This year will be the fifth time I’ve attended HIMSS. The first time, I’d been an associate editor with Health Management Technology for only six months. The learning curve had been steep, however I felt that I was adequately prepared to engage in meaningful discussions and conduct interviews with the healthcare execs with whom I had agreed to meet. How wrong I was. I spent most of the show listening with my mouth shut terrified that someone would ask me a question. My second time to HIMSS was better (at least I knew what most of the HIT acronyms meant) and by the third I was HMT’s editor-in-chief and HIMSS had become my primary resource for contributions to the magazine. However, I mostly still listen with my mouth shut.
So, what’s the hot topic at HIMSS this year? Why, it’s “meaningful use,” of course. It’s the same hot topic as last year only now most everyone has some idea of what the phrase actually means and can use it intelligibly in a sentence. If you are an exec from a healthcare IT company that is at HIMSS to announce an interoperability product that will (among other things) enable hospitals to prove meaningful use well then get in line. Nearly everyone is at the show to do the same thing.
It used to be that PR firms were required to pitch stories to trade pub editors six months prior to publication. Not anymore. Today, publications can and often do take content from pitch to publication in as little as 30 days, sometimes in a lot less time then that thanks to the Web and digital media. Nevertheless, whether it is print, digital, Web or social media, today’s publications focus on the immediate – what’s hot – and there is nothing hotter today than what is happening in healthcare. Meaningful use, interoperability, health information exchange, stimulus funds, electronic medical records, the topics list keeps on growing and industry thought leaders should keep in mind that as the pond gets muddier, fish find it harder and harder to see the bait. In other words, to get an editor to bite, you need to narrow the focus of your pitches and target a publication’s specific needs with pinpoint accuracy.
Editors primarily focus on filling their magazine’s pages with content that their readers want and that is both pertinent and timely. They create editorial calendars by carefully studying the industry they cover, examining hundreds of potential topics and culling out the most important or most likely to be useful to their readers. Then, they give PR firms and other content providers advanced notice of their plans to cover specific topics over the coming year by publishing their editorial calendar online, and in doing so, they open the flood gates. Pitches rush in and quickly overflow editors’ desks. To get yours to rise to the surface you first need to ensure that the article you’re proposing fills the publication’s needs exactly.
Some PR firms simply match their clients’ promotional needs with a publication’s editorial needs and call it a day. Others, however, take that a step further and thoroughly study the publications they target to ensure that the readership is the best audience to receive their client’s messages – your messages. That is why, in my experience, PR firms that specialize in healthcare do a better job with pitches and articles than those that have clients in multiple industries. It’s simply a matter of focus. For example, early on in my corporate communications career I worked for an auction company that specialized in high-end real estate. Since we were a startup, we were just about the only company in the industry that didn’t sell real estate on one weekend and cattle on the next. Customers quickly recognized the advantage of our focus and we soon dominated the industry. Go figure. As an editor, I always felt that PR firms that focused exclusively on the healthcare industry sent me superior pitches and articles. Consequently, I believed my readers paid more attention to them. But that’s me.
Trade publications survive by having their fingers on the pulse of the industry they cover and by giving their readers information that they want and need in a timely manner. Companies benefit when PR firms increase in the minds of a pub’s readers (or viewers as it may be) the profiles of the thought leaders the firm represents, making them credible sources and consequently affecting the reader’s decision-making, leading to improved sales for the firm’s clients. In this scenario everyone wins. This symbiotic relationship exists today, however with the advent of digital media and the Internet the time frames have shortened considerably. It’s becoming challenging to focus down to a specific message and not throw out as much as possible to see what will stick. However, narrowing the focus of your marketing campaigns and pinpoint targeting of specific media types (trade pubs, electronic newsletters, Web content, social media) is critical and will ensure that your marketing message does not get swallowed up by the tide.
And so, I’m looking forward to HIMSS and continuing my discussion on meaningful use with top industry executives. It really is the most important topic in healthcare today. Keep a look out for more blogs and tweets (got Twitter? Link to @KNB_McBride) from me throughout the show. And be sure to stop by the Carefx booth (6008) to say hi. You’ll find me enjoying being on the other side of the table for a change.
Michael
