We’re all familiar with the media’s focus upon the New Year, which almost universally relates to diet, weight loss, fitness programs, and with breast cancer awareness month in October. But did you know that unfamiliar health observance days, such as National Women’s Check-up Day, for example, which falls on May 9th this year, can also be used by healthcare companies to provide topical news hooks to obtain media interest? In fact, these lesser known holidays might be an ever better peg for news because the entire healthcare world isn’t trying to grab a piece of media coverage, as they do for better known holidays.

Finding a health-related observance date that correlates with your organizational message is easy. Plug in your key words in Google or your Internet Explorer bar, or search for the national health observance calendar, which lists thousands of health observance dates to see if any are related to it.

Although a ready-made health news hook might be right for your organization, it’s not going to be a slam dunk, or an occasion to slap something together. Planning and execution are just as critical for health observance dates as it is for any other publicity campaign.

Once the health observance topic is identified, a PR plan can be tailored to execute messaging and tactics around it. Make sure to plan far enough ahead so that you can take advantage of the occasion. Develop your messaging, prepare your materials and allow enough time to pitch long-lead publications as well as short leads, trades, and if appropriate, broadcast media.

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