General Data Company

www.general-data.com

Founded in 1981 and based in Cincinnati, Ohio, General Data is an industry-leading provider of innovative labeling, bar coding, RFID, automated data collection and mobility products and solutions that enable organizations to streamline workflow, error proof processes, better manage critical data, and improve business process accuracy, productivity and performance.

Challenge

To support the launch of its new corporate website and its heightened focus on the healthcare industry, General Data partnered with O'Keeffe to promote its healthcare line of barcode-based data capture solutions, along with its solutions for distribution, transportation, warehousing, and mobile workforce.

While General Data sells products and data capture solutions to healthcare enterprises globally through its international network of partners, it competes with much larger companies in the labeling and data capture field, thereby positioning General Data to promote its solutions against a limited budget compared to its larger competitors. Additionally, healthcare is General Data's newest industry focus, thereby establishing General Data as "the new kid on the block" in regards to brand recognition within the healthcare market.

Solution

General Data first began its partnership with O'Keeffe in January 2008 to design a focused public relations and social media strategy. New product announcements along with updates on General Data's appearances at national conferences were distributed via traditional PR means in addition to social media releases on PitchEngine.com, among other tools. O'Keeffe also advised General Data on how to use social media and the company's newly launched healthcare blog to attract attention from its targeted healthcare prospects.

Within one week of our strategy meeting with General Data, the client had established accounts on FeedBurner and other social media content aggregators, enabling immediate dissemination of blog entries to numerous social media business and healthcare networks. Additionally, our client reached out to organizers of conferences in the histotechnology industry to ask if he could "live blog" from their conferences. With their permission, the client interviewed conference organizers and industry leaders and then posted those video interviews on General Data's healthcare blog.

Results

Within weeks of his first blog posting, our client received e-mails from directors of histopathology labs—General Data's key prospects—congratulating him on his interviews. Many of those same prospects also sent links to those interviews to their peers in the industry.

Within the first 12 months of General Data's focused awareness campaign, the company has received local, national and international coverage in leading technology and healthcare media, including InformationWorld, American Business Journals, and The Doctors, a CBS-produced syndicated daily television program that discusses the day's hottest consumer healthcare issues. Currently, O'Keeffe is working with General Data to support an integrated public relations, radio and social media campaign targeting businesses in all industries that could benefit from a steamlined workflow process. We also are awaiting final approval to partner with one of General Data's more recent healthcare clients on a joint PR campaign that would position each company as an innovator in the healthcare informatics industry.