Chair’s Column: Let Me Tell You a Story

What is a home? According to the dictionary, a home can be a familiar or usual setting, a friendly environment, or a place of origin. Moving outside the dictionary definition, a home is the place where you can always go back to (hopefully) learn and grow, and be with family and friends. When looking at the more colloquial definition of home, it is almost a nearly perfect description for the Health Law Section.

The Section is frequently described by leaders as a warm and welcoming community where they can see friends, grow their skills as attorneys, and find a place that they can also go to. Going back to a Boston theme (this may become recurring for me this year), “sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your name, and they’re always glad you came. You wanna be where you can see our troubles are all the same, you wanna be where everybody knows your name.”

How can we ensure that the message of the Section as the home for health law attorneys is heard and known? That is a great question and the start of the answer is a project that certain members of the Section have been working on for a good period of time.

Defining the Section

The Section is in the early days of launching a brand equity campaign and intentional marketing initiative. The goal is to create a strong associational connection in someone’s mind when they hear about the Section. It is the same as what happens with major brands such as Apple, Amazon, Coke, and more. When you hear those names, your mind immediately brings certain images and understandings to mind. It is important that the same associations be fostered and developed for the Section.

What is the Section though? Based on responses from a member survey, the Section is the warm, inviting community that enables the creation of great relationships to support everyone both personally and professionally. Those of us who have attended a Section event or are involved in leadership perceive this image instinctively and hopefully keep spreading that message.

However, it is key for folks not currently connected to the Section to develop the same instinctive understanding. That is where presenting the Section in a consistent way is important. Creating good habits in communication and presentation will ease the Section’s burden in setting expectations and making it clear what happens within the Section and at our events.

How We Are Creating Section Brand Equity

How can the Section be sure that the preferred association is being made? Our solution is launching a brand equity campaign. Brand equity is what we have been talking about so far, but what is it from an elemental perspective? It is the value premium generated by a company (in our case, the Section) when compared to another equivalent or generic solution. Put another way, it is the combination of the following factors: (i) brand awareness, (ii) brand association, (iii) perceived quality, (iv) brand experience, (v) brand preference, and (vi) brand loyalty. Those factors can each individually be positive or negative as well as generate different levels of impact. It should go without saying, but the goal is to edge each factor in the positive direction because that generates better connections and value.

How is brand equity fostered? Marketing feeds into the establishment of brand equity by speaking to and driving positive ratings of the factors that go into strong brand connection. In particular, creating positive brand equity requires intentional, thoughtful actions that build upon each other.

Breaking it down, the first step is building greater brand awareness. That is easier said than done though. Building awareness comes from consistency in communication and approach. Some ways to achieve this goal are great service and interactions, telling stories about the brand, providing ongoing value, keeping in touch through various means such as email and social media, and strong word of mouth. All of those actions should sound familiar because many of them occur organically already. The new brand equity campaign will embed the actions even further and drive more consistency.

The next couple of elements of the campaign are fed by the other actions. Communication of the brand (the Section) and what it means informs what goes into the interactions and messages that are sent out. We will emphasize the positive within those messages. One great way of emphasizing the positive is the use of testimonials. Some testimonials have already been recorded and will be used soon, but we are also always looking for more. What story can you tell about the Section? Finally, it all feeds into loyalty and strong bonds. The belief in the Section is that the bond is formed very quickly once someone attends just one in-person conference or interacts in some way. The key is getting there.

The Section has developed a number of new processes with those principles in mind. The key component in the campaign will be better utilizing the contributions that all leaders and volunteers make to the Section. Said another way, the Section intends to use contributions in different forms for different types of media. That means content such as articles, webinars, or presentations will not necessarily just be one and done. We know a lot of time and effort goes into preparing content, so we should use it multiple times, which helps exposure on a number of fronts. It is mutually beneficial because the Section shows it is tapped into high-quality content and the volunteer creating it has the chance to speak to multiple audiences.

As the brand equity activities are implemented, the Section will be gathering data to understand what is working, what is not working, and where changes can be made. The intention is to not just throw ideas at the wall or repeat actions without an informed understanding. The data will support intentionality.

How the Brand Equity Campaign Will Succeed

One way the Section’s brand equity campaign will succeed is through the investment and buy-in of all current leaders. Each one of us has a role to play in growing and promoting the value of the Section. All of us are ambassadors and spokespeople for the Section.

A second and vital way is through the Section’s incredible staff, and Ally Donnantuono in particular. Ally offers a prime example of the value that the Section creates. Ally came to the Section as a first job out of college. It was not a completely random connection either. Theresa Livingston, the current director of the Tort Trial and Insurance Practice Section (TIPS) and former associate director of the Section, is a neighbor of Ally’s parents and offered Ally a gateway into the ABA. While that introduction did not mean the Section in particular, Ally found her way to the Section and quickly saw the special nature of the Section.

In talking about the value of the Section, Ally echoes what a lot of us say: it is all about the connections and interactions with each other. The conversations and connections offer a lot of opportunities to learn and develop new skills. Seeing the value that each person places in the Section provides insights and sparks creative thinking about how to keep spreading the message.

While Ally will not say it, she proactively sought opportunities to enhance her marketing skills. She is continually developing skills to run different activities that support the Section and is now the driving force behind the brand equity campaign. As Ally explained to me, it is an unexpected means of tapping into her enjoyment in being creative. Creating brand equity is not a simple task and calls for out-of-the-box thinking, which is a challenge that Ally is enjoying.

Ally’s commitment to marketing is reflected in her recent promotion to Marketing Manager. Not only does the change in title acknowledge Ally’s hard work, but it also reflects the evolution of the Section. As the Section, we need to be clearer in promoting our message and establishing associations.

What Next

The next step is the hardest, actually implementing the plan. We can all help the success by continuing to offer our time and energy to the Section. The support is not just contributing content or serving in leadership, but helping to protect and grow the community.

If you have not yet had the chance to fully enjoy the community, come on in and there will be many people waiting to welcome you.