Whether you’re about to launch your healthcare startup or you’ve been in business for a few years, getting media coverage should be part of your business plan. A healthy dose of public relations builds brand awareness, establishes thought leadership and drives traffic to your site.

Yet simply issuing a press release to announce your launch isn’t enough. You need to figure out what your story is, why anybody cares and the best way to tell it.

Here, find out what media outlets really look for when they decide to run a story and how you can get the coverage your healthcare startup needs.

1. Pitch stories, not sources

Ask any journalist and they’ll tell you that they get hundreds of pitches each week from public relations firms and about 99 percent of those emails are either left unopened or deleted.

Why? Because many of these publicists make one crucial mistake: they pitch their clients, not their clients’ stories.

Journalists, editors and producers have a long list of go-to experts that they can usually get on the phone for an interview within minutes.

What they really need however, are stories. But not just any story. They need stories that have a unique perspective, a fresh spin and are relevant to their readers.

So instead of simply issuing your press release and crossing your fingers, think about what your company’s story is or how you can contribute to the conversation in a way that hasn’t been covered before.

2. Establish thought leadership

To establish credibility and build brand awareness, have your marketing team ghostwrite thought leadership articles and pitch them to trade outlets.

Research several potential outlets and study their content. Look at the types of stories they run, the average word count and the style and tone. Most outlets have guidelines for guest contributors which will also give you an idea about what they look for.

Most importantly however, is to think about the challenges your industry faces and offer real solutions that no one else is talking about.

3. Think like a publisher

Smart healthcare startups know that consistently creating content is necessary for brand awareness, SEO and generating leads. As you hire your marketing team, you will need to create buyer personas, a content marketing strategy, an editorial calendar and an inventory of your content.

If that seems too advantageous right now however, focus on writing at least two blog posts a week and share them on social media.

4. Offer a study or survey data

Just as healthcare startups thrive on data, journalists, editors and producers also rely on the numbers to make a story timely, relevant and credible. Whether it’s the results of a clinical trial, a new study or survey data, make sure you lead with data.

5. Foster relationships

Don’t worry too much about not having media contacts because if you have a great story, a journalist will be interested. In fact, according to a survey by Muck Rack, 91 percent of journalists respond to PR people they don’t know.

When you have had your first placement, find opportunities to keep the momentum going. Whether you received another round of VC funding, hired an executive or developed a new product, continue to pitch the media.

Once you’ve been interviewed for a story, a journalist will be much more likely to contact you again if you can offer great ideas, contribute to the conversation and know how to give a great interview. Also, make it a point to read their stories and follow them on social media to understand the types of stories they write.

In today’s competitive healthcare space where consumers are empowered with choices about the providers and health insurance plans they choose, it’s more important than ever for healthcare marketers to connect with their leads on a personal level.

Whether you’re a hospital, a private practice, a health insurance plan or B2B healthcare brand, the best way to build your credibility and validate results is with case studies.

Yet not every patient, member or client will be the right customer to feature.

Before putting an ask out to any customer, there is some work you must do ahead of time to ensure that you not only have the right customer, but that your case studies will be a powerful tool to convert prospects. Here are 4 tips to get your started.

1. Let your personas be your guide.

Casting a wide net and trying to target every visitor that clicks on your site is a fruitless effort.

The same goes for case studies.

When you start to identify potential customers for your case studies, it’s vital that you know who your buyers are, what are the specific challenges they face and what their objections are to what you offer.

Then when you talk to your physicians or your sales reps, you’ll be able to tell them the type of customer you need instead of asking for any customer who is willing.

2. Amazing doesn’t cut it.

Just because one of your physicians has a great relationship with a certain patient doesn’t mean that person will be a good fit.

When looking for customers to feature, make sure they have a good story to tell. Sure, maybe the patient improved her cholesterol numbers or lost 50 pounds, but if there’s nothing else that makes the story compelling or your leads can’t connect with the story, it will make closing the deal that much harder.

3. Do a pre-interview.

The customer you have chosen might sound great on paper but when you get him on the phone, he’s either not willing to share as much as you thought he would or it feels like pulling teeth to get the information out of him.

One of the best ways to make sure you get what you need is to send the questions ahead of time so your customer can prepare or conduct a pre-interview to vet customers before making a final selection.

What’s more, when it comes to B2B, many companies have legal departments to contend with or have restrictions on what they will and will not talk about. Although it may not be a deal breaker, you should know ahead of time what is off limits so you’ll know how the story will pan out.

