Your Prescription For Successful Health PR…
PR (public relations) is an essential marketing communications tool for any healthcare/medical brand. Here’s what you need to know about health PR.
What Is Health Public Relations?
PR is about managing how an audience views an individual, brand, or company. PR objectives are often accomplished by working with media outlets (online and offline) to convince them to cover a particular story. Usually this is earned editorial media coverage and comes at no cost. To be successful, health PR firms creatively pitch editors to see what editors/writers want, what the audience needs to know, and what needs to be communicated.
What Can Health PR Do?
Healthcare public relations offers a number of benefits including:
Educating your audience
Articles and media interviews allow you or your brand to provide in-depth information. You can describe the condition or problem and present your brand’s solution in more detail. A successful PR campaign will get coverage in a wide range of media outlets so the message is delivered to a variety of outlets in different story forms, for audiences to become more familiar with your brand.
Building credibility
Healthcare is a field that’s filled with complicated problems and challenges. An experienced health communications agency will ensure your message is presented clearly along with any science backed studies to respected media outlets, editors and writers. Coverage on a respected podcast or in a trusted magazine carries with it the prestige of the communications vehicle. Some of that prestige reflects back on you and your brand, boosting the credibility of your message and brand.
Strengthening community
Health public relations can be inspiring and bring people together. Articles that feature how an individual is coping or has healed from a health issue is inspiring and shows people and readers they’re not alone. Inviting people to comment or submit questions online can start a dialogue.
Best Practices in Health Public Relations
This is an essential marketing communications tool to help grow recognition for your brand and its products. Before you embark on a health PR campaign, though, keep these best practices in mind.
Work with an experienced health PR firm
Public relations is a subtle and complicated field. We recommend you partner with an agency that specializes in health PR and is familiar with health and wellness or your related field.
Understand Your Audience
Actually, this is the first rule of all effective communication. If your message doesn’t “speak to” the people you want to influence, your communications efforts are wasted. Coverage in vehicles that don’t reach your audience is wasted, too.
Public relations brings many media opportunities through online outlets, magazines, TV shows, podcasts and so many opportunities to tell your brand story. That means understanding the type of media outlet and the stories they cover, and what they are looking for in a story, while building good relationships with the relevant editors, writers, producers, talent bookers, etc.
Make your story local when you can
You’ll get a better response to pitching your story if you start in your own neighborhood. The audience will be more relatable to your story because its local. Cultivating feature stories helps to build local recognition and an audience.
Keep HIPAA rules in mind
Keeping provider and patient information private is a major concern in health public relations. Health PR professionals need to be very careful to avoid any unapproved disclosure of patient or provider information.
Use Trusted Expertise to Build Your Brand
Dunn Pellier Media (DPM) specializes in health PR. That makes DPM a great health communications agency partner, one that can make your brand a media success. Contact us today to see how our expertise can help elevate your brand.
Dunn Pellier Media is an established health, wellness, and lifestyle pr firm in Los Angeles. Our CEO Nicole Dunn is a former Senior Level Television Producer who started DPM around health and wellness after seeing a lack of positive health coverage in the media marketplace. She is a thought-leader in all things health and fitness and often writes for Forbes Magazine covering all things wellness.