What Journalists Want at HIMSS '12
by Shweta Agarwal
Journalists attending HIMSS 2012 are filling out their calendars, planning their schedules and starting to look at which vendor meetings will be worth their time. If you are looking to get your company or product on the docket of the influencers who can elevate you above the noise, now is the time to put the wheels into motion.
Instead of inundating the inbox of every single media attendee on the HIMSS media list, plan ahead and craft a meaningful public relations strategy that can help put your company in front of the right audience. Joe Goedert, a prominent and respected healthcare IT (HCIT) reporter at Health Data Management and someone with whom Schwartz MSL has worked for many years, offered some tips to make the meetings at HIMSS successful. He encourages vendors to get in touch with the editors well in advance as schedules fill up fast. Typically, editors review all the meeting requests to shortlist the companies they want to meet with and assign them to appropriate staff members. Do not panic if you don’t hear from journalists immediately. Give them some time to plan their schedules before you follow-up again.
Joe also emphasizes the significance of staying away from marketing speak and technical jargon when describing your product or service. However cool your product or technology may be, unless you can’t explain the benefits upfront in simple English, you will not be able to engage with a reporter for long. Always have an elevator pitch ready that clearly articulates the value proposition that you bring to the market.
Joe offers many other useful tips on how vendors can make the meetings at HIMSS more meaningful and productive in this blog post, titled, “Tips for Meeting with Reporters at HIMSS.”
With 4,700+ exhibitors hoping to secure mindshare from 30,000+ delegates and media attendees, it’s easy to get lost in the noise. Planning early and maximizing your strategic communications program before, during and after the event is an absolute must.
Schwartz MSL has created a Road to HIMSS 2012 Planning Guide to help you navigate the PR and marketing opportunities at the show, and give you useful advice on strategy, a timeline to help you plan ahead and even some tips on other fun things to do in Vegas. For further advice or information on how Schwartz MSL can partner with you, please contact Dave Close or Doug Russell in our Boston office at 781-684-0770, or Shannon Murphy in our San Francisco office at 415-512-0770, or send an email to healthcareIT@schwartzmsl.com.
Posted by Davida Dinerman on January 10, 2012 at 10:12 AM