4. Be transparent.

When I was writing case studies for a client, the doctor who was asked to find a patient said that he had a great patient for me to interview. But once I got the patient on the phone, she didn’t want to use her name, reveal her profession or talk about her health condition. The result? A boring, bare bones story that did nothing to help them close deals.

So whether it’s one of your physicians or a sales representative, make sure that they explain to your customer exactly what the case study will be used for and what they will be asked.

It’s no surprise that if you want to generate more leads, convert more prospects and keep your customers engaged, content marketing must be your focus. In fact, according to a recent report by the Content Marketing Institute, B2B marketers say that creating engaging content will be their top priority this year.

When you live and breathe your business day in and day out however, it can be challenging to think of new content ideas that will get results. Yet with a few simple strategies, you can generate a ton of content in just a few minutes. Here’s how.

Just write

If you’re a type-A perfectionist, creative and passionate about your business like I am, your mind is probably already flooded with ideas at any given moment. Some of your best ideas probably pop into your head while you’re driving, in the shower or doing something other than sitting at your computer to update your editorial calendar.

Instead of waiting for the next big idea to come along when you really need it, step away from your computer, pull out a legal pad and start writing every single idea that comes to mind. Don’t edit or cross anything out.

Although not every story idea will make the cut, you’ll be surprised at how many amazing ideas you’ll come up with in just a few minutes.

Team up

When I conduct interviews, take client calls or meet with colleagues, my mind races a mile a minute with new ideas for story pitches and ideas for their businesses as well as mine. Coffee has a lot to do with it, but talking just gets the ideas flowing.

The next time you need to generate new ideas or you’re feeling stuck, meet a colleague for coffee, take your team out for lunch or post on a LinkedIn group to generate ideas fast.

Read, read, read

One of the best ways to brainstorm new content ideas is to read what your competitors are publishing and sharing on social media. Search Amazon for upcoming book releases and read industry trades. Other types of content that are unrelated to your industry or those you read for pleasure count too and may even give you the fresh perspective your content needs.

Repurpose and refresh

Just because you wrote a blog post on a story three months ago doesn’t mean it can’t make a comeback. Look at your content inventory and identify stories that can be refreshed with new data or made timely with new industry reports.

Spin 1 idea into 3

After your have a list of 20 or more ideas, read each one over to see if you can find a different angle. If it’s a how-to story, you might be able to turn it into “10 ways to…” or “10 mistakes…” You might even find that you have enough content to write a 3-part blog series.

Solicit feedback

In order to consistently generate content that’s targeted for your customers, you must understand their goals, pain points and objections to what you offer. When you publish a new piece of content, read and respond to comments and track your site and social media analytics to find out what they really need from you.

Find the missing link

When you read content that your competitors create, think about what they might have missed or look for ideas that weren’t fully fleshed out.

The healthcare industry as a whole has been slow to adopt the value of content marketing.

Until recently, that is. Healthcare marketers now recognize the need for a clear content marketing strategy that includes various types of content including blogs, white papers, infographics and of course, case studies.

In fact, according to the Content Marketing Institute’s report B2B Content Marketing: 2016 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends-North America, 82 percent of organizations use case studies in their arsenal of marketing tactics.

When they’re effective, case studies:

• Establish your credibility
• Educate in a compelling way
• Drive home what makes you different than your competitors
• Create brand awareness
• Demonstrate and validate results
• Build trusted relationships with clients
• Boost consumer confidence
• Increase sales
• Shorten the sales cycle
• Sell more to current customers—upsell and cross-sell.
• Answer questions
• Foster engagement
• Get media placement

Yet without a few key elements, your case studies will not only fail to convert your prospects, but they can also cost your organization a significant amount of time and money.

Here, read on for 5 of the most important pieces you should make sure all of your case studies include.

1.  The story

Sounds pretty obvious, right? Yet so many healthcare organizations fail to think about their case studies as stories, despite the fact that they’re one of the most interesting ways to close deals with your potential clients.

When brainstorming and planning your case studies, think like a journalist and know what the story will be even if it’s not fully fleshed out yet.

Ask yourself:

• What were my client’s pain points?
• Why did they choose us and not our competitors?
• How exactly did we help them lower costs, attract more members, fill in the blank.

Before you even conduct the interview, get super-clear on what the story will be. Then when you write, make sure the story flows seamlessly with a clear beginning, middle and end. Be sure to add a headline, descriptive subheads and pull quotes too.

2. Data

Features and benefits are important but backing up your case studies with data will make them even stronger and compelling to your prospect.

