Joe Public Doesn’t Care about Your Hospital
Minneapolis health care marketing firm Interval was looking to raise its profile with health care marketing executives and health care influencers.
To achieve this, over a period of two years (2009-2011) Helena partnered with Interval's president Chris Bevolo to identify, pitch, and secure speaking engagements with national and regional health care marketing organizations and pitch, edit, and place articles and guest blog posts, as well as interviews in local business publications.
Through this process, Bevolo became known for his point of view on transforming health care marketing.
Key Challenges
We were doing all the right things. Chris was writing articles and engaging on social media. He had a podcast. He was speaking at marketing associations and events all over the country. He had become a recognized healthcare marketing expert with a strong following—a true thought leader.
The problem was, none of it had led to new business. So one cold day in January, Chris called me and said we had to stop.
I asked him to bring me back out to his office in Minneapolis one last time to wrap things up. But really, I was on a mission.
Chris was already a published author, having written two comprehensive but rather academic books on healthcare marketing for a healthcare publisher. They also were expensive, around $100.
I knew what he really needed was a $25 business card. Something his followers could purchase—and drop on their CMO’s desk.
Outcome
I pitched Chris the idea at lunch (fish tacos) and we sketched out a working table of contents on a paper napkin. Chris set about assembling the material we’d created into a 180-page manifesto that would radically transform not just hospital marketing but also his business, which was acquired in 2014 by Revive Health (now part of BPD).
“In 2011, at the end of our public relations engagement, Helena recommended I take what we’d created and roll it up into an industry trade book. The result was “Joe Public Doesn’t Care About Your Hospital,” which not just opened doors, it blew them wide open—and unlocked my company’s ability to grow.”
Chris Bevolo, Chief Transformation Officer, BPD, and award-winning author of six books, including Joe Public Doesn’t Care About Your Hospital, which became a field guide for driving transformation in hospital marketing departments across the country.