
It’s time for Ragan’s 2014 Healthcare PR and Marketing Awards! These awards celebrate advancements in health care marketing as well as your creativity and innovation as a communicator.
With over 300 entries submitted, last year’s Health Care PR and Marketing Awards drew the best of the best. We were amazed at the sophistication and power of the vast majority of the entries. Who knows what this year’s entries will bring! We’re looking forward to reading your case studies and hearing about your best practices.
There’s something for everybody in this year’s program. We’ve got the classics: Best Website, Best Print Publication and Best Use of Social Media. But we’re also spicing it up this year with a bunch of new categories: Best Online Newsroom, Best Community Outreach and Best Intranet. See a full list of categories (26 in all) below.
To reward your amazing work, we have got a great group of prizes! The winning entry in each category will get showcased in a Special Edition of Health Care Communication News, a personalized trophy for your office, and one complimentary registration to the annual Health Care Social Media Summit at Mayo Clinic this Fall. (Airfare and hotel not included.) This three day conference is packed full of information sessions and keynotes for you to learn, network and engage with fellow healthcare communicators and executives turned social media experts.
In addition to these prizes, the winner of the Grand Prize, Best Health Care PR and Marketing Campaign of the Year, will also receive a one-year membership to Ragan Training--a premium online training library featuring hundreds of hours of content from Ragan Events, available 24/7 and easy to access. Find out more about the site here: http://ragantraining.com/
Last year’s winners—from small out-patient clinics to huge multi-location hospitals—showed us where health care marketing was headed.
Join us this year and show us how you got there.
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Eligibility Requirements
These awards are open to hospitals, health care-related organizations and communication agencies that represent health care clients.
Companies from around the world are welcome to enter as long as the entry is submitted in English.
This year’s program is open to any work executed between January 1, 2013 and May 14, 2014.
If you aren't sure your project qualifies, contact Danielle Schultz at 312-960-4304 or danielles@ragan.com.
Deadlines/Entry Fees
Early Bird Deadline: Wednesday, April 30, 2014
Final Deadline: Wednesday, May 14, 2014
Last Deadline: Friday, May 23, 2014 (No late fee added!)
The entry fee for this program is $245 per entry per category.
Entry fees can be paid online with any major credit card.
If you need to arrange payment by check or bank transfer, contact Danielle Schultz at 312-960-4304 or danielles@ragan.com.
W-9 Form / Tax ID Number Request
Prizes
Each category winner will receive:
- a featured write-up in a Special Edition of Health Care Communication News
- an elegant trophy
- one complimentary registration to Ragan's Health Care Social Media Summit at Mayo Clinic (Airfare and hotel not included.)
The winner of the Grand Prize will also receive a one-year membership to Ragan Training--a premium online training library featuring hundreds of hours of the very best content from Ragan events. Find out more about the site here: http://ragantraining.com/
Categories
Winners will be awarded in the following categories:
Categories:
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Campaigns
- Best Community Outreach
We want to hear true tales of your imaginative reaching out to and interacting with your communities. Do you invest in local projects, local causes, local groups? Have you paired up with another organization to advance wellness or public education? Was your goal to spread the word about your organization or a special cause? Tell us about your outreach project.
- Best Fitness or Health Campaign – Internal or External
The newest, most powerful mantra in health care is prevention. From social-conscious food companies to the First Lady of the United States, innovative campaigns promote health and fitness. We want to see how you help people live healthier, more active lives. We will award a winning internal initiative and a winning external campaign.
- Best Marketing Campaign
Does every word of your print, digital, broadcast, or outdoor advertising campaigns, email promotions, online and social media marketing convey powerful, inherently dramatic stories? We want to hear about your best marketing campaign in 2013. We want to see clever campaigns, hear innovative approaches to marketing and read great writing. Show us!
- Best PR Campaign
We want to hear how you surgically cut through the clutter and noise to get media attention for your hospital or health-related organization. Did you bypass traditional media in favor of brand journalism or did you rely on a solid pitch? We want to see freshness, innovation and, of course, success from your campaign.
