I want to share some really exciting news about Schwartz Communications. After 20 years of independence, we’ve become part of MSLGROUP---one of the world’s largest public relations and engagement agencies.
It takes something special to change two decades of independence. And we’ve found it in an amazing organization with talented employees, terrific clients, and a shared passion for storytelling in all its mediums. Our unique and shared strengths mesh very well.
As Schwartz MSL, we’ll continue our focus on “innovation companies of all sizes” and the technologies, treatments and services that transform business, save lives and conserve our natural resources. But as part of an outstanding industry leader, we now have a new assortment of engagement and marketing services, and a network of thousands of additional experts in more than 80 MSLGROUP offices worldwide.
We’ve moved to a truly global stage, and Schwartz MSL will continue to lead the way in delivering the reach, influence and creative service offerings our clients need to create new markets or transform existing ones. We hope you’ll enjoy our next act, which you can follow here in our blogs and on Twitter at @schwartzmsl.
We are thrilled to be sponsoring Silicon Stilettos on Wednesday. Did you know the typical ratio of men versus women at most tech meet-ups is 80/20? Silicon Stilettos is a free women-only (or almost women-only) meet-up organised by Zuzanna Pasierbinska-Wilson where women in tech can drink cocktails and take part in relaxed, no-pressure networking. We’ve thoroughly enjoyed Zuzanna’s events in the past and jumped at the chance to work with her on her latest meet-up.
If you’re a woman in tech, please join us for complimentary drinks and canapés (and great company!) at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday at:
Over the past month we’ve been digging into some of the top mobile industry trends in our Road to Barcelona series. This past weekend we landed in Barcelona and today the fun really begins as Mobile World Congress 2011 kicks off!
Over the next four days we’ll be tirelessly walking the floor, meeting with innovative companies, playing with the latest mobile devices (3D? we’re there!) and stopping by as many parties as possible.
Earlier this week, the Publicity Club of New England recognized the best public relations and social media campaigns and tactics of the past year. The Bell Ringer judges were senior practitioners from Chicago and Boston.
Schwartz is proud that we have continued the tradition of being recognized with more Bell Ringer Awards for work we have done with our clients than any other PR Agency in New England.
Most gratifying to us this year is that we won 10 Gold Bells for our clients, and that Schwartz was recognized for having the two best campaigns of the year, winning both Gold and Silver Bells, for its work in the business-to-business, healthcare and high-tech public relations categories.
When asked by many, how do we continue to win so many awards, we believe it is based on two key elements:
1) As a strategic communications firm, we understand that we don’t succeed by ourselves. Schwartz works closely with our clients to make sure our communications, content and public relations activities help them realize their business objectives. It is this close relationship, senior level involvement and comprehensive approach - including social media, content marketing and inbound marketing services - that help our programs succeed.
2) We don’t expect our clients (or Bell Ringer judges) to measure our work based on the “thud factor”, or in social media Thud 2.0. Our work, and our award entries, are judged on how we helped public relations close the loop with sales, patient recruitment or other business objectives.
For the 2010 Bell Ringer Awards, this ranged from driving qualified leads from trade articles to creating enough demand to crash one client’s servers. It included driving hundreds of patient inquiries to cutting consumer misperceptions in half. It is based on helping drive hundreds of thousands in product sales to opening new channels with key prospects.
We are proud of the work of our employees and our clients. If you have any questions about how we can help your company, let us know.
Strong month for the Schwartz team with a SABRE Award in "Research for Publicity" for its work with Javelin Strategy & Research.
The Schwartz team and Javelin combined professional and social media to promote Javelin's annual identity fraud report, increasing media coverage 126 over previous years, and a whopping 97 percent of all articles emphasizing at least two key messages.
In addition to Javelin, some terrific clients were honored with nominations: medical device company Bioness, antivirus and desktop security software provider ESET and boutique healthcare investment services provider Leerink Swann. Although they didn't take home trophies, it's the first time Schwartz has emerged with four finalists in the SABRES and the work remains outstanding.
There's a great case study on Schwartz's work with Bioness, including a campaign that delivered $4M in sales leads. Check it out!
The classic 80s movie “When Harry Met Sally” follows two people through the years, originally stuck together for a Chicago-to-New York drive, then by chance bumping into each other and finally into love and a long relationship.
This is not unlike what we've seen happen with marketing and sales. Anyone with tenure in the business world knows that these two organizations need to be brilliantly in love and joined at the hip, moving together or else stumbling separately.
There was a time where a great “story” got ink and everyone was happy. Pump up the volume. But now, every good business is looking to connect the sales impact of initiatives, in marketing, public relations, everywhere. Many chief marketing officers are now experts in inbound lead generation, in addition to the traditional staple of brand, awareness and visibility. And the real magic is where they intersect, with one driving the other.