If you’re a health insurance plan for example, you’ll want to add specific data on how much you were able to lower costs or improve HEDIS scores. You might also add charts, graphs or infographics to demonstrate how you achieved those results.

3. Quotes

Remember that all of your case studies should be written as though they were stories for a magazine or a news outlet.

Every case study must include quotes from your clients but statements like, “their service was so valuable,” or “the experience was great,” tell your prospects absolutely nothing.

Instead, dig deep on interviews and your quotes will read like sound bites: concise and powerful.

4. Social share buttons

Although you’ll probably use your case studies for direct mail campaigns, sales meetings and events, they should also live on your website, be published on LinkedIN Pulse and re-purposed as blog posts. You can also include them in your e-books, email marketing campaigns, online programs, press releases and pitches.

Although you’ll be sharing your case studies, make sure you make it easy for prospects to share it as well by adding social media buttons and tweeatable quotes.

5. CTA’s

Tell your prospects what to do next with one or more clear call to actions. Include complete contact information including the name of your sales representative, and make it even easier with a form or landing page.

As a health journalist and a healthcare content marketing writer, I’ve interviewed countless physicians for stories on everything from having a healthy pregnancy to how to prevent a heart attack.

Regardless of what the story is about, one thing I’ve realized is that the doctors I interview are either seasoned pros or have no idea how to conduct interviews.

Whether you’re creating content for a blog, thought leadership article or an annual report, ensuring that your physicians are prepared will help you create content that generates leads, engages patients and gives you credibility.

Likewise, if you’ve landed an interview at a top media outlet, your physicians will give better interviews and be called on again and again for future stories.

Here are 4 ways you can help your physicians give great interviews.

1. Be a pro.

When scheduling interviews make sure your physicians will be available. Sure, appointments run late and emergencies happen, but don’t schedule interviews at times you know they could get delayed, like when they’re wrapping up surgery or in a board meeting.

Many times physicians are too busy to remember they have an interview, so always send them calendar invites and confirm the night before.

2. Prepare them.

It happens to me practically every week. I take a call with a doctor and he says, what’s this for again? Clearly, his PR and marketing team didn’t communicate the details with him.

When asking doctors to do interviews, it’s important that you give them everything they need to know: the name of the outlet, the type of media, the audience, the story idea, the name of the journalist or producer and anything else that’s important for them to know.

If you’re working with a physician on a content marketing project, be sure to send them questions ahead of time if they want to prepare.

Most physicians can talk off the cuff, but if they have been asked to speak about something in particular that needs to be researched ahead of time, be sure to let them know and offer to help. If the physician comes prepared with his own talking points and can cite relevant studies, it will help the interview go even more smoothly.

3. Make sure they talk in sound bites.

I find that physicians fall into 3 camps:

1. They give brief answers with little to no detail, i.e. yes, diabetes is dangerous.
2. They ramble on and on about one idea that isn’t relevant or important or they go off on a tangent.
3. They give brief, but informative straightforward answers and speak in sound bites whether they’re being interviewed for a blog post or a TV show.

Experienced writers understand how to conduct interviews, ask the right questions and how to get the physician talking. Yet if your physicians talk in sound bites, they will have credibility and your content will be a lead generation tool.

4. Help them focus on strategy, not their own agenda.

As a healthcare marketer, you have buyer personas, a content marketing strategy and an editorial calendar in place. Although your physicians are on board to help you create content, some may not like your story ideas, the voice, tone and style of your writing or the final version.

Remember that doctors are not content strategists and should not write content. Although they are vital to content creation, they need to understand your organization’s goals and objectives for generating new leads, keeping patients engaged and reducing attrition.

Physicians are a healthcare organization’s greatest asset, as both expert sources and content creation partners. And when you take the time to guide and support them, your organization can do amazing things.

You might have world-class doctors, state of the art technology and exceptional wellness programs, but when it comes to healthcare marketing, you could be making crucial mistakes that are preventing you from attracting and retaining patients.

Here are 5 of the most common mistakes healthcare organizations make and what you can do to solve them.

1. Your website is weak.

If your content isn’t clear, concise and written specifically for the patients you want to attract, you might as well not have a website. Not to mention that poor navigation, broken links and a dated design are surefire ways to send prospective patients running.

When people visit your website, they need to see themselves at your practice and feel like valued patients before they ever walk in the door. Remember: it’s about them, not you.

Your website should always include a strong call-to-action such as a free report or your newsletter sign-up, a list of services, an about page, contact information including email that’s easy to find and a blog with valuable content that is updated 2 to 3 times a week.

