Telehealth Opps: Heal taps PR AOR amid spend decreases (Score 18)

Health-tech startup Heal tapped 5W Public Relations as PR AOR this month. The agency will be tasked with building brand awareness and increasing Heal's customer base. This follows Heal securing $100m from Human in a series D funding round in July. Heal was founded in 2014 and connects users with a network of doctors that will treat patients via house-calls or telephone. 

According to Pathmatics, Heal earned 4.8m impressions through Facebook ads (72%), desktop display ads (17%) and mobile display ads (12%). It placed the majority of these ads site direct (72%) onto sites such as facebook.com, laweekly.com, uticaod.com and nwfdailynews.com. It placed 27% of these ads indirectly through Acuity onto sites such as answers.com, merriam-webster.com, cnn.com, diply.com and hometalk.com. It spent around $24.8k in this channel over the last 365 days, just 9% of the $267.6k it spent over the 365 days prior. 

Sellers-- Heal has only invested in digital display ads so far, and it decreased spend in the channel significantly over the last year. I expect the company to reverse this trend and ramp up spending now that it has secured new funds and works to build brand awareness. The company targets a broad audience, but considering it works with Medicare it should definitely appeal to seniors (boomers), especially amid coronavirus as users do not have to leave their homes. Heal currently operates in CA, GA, VA, DC, NY, NJ and WA; you can try offering local ad space in those areas. 

Agency & martech readers-- As you know, agency hires often follow one another, and PR appointments commonly precede other agency hires such as creative, media, digital and social. Reach out soon to be top-of-mind if the company decides to outsource any of its marketing duties. Agencies with experience in health-care may have more success.