2009
The new branch e-platform has been online since July 2009. This branch specific marketing platform gives an overview of our portfolio. To ensure that strategy and implementation are coherent, we have expanded our network of cooperating partners. Together with other leading companies, rotthaus.com offers a complementary module-based range of professional solutions for health care marketing.

The 5th ‘Kongress Klinikmarketing’, which took place in November 2009 had a 40% increase in participants than the one held in 2008, meaning it had more than three times the participants as the first convention in 2004. The convention offers a variety of ideas to optimize marketing, public relations and communication for companies in the health sector and also provides an excellent networking opportunity.

In fall 2009 rotthaus.com started the first certified academic off-the-job training for health care marketing in cooperation with the University of Münster. The ‘Certified Health Care Marketing Manager’ program is part of an MBA degree and includes 21 days of workshops or lectures.

The DKV (German Health Insurance), Europe’s biggest health insurance company, relies on the strategic consulting service of rotthaus.com. In line with the ‘Unternehmen Gesundheit’ (‘Project Health’) rotthaus.com services include brand placement, marketing strategies and concepts for viral marketing strategies.


2008
In October the ‘Kongress Klinikmarketing’ successfully took place for the fourth time and was extended to four days. The participant’s feedback showed that all of them would come back the following year.  Surely, one of the reasons was that rotthaus.com was able recruit top-class speakers, along with Joann Rodgers from Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, USA.

We first met Joann Rodgers, head of the department for public relations at Johns Hopkins Medicine, while being on an excursion to Washington DC. We visited the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, the George Washington University Hospital and the National Institute of Health in Washington DC. We had several opportunities to partake in stimulating and intensive discussions and conversations with marketing and public relations professionals, as well as the chance to observe the specific local market characteristics.

rotthaus.com delivered a concept and implemented a magazine for the ‘Verband der Uniklinika’ (German Association of University Hospitals).

A patient satisfaction poll with very interesting results was undertaken for a big and renowned hospital in the Ruhr region.

Stephan Rotthaus reissued his book about green funds.


2007
Systematic hospital marketing became rotthaus.com’s core business. The number attending the third Congress for Hospital Communication was again 50% higher than the previous year. For the first time  the  Hospital Award was presented at a gala evening. Kienbaum Consultants International agreed to sponsor the  "Manager of the Year" award. rotthaus.com collaborated with  GQMG, the Association for Quality Management in Health Care, and the DVKC, the German Association for Hospital Management Accounting, to offer intensive workshops on quality management and marketing management accounting at the Congress.

The survey of referring physicians was supplemented by market and competition analyses. rotthaus.com’s  KlinikAkademie (Academy of Hospital Marketing & Communication) introduced in-house courses, among our first clients for which were the state hospitals of the Austrian province of Vorarlberg. Stephan Rotthaus was appointed expert to the Scientific Council responsible for assessing the quality of media communication at Federal Government institutions.

One of our most important single clients was the Heidelberg University Hospital, who commissioned us  to carry out an evaluation of their internet portal and PR strategies. This led to a complete redesign. With 13,000 pages and over 200,000 hits per month the Heidelberg University Hospital’s website  (www.klinikum.uni-heidelberg.de) is one of the largest hospital websites in the German-speaking world.

In the non-profit and fundraising field rotthaus.com designed a € 12.5 m fundraising campaign for one of the largest music projects  in Germany: An Instrument for Every Child. In September several German universities took part in our study t trip to Boston to learn about  fundraising from the experts at  Harvard Business School and MIT. For Nikodemus, a charity which runs homes for the aged, rotthaus.com designed and programmed a new internet portal (www.nikodemuswerk.de).


2006
Our consultancy work for hospitals focused increasingly on communicating with referring physicians. rotthaus.com surveyed over 1,000 office-based practitioners on behalf of a  Hamburg hospital chain and designed a systematic loyalty system for referring physicians. At the 2nd Congress for Hospital Communication the Hospital Award was for the first time  awarded in four categories. Our KlinikAkademie widened its range of seminars for hospital managers. Participants gave the practical relevance of these seminars, with their case studies and checklists, an average score of 1.6 (A-).

