactive and gives you a breather from being just a talking head. Also, not every attendee can stay the full duration and will appreciate the opportunity.  Additionally, it helps if you have a team member dedicated to monitoring questions or comments that come in from the audience. This is an effective tactic to ensure questions are addressed  or even skipped over. Nothing worse than reading a question a loud and it’s one you can’t answer or completely irrelevant/inappropriate.

5.Survey Your Audience

Nearly ever webinar platform has a poll feature. Take advantage of your audience as your own personal focus group. They have already proven interest by registering and showing up, so leverage their time and insight to help your business. Plus it makes the webinar that much more engaging if the audience feels involved, and they will be interested in the feedback of their peers.  Just be sure to give attendees sufficient time to weigh-in. Strong questions ought to lead into the next presentation topic and help dictate the amount of time you should spend on that issue.

6. Don’t Bedazzle Your Slide Deck

Slides should be visually appealing but keep the animations at bay.  They rarely ever work on cue, and slow your presentation way down. Also, don’t use hyperlinks in your slide deck. Any sites you’d like the audience to visit should be posted in the chat window. Keep your slide deck font simple. Avoid elaborate fonts that almost never translate to webinar platforms. Arial is an easy to read, universal font. Try to stick with one color palette and select data and images that reflect your key points.

7. You Nailed It, Now Continue the Engagement

When the webinar has ended, continue the engagement by sending attendees a pdf of the slide deck and an archive link to the recording. Be sure to include the speakers contact information and request attendee feedback via a brief survey. Entice your participants with a special offer or prize drawing.

With the above in mind, here are a few other tips to ensure your next webinar is a winner:

  • Be cognizant of time zones and holidays when selecting a date and time for your webinar.
  • Send an attendee reminder the day of and the day before.
  • Log in early. Show up at least 15-20 minutes to ensure the audio and technology is working, Test advancing your slides as well.

Veteran Health IT Journalist Tara Stultz Joins Amendola Communications

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Amendola Communications, a nationally recognized, award-winning healthcare and healthcare technology public relations and marketing agency, announced that Tara Stultz has joined the agency in the role of senior content and account director. Stultz will develop and create PR and marketing content and manage accounts for multiple healthcare technology-focused clients to drive brand awareness and introduce new programs, products, and services.

Stultz has more than 20 years of healthcare content, marketing and PR experience, including technology, business of medicine and numerous clinical specialty areas. She has worked closely with healthcare IT, managed care, medical device and pharmaceutical companies, major health systems, medical societies and others.

Before joining the Amendola team, Tara ran a healthcare communications firm. Previously, as executive editorial director of the Healthcare Group at Advanstar Communications, she co-launched a content marketing division focused on integrated multimedia programs. She also served as editor/editorial director of several national healthcare publications and websites. Under Tara’s leadership, these titles consistently earned top readership rankings and won numerous national editorial awards.
Stultz is a recipient of the Healthcare Businesswomen Association’s “Rising Star” award. Her writing has earned the American Business Media’s Jesse H. Neal Award, the most prestigious editorial honor in the field of specialized journalism.

“I was familiar with Tara’s work at Medical Economics and Managed Healthcare Executive and knew she would make an immediate impact to our PR and marketing programs,” said agency CEO Jodi Amendola. “I could not have imagined how truly talented she is. From day one, our clients have been raving. She knows the industry and provides superior strategic guidance and content. She is a welcomed addition.”
Stultz first connected with members of the Amendola Communications team when she served in editorial leadership roles at well-known trade publications such as Medical Economics and Managed Healthcare Executive. “I soon grew to know them as the very best in the marketing and PR business when it comes to positioning clients as thought leaders and increasing awareness of their brands,” she said. “Later, when I transitioned to a career in marketing and PR, I continued to admire Amendola’s work “and now I’m lucky enough to be a part of this talented team.”

Stultz received her bachelor of journalism degree from the University of Missouri-Columbia.
To download Tara’s photo, click here.

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

Media Contact: Jodi Amendola | 480.664-8412 | jamendola@ACmarketingPR.com

VIDEO MARKETING: IF YOU”RE NOT DOING IT, YOU’RE MISSING OUT

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Our own Matt Schlossberg was quoted in the article below, which originally ran on www.acefitness.org.

Written by Carrie Myers

“Everyone is doing it,” says Jimmy Craig, M.A., video marketing and viral expert and co-founder of MethodLoft, LCC, based in Boston, Mass.

What is Craig referring to? Put simply: video marketing.

“Video isn’t only great at connecting to and converting visitors,” Craig adds, “it can significantly boost your visibility online. Google displays blended search results, too, making it easier for businesses with video to get the coveted spots on the front page.”

