Sturm Rosenburg King & Company (SRK), a healthcare marketing agency in Chicago, won new client business for corporate branding and strategic marketing from Aurora Health Care in Milwaukee) in May 1998.
Kramer Kresselt advertising agency in Milwaukee.
Rob Rosenberg, principal; Phil Adams, creative director; Doris Berry, VP account planner; and Grant Priest, account director.
Aurora Health Care is the largest non-profit healthcare system and largest private employer in Wisconsin, consisting of 12 hospitals in the region. It was looking for new agency talent that could provide corporate branding expertise for its health plan and local strategic initiatives for its flagship hospitals.
Ironically, Aurora awarded Kramer Kresselt the business late last year during its first round of pitches. But the agency's branding approach didn't work out, so Aurora severed the relationship and re-opened the bidding process within four months.
The second time around, SRK won the business due to structural changes it made and a clearer focus on what Aurora's special marketing needs were, according to Rob Rosenberg, SRK's principal.
The changes that worked to SRK's favor included:
- hiring a seasoned creative director;
- showing how the agency would take a more aggressive account team approach to the business; and
- presenting marketing ideas that showed corporate branding strategies and individual provider-based marketing support.
Usually SRK does focus groups and one-on-one interviews in the market(s) where the prospective client does business. Because Aurora is in SRK's backyard, the agency was confident it knew the health system's key business issues. Aurora had also given SRK extensive background marketing materials to build its pitch strategy.
But what kept SRK a top consideration for Aurora was its follow-up efforts which maintained a positive rapport. As a rule of thumb, SRK surveys clients that did not select them during new business pitches to understand what the concerns were and to keep the door open for future opportunities, says Rosenberg.
SRK learned from Aurora that there were some key areas of concern that blocked them from getting the business. These issues included:
- The lack of strong creative leadership (during the pitch, the creative director left SRK so it had to rely on an interim director for the final pitch presentation.)
- SRK's inability to "think outside the box" on branding strategy beyond its exclusive expertise in healthcare.
Aurora asked SRK to re-pitch the business in January. During this presentation, SRK:
- Highlighted how its new creative director would approach the multi-media assignment using case studies;
- Provided case studies of the agency's new fully integrated "account team" approach to client business; and
- Demonstrated how the agency could think beyond healthcare by presenting four non-healthcare corporate branding examples that could be applied to Aurora. The examples included General Electric, the regional electric company, Procter & Gamble and Nabisco.
To make the last point interactive, the agency invited Aurora's marketing team to vote on the best strategy. And to keep these branding approaches top-of-mind, the SRK team sent Aurora baskets that included a light bulb, oreo cookies, a rubber ball and a bar of soap.
Rosenberg attributes the agency's win to its revamped creative effort and account planning approach. But, he stresses, the agency would never have gotten a second chance to pitch the business if it hadn't done some aggressive follow-up.
To get a second shot at pitching new business from a client that passes you up initially, Rosenberg suggests:
- Resisting the tendency to jump on the defensive when a client has turned the agency down. Instead, show that the agency can overcome the perceived agency weaknesses with appropriate case study examples.
- Positioning is everything. Make sure the client knows how your area of expertise can meet the demands of the assignment.
- Don't burn bridges. "A lost prospect can be your best prospect," says Rosenberg.
(SRK, Rob Rosenberg, 312/943-1881; Aurora Health Care, Murry Freedmon, 414/647-3246)