Storytelling Archives - Denver Marketing & Communications Firm

May 12, 2017 • RachelContent Marketing, Healthcare Marketing, Storytelling

White Papers: A Powerful Tool to Bring Customers to You

Are you using white papers as part of your business-to-business marketing and communications strategy? Do you know how to write one? How to promote it?

A white paper is a persuasive essay that uses facts and logic to help people understand an issue, solve a problem or make a decision. They are not designed to directly sell your product. Rather, they help you connect with potential customers, educate them and gain their trust.

We recently completed white papers for the following clients:

* Swisslog Healthcare, a maker of pharmacy automation equipment
* Huron Consulting
* CyrusOne, a data center REIT

How do you write a white paper?

1. Define your goal: Do you want to attract attention at the top of the sales funnel? Arm your sales people with arguments and proof points? Show potential customers how your product has helped others become successful? Educate journalists or bloggers? Or do you need a white paper that helps “clinch” the sale at the bottom of the funnel?

2. Pick an editorial construct: Your persuasive essay might be one of the classic formats – problem/solution, issue backgrounder, case study or numbered list. Your marketing goal will influence the format.

3. Hire a professional team: Sure, this sounds self-serving, but most marketing directors can’t devote 20+hours to researching an issue, interviewing subject matter experts, writing and rewriting. (Full disclosure: I have more than 6 years of experience as a newspaper reporter and 10 years as a freelance writer). Don’t forget putting a copy-editor and graphic designer on your team, too.

4. Promote, promote, promote: Once your white paper is done, give it a prominent home on your website. Send it out via e-newsletter, post it on social media and print it, too. What about making it into a podcast, or posting it as images on Pinterest?

5. Measure! Track how many leads you got from your white paper, and from which channels. Talk to your sales people, and see how it helped.

Want to brainstorm white paper topics for your business? Email me.

November 11, 2016 • RachelHealthcare Marketing, Storytelling

How to Write the Perfect One-Pager

Female writer typing using laptop keyboard at her workplace in the morning. Woman writing blogs online, side view close-up picture

We taught attendees at the Colorado Non-Profit Association’s annual meeting how to concept, research and write an issue advocacy piece.

The presentation was part of the policy and advocacy track, and attendees were seeking to learn how to use communications for advocacy, funding and media relations.

One-pagers start with a key message-driven headline, then use narrative, data, photos, and testimonials to create a compelling case. They end in a well-designed, easy-to-digest, single-sided document.

Why boil it down to one page?

The Honorable Lois Court, who served for eight years in the Colorado House of Representatives, told me: “Access to information is not our problem. Everyone in the world wants to give us information. The problem is absorbability.”

We believe that while communicators have many tools in their workbench, nothing forces them to simplify and clarify their message as much as the one-pager. The writing, editing and polishing that goes into this most “perfect” of documents pays dividends across all communications pieces.

April 14, 2016 • RachelHealth Quality & Safety, Hospitals, Storytelling

Why UCHealth Wins Top Hospital Awards

For The Denver Business Journal, we recently looked at why University of Colorado Hospital (UCH) has won plaudits for so many of its departments.

Better-than-average outcomes, new equipment, adherence to nationally recognized protocols, the ability to get care for highly complex problems, the availability of clinical trials and the sheer size of medical staff all help build a national ranking. So does the availability of nationally-recognized specialists, working together, in tackling medicine’s toughest problems.

Take, for instance, UCH’s obstetrics and gynecology department. We wrote:

“When most people think of obstetrics and gynecology, they see a pregnant woman and a healthy baby. But today’s gynecologists also take care of much more complex patients: mothers of triplets, ill mothers, fetuses with anomalies, and mothers with depression.

To meet this need, UCH’s ob/gyn department – and its more than 50 providers – are specialized in oncology, reproductive endocrinology, family planning, maternal fetal medicine and urogynecology…”

Unearthing these full department profiles took research, persistence and cooperation from the doctors and media relations staff at UCH. The results, 12 tightly written departmental profiles, form the backbone of a special Denver Business Journal section titled, Anschutz: City of Health.