Posts

Amendola Unveils Redesigned Website and Thought Leadership Blog

Amendola Communications, a nationally recognized, award-winning public relations, content creation and marketing firm specializing in healthcare and health information technology (HIT), has redesigned its website to create an immediately meaningful experience for visitors. Along with information about Amendola’s services and capabilities, the new site showcases the agency’s broad portfolio of successful client campaigns, plus incisive, insider advice for healthcare and technology organizations seeking to effectively communicate their message.

Following website best practices, Amendola’s new site emphasizes visual impact over text-heavy content, and features distinctive graphics and a color palette of rich ambers and other desert hues in a nod to Amendola’s Arizona headquarters.

Thought leadership advice from PR and marketing veterans

Just in time for HIMSS, Amendola’s free guide “Hacking HIMSS: Your Guide to Conquering the Annual Conference & Exhibition” and free eBooklet “Can I Quote You On That? Becoming a Media Interview Rock Star” are both available for download at the new website. Additionally, the new site includes a weekly blog from Amendola’s team of public relations and marketing veterans on all topics related to delivering an effective message in the healthcare and healthcare technology arena.

A platform for agency’s client work

An experienced agency, Amendola has a long track record of success and a portfolio of referenceable client work to prove it. The new site includes a prestigious collection of Amendola’s PR, marketing and creative work for clients like Health Catalyst, The Joint, Greater New Orleans Health Information Exchange, Bernouilli, Recondo and many others. A library of case studies outlining Amendola’s successful campaigns for public relations, marketing, content marketing, social media and strategic counseling initiatives is also on the new site.

“Every facet of Amendola’s redesigned website was created with the visitor in mind, from the eye-pleasing layout to easy access to samples of our work and a blog that answers the questions we most consistently hear from clients and the industry-at-large,” stated Jodi Amendola, CEO of Amendola Communications.

Visit Amendola’s new website at www.acmarketingpr.com.

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 for 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, LinkedIn and Facebook.

Media Contact:

Marcia Rhodes, Regional Managing Director | (480) 664-8412, ext. 15 |Amrhodes@acmarketingpr.com

Getting Noticed at HIMSS: 4 Insider Tips from Industry Journalists

It’s a brand new year and HIMSS season (a.k.a. #HIMSSanity) is officially upon us. The Amendola team is in full swing preparing clients for the big show in Las Vegas, from media kit development and booth collateral to social media campaigns and on-site support for interviews and analyst briefings.

It goes without saying that garnering media attention at the healthcare IT industry’s largest annual conference is no easy feat. With 125 credentialed press floating among a sea of 43,000-plus attendees and over 1,300 HIMSS exhibitors, rising above the noise takes hard work, tactical planning, and a little bit of luck to land the coverage your company desires.

No matter what time of year, it’s always a challenge for us healthcare PR folks to determine what will tickle the media’s fancy. But even more so when the industry’s journalists are flooded daily with pitches, product launches, and interview and meeting requests the months before and during the conference.

So how can you make the most out of your HIMSS investment and improve your chances of getting noticed among press, analysts, and ultimately, potential customers? I asked four respected healthcare IT journalists what advice they would give to attending vendors to maximize their efforts, remain relevant, and stand out among an overly “transformative,” “disruptive,” “innovative,” and “solution”-saturated HIMSS conference world.

Fred Bazzoli, Editor-In-Chief, Health Data Management, @fbazzoli “Many companies feel compelled to release news at HIMSS. This happens to such a degree that, sadly, most news releases issued during HIMSS are hardly noticed in the email onslaught. Nor is it true that five releases issued during HIMSS are better than one. Your best bet is to manage your news release to occur before HIMSS (one to two weeks) make it as strong as possible, and be ready to discuss it at HIMSS, especially opportunities for follow-up or second-day coverage, if the outlet did not cover the release earlier.”

Kate Gamble, Managing Editor, HealthSystemCIO.com, @khgamble “Journalists receive tons of requests for meetings during HIMSS. If you’d like your request to stand out, customize it. Tell us why you would like to meet with us in particular (for example, you have a specific interest in an article series our publication is running, or you have someone you can recommend for an interview). And if we can’t take a meeting, please be understanding – we really are bombarded with requests, and we only have so much time to cover the conference. Also, please do not have multiple people from the same company reach out to us. And lastly, thank you for your interest – we do appreciate it, even if we can’t accommodate you.”

John Lynn, Blogger and Founder, HealthcareScene.com, @techguy “Don’t shout on social media, engage. No one cares that you’re at Booth #0000 at HIMSS, so don’t shout that out on the #HIMSS16 hashtag. Instead, focus your social media efforts on engaging with those talking on the #HIMSS16 hashtag that could be customers or could be influencers that your customer watch. No one will remember your booth, but everyone remembers someone who sincerely engages with them. Others will notice that sincere engagement too.”