Shawne Duperon, Ph.D., six-time EMMY-award winner and founder of Project: Forgive, agrees. “Video is the fastest and easiest way to create relationships in business. People do business with people they trust and like. Video is a medium that builds trust and likeability.”

Not quite convinced video is for you? According to James McQuivey of Forrester Research, the value of a one-minute video is equivalent to 1.8 million words. Here are a few more convincing facts compiled by Adelie Studios and Syndacast:

  • 70 percent of marketing professionals report that video converts leads into customers better than any other medium.
  • The average Internet user spends 88 percent more time on a website that include videos than on websites that do not contain videos.
  • Nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of consumers are more likely to buy a product after watching a video about it.
  • Featuring video on landing pages has been shown to increase conversions by 80 percent.
  • If a video lasts one minute or less, 59 percent of viewers will watch it all the way to completion.
  • Only 24 percent of brands are using online video to market to consumers.
  • Using the word “video” in an email subject line boosts open rates by 19 percent and click-through rates by 65 percent and reduces unsubscribe rates by 26 percent.
  • Business-to-business and business-to-consumers marketers both say video is among the top three most effective social media marketing tactics.
  • 52 percent of marketers believe that video is the content format with the highestreturn on investment.
  • By 2017, 74 percent of all Internet traffic is predicted to be video.
  • 69 percent of smartphone users say videos are a perfect solution for smartphone viewing, as it offers a quick way for consumers to grasp an overview of a product.
  • Three out of four brand marketers and ad agency executives expect original digital programming to become just as important as television programming within the next 3 to 5 years.

PUTTING YOUR FEARS TO REST

I know what you’re thinking. You don’t have the budget to produce videos. Or you can’t stand the way you look on video or the sound of your voice. Or perhaps you feel you’re not enough of an expert to be on video.

Let me put your fears to rest. First, you do not need a Hollywood budget to create videos that will market and promote your business, skills or products. In fact, says Duperon, “your phone is perfect, especially if you’re doing little one-minute video blogs with tips.”

“The bottom line for health and fitness clients are client results,” explains Scott Sobel, president of Media and Communications Strategies, based in Washington, D.C. “You don’t necessarily need to dress up those kinds of videos. As a matter of fact, demonstration and testimonial videos that appear to have been shot by a home user demonstrate honesty and simplicity of method. You see what you get.”

“High-quality equipment is surprisingly affordable today,” adds Craig. “Even smartphones have incredible video cameras now, too. I think that the most overlooked piece of equipment is a reliable audio recorder. If you’re working with little-to-no budget, at least pick up a cheap wired lavalier (lav) microphone, because most on-device audio recording capabilities are severely lacking. You might be surprised how much quality audio will improve a video.”

Don’t have a website to upload video to? Our experts overwhelmingly suggested YouTube as one of the best platforms for video marketing. Matt Schossberg, senior account and content director for Amendola Communications in Scottsdale, Ariz, recommends integrating your YouTube account with your other social media channels to get the biggest bang from your video time and buck.

As an example of this big bang, Duperone says, “You can start a channel on YouTube and repurpose your videos to share on your social media. When I post a video on our Facebook page, it’s getting shared up to 15,000 times. It’s deeply impacting my business.”

According to YouTube’s own statistics:

  • YouTube has more than a billion users, which is almost a third of all people on the Internet. Every day, people watch hundreds of millions of hours of YouTube videos and generate billions of views.
  • Each year for the past two years, the number of people watching YouTube each day has increased by 40 percent and the number of hours people spend watching videos on YouTube has increased by 60 percent.

THE NUTS AND BOLTS

As far as lighting and make-up go, keep it as natural as possible, suggests Schlossberg. “Unless you have a budget and expertise, try to use natural lighting. Avoid fluorescent lights or spotlights that shine directly down over your head.”

If you’re a man with a shiny face, Schlossberg recommends splashing some water on your face and drying it off or do a light dusting of translucent powder. “For women, their normal amount of make-up usually works fine.”

Try to make sure there are no shadows on your face, points out Duperon. “If your face is hard to see, it actually has the opposite impact of trust. You literally appear shady and untrustworthy!”

Duperon also suggests keeping your eyes steady and your chin down some. “People have a tendency to raise their chin and it will come across as arrogant,” she says. “People tend not to buy from a person who feels arrogant. It’s actually an act of vulnerability to keep your chin down, similar to how TV news anchors are trained.”

Keep it short and simple. “Keep the topic high level and the message succinct,” recommends Schlossberg.

