By Mark Macias
In the summer of 2016, few consumers had heard of Noom. It was a 7-year-old digital health company that was struggling to find its place in a crowded weight loss space. Fast forward to 2019, and you will see their brand everywhere. Their weight loss program has been on CNBC, People Magazine, CNN, the NBC Today Show, Men’s Health – to name a few.
In fact, you can probably name any big news organization, and MACIAS PR likely has a media placement to showcase for this campaign. (The Washington Post, Women’s Fitness Magazine, Politico, New York Post, Fast Company Magazine, TechCrunch, Yahoo News, International Business Times, CBS News, and local TV in multiple markets).
(In the B2B sector, MACIAS PR secured stories on Noom with The American Journal of Managed Care, Mobihealthnews, Fierce Biotech, FW Pharma, M Health Intelligence, Med City News and others. We also secured stories with the Spanish and Korean media).
But before MACIAS PR started working with Noom, the digital health company had little media exposure. Noom’s previous PR firm – one of the country’s largest healthcare PR firms – secured only 4 media placements during their contract. That’s right – FOUR. And they weren’t even big outlets: MedCityNews, HIT, News.com.au and Tech.co.
Meantime, MACIAS PR averaged 7.8 media placements over the course of our 3-year PR partnership. The MACIAS PR boutique firm out-hussled the big guys on this campaign, like we do with all of our clients.
Making this campaign even more challenging, MACIAS PR secured these media placements with little guidance from the client. Yes, I worked closely with the founders, trying to identify story angles that were news worthy. But Noom didn’t have a marketing department or CMO for much of our partnership. That meant we had to drive the strategy and focus for each campaign.
And we succeeded. MACIAS PR helped the company become one of the most Googled brands in 2018; we helped raise their profile for fundraising rounds; Our work helped our client win numerous awards following strategic campaigns, including listings as the Best Place to Work.
It’s media campaigns like Noom’s that led marketing peers to name MACIAS PR the 2017, 2018 and 2019 Strategic PR Firm of the Year. It’s a strategy based on editorial, creativity, persistence, and precise execution that only a media insider would know.
Here’s a closer look at what this boutique PR firm – MACIAS PR – did for Noom and how we can achieve similar results for your digital health or tech company.
MACIAS PR Strategy – Case Study in Digital Health
The best PR agencies develop strategies that are aligned with your goals. When it came to Noom, MACIAS PR launched and executed several B2C and B2B media campaigns that introduced their product and services to targeted consumers and enterprises.
While it’s great to have a product or service that is for the masses, when it comes to the media, a campaign will be more successful if you narrow down the target. The more targeted a media campaign, the better ROI it will bring to your business.
When MACIAS PR first started with Noom, the target was very narrow – diabetics. Over time, we slowly expanded to women and other demographics to expand our media coverage and reach.
We also never pushed promotional material or generic stories on how to lose weight when it came to Noom. There is no news value with this approach, and we knew we were competing with every other weight loss programs. To succeed, we created news.
Published stories in journals also gave MACIAS PR new opportunities to create legitimate news. Noom published 3 studies over the course of 3 years, and MACIAS PR was able to use these published studies to generate authentic news stories.
MACIAS PR Executed Successful Fundraising Campaigns
It’s difficult to obtain media coverage for investment rounds in this current startup climate. It’s even more challenging for fundraising rounds that are less than $100 Million.
Despite these obstacles, MACIAS PR secured media coverage for Noom’s fundraising campaign with targeted publications, including Fortune, TechCrunch, Entrepreneur, Alleywatch – and with important industry trade publications, like MobiHealthNews and Pitchbook.
How did we do it?
MACIAS PR searched and developed the strongest angle that would resonate with reporters, focusing the messaging around the biggest-named investors and their personal background. Why are they investing their personal money behind Noom? And why is the biggest name in Silicon Valley – Sequoia Capital – backing this fundraising round?
Initially, MACIAS PR targeted a handful of writers with the Wall Street Journal, Barron’s and The New York Times, offering upan advanced look at this fundraising announcement. Our team personally explained to reporters why Noom is uniquely positioned for this fundraising – with no competitors. Uber has Lyft; Headspace has Calm – but Noom has no one. It’s a behavior change company, leveraging technology in a sector that is ripe with opportunities for growth with consumers, pharma companies and the federal government.
MACIAS PR Helps Noom Win Best Place to Work Awards
Our consistent media coverage with Noom also resulted in major branding opportunities that helped their overall business, like attracting programmers in the ultra competitive tech employment space.
MACIAS PR led a PR campaign to get Noom named one of Inc.’s 5,000 fastest-growing companies; Noom was also placed on Deloitte’s Fast 500 list; and it received a Great Place to Work certification. These were strategic applications MACIAS PR submitted with well-known brand names as part of our strategy to get Noom’s name out there. I’m proud to say our team led these efforts and executed to get Noom recognized with these major business organizations that will continue help them grow their brand.
Noom is Most Googled Term in 2018
In 2017, few people had heard of Noom, but the public was starting to hear about this weight loss program in the media. By 2018, the public was Googling the weight loss program, helping it achieve status in Google’s “Year in Search.” The annual Google campaign identifies what people around the globe are most curious about in 2018 relative to 2017.
But MACIAS PR didn’t just sit on our laurels and give each other high fives. We turned this opportunity into media campaign. By January 2019, traffic to Noom spiked even higher. This media exposure MACIAS PR generated for Noom turned it into one of the “Top Trending Diets” on Google, based on an aggregation of trillions of search queries.
How PR Helps Companies with Growth
PR can help your business grow – as we saw with Noom over three years. This media exposure also led to financial growth. By our third year of working together, Noom announced their 1000th hire. This rapid growth required more hires. In the three years MACIAS PR and Noom worked together, Noom also quadrupled their revenue from 2016 to 2017, and delivered 5x revenue from 2017 to 2018. In January 2019, revenue trended to be 15x January 2018. This is all public knowledge you can Google and read about in public articles.
What MACIAS PR Can Do for Your Business
MACIAS PR was founded by a former Executive Producer with NBC and Senior Producer with CBS in New York. I’m also an entrepreneur who values creativity and people. I’m passionate about my business because it’s — well, my business. I love what I do and clients always tell me it shows.
And we fight hard for our clients. We don’t give up. When a reporter interviews a client and says his editor doesn’t want to do the story, I go into my selling mode and fight for my clients, like I used to fight for my stories in the morning meetings at NBC and CBS.
There are many PR firms out there, but most of them are big companies. Talk to the employees, and you’ll likely meet an account executive who will be gone in less than a year. MACIAS PR has been around for 10 years. Founded in 2009, I struggled hard to build this business.
Even today, some clients give me headaches (no – not you). Sometimes, I get stressed because I feel the stress my clients feel. It’s empathy and passion rolled into a creative force that wants to change the world and help businesses grow.
Yes, it’s a lofty statement, but I believe it. On my personal Facebook page, I have “just trying to change the physical structure of this world one day at a time.”
I believe MACIAS PR can help change your physical structure, helping your business reach new exposure and clients. Want to hear more?
Message me on that green button on your screen, or click here for a free PR estimate.
Best,
Mark Macias
646-770-0541