Influencer Relations

Today I’m wishing a very fond farewell to my colleagues at CCGroup. The business I joined in 2018 has held onto its strengths in B2B tech and, with its smart and beautiful rebrand this month, formalised its steady evolution into an integrated marketing agency. Few PR agencies have taken that rather obvious step since I qualified as a Chartered Marketer (almost 20 years ago), which reflects the…

Can analyst relations help increase fintechs’ value? A webinar on January 31st will hear answers from 451 Research’s Sophia Furber, Alexandra Santos, fintech PR leader at CCGroup and analyst relations guru Duncan Chapple. The three will discuss independent research from Censuswide, which finds that firms in high-growth fintech markets face both investor and buyer audiences that heavily use…

Technology solutions providers’ differing analyst relations choices during the pandemic have created growing gaps in analysts’ advocacy for leading B2B tech solution providers. That’s my main takeaway from reviewing several hundred responses to the Analyst Advocacy Study (AAS).     SageCircle and CCGroup jointly collect the AAS data from several hundred analysts each year with an innovative…

A glance at Informa’s most recent annual report reveals why it’s mistaken to frame its acquisition of TechTarget as an “offloading” of Informa Tech, as the IIAR did in its quick take on the news. I think Carter Lusher‘s approach is more nuanced: see his post on LinkedIn: https://lnkd.in/gX5X_nyi  Tech Target has not bought Informa Tech. Informa has paid $350m for control of Tech Target, and the…

It’s such a delight to be invited back to speak at the Analyst Relations Forum’s annual webinar to take stock of the ongoing transformation in AR. This is what they have to say about it: The Analyst Relations Forum is hosted annually to discuss the ongoing transformation of industry analyst relations in high-technology markets. In the 2024 forum, speakers from previous years’ forums will come…

The recording is now online from last week’s report back webinar from the Analyst Relations Summit. You can view it at https://youtu.be/ZgF1WotPIQo. In the one-hour conversation, you’ll hear Jane Mohr, Julian Tirsu, and I discuss: Why we attended the Summit and how the event compared to our expectations How we felt about the event as a whole, our experiences of the key sessions, and out…

Jane Mohr, Julian Tirsu and I are hosting a webinar on October 26th to report back from the Analyst Relations Summit, which Spotlight AR presented in Kansas City recently. We’ll write a summary of the key points after the webinar, but my initial thoughts were: It was a unique opportunity to step inside the approach that has led Spotlight to marketing leadership in the outsourced AR market. It…

B2B marketers had a challenging FY23, and FY24 looks challenging. Marketing communications budgets have been under pressure, and analyst relations budgets are increasingly diverted into spending with analyst firms. As a result, analyst relations people have been forced to do more with less, and struggle to fill vacancies. As one of the ten biggest marketing communications companies in the UK…

[Duncan Chapple and colleagues at Brodeur Worldwide prepared this advisory note for clients of Omnicom in 2002.] Despite the importance of technology market analysts in communicating vision, direction, and capability to the market, many companies don’t bother to pursue relationships with them. Of the ones that do, there are many whose outreach is half-hearted, shoddy and slapdash. A lot of…

Although many marketers feel that B2B professionals choose between technologies based on tangible functionality, CCgroup’s research has found that non-functional attributes heavily influence buyers and purchase influencers. Even oh-so-rational industry analysts use information that is at least a quarter non-functional and sometimes as much as half.  Companies significantly benefit by…

Marketers need realistic expectations of AI. @Microsoft stock lost $100bn when ChatGPT gave false answers. But @Rowan_Atkinson as @CharlizeAfrica showed the potential #archat

Artificial intelligence is something that marketers should closely examine (AI). When ChatGPT language model supplied inaccurate information about various themes in the middle of February 2023, Microsoft had a difficult time. Many false statements were made during a pre-recorded presentation of the technology’s integration with Bing regarding the offerings and financial performance of The Gap and…

Technology markets are in turmoil, and industry analysts are a vital part of the fabric needed to prevent vendors from tearing the industry apart. Many vendors are decelerating sales and marketing more aggressively than their customers are decelerating purchasing. That produces a huge competitive advantage for analyst firms who can help service providers and vendors to better explain the value of…

On January 25, Jen Kaye Lapierre and Duncan Chapple will explore new methods of AR measurement and visual dashboards that bring program impact to life and begin to quantity several intangible, qualitative measures of success.

Making the business case for AR has long been a challenge. Intangible, qualitative metrics combined with activity-based measures have historically rendered it difficult to demonstrate AR program value. On January 25, Jen Kaye Lapierre and I will explore new methods of AR measurement and visual dashboards that bring program impact to life and begin to quantity several intangible, qualitative…

The gap is widening between the most effective analyst relations programmes, at firms like Ericsson and AWS, and the 'best practice' firms that are carefully aligning with the majority of AR teams rather than engaging in next prac

The gap is widening between the most effective analyst relations programmes, at firms like Ericsson and AWS, and the ‘best practice’ firms that are carefully aligning with the majority of AR teams rather than engaging in next practice. So you don’t need to read the long post about this, I’ve summarised the key trends in a helpful table. Read the long post here StrategyWinners…You…

60% of B2B tech buyers discount paid content

Licensed content from niche analysts is a valuable marketing tool. However, the perception of top analyst firms is shifted through #analystrelations, not spending.Extensive effort is needed to win advocacy from the most influential analyst firms. As a workaround, most mid-market solution providers buy content from niche analyst firms to accelerate leads through the sales pipeline.There are two…

If you can't value analyst relations 'bottom-up' (through sales tracking and win-loss analysis) then can it be done 'top-down' (using brand equity approaches)? #archat

If you can’t value analyst relations ‘bottom-up’ (through sales tracking and win-loss analysis) then can it be done ‘top-down’ (using brand equity approaches)? There’s no question about which of these approaches gets the most short-term leverage. It’s the bottom-up approach, where we add up the dollar impact of analysts on our sales pipeline. Showing analyst impact on sales gives a double boost…

I’m hiring an AR programme manager

I’m hiring a programme manager at CCgroup – B2B Tech PR. This is a key role where project management and people skills are more important initially than analyst relations knowledge. This is a hybrid role: you can work from anywhere. Although you must be based in the UK for most of the year, we can sponsor visas to bring the right candidate here. Check out the role at ccgrouppr.com