|
January 2003
Volume I, Issue 3
News
HIMSS Meeting Media Arrangements
The HIMSS (Health Information Management System Society) annual
conference is set for the San Diego Convention Center on February
9-13. The conference offers healthcare IT companies a number of
opportunities. Conference organizers expect more than 600 exhibitors
and some 20,000 attendees.
The conference news media relations organizers report they expect
80-90 journalists to attend. There will be a special area in the
exhibit hall pressroom where printed news releases from conference
exhibitors will be available. Exhibitors should ship their printed
news releases (send about 200 copies) to conference organizers by
February 1. Or, you may drop them off in-person at the pressroom
on Sunday, February 9.
Several IT publication editors told me they will not be attending
the conference this year, due to reduced staff and travel budgets.
However, they want to see any conference news releases. So you should
place your release on PR Newswire and send to your distribution
list.
Several editors told me they have been "deluged" with
requests from companies for meetings. One editor said, "I'm
not meeting with any vendors unless I know them well and they have
some genuine news to offer." Another told me she would wait
until the first day of the conference to see "who is rolling
out what" before scheduling any appointment.
Trends
Five Ways to Cut Your PR Costs
-
Pick up the phone (or your mouse). Be proactive. Create media
relations opportunities by developing and pitching new story
ideas about your company. The best way to be cost-effective
is to improve results.
-
Review PR agency costs: Are you getting your money's worth?
Conduct an agency review. Consider using a smaller agency or
going from a monthly retainer to a project basis. If you're
happy with your current agency, review strategy and spending.
Are PR efforts being coordinated with advertising and marketing
activities?
-
Cut back on news wire distribution costs. Consider using the
regional or industry circuits (e.g. Biosciences, Technology)
of PR Newswire and BusinessWire instead of the national circuit.
You might consider using one of their cheaper competitors, however,
some of them do not have a searchable archive nor are they included
in popular search engines that journalists use (e.g. Factiva,
Lexis-Nexis).
-
Go digital. Reduce printing and photography costs. Create electronic
press kits housed on your company's web site or at a newswire.
Use a digital camera and send JPEG images instead of hard copies.
-
Reduce snail mail. Prune your mailing list. Some journalists
at bigger publications no longer open any mail. Faxing, which
has dropped in price, may be a cost-effective alternative. Note
that a few journalists do not like or do not have access to
email, and they still rely on the U.S. mail.
Industry Insight
Whither Web services?
"Look for continuing organic growth of Web services. Tool
support is now ubiquitous and as databases continue to move rapidly
towards XML, Web services will follow."
--eWeek, Dec. 23, 2002.
"Web services is still not ready for prime time. For starters,
there are no security protocols right now. Second, nobody knows
how to use UDDI, the web services directory protocol that's supposed
to work like an online Yellow Pages. And...CIOs are skeptical that
longtime rivals such as Sun and Microsoft will be able to agree
on web services standards."
--CIO magazine Dec. 15, 2002
Resources
Don't be misled by the state specific name -- the California HealthCare
Foundation's web site CHCF
home page has an excellent, fully searchable catalog of information
on technology, policy and HIPAA issues. Many of the reports are
written from a national perspective. For example, a just published
"Trend and Analysis" report (available for download via
PDF) examines purchasing health insurance online.
The organization also offers two daily news feeds, iHealthbeat
and California Healthline. Both are available free to qualifying
subscribers.
Finally, if you are a nonprofit, there is information available
on applying for grants. The foundation has a multi-billion dollar
endowment and makes hundreds of grants, large and small, every year.
You are welcome to forward this publication to other
public relations professionals for noncommercial use.
© 2003 Westside Public Relations. All Rights
Reserved.
|
