#Public relations is a term that covers the wild west of different types of firms doing vastly different things to help their clients. If you are a startup or a growing company, you may wonder if or when you need to use a #PR firm. In this first blog in our #tech PR series, we will discuss what PR means for the tech industry, and how it is different from and connected to marketing.
Last summer, Aaron Zamost published a great piece on Backchannel titled “What’s Your Hour in ‘#Silicon Valley Time’?” Six months later, I’m still thinking about the article and its overview of the Silicon Valley hype cycle.
Last week, I discussed how start-ups and growing businesses can lay the foundation for their marketing without a dedicated team. Once a company reaches the point where it has a healthy online and social media presence, and a steady stream of content, it’s time to start considering making that first hire.
As a marketer, I try to stay on top of industry trends. I’ve noticed that lately it’s become fashionable for some venture capitalists and entrepreneurs to cast off the need for marketing entirely. This vein of thought runs something like the famous Field of Dreams line “if you build it, they will come” — if your product is good enough, you don’t need to market it. Venture capitalist Fred Wilson even went so far as to say, “I believe that marketing is what you do when your product or service sucks…”
“There is no marketing today without content.” That’s the reflection of Helen Whelan, an expert content marketer at Apigee, a leading API management and predictive analytic company. Whelan has helped shape Apigee into an industry innovator in #content marketing strategies and publications. Apigee offers content in every form, from webinars, to e-books, to whitepapers, self-publishing in some cases, and using external third parties in others. Apigee has even created its own research arm, the Apigee Institute, a research and strategy organization that provides analysis and content for businesses striving to succeed in the digital world. At the base of all of Whelan and Apigee’s marketing is the understanding that content feeds the marketing engine from awareness to demand gen, and that this content is integral to the overall success of the business.
Last week in 2015 content marketing predictions, we discussed the increased use of analytics and how marketers will be held accountable for bottom-line results more than ever before. A related topic, which has the B2B content marketing world abuzz, is the prediction that sales and marketing will merge to form a single, numbers-driven entity: sales has its quotas and marketing its revenue-based, results-oriented KPIs. And like most shotgun weddings, it’s going to be a bit uncomfortable.
One way for a small company to get noticed is to pick a fight with a well-known firm using the principles of content marketing. What I think of as a giant killer. This blog will show how the little guy, J Carlo Cannel pulled of huge coup by writing a letter to Jim Cramer (big financial influencer) and then getting it covered in the New York Times.
