Journalists Surveyed Say J.P. Morgan Annual Healthcare Conference Presents Opportunity for Companies to Rethink Communications Strategies

NEW YORK, Jan. 2, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Ahead of the 2018 and the 36^th Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare conference, a new survey of biotech and pharma reporters shows the gathering remains an important venue for companies to communicate business objectives and build reporter relationships. Results also show companies need to rethink their approach to the agenda-setting meeting and their communications strategies in the coming year.

Edelman and Muck Rack will reveal full survey results on a live webcast on Wednesday, January 3 at 2pm ET. Click here to register: http://info.muckrack.com/edelmanhealthcare/

The survey, conducted by Edelman and Muck Rack, found more than 60% of journalists believe the way companies are currently communicating their stories is "outdated" and that they need to pay significantly more attention to their social and digital channels. Seventy-two percent of reporters say companies' social and digital channels are just as valuable for newsgathering and reporting as more traditional channels such as quarterly reports and pipeline updates.

"Results from this survey made it clear that J.P. Morgan continues be an important meeting, but communicating a consistent and credible company story has to go beyond press releases and desk side meetings with journalists," said Todd Ringler, Edelman's U.S. Managing Director, Media. "Reporters are not only tracking how well their stories travel across social channels, but are also closely watching how the companies they report on are adding—or not—to the conversations online."

With more tools and content available than ever before for media relations professionals to contact reporters, respondents were direct regarding the information they want and need from companies. Eighty-five percent of journalists say numbers and facts are the most important, 78% said that more visuals would be helpful and 72% said they want personalized pitches and will reject them if they are not specific to their interests.

"At first glance, blasting a thousand journalists via email or a mass distribution service might have a trivial cost, but tailoring your engagement and understanding the priorities of reporters and the resources they require are key to building both relationships and your personal and company brands," said Greg Galant, CEO & Co-Founder of Muck Rack. "Reporters hate getting spam, just like you and me."

And while reporters continue to expect that important news will come out of the industry's top healthcare investor meeting, they believe this year's meeting has the potential to be more somber in tone. More than one-third of reporters—and institutional investors surveyed in the recent Edelman Investor Trust study—believe the current business environment is more negative versus a year ago, and nearly 40% view the future environment as being more negative than positive.

Issues such as drug pricing, the opioid epidemic and navigating health and tax reform topped the survey list of key industry issues for the coming year, while leading social issues included gender issues, workplace diversity and income inequality are places where companies should take a stand. Surprisingly, climate change and sustainability were among the top issues for both reporters and investors surveyed in the two studies.

"The good news for companies is emerging technologies, drug discovery and commercialization remain among the top three areas reporters are focused on in 2018," said Lynn Hanessian, Chief Strategist at Edelman. "They want to hear about company successes but are also interested in the challenges they face and their failures. Humanizing, streamlining and communicating across more channels can make the difference between your story getting covered to having actual impact in the industry."

Using J.P. Morgan as a starting point for the year, healthcare, biotech and pharma companies can modernize their approach to storytelling in a way that works in tandem with the needs of journalists in the current communications environment and increase their chance to break through in what promises to be a very crowded and noisy year ahead.

Press Contacts:
Todd Ringler, Edelman
617.872.1235
[email protected]

Hana Muasher, Muck Rack
202-330-3676 
[email protected]

SOURCE Edelman; Muck Rack

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