Throughout the year, Aria Marketing participates in a variety of charity events to give back to the local community and spread awareness of important causes. Often, we try to find organizations that align in some way with our PR agency’s focus on healthcare. Our most recent charity involvement has been with The Jimmy Fund, a non-profit organization that raises funds to support research and technology for Boston's Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Aria made it our mission to raise at least $3,500 as a team and walk the Boston Marathon® Jimmy Fund 10K on September 24th. To date, we have surpassed our goal and kept the momentum going. Getting there wasn’t easy, but there were a few successful tactics we employed which we thought we’d share to help inspire other companies in their fundraising efforts.

There are many opportunities in healthcare journalism for thought leaders to contribute content. Healthcare reporters are continuously soliciting bylined articles from healthcare industry thought leaders and experts to keep up with the content demand of digital media. As a healthcare focused public relations agency our goal is to amplify our client’s thought leadership platform and we see the byline article as one of the greatest ways to do so as they enable experts to directly communicate their insights and expertise in their own words to their desired audience. In general, contributed content – like a bylined article – is an excellent way for the client to control their message and eliminates opportunities for outside biases and perspectives. That said, publications and editors often have very specific criteria and sometimes unspoken expectations that contributed content must adhere to. Below we’ve shared the top three best practices to consider when drafting a byline or any other kind of contributed content.

Welcome to Corner Office – a new series on The Pitch featuring a Q&A with our President Scott Collins. For our inaugural column, we sat down with Scott to talk about healthcare trends that will capture the media’s attention in 2019.

Welcome to the Corner Office, our Q&A series with Aria President, Scott Collins. This year, Aria is celebrating its 20^th anniversary, so we sat down to get Scott’s take on the last two decades of Aria Marketing, healthcare, and public relations.

Like many others, we at Aria Marketing have been teleworking since COVID-19 hit Massachusetts in early March. While this has certainly taken some getting used to, we are amongst the lucky ones as working from home as a B2B PR professional is pretty easy to do—all we need are our laptops, phones, and some space to get our creative PR juices flowing. And, while there are certainly challenges to this set-up (homeschool being the biggie for me!), there is one silver lining: more time for cooking!

The world has been facing the COVID-19 global pandemic for almost a year, but it finally feels like there is light at the end of the tunnel – vaccines. The Biden administration is currently pushing for a more accelerated vaccination rollout in the U.S., and the President recently suggested the nation could soon reach an average of 1.5 million shots a day. This push comes as many health experts call the initial vaccine rollout “flawed” and express concerns over the amount of Americans vaccinated thus far. As a healthcare PR agency working with clients across the industry, we are well-versed on the latest vaccine news and “hot takes” from industry executives and wanted to share what we have been hearing lately from our clients.  

As we look back at our biggest PR wins of the year, it becomes clear that one of the most successful strategies we deployed for clients centered on leveraging and packaging up data. One client that has seen the positive outcome of this strategy year over year is Kyruus. For the third time, we partnered with them to help promote its annual Patient Access Journey Report (PAJR) via leveraging data and insights to highlight its market leadership. Below is a snapshot of the strategy we deployed and some highlights of the results garnered to date: 

December is the most wonderful time of the year, and not just because of all the holiday cheer. We had some excellent client successes throughout the month, which was a perfect way to close out a great 2017 and welcome more PR wins in 2018. Here are our highlights from December:

As a healthcare PR agency, it’s our job to examine the latest industry trends and developments. One trend on the minds of many of our healthcare IT clients is the rapid rise of telehealth. The pandemic has accelerated telehealth’s adoption, but will things return to the way they were post-pandemic, or will this growth continue?

If we can conduct business virtually, educate our kids online and hang out with loved ones through a computer, what about seeing a doctor? Telemedicine is not new, but a 2021 study found one in three adults turned to telehealth in the wake of the pandemic with some providers reporting a 4000% uptick in virtual visits.

Yes, we’re more connected, but is that just on the surface? Let’s look at both sides of the equation.

