The goal of a sound PR strategy is universal regardless of what industry you are in: deliver the right message, to the right audience, at the right time. In an ideal world, a successful PR campaign is tailored to the marketplace and reaches the patients you want to reach through broad and relevant coverage with a well thought out pitch that entices the media to want to cover your story. In reality however, either due to time constraints or lack of support, PR campaigns often aren’t put together with formulaic approaches and wind up yielding minimal, sporadic results with a story that lacks targeting and focus needed to generate high quality coverage.
A medical PR professional needs to not only stay up to date with the latest medical technologies and research but also with media outlets who typically cover health care discussions and updates in real time. Knowing everything possible about the media environment you are entering is crucial to a campaign’s success. Here are four steps to achieve a solid PR strategy:1. Define Your Campaign Goals – All PR campaigns need a clear goal. Answering key questions ahead of time can help you define what you wish to achieve. Who is your ultimate customer? Is it new patients you are trying to obtain? Current patients you wish to retain? Other referring providers? Then ask yourself what message you wish to deliver to that group and what do you hope to achieve. With these answers, you’ll be able to develop a clear campaign goal.
2. Craft Your Message – Developing your pitch should be based on research. Is there anyone else providing the same service you are and, if so, what makes you different? Are you the first or only to provide a new treatment option? Were/Are you part of a research trial that aims to change the science of how we treat people? What claims can you make that no one else can? Is there a successful and moving patient story you can include in your pitch that is moving and supports the message you want to promote? A well-crafted pitch should be concise and move your target audience towards an action.
3. Find The Right Media Outlets – Once you know what you want to say, you must explore the different mediums you want to target to help tell your story and what those mediums may need such as interviews, photos, videos, etc. Because of the fast-paced nature of the media, you may need to have these items ready to go at a moment’s notice. Your tactics may include providing media releases, story pitches, press tours, interviews, blogs, social media posts, speaking engagements or positioning an expert as a source on breaking news. Sending the same email to your entire media list may not be an effective strategy. Know your journalists and their pitching preferences. Do some of them appreciate exclusivity or first rights to a story? Personal emails tailored to a specific journalist or knowing how to tailor a story to their “beat” can make your pitch more relevant to a journalist which can generate a high response rate and better coverage.
4. Define How to Measure Your Results – One of the biggest challenges for a PR professional is measuring results and providing hard data. Sure, you can always measure media hits and impressions but a great PR professional can change the way an organization is perceived or increase awareness of its brand, which is not always as easily quantifiable. To define a measure of success for a PR campaign, ask yourself, did the campaign help increase share of voice over competitors? Were the key messages conveyed in the coverage obtained? Was the coverage positive, negative or neutral?
