Signs

Earlier this year, Muck Rack, one of the PR technology vendors I’m tracking, published a survey of 700 reporters for a report it calls State of Journalism 2019. While I took a brief look at it at the bottom of a previous post, today, I reviewed it more carefully.

Here are some of the facts and figures I found interesting:

Reporters review business social media profiles. 61% of reporters said when they are reporting on a company, they “always” or “usually” “consult the company’s social media.” Another 29% said sometimes and just 11% said “rarely” or “never.”

Embargoes get mixed reviews. “57% of journalists believe press embargoes are either detrimental or don’t matter. 43% find them useful.”

Exclusives matter. “76% of journalists are more likely to cover a story if offered an exclusive.”

Digital marketing spend tallied up at around $629 billion in the US in 2018. This year it’s on track to outpace the investment in analog marketing channels for the first time. Yet all the money means digital-first businesses have to contend with more noise as legacy brands bring their deep pockets to digital.

That’s according to a report – 2019 Digital Brand: Awareness, Engagement & Action Index (reg. req.) – by BMV a digital agency in Boston. The report aimed to understand how to cut through the noise – and polled 1,000 respondents to discover what drives “awareness, engagement and action” online.

For B2B companies, earned media and branded content ranked as the most impactful. The survey found 30% of B2B respondents cited news coverage as the way they “people learn about new products online that they can use for their day jobs.” Branded media, defined in this report as blogs, social media and video weren’t far behind with 27%.

How often should you publish on your company blog? The answer may well depend on how much traffic you want to glean:

“With data showing that B2B companies that publish 16+ blog posts per month receive 3.5 times more traffic than companies that publish zero to four times per month, and 71% of buyers reporting that they engage with blog content during the purchase process, it’s no wonder that content has become such an important part of the B2B buyers’ journey.”

Is owned media trustworthy? Yes, according to the study:

“Over 58% of consumers say they at least sometimes trust what a company says about itself on its owned channels more than what a reporter says about that company in a news article.”

So, given the results which one is better – PR or content marketing? It’s not a question of which one is better, but how these two disciplines can work better together.

Senior marketers expect budgets to grow.

Overall, most marketers expect their budgets to grow by 8.7% over the next 12 months. For B2B product companies that number came in at 7.1% and for B2B services it was 10.1%.

Actual budgets have grown by 6.3% in the last 12 months. For B2B product companies, that reality has been much lower at 3.2% while B2B services companies have gleaned 8.3%.

Short answer?  Maybe.

5 reasons to put content behind a registration gate:

Gates provide (near-term) marketing justification. 

Registration is a form of qualification. 

List building. 

Scarcity. 

Screening the competition. 

5 reasons to make content freely downloadable:

Alternative sources to yours. 

Mobile devices. 

Frictionless marketing.

SEO. 

Reciprocity. 

This happens a lot...

I was reading a contribution in PR Daily: How earned media’s value is shifting.

Good piece, generally, and while I didn’t check all the links, there is one to highlight?

For instance, a past study by Ogilvy found that journalists agree (65 percent) that the more the media covers a brand, the more credible the brand appears.

So what?  

The hyperlink doesn’t go to the Ogilvy study, it goes to an Adweek article *about* the study: STUDY: Earned Media Still Matters…a Lot.

Again, so what?  Adweek doesn’t link to the study either! 

In a world ruled by social media, a new study from Ogilvy PR

It links to another article about the study by Bulldog Reporter: Earned Media Is More Essential than Ever in Today's Modern Communications Model, New Ogilvy Media Relations Study Finds.

The article in Bulldog Reporter does link to the Ogilvy website, but...

according to a new Ogilvy PR survey of over 115 reporters, editors and producers.

...but not to the actual study. 

It’s possible the Bulldog Reporter link once went to the original study, and Ogilvy moved the link. 

Either way, I can’t be sure. The Ogilvy site *does not* have a search box that I could find, and an advanced site search on Google returns a bunch of dubious references. 

Also, I’m not linking to the search results, because the top search result I found -- to “jotopr - dot -com” -- set off alarms from my anti-virus software. 

Conclusion?  We’re several steps away from the actual source and the actual source can’t be found (or is very hard to find) now. 

In response to a story pitch, I got this out of office response from a UK reporter.  This is a hot topic in the US as well, especially in the technology sector.  It’s also an interesting tactic to a campaign.

A trend piece by Digiday says Facebook is losing the attention of publishers as they look for better results. 