Neal Versel, Reporter, MedCity News, @nversel “Respect our time. There are 1,300 vendors, and we can’t meet with everyone. We also have to find time to do our regular writing assignments, and can’t afford to spend all day meeting with vendors. Plus, a lot of the educational sessions are excellent and worthy of coverage. A lot of vendors don’t understand that it isn’t just the zoo of a show floor.”

Straight Talk on HIMSS

Guest Blog By Fred Bazzoli, Editor-in-Chief of Health Data Management

Companies tend to think of HIMSS in isolation, as a make-or-break event at which they need to make a big splash with attending media members. First of all, companies coming to HIMSS need to be realistic about the enormity of the event, the rush of events, the demands on media members’ time, and how the event really fits into their overall media relations plan.

First, the numbers. More than a thousand companies will come to HIMSS. There may be 200 members of the media there, and of those, only 30 or 40 may focus coverage specifically on healthcare IT. Last year, I’d estimate that we received invitations to meet with 200 companies. I myself had between 30 and 40 meetings, and my feeling is that many of these meetings are not productive. It’s not for lack of trying; there’s just too much going on for most reporters, who also are covering educational sessions, keynote sessions, and pre- and post-show hours meetings, and additionally writing stories up as quickly as possible for their web sites.

Sending repeated emails to writers and editors asking for meetings is not effective and may in fact, be negatively perceived. Please do not call and ask if we’ve received your email, and would we like to meet. We’ve got your email, along with hundreds of others. A specific, intriguing, pointed email, detailing one good story that you have for a writer/editor, along with a follow-up email a couple weeks later, is most effective.

It is NOT wise to shop the same story (i.e. one client’s story) to multiple media outlets. If you are doing so, please be very clear with the media member that that’s what you’re doing, and that the media member should check with someone handling your marketing before pursuing the story. This is a very dangerous tactic — it’s better to have one story per media member to lessen the chance that multiple outlets will want the same story.

Know the publications that are in the healthcare IT space. They’re not all the same, and they pursue news differently. You may want to study the field and target three to five publications, and then do a fantastic job reaching out to and working with those media.

HIMSS should be a time to have a very focused, purposeful, “get to know” you meeting with the media member. Have one specific idea for an article, or have a client who has an interesting story to tell, and have the client be there and willing to talk very briefly, not at length. Think of this as an elevator speech to tell the high points of a story and why it is worth telling. Your goal should be to build a relationship with the editor or writer so that the story will be memorable and pursued AFTER HIMSS. Unless it is breaking news, it is unlikely to be covered at HIMSS.

Make any media meeting time as friendly as possible at HIMSS. Both company reps and the writer/editor probably just need a break time from the crazy pace of the event. This should be a time to build relationships that extend beyond HIMSS. What does the media member most need — story ideas? Subject matter experts for interviews? Or to write columns? Help identifying trends in your specific industry niche? YOU should work hard to find three to five action points that are needs for the media member; that will encourage the media member to do likewise. Your goal should be to build a long-term relationship that is friendly, helpful to both parties, and extends beyond HIMSS.

Do not use a generic sales pitch with a media member; do not assume that he knows what your product does or your company’s niche in the market. Don’t start out by saying, “So, what’s the buzz at HIMSS this year?” The writer probably is so overwhelmed, that he or she has no idea what the buzz is.

A word about press releases. Many companies feel compelled to release news at HIMSS. This happens to such a degree that, sadly, most news releases issued during HIMSS are hardly noticed in the email onslaught. Nor is it true that five releases issued during HIMSS are better than one. Your best bet is to manage your news release to occur before HIMSS (one to two weeks) make it as strong as possible, and be ready to discuss it at HIMSS, especially opportunities for follow-up or “second-day” coverage, if the outlet did not cover the release earlier.

Frankly, we are beginning to look at options for ways to have better discussions with companies in our market at times other than HIMSS. The conference is still a great time to meet, put a name with a face, and build helpful relationships. But because of heavy demands on both media and companies during the short span of the conference, we’re not sure that it’s the most effective way to effectively and productively cover the industry. We’ll be there, and glad to meet, but we’re looking at other ways of ensuring that we maximize our ability to cover the industry.

Amendola’s PR Roadmap to HIMSS Success

Let’s face it, no matter how carefully you plan, there will still be some last minute work to get ready for HIMSS. The key is to minimize how much will be last minute! Plan to succeed by using Amendola’s suggested timeline for core PR activities before, at and after the HIMSS conference.

Four to six weeks prior to HIMSS:

  • Media Relations Prep (media coaching/messaging)
  • HIMSS Media/Analyst meeting pitching
  • Thought leadership pre-HIMSS media opportunities
  • Draft pre-HIMSS/HIMSS content

Three weeks prior to HIMSS:

  • HIMSS Media/Analyst meeting pitching
  • Ongoing thought leadership pre-HIMSS media opportunities
  • Finalize pre-HIMSS/HIMSS Content

At the show:

  • HIMSS on-site support, including media relations, social media coordination and internal event reporting

Post-HIMSS:

  • Follow-up with media/analysts
  • PR support for opportunities arising from HIMSS

 

Have questions? Contact us today!