Our review of 2020 and exciting plans for the year ahead

2020 has (thankfully!) been a year like no other and we’ve all been glad to see the back of it in one way or another. But for Evergreen it also represented our first full year in business and, from a professional point of view, it was an incredibly rewarding 12 months.

Overview

We became an award-winning health PR consultancy after scooping two PRCA DARE Awards and being shortlisted for two Prolific North Northern Marketing Awards. We got our nods for Best Public Affairs, Best PR, Best Health and Best Not-for-Profit campaigns. As an organisation that prides itself on delivering best practice outcomes-driven campaigns it was great to gain industry recognition so quickly.

We achieved a world-class Net-Promoter Score of +86 from an independent survey of our clients - meaning that 9/10 of our clients would strongly recommend us to associates looking for a PR agency. The feedback we received was incredible and showed that we are truly living up to our promises of delivering important business outcomes through strategic, purpose-driven, expert-led campaigns - and we’re told we’re great to work with, too.

2020 Campaign highlights

We helped the brilliant national charity, the British Tinnitus Association, to secure a Government-led roundtable event to discuss funding for tinnitus and hearing loss research after several months of PR activity and lobbying. The event was led by Lord Bethell, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for the Department of Health and Social Care. We laid the foundations with our integrated Tinnitus Manifesto campaign, which picked up high profile media attention in The Times, ITV, Daily Mail, Independent and the Daily Mirror and led to the first-ever tinnitus debate in the House of Lords, 120,000+ petition signatures and a promise by Matt Hancock to review funding. We picked up two PRCA Awards for this one.

We supported Ascenti, the UK’s biggest private physiotherapy firm, to establish their digital physio offering in the middle of the first national lockdown. We helped them devise a special offer of free physio for over 70s and NHS staff which led to The Guardian calling them a “superhero firm” and then devised two thought-leadership campaigns - one on how the sudden move to WFH was causing a rise in physical injuries and another comparing patient outcomes from virtual physio with in-person treatment. The highly-targeted campaign gained 40+ articles and 25 backlinks including Business Insider, Evening Standard, The Metro, Corporate Advisor, MobiHealthNews and Health Tech Digital, attracting 10+ new high value corporate clients and tripling their SEO visibility. We were shortlisted for two Prolific North Awards.

We helped innovative Swiss-based remote health monitoring firm Vtuls to establish their technology in the UK with the production of a new website, video animation and media relations campaign that led to coverage in Forbes, Tech Radar Pro, Care Home Professional, Medical Device Network and Care Home Management, among many others. We got 20+ customer enquiries - including two from large NHS CCGs - and had meetings with Care England, the Advanced Health and Scientific Network (AHSN) and Digital Social Care. Currently we’re talking to a leading digital care provider about a pilot before rolling out the tech to up to 2,000 care homes. We also helped them secure a Highly Commended at The HTN Awards (second only to Microsoft!)

We supported new client, iSpace Wellbeing, with raising awareness of their wonderful Mental Health and Wellbeing Curriculum, which has just been made available for free to all schools to help combat the current challenges. We got children from one of the schools using the curriculum onto BBC Newsround for World Mental Health Day and have scored them a number of articles in education press such as Schools Week, Teaching Times and Teach Primary. We have some exciting plans for 2021 too!

We also worked on a number of successful media relations projects, from getting a big spread in The Times for the Global Grad Show, to wide pick-up for BLOK BioScience’s privacy-centric immunity passport from the likes of Healthcare IT News, Healthcare Global and Medtech Innovation, to helping Pryv to reach medical device manufacturers through articles in NS Medical Devices, The HTN and the PrivSec Report. And that’s really just the tip of the iceberg!

A year of growth

We all know what a challenging year 2020 was for many businesses. So we feel incredibly fortunate that Evergreen was able to prosper in those circumstances.

By focusing on delivering excellent outcomes for the organisations we work with, we have enjoyed very strong retention of highly satisfied clients (our NPS score is proof of that!) and we won 86% of our competitive pitches. We have also seen a significant increase in new business enquiries, including from major health organisations and household name brands. So the signs are positive for the next 12 months.

Plans for 2021

If this year has taught us anything (aside from the fact that, literally, anything can happen!) it’s that there is thankfully a clear market for our outcomes-driven expert health PR consultancy, which is based on proven experience for delivering business and organisational benefits.

Evergreen is built around founder Leigh Greenwood’s 15+ years of experience in the health sector, where he worked across PR, public affairs and social media with major organisations and won a stream of industry awards. However, Leigh is supported by a growing team of excellent senior associates, with specialisms in PR, media relations, public affairs, social media, animation, website development and public affairs, who also share a passion for Evergreen’s purpose.

We’re focused on long-term success rather than short-term profits and we’re driven by the ultimate goal of improving the health of the public. We love helping organisations that produce excellent health products, services and advice to achieve their objectives, as that’s how we can make a positive difference to the world ourselves.

Would you like us to apply our strategic and proven health PR approach to your health organisation in 2021? Get in touch at info@evergreenpr.co.uk.