Facebook is still a big source of referral traffic for publishers overall. But it has declined as a referral source relative to Google and left publishers frustrated with lagging monetization opportunities in key areas like video. Meanwhile, other platforms have stepped up, offering publishers more attention (Google and Apple News), financial rewards (Snapchat) and a growing audience and better user experience (Instagram).

Examples?  

CNN’s platform distribution team is de-emphasizing Facebook while increasing its focus on Apple News — Apple’s news aggregation app that’s baked into its mobile devices — and Snapchat, said Andrew Morse, evp at CNN, who oversees its digital editorial efforts.

And publishers are doing something different:  they are organizing teams around *gasp* audiences, rather than platforms. 

HuffPost was the biggest publisher on Facebook last year in total likes, comments and shares, by NewsWhip’s measurement. This year, it’s been making a big push to diversify beyond Facebook to Twitter and Instagram, where it sees a lot of room for growth, said Ethan Klapper, global social media editor for HuffPost. Along with that change in platform focus, he’s reassigning the social team to be subject-centric and audience-centric, rather than platform-centric. 

If you enjoyed this post you might also like: Brand Engagement on Social Media Has Never Mattered Less

The most read on Sword and the Script for Q3 2017:

4 Big Media Trends that have Upended PR and Marketing

What happens when your SaaS product goes down?   CEO:  Don’t say anything, it’ll ruin our SLA. CFO:  We don’t want investors to see this.  PR:   Apologize early, fix it, and get it over with.  Legal:  Don’t apologize, too much risk.  Support: What exactly am I supposed to say? 

Grammarly had an outage today.  They responded on Twitter with kittens.  And pandas. And puppies.  

You’ve heard that before. 

As Search Engine Land noted today:

In 1962, McLuhan published “The Gutenberg Galaxy” — a book that popularized the term “global village” and the concept that technology unites people by giving everyone equal access to information.

Two years later, he published “Understanding Media,” where he coined the famous phrase, “The medium is the message.” In the 1964 book, McLuhan theorized that the way humans receive information is more important and influential on our history than the actual information being received.

So, question: Who was president in 1962?

Yeah. JFK.   As Joe McGinniss wrote in his book, The Selling of the President, Kennedy beat Richard Nixon in the first ever televised presidential debate. 

Nixon was facing accusations of underhandedness -- for which he later was impeached and resigned -- and he was sweating during that first debate. 

Sweat made him look guilty. The implication is, that’s where McLuhan got the inspiration for his coined phrase.

There are more PR people today than there are reporters.  Depending on the math you choose to believe, the ratio is something akin to 5:1.

What do think this means for media relations?  

It’s harder.  No doubt about it.  There are more people pitching more stories to fewer reporters.  

IDG, for example, just laid off a bunch of editorial staff, and some of the editors I’ve spoken with suggest the organization is still reeling.  Roles have changed, columns and themes dropped, and those slide show stories…these don’t seem to me to be about news, but about driving more clicks.

Sure, it’s true, with the proliferation of alternative mediums, there are more digital outlets than ever, but many of these outfits don’t work the same way.  They aren’t “pitchable” in the same sense as a bona fide journalist. In addition, while ad money has always had an influence on coverage in the trades, by my observation, it’s become brazen.  

This is why savvy PR people latched on to content marketing years ago.  It’s bringing the same skills to bear, albeit going directly to an audience, and with the bonus of knowing that content that gets hot, has the social proof to wind up as 3rd party article anyway.

However, a similar phenomenon, the same one that occurred in the media, and made content marketing a PR pro’s new best friend, is now happening in content marketing.  This is because there are more companies pitching content than ever before.

There’s a marked difference, however, because many businesses do content poorly. Why? Much of the “content” we see so focused on making a pitch and tracking the (short term) return, the audience’s needs are secondary to company’s needs.

This is unlikely to work (in B2B) because it skips the entire trust building exercise, which often involves many departments, let alone decision makers, and many months of work by a team.  

When was the last time you read a great B2B pitch and dropped 4, 5, 6 or even 7 figures for a pound of cloud software?  Never.

Should you have content with strong calls to action and aimed at closing?  Yes.  That’s in part what content marketers mean when they talk about mapping content to the buyer’s journey.  The trouble exists when ALL the content is aimed right here.

What’s the path forward? PR…and I don’t mean PR as a pseudonym for spin or sleight of hand.  I mean it in the context of relationship building with stakeholders, target audiences and yes, the public.  

The most read post on Sword and the Script for Q2 2017 drive this point home, and if you missed it, I invite you to have a read now because this is the direction marketing is headed.

1) The Future of Marketing Looks More like Public Relations.  PR is more strategic than ever but not for the reasons one might think.

