Publicity Hound Lisa Cupolo writes:
“I am the marketing facilitator for Northwoods Health System. We offer six different health care facilities in upstate New York providing rehabilitation and long-term care services. This is a setting that bridges the gap between hospital and home (patients are discharged from the hospital but are unable to return home until they are fully healed so they come to our facilities).
“We provide 24-hour care for patients with serious medical needs. I’d like to generate broadcast and print media attention for our pediatric unit. I recently sent a press releases to all local media regarding the pediatric unit and incorporating the physical rehabilitation needs of patients with the educational needs of them as well.
“I thought this topic would tie in well to the start of school a couple of weeks ago, however, I only received the interest from one local media outlet.
“Do your readers have any advice as far as how to gain more media attention? What’s a good way to pitch this idea over the phone? This would be a great topic for educators, parents with children who have special needs and the public in general.”
Rather than focusing on the whole organization, focus on one or two specific patients. What’s their story? How were they injured and how is your organization helping them get ready for returning to school? Offer to let a local journalist “shadow” your physical and occupational therapists as they work with the patient on school-specific tasks, either at your facility or onsite at an area school. Give them 10 tips a school can implement to make their environment easier to navigate for a child rehabilitating from an injury.
Lisa – Before my current position as a PR consultant and independent publicist, I was director of PR for a rehabiliation hospital. As in many situations, simply generating a press release doesn’t ‘get it.’ Individual, personalized pitches are what I have always found to be more successful. Start with one person’s compelling story. Of course this means you have to ‘make rounds’ and find out what that story is. There’s the issue of HIPAA, which makes this a lot more difficult than it used to be, but it’s still possible. Once you’ve identified that great story and gotten the family’s written consent to tell it, then start making the contacts — one at a time. It is rare that I would pitch the same patient story to the daily newspaper as I would the local TV news. Why would they want to run the same story? Of course tying this to the news of the day is always the best way to move something along more quickly — as you tried to do with the start of school — but it has to have a human face. Also: Watch for the high profile patients. For example: We had a patient who was involved in a serious auto accident that was all over the news. Thus, we classified her as a ‘high profile patient.’ The media love follow-up stories, so it was easy for me to get a story on her when she began to make progress through her rehab. Bottom line: Get real people and tell their stories one at a time. Yes, it takes time but the results can be outstanding. ~ Kathi Petersen, KP Communications – Asheville NC
How about conducting a press tour to the facilites so that reporters feel and view themselves?
Organising an open house will be another idea to attract suitable clients or their families to the facilities.
Doing some mini research studies at the facilities (collaborationn with academics are preferrable) and announce them for media coverage.
How about focusing on events during National Rehab Week? I believe it’s 917 -9/23. During that week offer seminars on injury prevention to groups like local high school athletes.
Offer an award to a local high school athlete who demonstrates the Most Improved Athlete After Injury something like that.
Offer an award to local high school teams that practice the best injury prevention techniques.
Offer a certificate program to local coaches who take your course on injury prevention. Recertify them every year. Track their results. These are multiple ways to have legit reasons for a press release every year with little work.
How about stories on remarkable recoveries at your facility? You must have some of those, why doesn’t the media know about it?
Focus on a cause, how about a Bike Helmet ordinance for kids.
Announce you are tracking rehab costs related to head injuries in conjunction with your prosposal for a new bike helmet law.
Make bold comments about local star athletes in rehab or have gone through rehab.
Why is Chad Pennington playing well for the Jets when everyone thought his career was over shoulder surgery?
What did he do or not do in rehab that helped or hurt him.
Why isn’t granny in the local nursing home getting the same kind of rehab services like Chad Pennington?
Why do the Jets have the worse success at getting their players back on the field than any other team in the league? Can you comment on this?
Headline idea:
Why Does Local Doctor Say The Jets… Suck, Suck, Suck
What Jet’s Coaches Do Wrong On The Field That Makes The Team Lose
Have you taken a look at doing a community activity like sponsoring a school event or a fund raiser for a favorite local charity. There is so much stuff you can do here. Things like this give much more of a human interest story for the media. A group helping kids now working to help the community probably won’t get national media but local stations could cetainly use it. For a bigger game hook up with other charities and get your name put up along with theirs.
Good luck
Tony Skerritt http://www.officialstolenlost.com