Today’s announcement of Schwartz's partnership with HubSpot is another great example of the transformational work we’ve been doing for years: tying storytelling to sales at all turns, and even rejecting stories that may seem to have cool headlines, but don’t move a needle on any measurable front.
Some of the most interesting work Schwartz is doing for its clients today is what we’ve dubbed “closed loop communications” --- being able to execute a strategy that loops directly into inbound marketing efforts. We’re creating content of interest, optimizing and pushing it out with professional and social media relations, search marketing and other services. That in turn is driving awareness, measured in web traffic and leads. Then we're reporting back on exactly what’s working, who’s looking and what’s prompting action in a client’s communities.
At Schwartz, we’ve nailed an outstanding strategy and process for doing this through many different types of approaches, tactics and tools, including inbound web marketing (leveraging HubSpot), digital video content (including some brilliant video marketing solutions from Visible Gains) and other strands. Whether you're in healthcare, technology, cleantech or consumer, we understand your business and the right mix of levers to pull, buttons to push, and people to influence to deliver tremendous impact.
The best meal on the menu is closed loop public relations. Order it.
We are story tellers at Schwartz Communications. For almost 20 years, our teams have translated complicated technical and medical concepts into messaging that resonates with strategic audiences.
Being a good story teller means that at your core you need to be a good writer. This is why, for as long as Schwartz has been in business, every employee candidate takes a writing test, sitting down at a desk specifically reserved for the task.
This test continues to be important today as content has become a core aspect of everything we do for our clients. Every company needs content to attract potential customers, partners and employees, and to establish a corporate image to existing customers, partners and employees.
We certainly have moved beyond just the writing test in terms of what we now look for in potential Schwartz staff members. Our employees now are creating YouTube videos, managing social media content, conducting interviews for podcast episodes and suggesting graphics to augment stories. And we teach them to optimize and promote what they create, so our clients receive SEO impact from our efforts.
While content remains king, the tactics and tools available to PR pros in recent years have expanded dramatically. With social media, the ease of creating digital content, and the changing, flattening nature of how people can find information via Internet-driven tools, PR and communications today have become larger, more influential parts of marketing than at any other time. We are also able to measure our effectiveness in ways that directly relate to our clients’ businesses and their strategic business objectives.
Many of Schwartz’s services are, in fact, transforming marketing, creating a direct connection between PR, marketing, lead generation and marketing measurement. Since Schwartz is a top five technology PR, healthcare PR and green PR firm, we have taken a leadership position in defining this connection for our clients and in offering marketing transformation services.
Today, we extended that leadership by announcing a partnership with HubSpot. HubSpot sells web-based tools that help companies create, optimize and promote content so those companies can easily be found online, tools that help convert those visitors into leads and customers, and tools that track who comes to their websites, which visitors become active leads and close into customers---and a whole host of other information.
In many ways, HubSpot’s inbound marketing platform complements Schwartz’s methodology and services. Many of our engagements have capitalized on HubSpot for some time. Schwartz teams use HubSpot to help create and promote optimized strategic content for clients. The analytical tools within HubSpot allow us to see directly how the content Schwartz creates and promotes generates leads and fills the top of the marketing lead funnel. By seeing how many leads the traffic generates, we can repeat tactics that generate significant results.
Inbound marketing and HubSpot software are not new to us, and we certainly are not talking about them for the first time based on today’s partnership announcement. But today’s news exemplifies how PR and communications can have an even closer relationship to marketing and sales---not to mention how PR for innovative companies has changed dramatically in recent years.
Schwartz has maintained its leadership position as a PR firm for innovative companies because it has stayed ahead of the curve in offering services that define how PR is changing. You can expect so see many posts about the topic in the weeks and months ahead.
In HubSpot, we have a partner providing solutions that contribute directly to how PR has changed and how we deliver services to our clients here at Schwartz.
At Schwartz we believe that the modern PR firm should be content-driven, strategic and able to measure its effectiveness. My co-worker Laura Kempke has authored a white paper that goes into more detail, and I invite you to download it. We are constantly evaluating products and services that can be managed by our clients’ account teams and can seamlessly enhance our clients programs. Over the past several months, we have added new measurement, lead-tracking and content marketing programs that are powered by HubSpot. Our clients and their Schwartz teams see the clear benefits of these marketing transformational approaches.
At the same time, we recognize that the HubSpot partnership is based on the premise that, at Schwartz, we are fundamentally still story tellers. What excites us are the new possibilities for telling those stories, identifying and connecting to strategic audiences, and measuring our work. We’re excited by the ways that PR, communications and marketing are all changing, and feel this partnership with HubSpot is a good indication of this transformation.
Our very own Liz Woodhouse, VP of human resources, will join a panel of industry experts from the Boston area on Tuesday, February 9 for the Publicity Club of New England’s second annual career seeker & networking breakfast. Kirk Hazlett, a professor of communications at Curry College, will moderate the discussion.
This is a terrific forum to hear how social media is impacting the “rat race.” Across the board, life as we know it has certainly changed with the advent of Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and the myriad of other social media tools. Liz will share her expertise on how to navigate and network via the social media landscape. Professional protocol, in light of these changes, will be a hot button topic at the program.
Schwartz today welcomes some new folks into our family: Hayhurst Media, a UK-based communications firm. The acquisition of Hayhurst represents both a serious expansion of our European talent and deeper penetration of two core areas---healthcare and cleantech.
Out of the gate, we’re adding more than two dozen European clients and two of the most talented PR professionals I’ve ever met. Hayhurst is run by the founding husband and wife team (sound familiar?) of Richard and Amanda Hayhurst. It’s an outstanding cultural fit. We’re a people business, and both Richard and Amanda are both fantastic business pros, writers and human beings.
We’ve even done some projects with them over the years, and have seen first hand the same results-orientation, professionalism and smarts the Schwartz team brings to our clients every day.
Richard and Amanda will become co-managing directors for Schwartz UK, reporting to Kristina Ebenius, our European managing director.
Our clients (current and future) benefit from having Hayhurst Media as part of the Schwartz team. A deeper team in the UK along with our pan-European coverage from Stockholm means even easier integration of EMEA communications efforts with the US Schwartz team. Not to state the obvious, but we live in a multi-channel business world with more companies eager to ramp their influence and sales abroad, and that includes both sides of the pond.
We’re thrilled with today’s news and know that the Schwartz/Hayhurst match is a great one. Not much time for celebrating though. There are a lot of innovation-oriented companies out there that need this growing team’s help!
Just in. Schwartz's EnteroMedics team has won a Bronze In-Awe Award from the Healthcare Communications & Marketing Association. (It used to be known as the Medical Marketing Association.)
The award recognizes Schwartz's outstanding work supporting EnteroMedics' clinical trial recruitment and its EMPOWER study of an experimental device for obesity. The seven-month campaign helped drive enrollment in 13 different U.S. sites.
At the heart of our efforts were feature stories in high-impact national and local media driving awareness of the clinical study and encourage potential study participants to call into the call center or go to the website to determine if they would be eligible for the study.
Total audience for print and broadcast outlets? 65 million from 140 stories in print, broadcast and Web across multiple U.S. markets from San Francisco and San Diego to Minneapolis and Cleveland. From the San Francisco Chronicle to the CBS Early Show and Good Morning America.
Schwartz and our clients received 26 awards recognizing media, special event and social media efforts in Healthcare, Consumer, Social Media and High Tech PR programs.
Pardon me as I brag for a moment. This work spanned 19 clients across our practice groups. It's like a good rock concert with multiple acts---you're a bit stunned and hard of hearing the next day.
The Bell rang a lot for Schwartz, and it's a tremendous testament to the quality of our clients, and most importantly, the outstanding staff we have and results they deliver.
Hooray!
(P.S. This is on the heels of two 2009 Bulldog Awards for outstanding media relations on behalf of our clients Epocrates and Bill Me Later.)
Congratulations to Schwartz and its long-time client partner CheckFree (now Fiserv). We are a finalist in this year’s PRSA Silver Anvil awards, which are pretty much one of the most prestigious awards in the PR industry. The nomination, in the "Marketing Consumer Services Technology" category, highlights our work promoting green living and fighting fraud with online bill payment. This is a testiment to a great client who is committed to research and creative campaigns, and a close, long-term working relationship.
Schwartz and CheckFree (Fiserv) secured more than 1,500 articles and on average the majority of articles contained at least two key messages and/or statistics. Green coverage for the campaigns ranged from key blogs and regional papers to the Sierra Club magazine. Working closely with CheckFree, partner banks and the industry, the company offered various promotions, including an offer to plant a tree for each E-bill activated. This generated more than 125,000 new users and planted that many trees. If you are interested in finding out more, visit ebillplace.
The identity fraud campaign was just as successful, and generated more than 1,000 total articles, blog posts and TV stories. More than 60% of the articles contained at least two of the top messages including paying bills online is safer than mailing them.
A client for ten years, the CheckFree (now Fiserv) and the Schwartz team partnership is no stranger to awards. It's the fourth time in seven years that the CheckFree/Schwartz team is a finalist---and we took home the gold for two of those.
I wonder if we have a Meryl Streep thing going here?
