COWDEN ASSOCIATES

Who is Cowden Associates?
Cowden Associates, Inc., headquartered in Pittsburgh, PA, was created in 2001 by the merger of Halliwell and Associates and MMC&P Spectrum Benefits, which was founded by Jere Cowden in 1986. Currently led by President & CEO Elliot Dinkin, Cowden Associates specializes in helping corporate clients find the best solutions, both for the enterprise and for its employees, with regard to compensation, healthcare benefits, retirement and pension issues, and Taft-Hartley fund consulting. Winning Workplaces and The Wall Street Journal have recognized Cowden as a “Top Small Workplace,” a lifetime designation awarded to executives for their ability to build and lead savvy organizations. Dinkin is called upon regularly by major media for comments on current events surrounding corporate economic issues affecting the American workforce. Visit www.cowdenassociates.com

Who Is Cowden Associates?

Getting employers, employees, and labor unions to see eye-to-eye when negotiating compensation, benefits and retirement/pension packages is no easy feat. The stakes are high, and sometimes even emotions. After all, the decisions that will ultimately be made can profoundly affect the lives of working people and employers’ bottom lines. Both sides need impartial arbitration, negotiation and legal expertise. Cowden Associates, Inc.’s purpose is to ensure employers’ plans are cost-effective, competitive, and comply with government regulations.

Cowden Associates’ approach is unique – a total compensation approach to employer benefit programs, even across multiple lines of business. Their clients average a 95% goal achievement success rate, a phenomenal track record. Cowden Associates had a vast resource of knowledge and expertise in President and CEO Elliot Dinkin. Cultivating a reputation as the “go-to” expert in his field required opportunities to communicate that expertise.

While They Faced Challenges…

New client acquisition and revenue was flat. Cowden wanted to grow that revenue by at least 10% – and that meant potential clients needed to know Cowden not only had the utmost expertise in the compensation arena, their high success rate, but also a complete suite of sorely needed services to implement that expertise. How could Cowden be seen by third parties as the go-to firm in an already crowded market? And how were they to share that expertise with their target audiences?

…There Were Disruptive Solutions…

We implemented an aggressive anti–PR campaign, with at least four media placements every month, that targeted a range of lower-tier industry-specific and high-tier popular media outlets. These placements consisted of a series of well-timed educational, informative news stories with Elliot Dinkin positioned as the thought leader.

Media Exposure Metrics

In two years, Cowden Associates achieved more than 100 media placements including articles and interviews in content-discerning industry publications and TV/radio appearances.

This amounted to an exposure aggregate of 1.9 billion potential views within highly-respected pension, finance and legal publications, popular TV/radio news channels and websites. Based on that aggregate and the expected industry standard of 2.5% for actual views, 50 million of their targeted decision-makers (i.e. prospects) read, listened to, or saw these news stories.

Cowden Associates President and CEO Elliot Dinkin noted that placements in audience-specific publications such as The Law360, which alone reaches more than 1.5 million legal professionals, really hit their target readers, helping to secure Cowden Associates’ position as an authority in their industry.
Timely placements of news of government legislation pertaining to employment law or benefits changes resonated with the media and positioned Elliot Dinkin as an industry thought leader.
Stories demonstrating the impact of pension failures on millions of workers built one on top of another as journalists sought out Elliot Dinkin specifically for his expert commentary.
HR Business Pros, with an audience of more than 680,000 business and human resources professionals, cited Elliot Dinkin as “ …a nationally known expert in actuarial, compensation, and employee benefits issues”.
The overall constant stream of news stories from third parties about Cowden have been hitting their target readers, solidifying their company’s credibility.
With each news story placement and media-generated content story, we consistently positioned Cowden Associates as the consultative expert in compensation, benefits and retirement plans. Cowden Associates President and CEO Elliot Dinkin himself is now seen as an influencer and preeminent source who can spoke with credible third-party backed authority on the relevant industry news and topics.

…and Cowden Associates Responded!

“By the end of the first year of our campaign, we experienced increases in our EBITDA and the campaign really helped in securing our position as the go-to thought leader on matters of compensation, health and benefits, and retirement consulting. News outlets are coming to me for my analysis and insight into a bevy of compensation-related topics and I am more than happy to oblige. All this exposure has our ever-growing list of prospects seeing our service offerings through a well-informed lens.” ~ Elliot Dinkin, President & CEO Cowden Associates, Inc.