Building Your Best Team: Three Benefits of Bringing Outside Expertise to Healthcare
As recently as five years ago, healthcare PR sat squarely in its own corner – siloed by the technical nature of the work and niche knowledge required to effectively support clients. But as marketing and communications have rapidly evolved in the digital era and consumer, tech and health industries have converged, so has our industry approach to communications. The ongoing need to deliver fresh thinking and a unique perspective to differentiate our clients in the crowded healthcare industry is more important than ever, requiring both creativity and outside-industry expertise.
That’s why Allison+Partners builds account teams with not only subject matter expertise in healthcare, but also consumer, corporate, B2B/technology and non-profit knowledge. The ability to leverage team members with diversified skillsets is invaluable to serving our health clients. By bringing together a range of skills, perspectives and backgrounds, we can guide them in joining – and often leading – some of the most interesting innovation conversations in the industry.
Here are three key benefits of bringing outside expertise to healthcare.
1. Dynamic storytelling that resonates across audiences
Health organizations serve a variety of different yet equally important stakeholders requiring unique communications and tailored approaches. While we often aim to tell one cohesive narrative on behalf of our clients, we understand the nuances of how that story comes to life for audiences with differing needs and how the messaging must evolve and take shape in different ways to make the most impact for each group. We leverage expertise from our consumer and B2B team members and our seasoned health veterans to strike the right balance for our clients.
For example, when we secure speaking opportunities at key conferences (whether it’s CES, HLTH or SXSW), we always ensure we offer a topic and drive a conversation that will resonate with diverse audiences – patients and providers; industry experts and peers; shareholders and future investors. This also applies to how we position our clients through earned efforts – we develop bespoke media strategies that thoughtfully target a range of different verticals to allow us to drill down into the messaging that will resonate with priority audiences.
2. Integrated and out-of-the-box thinking
Dynamic storytelling is only as good as the strategy behind it. One of A+P’s strengths is our ability to pull expertise from across the agency thanks to our one P&L model, which means no one in our agency competes for revenue. Rather, our single P&L across the entire business promotes collaboration and allows us to pull together the best team to partner with clients and execute on their objectives, regardless of the team members’ locations or the practices they sit in. At face value, it means we’re an extension of your team who is deeply passionate about health with the advantage of different perspectives and backgrounds.
Our goal is to maximize momentum from the point of execution, and we strive to have our clients show up in unexpected ways to generate authentic, timely and thought-provoking conversations. It sounds simple, but the multi-channel approach is a dedicated skill that requires constant practice. From developing supporting content, drafting engaging social copy and securing earned media to extend the reach, we always take an integrated approach to move the needle and drive measurable results.
3. Constant curiosity as agency culture
At the core of our culture is a passion to create real impact in healthcare. It starts with a constant curiosity to always stay updated on the latest news and trends, and it means we’re also willing to try new things, accept challenges and bring out-of-the-box thinking to our clients to drive their business forward. As driven and passionate communicators, we thrive on this curiosity and share an innate desire to never stop learning.
At A+P, we don’t just rely on other colleagues to bring outside industry knowledge to our clients. We hold our team accountable, and we’ve intentionally built a group of healthcare careerists, deep subject matter experts and folks who have come from other industries, all motivated to explore health. Personally, I fit in the latter – having worked on consumer and corporate brands, touching both B2B and tech clients and non-profit and foundations during my PR career.
For the last year or so since I joined A+P, I’ve aimed to bring knowledge, best practices and new ways of thinking from the other specialties and industries I’ve touched to my health clients – and I’m not the only one. It’s important we don’t lose sight of the bigger picture. And by intentionally building diverse and integrated teams with “outside-in” perspectives – both within our practice and within our agency – we’re positioned to continuously push boundaries on behalf of our clients.
We wholeheartedly believe our cross-industry teams create an advantage and allow us to take a nimble approach to address the challenges our clients face in this rapidly changing industry. We aim to ask the “unasked questions” and simultaneously offer novel solutions that create opportunities for our clients to stand out.
Bringing expertise from other industries to health is hugely beneficial and foundational to the award-wining work we do at A+P. Having the power of an agency with such diverse expertise allows us to pull in the right people as priorities change and as new business opportunities and challenges arise. We know healthcare will continue to evolve, and we understand that clients want a partner who can do the same – in real time – all with an eye toward the future.
To learn more about how our team can support your PR and integrated communications efforts, please reach out to healthslt@allisonpr.com.
Erin Pallotta is an account director on Allison+Partners’ Health team, where she leads integrated teams in
developing breakthrough campaigns and drives business results for clients. She specializes in client services,
media relations, executive visibility and thought leadership, and corporate and crisis communications.
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Category: Health
