Tag Archives: New Jersey PR firms

July 1, 2014 · 3:48 pm

The Attention Web: What B2B Marketers Need to Know

For B2B marketers who are too busy to keep up-to-date on every marketing trend and buzzword, here are a few thoughts on all the current noise about the Attention Web:

Attention as a marketing asset is not a new concept: Top-of-mind awareness has always served as a cornerstone of effective B2B marketing. In their 2001 book, The Attention Economy, social scholars Thomas Davenport and John Beck proposed that in today’s information-flooded world, the most scarce resource does not involve ideas, money or talent. They argued that unless companies learn to effectively capture, manage and maintain attention – both internally and in the marketplace – they will fail. Here’s one way to understand what’s happening:

Pageviews, Likes, Clicks, Shares and Downloads do not measure engagement: Now that the advertising industry is using actual data to evaluate online behavior, smart B2B marketers can validate what they’ve always suspected about the metrics that are used to measure the effectiveness of the content they produce. There is now hard evidence that shows the number of clicks, comments, and shares are not indicative of how much time people spend engaged with the actual content. One recent study, reflected below – produced by Chartbeat and based on a boatload of data – demonstrates that there is no relationship between how often a piece of content is shared and the amount of attention the average reader will give that content. The good news for B2B marketers is that there are now editorial analytic tools that can provide attention and engagement metrics and insights.

Attention, engagement and business relationships are driven by quality content: Beyond whatever products or services they sell, all B2B companies must establish credibility and trust with clients, prospects and referral sources. Initial inquiries and longstanding relationships are not nurtured by bombarding target audiences with aggregated content from 3^rd parties. The most successful B2B firms only associate their brand with highly relevant content, most often home-grown, that supports their value proposition, stakes out intellectual territory, avoids self-serving claims and truly differentiates their company from competitors. Less can be more, when it comes to B2B content.

Don’t rely on the internet exclusively to generate market attention. For B2B firms, direct communication (email, snail mail, face-to-face, etc.) with target audiences remains the most effective means of gaining and maintaining engagement. If you’ve created high quality content, ensure that it earns an adequate marketing ROI by consistently putting it in front of the right people; don’t expect them to find your content by themselves on your company website or blog, on LinkedIn or through Twitter. Those online channels should be considered a secondary, rather than the primary means, of generating attention and engagement through content.

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January 16, 2013 · 11:32 am

Is Your B2B Firm REALLY Marketing…Or Simply Making Tactical Soup?

Is Your B2B Marketing a Tactical Hodge Podge?

B2B firms invest significant dollars and hours maintaining a broad range of marketing tactics that may or may not demonstrate economic value. Often, the value of marketing activity gets measured in tactical terms—such as volume of media exposure, website traffic, webinar attendance, email click-through rates, awards for civic participation and social media “Likes” and “Followers,” rather than by tangible business outcomes such as lead generation, conversion rates, acceptance of new service offerings among existing clients, or revenue per associate.

When this situation exists, a B2B firm is not marketing; it’s simply making Tactical Soup.

Here are 3 steps to get out of the soup kitchen, or to avoid it altogether:

1. Put every marketing tactic under the microscope. If there’s no tangible connection between a current marketing tactic and bona fide business results, throw it out. Be ruthless in your tactical assessment and focus on marketing initiatives that demonstrate a direct correlation between activity and a measurable business outcomes.

2. Calculate the value received from the marketing activity. Press releases and related media exposure is a good example of marketing activity that is often overrated in terms of effort vs. tangible outcome. Unless your firm has accomplished something truly noteworthy—like discovering your profession’s equivalent of cold fusion—then the likelihood of your clients, prospects and referral sources actually noticing the media exposure and doing something about it, such as visiting your firm’s website or requesting an introductory meeting, is probably low. Exposure that’s largely based on a firm’s achievements delivers little practical benefit to existing clients and may leave them wondering if such self-promotion will result in higher client rates and fees.

