Butler/Till Health: 2020
Butler/Till Health
1565 Jefferson Road
Bldg. 200, Suite 280
Rochester, NY 14623
Telephone
585-274-5100
Website
butlertill.com; butlertillhealth.com
QUICK FACTS
Accounts
Account wins 8
Active business clients 20
Brands by 2019 sales
Brand-product accounts held 70
SERVICES MIX
Paid media 100%
DTC media 76%
HCP media 24%
Butler/Till Health is an independent marketing agency headquartered in Rochester, N.Y., with an additional office in New York City. Butler/Till is a women-owned and 100 percent employee-owned agency as well as a Certified B Corporation. According to its leaders, Butler/Till Health is one of the fastest growing private companies in the United States, with 20 percent revenue increase year-over-year for the last 10 years, and earning placement on the Inc. 5000 for seven consecutive years.
“Leveraging the deep healthcare expertise we’ve been developing since 1998, we are uniquely positioned to make marketing work smarter for our clients,” management says. “Butler/Till Health is built on a passionate, collaborative ownership culture that reduces turnover, increases productivity, and delivers real business outcomes. Today we are a 170-plus person-marketing powerhouse. And we’re just getting started. We own our wins. We own our losses. We own the ability to direct our agency’s growth. That’s us. We are Butler/Till Health.”
RECENT ACCOMPLISHMENTS
In the last year, the agency experienced continued growth with account wins from Greenwich Biosciences, Healthfirst, Takeda, Endo Pharmaceuticals, and Global Blood Therapeutics. In addition, the agency had significant organic growth with existing clients such as Bristol-Myers Squibb, Amgen, Ferring, Bausch Health Companies, Rigel, and Hologic.
The agency has also expanded its Analytics and Media capabilities. “Our Analytics offering now includes new products and services and has become one of the fastest growing departments in the agency, hiring 10 team members in the last 12 months,” BTH executives say. “Our Media capability is another area of notable growth, expanding our offering to clients with enhancement and improvements to services such as Paid Search, SEO, SEM, and Programmatic through a dedicated team of professionals focused within these specialties.”
Both capabilities’ leadership teams grew as well in 2019 by adding Scott Ensign, VP, client solutions and Wendy Emerson, senior group director, Media and Analytics. “Leading our teams and capabilities to new heights, Scott brings his two decades of experience in media by leading a team of nearly 50 professionals to support business development, innovation, strategy, planning, thought leadership, and management across various digital media tactics, including programmatic, video, paid search, and other emerging channels,” management says. “Wendy also has more than 20 years of experience encompassing digital strategies, interactive marketing, marketing analytics, marketing strategy, financial planning and analysis, and direct marketing program development to lead the Analytics team and our ability to provide our clients with an innovative offering to show direct marketing attribution.”
In the past 12 months, the agency received several awards, including selection as a “Top Healthcare Agency” for the fourth year in a row on the Medical Marketing & Media Agency 100 List and as an “Elite 100 Marketing Team” by PM360. Other awards received are the ATHENA Organizational Award; being named as a local “Top Workplace” for the seventh consecutive year; being listed on the Greater Rochester Chamber of Commerce’s “Top 100” for the 12th consecutive year; four Telly awards; one gold local ADDY award and one silver regional ADDY award; a Platinum Hermes Award; being named to the “Best For The World List Of Top-Performing B Corps” for the 4th consecutive year; “Technology Woman of the Year Award” by TechRochester; and the 2019 Wealth of Health Small Business Award by the Rochester Business Journal.
STRUCTURE AND SERVICES
The agency’s core service offerings include strategy (research services such as competitive intelligence reports, disease state/condition area reports, patient/HCP audience profiles, social media monitoring, patient/HCP/KOL focus groups, patient/HCP media strategy consulting, and patient/HCP media audits); media (including conferences/trade shows, content marketing, programmatic and endemic display, email, geofencing/location based, mobile, native, online video, out-of-home, point-of-care, print for DTC/HCP/journals, radio, search, social media, and TV); creative (digital, traditional, and branding); and analytics (including data discovery audits and customized dashboards).
“As a result of our progress, our focus on business optimization efforts has become a core part of our DNA,” BTH executives say. “We utilize some of the best tools on the market, including Mediaocean, ZOOM, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Power BI, LinkedIn Learning, and Wrike. While utilizing the Lean Six Sigma approach to process, quality, and overall improvement, we function with 100 percent transparency on process, costs, and recommendations – always.”
