David Aquilina ______

Strategic Storyteller 612.922.5551

612.483.8540 (mobile)

4817 Vincent Avenue South

Minneapolis, MN 55410-1845

Strategic Storytelling:

Managing Clients’ Stories to Advance Business Objectives

QRS Diagnostic, a medical device start-up, seeks to secure greater visibility and enhance its credibility

  • Challenge – Potential investors, business partners and customers do not know the company and are unfamiliar with its software-based medical device technology.
  • Solution – Formulate a targeted set of core messages designed to connect the QRS story to its priority audiences. Apply and advance key messages consistently in press releases. Place articles that repeat and reinforce the messages in selected trade publications. Pitch, prepare and publish customer success stories.
  • Results – Ongoing press releases, local and national press coverage, and trade publication articles (including customer-bylined stories) communicate the company’s messages, boost its visibility and credibility, and validate its technology.

StatusOne, provider of technology to identify and manage individuals at highest levels of health risk, aims to publish four national articles in just six months to help increase its profile during M&A negotiations

  • Challenge – Editors are unfamiliar with the company, and there are limited opportunities on relevant publications’ editorial calendars in the second half of 2003.
  • Solution – Quickly prepare a corporate backgrounder to introduce the company to key editors. Conduct phone interviews with customers to develop case studies and story outlines. Undertake media relations to pitch stories that match editors’ requirements and develop placement opportunities with selected publications that do not have set article schedules. Coordinate media interviews and write articles under the bylines of StatusOne executives and customers.
  • Results – From a standing start in April 2003, in three months I placed six articles, including three customer-bylined success stories.

HealthPartners, a health care system, promotes its quality story

  • Challenge – HealthPartners has achieved significant improvements in its members' health and is a pacesetter in care delivery innovation but had not attained national recognition. Its clinical quality improvement, population health management, and provider reimbursement strategies and tactics are daunting in their complexity.
  • Solution – Develop a trade media relations campaign to highlight HealthPartners' unique approach to quality improvement and showcase its impressive results. Target key publications that effectively reach the target audience and are highly regarded for their editorial quality and integrity. To address the complexity of the information, craft separate summaries of the main elements of various quality initiatives in order to build the foundation for individual articles for the targeted health care publications.
  • Results – Since May 2002, a total of 52 major national placements (including 29 bylined articles). The health care trade publications in which the articles appear have a combined circulation of more than a quarter million opinion leaders in the target audience.