3. Schedule ongoing maintenance of the activity. Unfortunately, many B2B marketing tactics are often one-off or plug-and-play solutions. Blogs and newsletters demand original, timely content; not canned information. White papers and case studies become quickly outdated. Website effectiveness requires ongoing attention to visitor traffic analytics and search engine optimization. Webinars and public forums entail lead qualification and follow-up with prospects. Email and direct mail campaign accuracy depends on a reliable and accessible database. LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook must be updated regularly to stay relevant. Before embarking on these activities, make sure you have the time and resources to dedicate to their maintenance.

THE PAYOFF

B2B firms can avoid the pitfalls of tactical soup by being selective in the type and volume of marketing tactics they apply. Most importantly, they must identify a specific and measurable strategic outcome in advance of any tactic’s design or application. For example, a 25-person CPA firm with an emerging practice among medium-size, privately held businesses sought to add a pharmaceutical company to its client list. Leveraging the life science industry background of one of its senior partners, the firm proposed and published a bylined article on Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) revenue-recognition compliance—a supply chain issue of great interest and value to pharmaceutical industry executives—in a leading life science publication with more than 35,000 print subscribers and an even greater number of online readers.

Instead of simply posting the bylined article on its website and adding article reprints to its marketing kit, this firm understood three important considerations regarding the real value of media placement as a marketing tactic:

The article’s content was not as valuable as the firm’s indirect affiliation with a respected pharmaceutical industry publication.
On its own, publication of the article was unlikely to generate any viable, near-term new business prospects.
For the firm to benefit from the credibility associated with publication of its partner’s life sciences expertise, it would need to proactively merchandise this inherent 3rd party endorsement.

Now that its marketing toolbox contained validation of the senior partner’s intellectual capital in a leading vertical trade magazine, the firm leveraged the value of that exposure. It used the article reprint as the cornerstone of a direct mail campaign designed to raise awareness of the firm and to initiate substantive conversations with CFOs at pharmaceutical firms matching the criteria of prospective clients it had targeted—in terms of geography, ownership, revenue growth, number of employees and apparent levels of sophistication.

The firm’s mailing included a hard copy, personalized cover letter to those targets, offering to provide a pro bono analysis of the prospect’s SOX exposure, which was followed by a courtesy phone call designed to measure levels of interest and to schedule an introductory meeting. Over the course of this six-month campaign, which effectively combined two marketing tactics—media exposure and direct mail—this accounting firm netted two new pharmaceutical industry clients.

Instead of generating marketing activity for its own sake, this B2B firm effectively applied specific marketing tactics to yield a predetermined business outcome.

Tactical Soup was not on this B2B firm’s marketing menu, and it has no rightful place on yours.

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November 13, 2012 · 5:36 pm

Tennyson Delivers Skyfall’s British Bulldog Moment

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

In her 7th and final role playing “M” in Skyfall – the latest in a series of 23 James Bond movies produced over the past 50 years – Dame Judi Dench appears before Britain’s Intelligence and Security Committee to defend her record as head of MI6 – the government agency which supplies Her Majesty’s Government with foreign intelligence.

Under pressure to explain breaches in MI6’s internal security, the 007 matriarch waxes poetic, quoting a few lines from one of her late husband’s favorite poems:

“…We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”

Students of the late Professor Arthur R. Reil, Jr.’s English Lit course at Fairfield University – having memorized all 70 lines of that particular poem (as well as several odes and sonnets) – recognized Dench’s reading immediately as Ulysses, written by Lord Alfred Tennyson in 1833.

Some Cliff Notes for Biology majors: Ulysses is the ancient warrior hero of Homer’s Odyssey. British poet Tennyson envisions Ulysses speaking this narrative after having returned from the Trojan War to Ithaca, the kingdom he rules. Before he leaves Ithaca to embark on his final voyage, Ulysses describes his boredom with domestic life and fear of old age, longing for a return to his lifelong quest for adventure and knowledge.

Lord Tennyson was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom during much of Queen Victoria’s reign and remains one of Great Britain’s most popular poets. But when Tennyson wrote Ulysses, he was living in cramped quarters with his mother and nine of his ten siblings, with little income and in failing health. The poem was written shortly after, and influenced by the death of his close friend, the poet Arthur Henry Hallam (1811–1833), who was engaged to Tennyson’s sister Emily. The parallels between the plight of Ulysses and Tennyson’s personal circumstances continue to be the focus of countless, thoroughly boring Ph.D. dissertations.