At Butler/Till, a dedicated account management team works directly with client contacts to plan and manage all campaigns on behalf of the client. An account director provides total oversight across all media tactics to maximize media spend. Account leads also consult on adjacent topics to strengthen advertising performance, including testing strategies, messaging recommendations, market criteria, and best practices for integrated marketing communications. Account directors work with media directors to help internal teams develop plans that align with core business objectives. Media directors employ a “pod structure” that includes specialists who provide support for all campaign functions, from planning to analytics, and set clear paths of execution.
Senior strategists serve as business leads across individualized media tactics, such as programmatic, search, social, and display. “Like account directors, they understand business objectives and partner closely with vendors to identify emerging opportunities,” BTH leadership says. Their counterparts, strategists and associates, manage day-to-day campaigns, including ongoing optimizations and reporting.
Analytics team members provide an objective lens across account management and media. “This team includes specialists who monitor and manage the quality of media and campaign data at its most granular level,” agency executives say. “Rooted in transparent stewardship of client dollars, this rigor in data hygiene and management also enables additional capabilities, such as advanced analytics, data visualization, and strategic collaboration with external measurement partners for media-mix modeling or multi-touch attribution.”
With a significant investment in talent management throughout the year, the agency made more than 40 new hires in 2019.
FUTURE PLANS
According to BTH leaders, each year, the agency chooses a guiding word. “This year’s is ‘Intention,’” management says. “In the last 12 months we have gone through an agency rebranding and re-evaluated our strategic plan for the next five years – redefining the agency’s vision and key business objectives.”
Among these objectives are growing enterprise value while remaining a “Best Place to Work”; further integrating and improving all capabilities to provide a best-in-class performance offering; driving business optimization through standardized process and tech enablement; designing and building out new, inspirational office space with a 2021 projected move-in; aligning talent strategy to business strategy through continued elevation of recruiting, onboarding, professional development, workforce engagement, and compensation; exploring opportunistic acquisitions that provide growth and a strategic advantage; enabling agile product development and continued adoption of an experimental and innovative culture; growing portfolio value and preparing to win small-midsize healthcare “Agency of the Year” in the next 12 months; continuing to expand services and products to current and future clients; and focusing on sub-segmentation to fuel new business development opportunities.
PHILANTHROPY/CITIZENSHIP
According to leaders, a final element vital to the success of Butler/Till Health is the agency’s values and culture. “As an employee-owned company, we take great pride in our culture, which we believe should never be taken for granted, and should be nurtured often,” BTH executives say. “We have five employee-run committees: Charity, Health & Wellness, Employee Communications, Fun, and B Corp.”
In 2019 the agency donated about $17,805 in cash and goods, volunteered 1,214 hours or 162 days, gave $2,755 in matching gifts to 29 different organizations, and did a “Mission Trip” to Taos, N.M. There were 1,310 total walks taken by employees in its partnership with and commitment to The American Heart Association.
The agency continued ESOP educational efforts by successfully rolling out the annual ESOP Month events and by creating quarterly new-hire forums dedicated to answering any new employee questions regarding in-house culture, the committee, and ESOPs, sending team members to multiple ESOP conferences to bring back ways to enhance Butler/Till’s employee-owned efforts and networking opportunities.
“With numerous outlets for employees to feel connected both internally and throughout the community, the company participates in pro-bono work, has a dedicated committee for charity opportunities, and is a certified B Corporation,” management says. “Butler/Till is one of only 3,000 certified B Corps in the world – for-profit companies certified by the nonprofit B Lab to meet rigorous standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency. B Corps are leading a global movement of People Using Business as a Force for Good, while working toward the triple bottom line: People, Planet, and Profit.”
Butler/Till Health has provided pro-bono support for Causewave Community Partners, formerly known as the Ad Council of Rochester; Our Lady of Mercy School for Young Women; RESOLVE of Greater Rochester Inc.; United Nations in partnership with The World Health Organization; University of Rochester, Highland Hospital; and the American Heart Association.
In addition to agency sponsorships of these causes in the last 12 months, the agency completed several projects to support these organizations for their local fundraising events, including creative development, media planning and buying, and production.
“Another one-of-a-kind benefit BTH offers is three paid days off for all employees to dedicate to community involvement efforts,” Butler/Till Health executives say. “This provides the opportunity for all team members to engage in causes that inspire them. The agency also funds one humanitarian trip per year for a select group of employees at a location in need to perform a large-scale, mission-based project. Recently, we sent employees to Taos, New Mexico to build a Habitat for Humanity house.”
