But there is one similarity that stands out: the roadmap of announcements and news.
Not every organization will capitalize on the news in this map, and sometimes they’ll put their eggs in baskets that aren’t likely to take off in the media. This roadmap will help you understand how to get the most out of your announcements.
Rounds of Funding
Newsworthiness
The pitfall: Underestimating this branding opportunity.
The opportunity: If the reporters are going to cover the story, make sure it’s easy for them to use your branded assets. This could be thoughtful (and brief) quotes from executives, high-quality pictures from the office or lab, videos explaining the pipelines, and anything else that’s important to your mission.
Future investors, industry partners, and team members are reading wherever your funding news is landing. Make sure it’s a memorable and positive impression.
Executive Team
Newsworthiness
That doesn’t mean this isn’t important news. This is another step in building your org’s digital identity, putting news out there that future stakeholders may encounter.
The pitfall: Expecting big headlines from staffing updates
The opportunity: Get some high-quality bios, professional headshots, and a good quote or two. Consider this announcement a mini newsroom for reporters and investors who want to read up on your team in the future. There’s no reason they should have to dig for a text-only press release buried in search engine results down the line.
You are speaking to potential investors and employees/talent with this one, so highlight why your organization is somewhere people should want to work and invest their money.
Development Pipelines
Newsworthiness
It depends on what you’re doing. Is it relevant to the news of the day? How well is it explained in your content?
Consider this assessment an important test for how prepared your organization is to make the most of the communications side of the business. Expectation management, media targeting, and a good grasp of the news landscape are forever going to weigh in on investing, industry partnerships, and recruitment, so the experience is valuable even at this stage.
But perhaps more importantly, your pipelines are the lifeblood of your work. Do them justice every time there’s a chance they’re talked about in the news.
The pitfall: Missing the point of announcements that don’t always make the news.
The opportunity: This is an all-hands-on-deck announcement. Do right by the gravity of this news, because an accessible pipeline outline announcement will either haunt or bolster your org’s digital presence for years. Where applicable, get scientific illustrations of your technology mechanism or target in your development pipeline into your announcement. Strong visuals can do a lot of heavy lifting in telling your story.
What now?
In the meantime, here’s where your organization needs to start self-monitoring the news. This is a step down from biotech/life sciences competitive surveillance and media monitoring, which delivers everything you need exactly when you need it (typically 1-3 times a day). The latter service costs more. Besides, there’s still one more opportunity left from the DIY version.
Self monitoring is your chance to get intimately familiar with what makes the news, and who actually makes the news. Understanding what publications relevant to your industry consider newsworthy, as well as who the reporters are that you should be building relationships with, is really important at this stage. Set up your parameters, tinker to improve results, and read your media digests whenever you get the chance.
Get a newsroom up on your website to immortalize announcements and coverage you want to keep around, which you should have ample opportunity to identify through your own monitoring process.
Once your news or need for competitive surveillance has outgrown your ability to keep track of it, or the impact of the news is too significant to ever stay in the dark on, human-curated services that deliver exactly what you need are on the menu. It’s not possible to recommend this step without understanding what your org has available and what it needs, but just know that this is the final frontier in perfecting the communications side of your business.
Reportable News specializes in biotech/life sciences communications.
Click here to read more about press releases that will do your news justice.
Click here to read more about self-monitoring services.
Click here to read more about human-curated surveillance and monitoring.