Although it has been the subject of sniping since the film’s release, the Skyfall screenwriters’ rationale to interrupt their action movie with a brief poetry reading was very clear, and in my view, displayed noteworthy cinematic craftsmanship by providing the “British Bulldog Moment” that’s an essential element in every James Bond installment. (For movie-goers who miss the point of the poem, Skyfall’s screenwriters provide a Union-Jacketed, Royal Doulton ceramic bulldog that “M” bequeaths to 007.)

What’s far less clear – some 40 years after Professor Reil forced me to memorize Ulysses – is how I can still remember and recite verbatim at least the first 10 lines of that epic poem (and up to 15 lines, after downing 3 Guinness stouts)…but I can never remember a new name or phone number for more than 30 seconds unless I write it down.

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September 22, 2012 · 5:10 pm

PR / Media Pros Should Stand Firm on Requiring Quote Approvals

Quote Approvals Lower the Risk of Media Burn

The practice of requiring journalists to submit on-the-record quotes for approval by a source in advance of publication has long been a sore point between the media and the PR profession. A new spotlight has been cast on the issue, with writer Michael Lewis’ acknowledgment that he’d agreed to quote approval for his Vanity Fair profile on Barack Obama, and the new policy issued by the New York Times, which forbids their reporters from agreeing to “after-the-fact quote approval by sources and their press aides.”

Notwithstanding the New York Times’ effort to protect the integrity of the Fourth Estate, there are at least 3 reasons why it makes good sense for companies and organizations to stand firm on stipulating that reporters obtain quote approval as a pre-condition for granting an interview:

Reporters Are Human. They often don’t bring the depth of knowledge that’s required to cover the assignments they’re handed…so they will make mistakes. They also bring their own points of view…so they will be selective in how they quote sources. And sometimes, they don’t always play by the rules. This blogger was told by a New York Times reporter that if I pressed for a correction to an error he had made regarding one of my clients, that he would never feature any of my clients in his column.
The Spoken Word and Written Word are Very Different. A comment or offhand remark that’s expressed during an interview can cast a false or unfair impression when taken out of context, and when it is read rather than heard. Very few individuals have the ability to envision…as they are speaking…how their spoken words will look in print and to know what message those words will convey. Mark Twain recognized that “talk in print” results in “confusion to the reader, not instruction.”
Journalism Is a Cat and Mouse Game. Reporters are frequently looking for a “gotcha” quote that can juice up their coverage, or support a point they’re seeking to make. Their questions can be contrived, or their approach designed to wear down a source. This blogger learned that lesson the hard way, when a Chicago Tribune reporter twisted a fact-based comment in a very long conversation that enabled him to write a story entitled, “Amex Official Admits CBOE Superiority.”

If you’re willing to participate in media interviews without the safety net of quote approval….here are some guidelines that will lower your risk of being burned:

You Can Never Be “Media Trained” – Regardless of whatever training, practice sessions or actual interviews you’ve had, believing that you are “media trained” provides a dangerous and false sense of security. Every reporter is different, every interview is a unique opportunity, and you need to be properly prepared every time.
Don’t Lead Lambs to Slaughter – For a host of reasons, and regardless of their org chart position or years of experience, some people are media disasters. If your senior manager or client has a track record of interviews that did not go well, avoid putting them in harm’s way. If a heart-to-heart conversation regarding their poor interviewing skills is not an option, at least ensure that they are equipped for interviews with tightly scripted talking points.
Tape Record all Interviews – When there’s a recorded version of an interview, a reporter is likely to be more careful in quoting a source, and you have something more credible than written notes, if there is any controversy. It’s good form to let the reporter know upfront that you will be tape recording an interview. If the reporter objects, and you still agree to conduct the interview, then your organization deserves whatever misquotes or misrepresentation may occur.

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July 12, 2012 · 1:20 pm

Do Most CEOs Lack Social Skills?

Do CEOs need charm school, rather than business school?

According to a new study sponsored by Domo and CEO.com, CEOs at Fortune 500 companies are participating in social media channels significantly less than the general public. The study claims that 70% of them have absolutely no presence on social media.