2005
rotthaus.com designed the prospectus for a € 10 m. holding fund for Weleda plc., a producer of medicines and natural cosmetics. We documented our legal know-how with specialised dossiers on the legislation covering hospital advertising and trade marks. We collaborated with the Bank für Sozialwirtschaft to publish a comprehensive ‘Benchmarking study on the public image of hospitals.’ rotthaus.com collaborated with Kienbaum Management Consultants and CompuGroup, the leading provider of software for doctors’ surgeries. rotthaus.com counted 250 hospitals among its clientèle. We organised the first German-speaking congress on the theme of Hospital Communication. Our agency developed of an extensive range of seminars on marketing and PR themes. We organised the Waldorf PR and Fund-raising Forum. rotthaus.com was awarded the contact for the PR of the Loheland Foundation.

2004
In spring rotthaus.com carried out its largest survey ever of clients, staff and media. We contributed substantially to the successful integration of the Ökobank into the GLS Bank and organised a campaign to raise an extra € 3 m. of share capital. We collaborated with the German Institute for Microfinance (DMI). In the Hanns Martin Schleyer Foundation we won a new high-profile account specialised in promoting science and learning. A first customer satisfaction survey among our clients gave rotthaus.com outstanding marks. We estabished a new division, rotthaus.com health communication’.

2003
rotthaus.com created a new corporate design and produced image brochures for Lahnhöhe Hospital. We also polled doctors and patients and designed a series of measures to improve occupancy rates. Over € 1,200,000 were raised within two years for a health charity. We recruited TV judge Barbara Salesch and other media personalities to support the Leuchtfeuer Foundation. ‘Medizin individuell’ appeared as a joint magazine for 9 hospitals.

2002
March saw the publication of the 25^th issue of ‘Bankspiegel’, a customer magazine for which we had been responsible for the past 6 years. With the German Association for Wind Energy (BWE) we developed and tested an industry standard for investment funds. We drew up the first sustainability report and a handbook for charitable foundations. The ‘rotthaus.com’ trademark and our new logo were registered with the German Trademark and Patent Office.

2001
The Bertelsmann Group published ‘Green Investments’ by Stephan Rotthaus. Our PR work led to several TV and radio interviews. The book leapt into the list of 20 bestselling investment guides compiled by Amazon, the world’s largest online bookstore. We created a brochure on pensions and retirement plans. Rotthaus.com took over editorial responsibility for the business section of the ecological consumer advice magazine ‘Öko-Test’.

2000
Our agency designed the staff newsletter ‘Bank intern’. Our Press Service was launched. We took on the media management for a new service for hairdressers. The story made it onto the front page of BILD, Germany’s only national tabloid.

1999
rotthaus.com prepared the IPO for the Bonn software company comma soft. Our commission included a new corporate design, the development of investor relations and internal communication. Our new premises in the prestigious Lindenthal district of Cologne were inaugurated.

First issue of the magazine ,Medizin individuell’.

1998
Successful placement of a € 5.1 m. fund to finance expanded production facilities at Weleda plc.

Foundation of the Agency with the GLS Bank as our first client.

1997
A combined PR and fundraising campaign for the renewable energy movement in Schönau in the Black Forest, launched with four simultaneous press conferences in Hamburg, Frankfurt, Stuttgart and Freiburg. Over € 700,000 in donations was raised for a pilot project for regenerative energy supply. The Schönau Electricity Works are now the largest ecological electricity provider in Germany.

1996
First issue of ‘Bankspiegel´ under the editorship of Stephan Rotthaus.

to 1995
Successful placement of four funds to promote  ecological agriculture with a volume of € 2.5 m. Successful placement of four energy investment funds with over € 5.2 m. Extensive PR activities.

1991 - 1998
Stephan Rotthaus was press spokesman and for many years head of PR at the GLS Bank. Marketing for diverse ecological investment funds, including the first wind energy fund in Germany, which was successfully placed within four months.

1989 - 1990
Preparation of a savings and loan fund for non-profit organisations in Norway. Negotiations with Norwegian banks.

1985 - 1988
Co-founder and general manager of a business advice unit for the German Association of Charitable Hospitals and Nursing Homes. Establishment of a savings and loan fund with the ‘Bank für Sozialwirtschaft’.

1984
Support for the capital procurement for the journal ,Öko-Test’, which first appeared the following year. For many years trustee of the limited partners in the publishing house.

From 1980
Stephan Rotthaus is a joint founder and for many years general manager of the ‘Ökofonds NRW’, an ecological investment fund in the German province of North-Rhine Westphalia.