At this point in my tenure at Aria, I have interviewed many job seekers for positions ranging from hopeful interns and co-op students to VP-level candidates. This past year especially, my company has seen such high demand for our PR and marketing communications services that we have had to make a number of new hires to support our continued growth.

That all sounds really exciting – and it is—but as they say, you have to kiss a few frogs (or 20) to find your prince/ss (or PR maven). Throughout this hiring process, my Aria interview team has had differing opinions about which candidates should receive an Aria “rose,” but we all agree that there are five core qualities that the next Aria employee should embody:

I recently sat down with Aria’s Executive Vice President, Jessica Cohen, to learn about her successes and challenges to date as a woman in business. At just 34 years old, Jessica has proven that young women can make it to the top in the male-dominated world of healthcare and in the increasingly competitive PR industry. Below are some of the insights she shared to help guide and empower other young women working to make their mark.

February may be the shortest month of the year, but that didn’t stop the Aria team from securing fantastic results for our clients. As we get ready for the snow to stop (hopefully!) and the springtime weather to arrive, we wanted to highlight some of our best client wins from February.

February may be the shortest month of the year, but that didn’t stop Team Aria from securing top-notch results for our clients! From landing coverage of our clients’ news in top healthcare books to securing a record number of meetings at HIMSS19 with the industry’s top reporters and analysts, below are just a few of our clients’ February wins:

Drink Options for the New Normal in Office Bonding

Happy hours are a beloved tradition at Aria, and as public relations professionals, we like our drinks with a twist of creativity. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Aria team members would host in-office, themed happy hours complete with a spread to satisfy our foodie tendencies and décor to bring it all together. (A few memorable ones include the college party and Friends-inspired happy hours.)

If you are new to the healthcare industry, one thing you realize very quickly is that there are a TON of industry events. From national tradeshows like HIMSS, to company user group forums, there seems to be a different conference taking place almost every day, which can make it a challenge for your event to stand out from the crowd.

When our clients host an event, they turn to Aria to break through the noise with a PR and media strategy designed to increase awareness of, and drive attendance to, their event. Whether the event is a new office opening, an expert panel or a full-blown three-day conference, there are some proven best practices healthcare IT companies can leverage to get the most PR value and media coverage for the event:

With gyms still closed in Massachusetts and social distancing orders in place, the Aria team has found new, fun ways to stay fit amidst the pandemic and avoid the “Quarantine 15” (because let’s face it, we have all been eating more than usual during this time of isolation and stress). While the Aria office is closed, our team is busier than ever and working remotely. We all miss seeing each other in our office, but most of us agree that one nice “perk” about working from home is using some of the time we normally would be commuting to exercise – which helps improve sleep and reduce stress.

Second only to my passion for healthcare, is my love for my favorite TV shows. While television can provide an escape from the craziness of the world, as a PR professional, I often find myself walking away from an episode with key takeaways to apply to the work I do here at Aria Marketing. Believe it or not, Netflix is a treasure trove of content on public relations. Here are four PR lessons we can learn from hit TV shows.

Our team continues to expand, and now it is time to introduce our three newest Aria recruits. I learned a lot about them, from their favorite ice cream flavor, to what their favorite place in the world is! Now it is my pleasure to introduce Erica Navar (Account Executive), Julia Dakhlia (Account Coordinator) and Caroline Dragonetti (Intern).

Top Tips for Designing a PR Agency Office Space

It seems like just yesterday that I was spending my days sorting through paint swatches and rug samples and testing out the latest ergonomically-designed desk chair (in addition to writing press releases, of course). But in fact, this month marks the third anniversary of our big move to a new office space located in an old mill in Newton’s Nonantum neighborhood. And, even more significantly, it marks three years since we officially became “the New Aria.”

Everyone who works at Aria knows that the office wouldn’t be the same without our very own Aria veteran, Senior Vice President, Ross Homer. Ross recently celebrated his 5^th Aria work anniversary. For those who may not know Ross, he brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to his role at Aria. I decided to sit down and ask him to share some of his insights gathered from almost two decades in the PR field. So, Happy Anniversary and here’s a blog all about Ross!