2. You don’t have a list.

Email marketing is still one of the most effective ways to generate new leads and keep your patients engaged. Yet so many medical practices and healthcare organizations either miss this opportunity or send out a newsletter when the motivation strikes.

One of the best ways to grow your list is to have a clear call-to-action on your website. Offer a freebie such as a guide, a gym membership discount or a collection of healthy recipes in exchange for email addresses. Continue to create new content and send your newsletter out on a regular basis.

3. You miss the mark on member engagement.

When you bring on new patients, keeping them engaged is the best way to lower attrition and costs and generate referrals. In fact, according to a Commonwealth Fund-supported study, patients with the lowest “activation scores,” or those who were able to make informed health care choices and manage their medical conditions, had predicted average health care costs that were 8 percent higher than those patients with the highest activation scores.

Although you may not be a concierge medicine practice, thinking like one can help keep your patients engaged. Welcome new patients with an information packet, have a staff member call to thank them for joining the practice and follow up after visits to answer questions that may have come up. You might also consider hosting informal meet and greet session and special events.

4. Targeting patients with one-size-fits-all content.

It’s certainly easier to send the same newsletter to all of your patients, but if you don’t customize the content for individual patients, you’re missing an opportunity to help them stay engaged in their care.

By using personal health data and demographics, it’s easy to target your patients with content customized for them. For example, you can send a collection of plant-based recipes for those patients with high-blood pressure or FAQ’s about vaccines to parents of your pediatric patients.

5. Using the wrong channels.

If you only use one type of channel, chances are you’re missing opportunities to generate leads and keep your patients engaged. For example, sending emails and text messages to your 25-year-old patients will be much more effective than your 80-year-old patients who prefer direct mail.

Look at demographics, historical data and opt-in preferences to determine the most effective channels to communicate with your patients and keep in mind that they must be channels your patients understand and use regularly.

Although healthcare marketers can talk all day about their businesses, why they’re unique and better than the competition, when it comes down to writing content, they freeze.

That’s why most hire freelance healthcare writers to write their content. Handing it off to a writer who understands their business, speaks their language and knows how to research and write compelling content is a no-brainer.

Yet for some marketers, hiring help isn’t in their budget. Or they simply haven’t sold their CMO on inbound marketing yet.

And if you’re one of them, the good news is that you can still write amazing content on your own, even if you don’t consider yourself a writer.

Here’s how to make it happen.

Write for your customer

Your leads might be suit-wearing, serious executives, but they still want to read a good story. The key however, is to always have them in mind when you write any piece of content.

The best way to make sure you write for your customer is to create buyer personas. Buyer personas explain demographics like age, sex and annual income, identifiers such as their time limits or their demeanor, as well as their goals, challenges and objections to what you offer.

Find the game changer

If you can’t identify the turning point in the story, then you either don’t have a story or you’re not ready to write it.

You might have to review the story or even conduct another interview. Some stories are “stories within stories” and have so many twists and turns it can be hard to decide what to focus on. So go back to your buyer personas and then home in on the one that will resonate with your leads and write it.

Have a plan

Do you remember writing outlines for reports in high school? It might seem tedious or even unnecessary, but it’s one of the best ways to write a well-crafted story and get it done in no time.

So write a rough draft of how you think the story will shape up. Then just starting writing. Don’t worry about the quality, just get your thoughts down. Then come back to it later, fill in what you’re missing and edit it until you’re happy.

Show, don’t tell

It’s one of the most important rules reporters learn in journalism school: show, don’t tell. And it holds true whether you’re writing a blog post or a white paper.

So when you’re writing content, write as though you’re talking to your best friend over coffee. Be sure to answer your readers’ questions, include relevant quotes and as much detail as possible to support your ideas. Bring the reader on your journey and make him feel as though he’s right there with you.

KISS

Whether you’re writing about a complex medical device, a new technology or a wellness program for your patients, follow the “Keep It Simple Stupid” principle when writing your content.

Instead of wordy, complex or filled with medical jargon, make your content easy to understand. Once you write the first draft, re-read it and cut out extra words, phrases and sentences that aren’t unnecessary.

Leave them with a lasting impression

When writing your stories, the ending should always leave your reader with an idea or a feeling that you want to stick with them.

Always tie the conclusion back into the introduction and then think about what you want them to remember.

Whether it’s a quote or an epic thought, your goal should make them take a deep breath and leave them thinking, “Wow, that’s amazing!”