Frank Tortorici
Frank Tortorici

Picture this: You have a new client that’s an AI startup in the healthcare space. And you’re excited about alerting your media contacts to the work this new company is undertaking. Well, slow down, take a deep breath and get ready to plan and outline a PR strategy. Because, right now, in the news, there’s a sense that AI has been overploughed and that the media has heard everything there is to know about AI—particularly healthcare startups.

Also, being a startup probably means that your client isn’t raking in the millions. If they were, the media might be interested in the profit factor alone and give the company some ink.

What’s more: there has been a reduction of reporters covering the AI world, as budgets are tightened and editors do research to uncover and write about the ones that are making an immediate difference.

So, how do you make that relatively small AI startup media-worthy?

Thought leadership is the first thing to consider. The top executives of your client company are undoubtedly experts in the healthcare field.

There are numerous opportunities in healthcare and AI-related publications for your client to offer him or herself as an expert on their specialty area and more specifically what business niche their startup aims to fulfill.

For instance, Verikai has devised artificial intelligence that gives health insurers a better sense of who their potential customers are via medical records and lifestyle data. Founded in 2018 to address the way the healthcare industry interprets and assesses risk, Verikai was created to bring machine learning modeling and predictive AI to underwriting and has evolved to integrate a blend of medical, pharmaceutical and lifestyle, delivering robust risk assessments through easily interpretable scores.

This article is featured in O'Dwyer's Oct. Healthcare & Medical PR Magazine

This is a fascinating and noble cause, but one that in and of itself doesn’t distinguish the company from hundreds of other startups attempting to change the life insurance industry.

So, we helped one of its experts become a thought leader on the potential of AI in healthcare. We developed bylined articles for him in prestigious publications such as Forbes and Modern Healthcare.

For another client—Huma.AI—which is a leading generative AI platform for life sciences drug development, we secured several stories in publications such as Information Week and Cybernews featuring technical analysis from its chief researcher.

Beyond bylines and expert commentary, another great idea to distinguish your client from the pack is speaking opportunities. Speaking platforms are a proven method of raising awareness of your client’s work and an excellent way to attract more investors and partners, for which most small startups are always looking.

Look carefully for organizations whose members will be the right audience for AI healthcare companies. This doesn’t mean that they must be in the same field, but only in industries open to collaborating or supporting your client. In some cases, clients might only be interested in working with Fortune 500 companies. If that’s your client’s wish, target only large and well-connected companies for speaking engagements. Some of these organizations and associations will welcome your guest experts without financial remuneration and others might even offer a stipend.

Marketing Maven arranged for the CEO of Huma.AI to address the CEO Forum, a U.S.-based organization connecting chief executives worldwide and a great arena for alerting like-minded executives about emerging technologies. This is a perfect way to fish for big-name investors. One AI startup dedicated to improving and redefining preauthorization in healthcare—Basys.ai—has made great growth strides by getting the financial support of the Mayo Clinic.

Another key method of introducing your AI client to larger audiences is via awards submissions. Many organizations bestowing awards have a nominal fee to be considered and a few are even free. To distinguish their startup from an often-homogeneous bunch, top executives would be wise to vie for prestigious awards that, in the media’s eye, will add luster and credibility to their enterprise and make them worth writing about.

The CEO of Huma.AI was named an Inc. magazine Female Founders 250, a coveted designation that added to her reputation and the estimation of the startup in the life sciences industry.

A foolproof way to elevate your client in their industry and in the eyes of the media is to do your due diligence and search for industry accolades that will add gravitas to their brand. When working for Huma.AI, we became aware that appearing in the Gartner Hype Cycle gave a company more credibility and a great deal more notice in the industry.

The Gartner Hype Cycle is a graphical presentation developed, used and branded by the American research, advisory and information technology firm Gartner to represent the maturity, adoption and social application of specific technologies. The hype cycle claims to provide a graphical and conceptual presentation of the maturity of emerging technologies through five phases.

By introducing the seminal work of Huma.AI to the Hype Cycle, Marketing Maven brought the startup into a whole other realm of credibility. The Cycle cited Huma.AI twice, bringing the company for the first time to the eyes of very attractive potential investors.

The moral of the story is to not lose hope if the media is cold to your AI startup client. Continue your diligent and well-researched media relations for sure, but strongly consider augmenting that effort with these other methods of elevating awareness to such potentially groundbreaking technologies.

***

Frank Tortorici is Vice President of Media Relations at Marketing Maven.