2) PR, Social Media and the Imperative of Content Marketing [UML].  This piece pairs well with the #1 piece this quarter, because these two ideas are linked.

3) How to Deliver a Genuine Corporate Apology [UML]. There’s no weakness in providing a well-deserved apology in crisis.

4) Trust and the Unlikely Reinvention of Advertising [UML]. “In 2014, 50% of US adults said they trust advertisements…in 2017, however, this number increased to 61%.”

5) 3 PR Takeaways from the State of the Media Report by Cision.  Getting it right matters more than getting it first.

Two New Off Script Series Q&A Interviews

Sword and the Script runs two series style posts.  The Unscripted Marketing series is typically a weekly roundup wrapped in insight and commentary, while the Off Script series strives to be a monthly Q&A style post.

We got two new folks to go off script with us in Q2:

a) The Benefits of Being a Good PR Agency Client; Off Script #18: Rich Young

b) Network Latency and Endeavor for Jargon Free Corporate Communications; Off Script #17: Wendy Zajack

We’ve got several more already scheduled for Q3, however, I am always looking for interviewees for Q4. I strive to speak with folks at all levels with backgrounds in PR, marketing and sales. Bonus points if I worked with you in the past, or if you’re based in Atlanta.

Filter 300 Articles Down to Just 10

If a senior marketer reviewed 300 articles every month and used a combination of analytics and experience to narrow the list down to just 10 that are truly “must read” material – what would that be worth to you?

We offer that service for free in the Monthly Scripts newsletter. Here’s a sample edition to review at – and more importantly – here is where you can subscribe.

Q2 Contributions and Mentions

Here are a few of the places from around the web that mentioned or syndicated our content:

The Next Scoop: How to Create Content That Converts Visitors into Leads

ResponsePoint: Data – Your Sales Lead Generation and Marketing ROI

Smart Brief: Reputation recovery 101 after a social media disaster

IP Watchdog: 7 Marketing Best Practices for IP Law Firms

PR Daily: 3 vital takeaways about the news media in the epoch of distrust 

CommPro: Thought Leadership Actually Requires Thought and Leadership 

If you enjoyed this post, you might also like: B2B Blogging on Top; 5 Most Read Posts for Q1 2017 [Sword and the Script]

Photo: Vickery Creek Falls, Roswell, Ga. Instagram.com/frankstrong

Reader analytics from this past quarter suggest B2B interest in building, growing and measuring the performance of a corporate blog remains high. However, I see a lot of the same questions about blogging repeated over and over in various online forums: 

How long should a post be?

How often should we publish?

How much time should it take to write a post

While the answers can change year-to-year, as the digital environment changes, there have been several very solid research studies that provide good insight into the answers. We wrote about those studies, and those posts came out on top in Q1 2017 on Sword and the Script.

Here are the top five, by page views as measured by Google Analytics:

1) How Long Should a Blog Post Be? [A Data-Driven Answer for B2B]. There’s a short answer and a long answer. It’s a bit like choosing the red pill or the blue pill. 

2) B2B Blog Metrics: 4 Effective Categories to Measure Success. Sure, sales is the goal, but it’s also a lagging indicator. KPIs are designed to show us if we are going in the right direction.  

3) 2017 PR Salary Survey Suggests Demand for Talent Tightening. Whether you are hiring PR in-house or looking for your next gig, this piece is a must-read. 

4) Research for PR Pros on B2B Messaging, Pitches and Clickbait [UML]. If you get the message wrong, then the investment in marketing or communications could prove wasteful in the future. You cannot wait to come to that conclusion a year from now. 

5) The Ability to Focus is Becoming an Essential Marketing. Skill. Oh. Look! Squirrel! But seriously…this is a big problem.

We’ve more than doubled our subscribers in the last six months, which suggests the content here is increasingly useful. We sure try hard. 

We publish twice a week with one original post (Tuesday), and a roundup post (Saturday) which is developed under a theme called Unscripted Marketing links [UML].  

If you like what you see here, consider subscribing by email, RSS or following the company on LinkedIn.  

Related: 7 Best, 7 Worst and  7 Favorite PR Blog Posts in 2016 [Sword and the Script]

3 New “Off Script” Q&A Interviews   

The Off Script interview series was in full swing in Q1 and we landed three such Q&A interviews. I was thrilled to connect with my old colleague Ted Seward, new friend Jeff Beale, and a freelance journalist I’ve crossed paths with for pretty much my entire PR career in Erik Sherman.  