“Ideally, keep your video under a minute,” Duperon advises. “Research shows more than 50 percent of the audience leaves after 10 seconds. When someone starts watching your 60-second [or shorter] video, they tend to stay with you and the video, because the time investment is so little. Think about how many times you dropped out of a video that says it’s three minutes or longer.”

Lastly, make it personal and speak directly to your audience. “When talking on-camera, talk to one person, just as though you were at [a coffee shop], says Duperon, and use the word you.

If you still feel a little skittish at the idea of going on video, here are a few final words of wisdom from Duperon:

“Dance in the discomfort! For newbies, it takes some getting used to [performing on video]. That’s normal. The more conversational you are and the more authentic, the better. Perfection is overrated. You don’t have to do it perfectly. My motto is that 80 percent is good enough.”

Leveraging Video for Your PR/Marketing Strategy

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In 2010, the PR Director of the health IT association I worked for asked me to shoot video of staff and members. I did a double-take. I was a managing editor. Magazine articles, case studies, blog posts, Newsletters, books if you needed prose, I was your guy.

But video? My “qualifications” included being a classic movie buff and serving as director of shaky, out-of-focus snippets of my kids taking their first steps.

However, there was no budget, no oversight, and no expectations of success, so I agreed to do it. I was given a cheap handle-held camera, a tripod with a bum leg, and best wishes in finding my own editing software. I figured I would muscle through a couple of videos before this nascent program was quietly smothered in the crib.

Six years, 230+ videos, and one association award later, I’m a video evangelist. Here’s why video could be one of the most versatile tools in your marketing/PR arsenal:

Video is a powerful tactic on its own. I can quickly shoot and edit testimonials, as well as impactful messages and perspectives from thought leaders. For example, I shot 20 minutes of video for an Amendola client, and was able to edit a half-dozen distinct videos for them to use over the course of months. YouTube is the second largest search engine on the Internet, after Google. In addition, 70% of the top 100 search listings on Google are videos. More than 92% of B2B customers watch video online, and 75% of executives watch work-related videos on business-related websites at least weekly, according to Forbes.

Video seamlessly integrates with other tactics. Video can make your other PR/marketing tactics press releases, social media, and media pitching stand out from the crowd. For example, video increases email open-rates by 96%.

Video is cheap, easy and fun. With a one-time $300 investment and a bit of experimentation, I had portable film studio and am able to create professional-looking video clips very quickly and on the fly.

Forget big budgets. With minimal investment and technical know-how you can create a robust, creative video program that will give the rest of your PR/Marketing tactics a much-needed shot in the arm.

Check out some of the client testimonial videos I’ve created, using footage captured at HIMSS.

Planning Your 2016 Trade Show Strategy

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By now your marketing/trade show budget dollars are set. You may need to be smart with how those dollars are spent, especially if you have more important shows to cover than you have budget to exhibit at them. There are several ways to sell and/or network with prospects without investing in expensive booths and extensive staffing:

  • Co-locate in a partner booth. Not only does this save money but it may also provide visibility by leveraging your partner’s brand identity.
  • Host a reception for clients and prospects the day prior to the event or on an evening during the show.
  • Schedule an invite-only dinner for media/analysts. I only suggest this if you have something significant to share.
  • Leverage social media opportunities such as live tweets from the show even if the company’s show presence is minimal or virtual.
  • Promote news announcement(s) though PR and social channels and announce just prior to or leading up to the show.
  • Conduct a Focus Group with customers/prospects and gather their feedback on important topics.
  • Capture video customer testimonials at the show that you can showcase on your website, in PowerPoint presentations and promote through digital channels.
  • If you were accepted to speak at the show or are leading a panel presentation, promote the news in advance to clients, prospects and industry participants who may want to listen to your words of wisdom.
  • Attend networking events. I suggest vetting the many options ahead of time so you can maximize your time at the show and attend the events that make the most sense.
  • Build on your relationships. Trade shows are an ideal venue to meet new people but it’s also a time to build on existing relationships. There’s nothing like catching up over coffee to reinvigorate a long-distance relationship. Be sure to mine your contacts to reconnect with or get to know better those who’ll be attending.

And if you do invest in a booth:

  • Ensure buzz-worthy promotions that draw attendees to the booth (consider catchy props, contests, games, etc.).
  • Develop timely, topical story angles/pitching topics at least 6-months in advance to build momentum leading up to the show.
  • Execute a strategic social media campaign that has the frequency needed to rise above the noise and leverages a well-connected digital influencer to expand your reach.
  • Leverage multiple customer touchpoints to reach your audience; you can’t rely on foot traffic alone.
  • Coordinate media/analyst interviews and follow up post-show.