On the major social networks, including Facebook, Twitter and Google+, the participation of Fortune 500 CEOs was minimal, with only 7.6% on Facebook, 4% on Twitter, and less than 1% on Google+. In comparison, more than 50% of the U.S. population uses Facebook and 34% uses Twitter. No Fortune 500 CEOs are on Pinterest.

LinkedIn is the most popular social media site among Fortune 500 CEOs, with 26% on the network, compared to just 20.15% of the U.S. general public. Of that group, ten Fortune 500 CEOs have more than 500 LinkedIn connections, while 36 CEOs have 1 LinkedIn connection or none.

Six Fortune 500 CEOs (or more likely, their PR departments) contribute to blogs, and only one of the six CEOs, John Mackey of Whole Foods, maintains his own blog.

Given the demographics of Fortune 500 CEOs, none of this news is jaw-dropping. Older, well-established corporate guys (and gals) in the business world’s stratosphere are not wired for social media.

But here are some potential take-aways from the research:

The propensity of C-level executives at companies of all sizes – well below the Fortune 1000 level – to invest time on social media outlets is extremely low. Top decision-makers spend most of their day dealing directly with people within their own sphere of influence. And most C-level execs still are not convinced that social media is anything more than a technology hula-hoop that will eventually run out of steam.

Marketers attempting to reach and influence C-level decision-makers are still best-served by leveraging the channels that are used and respected by that target audience…including traditional business media sources and professional forums; and by seeking to influence the 2^nd and 3^rd tier corporate executives who provide insight and guidance for C-level decision-makers…which may involve selective use of social media tools.

Aspiring CEOs may still be more likely to reach the top of the corporate ladder by joining the right country club, rather than by having 500 connections on LinkedIn.

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June 20, 2012 · 8:30 pm

A Road Rage Lesson from my Dad

Faster is not always better.

Yesterday I buried my Dad: 87 years-old, of Scottish descent, first generation American, decorated war hero, husband of two deceased wives, sibling to two brothers he outlived, father of 4, grandfather of 16, great-grandfather of 7, Cubmaster, Scoutmaster, hospital administrator, sail-boater, dog lover, cigar smoker and certified duffer.

The gathering to mourn Dad’s passing provided a rare opportunity to reconnect with friends and family. To reflect on a life well-lived, to measure one’s own failings and accomplishments, to think about years remaining, and to remember what’s important.

It may be no coincidence that three days prior to Dad’s burial a related point was delivered to me in a mini road rage incident on the back roads of New Jersey. Coming home with friends late that night on an unfamiliar, winding country road, deer lurking at every turn, I hovered a bit below the posted speed limit to avoid putting antlers through the windshield.

My concentration on the road ahead was broken by a fast approaching set of headlights from behind that for several hundred yards remained no more than 5 feet off my rear bumper. I tapped my brakes and the car backed off momentarily, only to return to a position even closer to my trunk. In no mood to play chicken, I signaled right, pulled off to the side of the road, and waited for the driver to speed past me.

Instead, when I looked out my side window, the young driver pulled up next to me and rolled down his passenger-side window. I rolled down my window to hear what he was yelling. “Why were you brake-checking me?! Why were you brake-checking me?!” he screamed.

Although I was unfamiliar with the term “brake checking,” I yelled back, “Well, moron, maybe it’s because you were riding 3 feet off my bumper.”

I waited for his response, expecting a tirade of Jersey Shore profanity. Instead, the driver stammered for a moment, and then yelled, “Well….GO FASTER!!!!” With that, he laid down a 6-foot patch of rubber and sped off down the road. My passengers and I spent most of that ride home laughing off the incident.

Nothing happens by accident, and there’s a lesson to be learned in every encounter, positive or negative. Coming on the heels of my Dad’s passing, I feel there’s some special meaning for me in the driver’s peculiar “GO FASTER” directive.

My Dad was telling me to SLOW DOWN. To spend more time with the people I love. To pay closer attention to their lives. To listen more carefully to what they’re saying. To be more selective in how I spend my time. And to savor every day and every year that remains.

