DAC Beachcroft

Qualitative thought leadership reports

A modular series of thought leadership reports for DAC Beachcroft’s healthcare team, based on in-depth interviews with the sector’s leading experts form the nucleus of fast-turnaround targeted campaigns. Topics resonate because of their timeliness in the market and draw heavily on DAC Beachcroft’s areas of expertise.
 

Client

DAC Beachcroft is a broad-based commercial law firm with a strong heritage in insurance, health and real estate. An international firm with a London hub connected to a strong regional UK presence, DAC Beachcroft employs over 2,500 people with revenues of £243m in 2018/9.

Challenge

DAC Beachcroft is widely recognised as the leading strategic, commercial and regulatory legal adviser to the health and social care sector in the UK. For a number of years, DAC Beachcroft has produced Health Adviser magazine in partnership with Grist, which is a biannual publication covering the hot topics facing the healthcare regulatory community, together with annual flagship research reports. They wanted to shift the strategy away from doing one large piece of thought leadership per year, and instead have shorter pieces that focus on the key issues for clients to form the nucleus of targeted campaigns.

Solution

Grist worked with DAC Beachcroft to develop an interview-led thought leadership programme that explored the hottest topics facing the UK healthcare sector.

In each case we planned and conducted 6-10 in-depth interviews with a balanced group of leading experts across the sector. This research led to the creation of six reports to date, in key areas for DAC Beachcroft’s healthcare clients: medtech, mental health, NHS charities, NHS estates, medical cannabis and social care, with more on the way. All of these are topics where a changing market has produced legal and regulatory issues for the sector and DAC Beachcroft were well placed to provide timely insight and actionable advice for the target audience.

The 12-page reports were written and designed by Grist, and published in print and online. Each one was written by one of our subject-matter specialist journalists and each included interviews with at least six external experts who are considered leaders in their chosen fields and DAC Beachcroft partners, well placed to discuss the legal and regulatory implications for each of the topics.  

“Our thought leadership strategy is really working. Clients are keen to be involved because they see the value – and we have won business directly off the back of the campaigns. It’s a win-win.”
Mark Stubberfield, Head of Sector Business Development, DAC Beachcroft

Each report was launched with a targeted campaign across channels including digital, events, BD and social media (the influential group of experts were sufficiently engaged with the theme to help promote the research within their own networks).

 

Results

The reports provided actionable insights on the topics chosen by DAC Beachcroft, which both developed and influenced thinking within the firm and created meaningful conversations with clients and prospects alike.“Working with Grist to evolve our approach to thought leadership has garnered excellent results,” says Charlotte Johnson, Communications Manager at DAC Beachcroft. “As a result of more targeted reports, we have been able to engage with our clients and prospects on key issues much more effectively, and we can really drill down into these singular issues in order to demonstrate the true depth of our knowledge and expertise.”