Becoming an Embedded Marketing Partner for a Growing Startup

Author Health is a virtual-first mental health and dementia care startup serving Medicare beneficiaries. Like many early-stage organizations, they were focused on product development, patient acquisition, and strategic partnerships. Building industry awareness was essential, but a fractional marketer made more sense than an internal team. With deep startup experience and a hands-on approach, I was a natural fit.

Starting in early 2025, we established a cadence of weekly check-in meetings and I was added to their internal systems (think Slack, email, etc.) to reduce friction and make our working relationship as efficient as possible for their small but mighty team. From the get-go, I engaged in a broad range of activities, from providing strategic counsel to developing messaging and a content strategy to copywriting and beyond.

Using Marketing and Communications to Reach a New Patient Segment 

The first major campaign I developed for the team was to promote Author Health’s participation in CMS’s Guiding an Improved Dementia Experience (GUIDE) Model. As one of just 400 organizations across the U.S. selected by CMS to participate in this innovative new program, GUIDE represented an opportunity to reach a whole new patient population – Medicare FFS members living with dementia and their caregivers. Author Health already had a robust dementia program serving thousands of Medicare Advantage members through its health plan partnerships, and the team was excited to increase its impact.

A successful GUIDE launch was a top business priority, with all hands on deck until the official go-live date – both on the product side and the promotion side. After researching the program extensively, as well as how the other organizations selected were communicating about their offerings, I worked hand-in-hand with the product and patient engagement teams to develop messaging that highlighted Author Health’s key differentiators. After receiving approval from the leadership team, we landed on a platform that provided continuity across all deliverables.

Our marketing campaign included the following:

• External communications:

• Updated dementia webpage, brand new GUIDE webpage, and homepage banner

• Press release put out on PR Newswire (the company’s second ever press release!)

• LinkedIn announcement (organic and paid, targeting potential partners in key states of interest)

• Pitch to select healthcare trade outlets/reporters covering CMS policies and Medicare

• Collateral for partner providers and potential patients 

• Internal communications:

• GUIDE messaging deck broken out by target audiences 

• Company announcement about the launch and significance for the business delivered via Slack, the company’s primary communication channel

• Recommended LinkedIn language for sharing this major milestone 

Within weeks, Author Health began enrolling GUIDE patients. Within a month, national healthcare media sought the team’s expertise on telehealth policy. By the two-month mark, the company celebrated 10,000 total patients—underscoring the campaign’s reach and impact.