So thanks for the farewell gift, Dad.

I got the message.

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February 27, 2012 · 3:54 pm

Jimmy Webb and the Power of Storytelling for B2B Companies

Music critic Miss Universe on "A Hard Day's Night" movie set

Songwriting legend Jimmy Webb has written some of pop music’s most enduring ballads, including Wichita Lineman, By the Time I Get to Phoenix, Galveston, The Worst That Could Happen and the rock cantata MacArthur Park (simultaneously heralded as a musical masterpiece and the worst song ever written.)

The 66 year-old Oklahoma native now lives in Long Island and performs year-round at small venues in the US, Canada and abroad. Baby boomer fans pack the room to hear Webb strain to hit his own songs’ high notes, to listen to his tales of life on the road, and to get the real stories behind how and why he wrote specific songs.

At a show last weekend in New Jersey, Webb told fans about his first trip to London in 1964, where he fell in love with Miss Universe, who he met on the set of the Beatles movie, A Hard Day’s Night. According to the rambling story, in his attempt to impress the beauty queen – who had been cast as an exotic dancer and appears for 6 seconds in the film – Webb invited her back to his hotel room, where he sat her down next to him on the piano bench and performed his then unrecorded version of MacArthur Park. Unfortunately for Webb, the 7 ½-minute song failed to put her under his spell. She told him it was a silly song and left. Or so Webb’s story goes.

For the 450 people who heard Webb’s London adventure, all of whom have listened to MacArthur Park for decades, their musical experience has been forever re-shaped. When they hear that song in the future, it will provide a different context or a different meaning. Now, instead of cakes left out in the rain, they’re more likely to envision Jimmy Webb serenading Miss Universe in London. That’s the power of storytelling.

Social media and technology provide efficient ways for people to tell stories. But according to Dr. Pamela Rutledge, Director of the Media Psychology Research Center, “The human brain has been on a slower evolutionary trajectory than the technology. Our brains still respond to content by looking for the story to make sense out of the experience.”

Writing in Psychology Today magazine, Dr. Rutledge notes that, “When organizations, causes, brands or individuals identify and develop a core story, they create and display authentic meaning and purpose that others can believe, participate with, and share. This is the basis for cultural and social change. This is a skill worth learning.”

Increasingly, in B2B communication, companies focus on the medium and the technology, rather than the underlying message, its meaning or purpose. In our world of websites, blast emails, podcasts, webinars, analytics, blogs, Facebook, Twitter, marketing automation, smart phones and mobile apps…it’s easy to forget that the quality of a company’s narrative drives people to notice, participate or care about what’s begin sold – whether that be a product, service or a philosophy.

We’re all familiar with how the big brand companies such as Harley Davidson, Jack Daniels, Levi Strauss, IBM and Ben & Jerry’s have leveraged their corporate narratives to build awareness and market interest. But most small and medium-sized companies, and B2B firms in particular, are at a loss to understand how the power of storytelling can showcase their core values, mission and marketplace differentiation. But this goal can be accomplished…not by cooking up elaborate tales about the company’s founders or its early struggles… but rather, by pulling back the curtain on how and why the company makes decisions, and by using real-life examples and incidents to provide interest and context.

A great example of effective storytelling involves Davidson Trust Company, a Devon, Pennsylvania-based investment manager with around $1 billion in assets under management. In a series of columns published in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Davidson’s CEO Alvin A. Clay III used stories to establish relevance for his thoughts on issues of importance and likely interest to his firm’s current and prospective investors.

In one of his columns, Davidson’s CEO described how his father – a longtime professor at Villanova – had been the beneficiary of kindness as a young man, and had devoted much of his teaching career returning the favor to others. In another, Mr. Clay recounted a heated debate he had experienced with other business leaders, and how that exchange had shaped his decision-making process regarding publication of his company’s ethics statement on its website. In all of Clay’s columns, he used storytelling to deliver insight and to position the Davidson brand in a genuine, credible and memorable manner.

At his concerts, Jimmy Webb spends more time telling stories than he does on singing his songs. And these events typically end with a 10-minute standing ovation.