Their ideas are sharp and worth investing the time to read:

Over-reliance on Marketing Automation Depreciates Leads; Off Script #16: Ted Seward

Marketing Principles Remain the Same; Off Script #15: Jeff Beale

The Pressure for Clicks; Off Script #14: Erik Sherman, Freelance Journalist 

I’m always looking for new folks to interview and you do not need to be a big shot. I strive to speak with folks at all levels with backgrounds in PR, marketing and sales. Bonus points if I worked with you in the past, or if you’re based in Atlanta.

The Monthly Scripts Newsletter

Would you like to read more about your profession but feel strapped for time and overwhelmed? We’ve got you covered with the Monthly Scripts newsletter.

One email. Once a month. The hottest links. That’s the Monthly Scripts.

Every month, we sift through several hundred articles from the last 30 days and narrow the list to just 10 we recommend. We use a combination of data analytics and a unique human algorithm to put this list together.

Here’s a sample edition to review at – and more importantly – here is where you can subscribe.

Q1 Contributions and Mentions

Occasionally, some of our posts or ideas are picked up, syndicated or otherwise mentioned by third-party publications and blogs. Here are a few of the places in which we were fortunate enough to be included:

Marketing Land: Marketing Day: Seasonal SEO, bad content marketing advice…

CommPro: Metrics in Crisis Comms, Marketing and Social Media

Quuu: Create blog pop ups your readers won’t hate

Business2Community: Repurposing Content Does Not Mean Regurgitating Content 

Ragan.com: Study: The perfect blog post length—and how long it should take to write 

PR Daily: Study: The perfect blog post length—and how long it should take to write

CommPro: Highlights from the State of Blogging in 2017 Survey

Marketing Land: Marketing Day: Facebook turns up the noise…

Marketing Land: Marketing Day: Google AdSense, Twitter safety updates…

Search Engine People: Jaw-Dropping 2017 B2B Content Marketing Controversies

Kruse Control: 10 Qualities of a Remarkable Social Media Manager

Oakwood International: Introduction to Twitter for Business

Inbound Rocket: Content Marketing KPI’s: How To Get Started

Shameless Plug

Are you looking for some agency help? Give us a try! This here blog? This is what we strive to do for clients too.  In other words, we practice what we preach, because it works.

Here are 7 PR, content marketing and social media services that deliver results and the advantages for working with a boutique B2B tech agency.  Interested? By all means hit me up on LinkedIn or talk to us by email.

If you enjoyed this post, you might also like:  Top 5 Blog Posts for Q3 2016 from Sword and the Script

You even reported it!  Two spaces.  1, 2.   Two. 

Everyone—everyone!—said it was proper to use two spaces.

You wanna debate Oxford commas next? That’s become a cesspool of judicial activism. 

Many marketers make marketing content and that’s not the same thing as content marketing. 

Why? Because as this piece from CMI notes:

Most marketing teams are focused on creating content that supports the brand or its products. We create this content mainly because someone asked us to. Not because it meets a customer need.

How is content marketing different? According to the same article, which was written by Michael Brenner:

Content marketing is about attracting an audience to an experience (or “destination”) that you own, build, and optimize to achieve your marketing objectives.

Why business want to do that? Because people who engage content consistently -- subscribers -- are more likely to make a purchase. 

Like I wrote in a piece about B2B blog metrics:

For example, I once worked for a company that found visitors that engaged the blog were 50% more likely to make a purchase. At another company, the blog was a touch point on a sales cycle for roughly one-third of enterprise deals with an average selling price in excess of seven digits.

If you enjoyed this post, you might also like: Repurposing Content Does Not Mean Regurgitating Content

What is the value of agency awards for clients?

From the confessions at Digiday this week -- ‘Fewer things are getting made’: Confessions of a creative director: 

There have always been a few purposes to awards. The awards company makes money. The agencies who win are supposed to attract talent. And then finally, the thing that has always been a constant is that it promotes the careers of the people that work on stuff to get new jobs. I’m sympathetic to clients.

This anonymous confession isn’t a one off.  The iconic David Ogilvy was 

an outspoken critic about the industry’s chart toward ‘lunatic’ work and the awards-show circuit that champions it. He blames that advertising style, and its inability to sell product, for marketers’ exodus to promotions.

I agree and such awards have plagued almost every industry.  It’s a facade:

apply and pay an entry fee 

everybody gets a trophy

the juicy looking companies get the top trophy

publication notifies winners and pitches opportunity to buy a table at the awards presentation, signage, reprints, etc.

Congratulations!  You’re #1!  What does that mean for customers or clients?