- Best Response to a Crisis
The modern crisis requires lightning-quick reaction and first-rate planning. Did you have to confront and navigate through a crisis this past year, either from inside or outside of your organization? Perhaps a response to new legislation, a threat to your brand’s credibility or stepping up in a time of need after a natural or man-made disaster. Show and tell us how you got your message out and managed to strengthen your brand in the process.
- Best TV Advertising Campaign
TV ads come with their own set of constraints and opportunities. They have to be dauntingly short, clever but not too clever, memorable, and watchable again and again. Show us how you maximized exposure for your company, product or service with an innovative, fresh, unmistakable TV ad campaign.
Media
- Best Article
We want to see an article that you published in 2013 that you’re especially proud of. It may have been an op-ed, feature story in a magazine, a blog post or online article for your website or a piece from a report. We’ll be looking for quality writing that is appropriate for the medium, interesting to read, and effective in its purpose.
- Best Blog
We’ll look at how well your blog connects people: doctors to patients, caregivers to the public and to the media, staffers and departments with each other. We’ll also look at how well these blogs establish your hospital’s unique competence in one or many disciplines and fields. Any health care entity may submit a blog, not just hospitals.
- Best Electronic Publication
Whether it was a great online brochure, a PDF, an email newsletter or an electronic magazine, we want to see how you mastered a digital medium to create an interesting and rich publication. If it's digital and smart, we want you to click through it to satisfy our curiosity about what comes next. This document may be internally or externally focused.
- Best Infographic
They are quick to read, easy to share, and hold cleverly presented information that would often be difficult to comprehend without striking, simple infographics. A good infographic is so cunningly designed that it is perfectly suited to be shared either on social or traditional media. Share your infographic and tell us the outcome.
- Best Interview Video
Audio and video convey so much more than mere information, more than just words on a page. Video sends messages of human wisdom more powerfully than any other medium, period. We want to see how you used video to bring a person’s passion or story into vivid, pulsing life. Show us how you made the most of the format.
- Best Intranet
Intranets must work. They must be a record and resource that your employees want, need, and like to use. We want to know how your employees use your intranet to communicate, submit content, suggestions or feedback, or to get access to information about fellow workers or your organization. Show off your intranet and tell us how and why it’s an irreplaceable resource.
- Best Marketing Video
If one picture is worth a thousand words of printed marketing copy, how valuable does that make a video that tells your organization’s story, nails its advantages over your competitors, and conveys a subtle sense of your company’s superior sincerity? Have you shot a video that embodies at least some of these virtues? Share it with us, please!
- Best Mobile App
Mobile technology offers a new way to engage your consumer and internal audiences. Mobile offers your employees and the public new ways to engage with your brand. Mobile is quick, targeted, and simple. Did your new app promote a service, launch a product or engage customers with timely content? Show us the app that has people reaching for their phones.
- Best News Story Video
Did you produce a video about a newsworthy event, change or accomplishment at your organization? Your video is citizen journalism refined; you captured the full story. Tell us how you covered all the important questions and delivered a video full of vital information to employees or customers.
- Best Online Newsroom
Online newsrooms are coming into their own as PR weapons and are now hubs of information for journalists, bloggers, influencers and curious citizens. Much more than just an index of press releases, a great newsroom is the go-to source to find out the latest about your organization, cause or product. Tell us about your newsroom and how it amplifies your organization’s message, grows your reputation as an industry leader, and builds trust among skeptical journalists.
- Best Print Publication
We’re looking for print publications that carry real, must-read news and information about your organization. We want to see clear, professional writing that engages the reader and delivers information with ease. Send us your magazines, newsletters, pamphlets, brochures, packets or reports. Internal or external documents may be submitted.
- Best Public Service Announcement
Did you create a noteworthy PSA? We want to know how you found the perfect angle, developed the announcement, its mission and purpose, and most important—what were its results.
- Best Publication Design
Form follows function. A beautifully designed, easy-to-read publication makes getting information pleasurable. All kinds of designs, from simple to intricate, can win. It’s all in what the design does. We’re looking for great design that invites the reader to look further into the publication, and without seeming to do so, makes the word, the sentence, the paragraph, the idea, and the message pre-eminent.
