Zix Corporation

Zix Corporation (ZixCorp®) is the leading provider of hosted email encryption and e-prescribing services. ZixCorp's Email Encryption Service provides an easy and cost-effective way to ensure customer privacy and regulatory compliance for corporate email. Its PocketScript® e-prescribing service reduces costs and improves patient care by automating the prescription process between payors, providers, and pharmacies.

The Challenge

The PAN team was tasked with gaining media coverage for two major product launches back-to-back for ZixCorp’s Email Encryption Service and its healthcare e-prescribing product, PocketScript, during the summer months. Maximizing exposure in the summertime can be difficult. There are few conference opportunities to demonstrate the products, and many reporters are on vacation. With many players in the secure email space, gaining the attention of top media outlets can be a challenge. Additionally, the product launches required different strategies, since one application is a broader security solution and the other is very vertically focused (on healthcare) Moreover, e-prescribing has not yet reached broad adoption by the medical community.

The Approach

After extensive input and analysis from conversations with the client and key analysts, the PAN team developed a multi-faceted communication strategy around each launch.

The team set out to reinforce ZixCorp’s position as a thought leader in the market, securing pre-launch byline article placement in key publications. They also leveraged timely news stories such as pending legislation geared to tighter security for customer information to get ZixCorp executives quoted in the press.

To gain maximum exposure for ZixCorp’s Email Encryption Service, PAN targeted security reporters at the top IT trade magazines and security publications, as well as industry analysts. The PAN team also garnered interest in ZixCorp’s encryption product by leveraging timely issues of encrypting sensitive information in emails in the financial services industry.

As the e-mail encryption product announcement was wrapping up, PAN jumped right into securing briefings with healthcare reporters at the top healthcare trades for the PocketScript e-prescribing announcement. They tied this to the hot topic of consumer-directed healthcare, explaining how the product enables physicians to write prescriptions electronically and send them directly to pharmacies through either a wireless handheld PDA or a secure website to alleviate patient privacy issues. PAN also alerted reporters to the establishment of an e-prescribing consortium, further validating the technology in the industry. Additionally, the team persuaded several ZixCorp customers to speak with reporters. Having doctors ready to share their firsthand experiences with e-prescribing served the team well.

The Results

PAN’s media outreach strategy produced outstanding results. The team secured meetings with top analysts, including Gartner, Forester, Spire Security, and Osterman Research, and produced the following media coverage: