Case Study
Employee Benefits Firm Generates Demand with Thought Leadership Program
Thought Leadership
Public Relations
Content and Creative
The Scribewise Thought Leadership Engine for Corporate Synergies
- Developed a journalistic thought leadership engine anchored in real expertise
- Made SME participation efficient, repeatable and scalable
- Published hundreds of articles across trade and business media
- Earned visibility in tier 1 outlets, including HuffPost, Fortune and CNBC
- Achieved a peak-year placement rate of 100 percent
- Built credibility that strengthened sales conversations and RFP responses
- Sustained impact through a 12+ year partnership
Corporate Synergies always had the intellectual capital. Scribewise built the engine that activated it consistently, credibly and at scale for more than a decade. Today, they are a trusted, authoritative voice in a crowded market and a model for how thought leadership can transform business outcomes.
The Situation: A Benefits Firm With Real Expertise That No One Was Hearing
Employee benefits consulting is notorious for sameness. Firms sell the same plans from the same carriers, using the same jargon.
Corporate Synergies is different. They have people who genuinely care about helping clients navigate confusing healthcare decisions, but none of that came through in their marketing.
For years, they paid a well-known PR agency $7,000 a month and got almost nothing in return, save for one placement in a publication their audience didn’t read. Leadership was rightly frustrated. When a new CEO came in, he pushed for clarity and accountability, making it clear that generic PR metrics wouldn’t cut it.
Corporate Synergies had real expertise. They just needed a way to get it into the world.
The Challenge: Busy SMEs and a Complex Industry
Corporate Synergies had the expertise people needed, but not the mechanism to share it. Their SMEs were also stretched thin between client demands and what are ostensibly blackout periods during the busy renewal season.
Meanwhile, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was becoming a reality, creating a flood of uncertainty and what was sure to be a daunting compliance challenge for HR leaders everywhere. Clients were confused and anxious, and the media was hungry for clear advice. Corporate Synergies should have been leading those conversations, but bandwidth and a lack of process kept their insights bottled up.
Standing still wasn’t an option. Stagnation would have left Corporate Synergies blending into the middle of a crowded market at a moment when employers desperately needed steady, informed guidance. The ACA may have created confusion and pressure, but it also created a rare opening for firms with expertise to lead. Without a way to share what they knew, that opportunity would pass them by.
Scribewise’s job was to understand their world well enough to ask the right questions and earn SME trust, translate their thinking into plain language and build a repeatable system that could get their expertise in front of their audience.