- Best Use of Social Media
We want to hear how you use social media to connect to your audiences. Do you use social media for brand journalism? Have you built enthusiastic brand advocates online? Share your most creative and successful social media work.
- Best Website
Building a website is easier than ever. But building a good website isn’t easy—or guaranteed. Great content must work seamlessly with good design and organization. In addition to pure aesthetics, we’ll take into account the purpose of your site, how easy it is to navigate and whether users can accomplish what they came on it to do quickly and without confusion or fuss.
Talent
- Best Health Care Agency
Is your agency worthy of the title? We want to see the ingenious ideas and innovations in marketing or PR campaigns that your agency originated for its hospital, clinic or health care related client. How did you establish your client’s pre-eminence in medicine and health care? Show us your process and how you made it work.
- Best Health Care Communications Team
We’re looking to honor the best in-house communications team in the health care industry! We are looking to hear from internal, marketing and PR teams from health-care related organizations. How expertly did you use internal and external sources to build your organization’s brand? How do you engage your customers, fans and followers? Details, please!
- Best Hospital Communications Team
Like the previous category, we want to recognize the best in-house communications team at a hospital or medical group. Did you tell powerful customer, patient, physician, and care-giver stories to extend your organization’s regional, national or international reputation? Tell us how you manage your hospital’s internal communications, PR and/or marketing like a champ!
Grand Prize
- Health Care PR and Marketing Campaign of the Year
We are looking for PR’s Winged Victory! If you did something so clever or powerful for your hospital, client, or agency that it almost brings tears of joy just to think of it, we want to spread the news of your triumph around the globe. The winner will be the campaign that has it all—inspired planning and strategy, flawless execution, faultless literacy, deep coverage across multiple media, and the courage, risk-taking, and timing that would impress even the most seasoned PR professional.
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How to Enter
Entering Ragan's awards are now easier than ever using our online awards portal!
Log into the system with your email address and password OR start a new application to register as a new user.
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To preview the online entry form, click here.
On the entry form, be sure to select a category and include a thorough synopsis for the judges explaining the purpose and scope of your project.
We ask that the synopsis be around 1,000 words (max: 1,250 words) and include the following sub-headings (when applicable):
- Goals
- Strategy and tactics
- Execution
- Evaluation: success, results or ROI
Supporting documents that can't be uploaded to the system should be mailed to:
Danielle Schultz
Ragan Communications
316 N. Michigan Ave., Suite 400
Chicago, IL 60601
If you have questions, contact Danielle Schultz at 312-960-4304 or danielles@ragan.com.
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FAQs
Are your awards programs open to companies worldwide?
Yes. The only requirement is that all entries be submitted in English.
May an organization or nominator enter more than one entry?
Yes.
Will you return my entry materials?
No.
Who judges the entries?
Our judges include the editorial staff of Ragan.com, PR Daily, HR Communicator and Health Care Communications News.
When and where will the winners be announced?
We try to announce a list of finalist about 8 to 10 weeks after the close of the program. The announcement of the winners is usually about 3 or 4 weeks after this announcement.
Each of these announcements will be made with a headline on our website, in our daily email newsletter, and on our social media platforms. Emails will be sent to all the entrants to notify them of these announcements.
Will there be an award luncheon or live ceremony?
We are not planning on holding a live event for this contest.
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Additional Questions
If you have any questions about program or issues submitting your entry please call Danielle Schultz at 312.960.4304 (9 a.m. to 5 p.m. CST during the U.S. business week) or email her at danielles@ragan.com.
Sponsorship Opportunities
To sponsor a Ragan award program, please contact Staci Diamond at 312.960.4671 or email her at stacid@ragan.com.
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Awards Timeline |
Early Bird Deadline:
Wednesday, April 30, 2014
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Final Deadline:
Wednesday, May 14, 2014 |
Last Deadline:
Friday, May 23, 2014 |
Accepting Late Entries |
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