A Speakers Bureau Can Promote Your Service Lines, Elevate Your Brand, and Serve Your Community
How to Get Yours Started, Measure Success, and Improve Results
// By Lisa D. Ellis //
Should your health care organization start a speakers bureau? Most experts say, “Yes”—and a few of them offer important advice for making sure yours achieves all of your organization’s desired benefits.
Kristin Mack Deuber
“Speakers bureaus are great reputation-building tools for organizations as they increase awareness of the organization and they also provide a way to build the individual speakers as thought leaders in the health care industry and in their local communities on key issues,” says Kristin Mack Deuber, APR, a public relations and marketing consultant based in Southern California. “For example, an organization can use speakers at the national level to talk about issues impacting health care reform and Medicaid, and at the local level to discuss such things as chronic disease management and prevention, or the latest cancer research,” she adds.
A speakers bureau can also be a strategic vehicle to advance your organization’s brand, says Amy Avery, M.A.Ed., a freelance health care writer and marketing communications consultant based in North Carolina. “I define a speakers bureau as a community service, as well as a way for the organization to provide (mostly) controlled messaging,” Avery says. “Practically, that means promoting services lines; informing the public or other key audiences of important messages related to health care and the business of health care; and, of course, talking about health issues that are in the news or are of particular relevance to your population,” she adds.