Earlier this month, Davidson Trust Company received its own standing ovation. Publicly traded Bryn Mawr Bank Corporation (NASDAQ:BMTC) announced plans to acquire Davidson.

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February 16, 2012 · 11:03 am

No-Cost, Cornball Marketing Can Drive B2B Top-of-Mind Awareness

LtoR: Heather Fuller, Andrew Crisp, Percy, Gary Thompson, Mickie Kennedy. Missing: Nimmi, the acrobatic dog.

eReleases competes with dozens of electronic news distribution services, all seeking to charge companies and PR agencies hefty fees to put their press releases in front of journalists, in hopes of capturing the media’s attention and coverage.

After some polite online badgering by eReleases, Highlander Consulting gave that upstart firm a shot last week; tasking them to distribute a press release for one of its clients, CAP Index Inc. – a leading provider of crime forecasting data and risk analytics. eReleases’ results were as good as, or better than, any of its larger, better-known competitors.

But what impressed us more than the quality of their service, was the no-cost, cornball guerilla (included in photo) marketing tactic that eReleases applied to thank us for our business.

A whacky whiteboard “eReleases Welcomes…” photo, personalized by name, sent by editorial director Heather Fuller, was embedded with this note:

“We just wanted to take the opportunity to personally welcome you as a valued eReleases customer and let you know we’re not just a website in some guy’s basement. 🙂

If you ever have any questions or concerns, pick up the phone and call us. All of our editors pick up the phone. No pushy salesperson or operator standing between you and us.”

So….what service provider will Highlander think of FIRST the next time we need to distribute a press release online?

Marketing Lesson: Cheap, clever and memorable can beat costly and sophisticated when it comes to driving top-of-mind awareness with targeted B2B audiences.

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January 25, 2012 · 3:07 pm

Page’s Seven Principles of Public Relations Management

Arthur W. Page (1883 - 1960)

Although Edward Bernays is often characterized (largely through self-promotion) as the “father of public relations,” most serious PR practitioners consider Arthur W. Page to be the first and most influential apostle of modern-day public relations and corporate communications.

From 1927 to 1946, Page served as a vice president and director at AT&T, and his many contributions to the profession are recognized today as namesake of The Arthur W. Page Center for Integrity in Public Communication – a research center at Penn State’s College of Communications – as well as the Arthur W. Page Society, whose members are corporate chief communications officers or senior officials at public relations agencies.

Page’s most lasting legacy, however, may be the seven rules of PR management, known as the Page Principles, that he espoused:

Tell the truth. Let the public know what’s happening and provide an accurate picture of the company’s character, ideals and practices.
Prove it with action. Public perception of an organization is determined 90 percent by what it does and 10 percent by what it says.
Listen to the customer. To serve the company well, understand what the public wants and needs. Keep top decision makers and other employees informed about public reaction to company products, policies and practices.
Manage for tomorrow. Anticipate public reaction and eliminate practices that create difficulties. Generate goodwill.
Conduct public relations as if the whole company depends on it. Corporate relations is a management function. No corporate strategy should be implemented without considering its impact on the public. The public relations professional is a policymaker capable of handling a wide range of corporate communications activities.
Realize a company’s true character is expressed by its people. The strongest opinions — good or bad — about a company are shaped by the words and deeds of its employees. As a result, every employee — active or retired — is involved with public relations. It is the responsibility of corporate communications to support each employee’s capability and desire to be an honest, knowledgeable ambassador to customers, friends, shareowners and public officials.
Remain calm, patient and good-humored. Lay the groundwork for public relations miracles with consistent and reasoned attention to information and contacts. This may be difficult with today’s contentious 24-hour news cycles and endless number of watchdog organizations. But when a crisis arises, remember, cool heads communicate best.

Practicing and aspiring public relations executives would be well-served to keep a copy of these timeless Page Principles on the wall, or at least in their desk’s top drawer.

Life-long students of PR craftsmanship will also enjoy and benefit from reading the acceptance remarks from the Page Society’s Hall of Fame recipients, and from watching the videos from the Page Center’s collection of oral histories given by some of the profession’s most noteworthy PR practitioners from the past and present. Notably, the Page Center’s website also contains a great number of Page’s speeches and writings.