Most telehealth brands are trying to out-shout each other right now. We’ve all seen the GLP-1 competition as heavy spending spreads spread ads across social media, OOH, DOOH, and nearly every corner of where a marketing budget could be spent. For smaller companies in the telehealth space, fighting for the same attention with a fraction of the budget is a task that requires a different approach.
That was Ivím Health's problem in January, when Molly Weissman became the company's first in-house communications hire. There was no program to build on. There was only a market getting more crowded by the month.
Then, with just six stories run on the Stacker wire, Ivím found itself with 1.2M+ views, 1,400+ pickups, and even a mention in Newsweek. Thus, they found their innovative strategy for the crowded industry.
One Comms Hire, No Playbook
Weissman, the VP of Communications, had a mandate that was straightforward and hard: build trust for a brand nobody had heard of, and give Ivím's chief medical officer a credible consumer voice in a category where bigger competitors could simply outspend a young comms function.
"When I started, we had almost no consumer PR — zero. Now, we've had over 30 hits in the past six months." - Molly Weissman
The traditional playbook wasn't going to get her there fast enough. As a former journalist, Weissman knew how much earned media depends on timing and luck. The right pitch can still lose to a reporter's deadline or another PR team getting there first. Ivím needed a way to build credibility on its own schedule, rather than depend on the news cycle's schedule.
Owning the Narrative Instead of Chasing It
Stacker gave Ivím a way to publish without waiting on a news hook or a reporter's inbox. A story on Ivím's own site mostly reaches people who already know the brand. Stacker put Ivím in front of readers with zero prior awareness, which is exactly the audience an emerging brand needs most.
"It gives us control of how we own the narrative — to not just be preaching to the choir. What Stacker's given us is a way to reach people who don't know about us yet, and provide the type of clinical expertise that separates us in our field, without having to rely on hitting a news moment exactly when it happens, or pitching a reporter at the exact right moment."
That control turned into a strategic lever for Ivím's chief medical officer.
Stories ranged from a GLP-1 side effects guide to hormone health explainers to coverage timed to the FDA's review of peptide therapies, where the CMO testified before a federal panel. Each piece made the same case: Ivím's clinical expertise was the differentiator no ad budget could buy.
The partnership works on two levels simultaneously. On the front end, Stacker's native distribution network builds consumer awareness and gives Ivím's content a home it wouldn't otherwise have. Behind the scenes, it builds the citations, backlinks, and authority signals that increasingly determine how a brand shows up in AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google's AI Overviews.
Meaning, it builds the technical authority that SEO and GEO demands today, while also building the qualitative layer for internal subject matter experts.
1,400+ Pickups and a Newsweek Debut
Across six stories published between February and June, Ivím's Stacker content generated 1,400+ pickups and an estimated 1.2 million views, landing with newspapers and digital publishers across dozens of states, including major regional outlets and hyperlocal papers nationwide.
The fit was obvious from the first story. Ivím's debut piece, on hair loss as a GLP-1 side effect, was picked up by Newsweek and drove numbers strong enough that Weissman's team double-checked they were real.
"My first piece was a slam dunk, a home run, and I was immediately obsessed."
Stories on perimenopause, hormone health, and peptide therapies sustained that momentum, each one reinforcing the CMO as a trusted consumer voice. Branded search for "Ivím Health" has climbed considerably since, one of the clearest available signals of the kind of brand awareness that's otherwise hard to attribute to a single channel.
"We're not going to be the loudest in the room, but can we work our way to being one of the most trusted voices? Even someone who's a patient of another telehealth company coming to our site to learn about the side effects of hair loss on a GLP-1 — to me, that's a win. Over time, that compounds into brand awareness winning people over."
What's Next for Ivím
Demand is outpacing what Weissman can produce solo. Ivím is now testing a freelance writer to scale beyond one story a month, including topics that require original reporting outside the scope of an in-house comms role.
Ivím has since upgraded their subscription to a higher-tier Stacker subscription for greater story volume and direct access to GEO analytics, extending the same strategy as the company's treatment offerings continue to expand.
A comms team of one built a national platform in six months, competing against rivals with far bigger budgets. That's what happens when the content itself does the work a media budget usually has to buy.
See where Ivím's stories landed: Read the full case study.
Photo Illustration by Stacker // Canva