Whether you invest in a booth or just have a presence at a show remember it is an ideal opportunity to garner media attention. If you are launching a major news announcement, this is a prime time to send a press release in advance of the show to pique interest among media and analysts who are often in attendance at key shows and are often available to meet in person. After the show, make sure you follow-up and leverage any media opportunities.

Here’s wishing you much success for a prosperous and fun 2016 trade show experience.

Amendola Communications Adds Cal INDEX, Greater New Orleans Health Information Exchange to Client Roster

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Amendola selected for broad HIE experience and expertise

Amendola Communications, a nationally recognized and award-winning public relations, content creation and marketing communications firm specializing in healthcare and health information technology (HIT), has added two health information exchanges to its client roster. Amendola recently developed and implemented a new website for the Greater New Orleans Health Information Exchange (GNOHIE), an organization dedicated to improving care and reducing costs by facilitating the secure exchange of patient data. In addition, Amendola signed a PR agreement with the California Integrated Data Exchange (Cal INDEX), an independent, nonprofit organization that is developing a statewide health information exchange (HIE) with clinical data from healthcare providers and health insurers combined into a single longitudinal patient record.

“This is the fourth opportunity I had to select and work with the team at Amendola. Their focus and knowledge in the healthcare vertical has exceeded my needs at each company I’ve worked,” said Doug Hart, Vice President of Marketing and Business Development, Cal INDEX. “That’s why I was eager to work with them again. I know they will succeed in differentiating our combination of clinical and claims data to provide a more comprehensive patient view.”

“We are very pleased with our new website and its ability to effectively communicate our mission,” stated Clayton Williams, executive director of The Partnership for Achieving Total Health (PATH), the supporting organization that manages the services and operations of the GNOHIE. “From the beginning, Amendola understood the need for creating a highly efficient and user-friendly site that would continue to meet our needs in the future. We couldn’t have chosen a more knowledgeable partner to work with and are very pleased with the outcome.”

“It is a pleasure to team with organizations like Cal INDEX and the GNOHIE that are working hard to improve the health of their communities,” said Jodi Amendola, CEO of Amendola Communications. “We are immensely proud that our experience and strategic guidance can be leveraged by organizations focused on addressing interoperability challenges to enable better outcomes.”

Amendola designs and develops websites and other capabilities for HIEs of all sizes such as the statewide Arizona Health-e Connection where Amendola led full-scale branding, PR and integrated consumer marketing campaigns that included website development, messaging, targeted advertising, media relations, marketing collateral, leveraging social media, e-mail outreach and videos. According to Tom Reavis, director of marketing and communications, “Amendola Communications generated 10 million impressions for our consumer campaign in just over one month and exceeded all our expectations for educating and persuading consumers to take advantage of the benefits of enabling their health information to be shared in a secure environment. Plus their overall knowledge of the healthcare delivery system and health information technology (HIT) were a significant bonus.”

Amendola also developed a community-wide education and awareness campaign to convince consumers to “opt in” to sharing their health information through the San Diego Health Connect HIE. Amendola accomplished this by developing and designing a new website, logo and other elements of a comprehensive brand identity while simultaneously enhancing their social media presence. Executive Director Dan Chavez stated that “Amendola Communications” efforts greatly accelerated awareness about and participation in the organization’s information sharing that is helping to improve the quality and cost of their local healthcare system.”

About the Greater New Orleans Health Information Exchange

As a not-for-profit organization, the sole purpose of the GNOHIE is to advance the Institute for Healthcare Improvement Triple Aim for the New Orleans community. Focused on improving the patient experience, improving the health of populations, and reducing the cost of healthcare, the GNOHIE was developed as part of the Crescent City Beacon Community and is currently managed by The Partnership for Achieving Total Health, a 509(a)(3) supporting organization of the statewide nonprofit organization Louisiana Public Health Institute.

About Cal INDEX

California Integrated Data Exchange (Cal INDEX) is an independent, nonprofit organization that is developing a statewide, next-generation health information exchange (HIE). This unique comprehensive collection of electronic patient records includes clinical data from healthcare providers and health insurers combined into a single longitudinal patient record (LPR). Cal INDEX provides the underlying data and technology platform to provide real-time access. The goal of Cal INDEX is to improve quality of care by providing clinicians with a unified statewide source of integrated patient information, improve efficiencies and coordination of care and reduce the cost of healthcare. Cal INDEX was founded through seed funding from Blue Shield of California and Anthem Blue Cross. For more information, visit www.calindex.org.

About Amendola Communications

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

Media Contact: Marcia Rhodes, Regional Managing Director Amendola Communications 480-664-8412, ext. 15 mrhodes@ACmarketingPR.com