Join us for our second Sage Intelligence Briefing of 2021 featuring SageCircle Senior Advisor, Efrem Mallach, and CEO Sarah Shamouelian. Win-loss analysis is featured in every marketing textbook and explores reviewing a sales campaign, after a prospect has made a choice, to see what can be adapted to help with future campaigns. Every marketing consultancy[…]
Interesting post by Jason Falls on his Social Media Explorer blog: Social Media Is The Responsibility Of Public Relations.
Oh, really?
SageCircle believes that PR and AR – and other outbound communications functions – have different goals and techniques and each needs to address their tactics to their unique audiences. This means that AR needs to voice its opinion and support its own needs regarding company policies.
While there is plenty to debate on this issue (e.g., Where does Social Media live in the organization?), the purpose of this post is to encourage analyst relations (AR) teams be active participants in internal discussions about the role of social media in their companies.
SageCircle Technique:
Since 2000, SageCircle has helped analyst relations teams to focus on business value by encouraging innovative thinking that leverages insights and drives revenue.
Here is an interesting comment (click to enlarge) that might portend a problem for technology vendors in the near future:
This reminds me of the discussions in the mid-90’s around the then nascent market category of customer relattionship management (CRM). One of the perceived benefits of CRM was that it would provide companies a single view of the customer that would make life easier for the customer and provide business value to the company. But there was also huge disagreements over who would “own” the customer: customer service, marketing or sales.
Today, people are starting to play multiple roles as customers, influencers, collaborators and […]
Since 2000, SageCircle has helped analyst relations teams to focus on business value by encouraging innovative thinking that leverages insights and drives revenue.
There are many drawbacks to using PR agencies to conduct analyst relations – not the least that most analysts hate dealing with agency staff. Sometimes, however, communications and IT vendors have no choice but to farm out some analyst-related activities. To minimize the chance of agency staff causing problems with the analysts, vendors need to carefully evaluate whether or not a PR agency is actually competent in analyst relations before hiring them.
A technique SageCircle has developed is asking a series of questions in the form of scenarios about AR situations. The responses to the scenarios can then be graded for compliance with AR best practices and insights as to how the analysts work. As always, it is important to weight the questions because some will be more important than others. In addition, it is critical that a standard evaluation framework be established so that responses from different agencies will be graded consistently.
The killer questions should not just be asked of the agency’s senior executive that is trying to win the business, but also the staff that will actually be doing the work. Reluctance by the agency to introduce you to the staff should raise red flags about the breadth and depth of AR expertise in the firm.
The first killer question to ask the PR agency rainmaker and staff is […]
Since 2000, SageCircle has helped analyst relations teams to focus on business value by encouraging innovative thinking that leverages insights and drives revenue.
Redmonk’s Stephen O’Grady in Bad PR – The Bane of My Existence: Seven Suggestions for PR Workers has some practical advice for PR professionals at agencies. Here are his seven suggestions (details in the post):
Since 2000, SageCircle has helped analyst relations teams to focus on business value by encouraging innovative thinking that leverages insights and drives revenue.
Research by SageCircle, H&K (in multiple Technology Influencer Studies conducted by Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates), Lighthouse AR and other AR advisory groups has consistently shown that the most significant influence on purchases is peer recommendation and personal contacts. Second is industry analyst opinion, which leads all other influence including advertising and PR. For a startup attempting to break into an existing market or carve out a new market space this is critical information.
For a startup, traditional PR is certainly important and should not be ignored, but allocation of resources to AR can provide a higher ROI. Press is very transient and even an outstanding article or mention does not have staying power over the long run if it gets buried in the clutter of a Google search. Analyst reports have a much longer shelf life and may be referred to months after they are published as a relevant research note is more likely to surface during a research search on the analyst firm website. Good research consumers will then contact the analyst firm for an update or discuss the report during an inquiry.
Industry analysts also convey information at industry events, act as sources for reporters, and can even have influence on Wall Street. It is therefore critical that they are […]
Since 2000, SageCircle has helped analyst relations teams to focus on business value by encouraging innovative thinking that leverages insights and drives revenue.
How many times have you seen an analyst quote in the press and wondered “well why did the reporter contact that analyst” or “if that reporter had contacted someone familiar with us we would have been more favorably mentioned”?
Reporters use a variety of sources to gain content for their articles and frequently quote analysts to add credibility to their data, observations, or opinions. Sometimes it seems that some publications have a policy that each article contain at least one industry analyst quote. In some cases the analyst is named, while at other times the reference might be “a leading analyst from <firm name>” or “according to <firm name> analysts.
Unlike quotes in your press releases you have little control over these analyst quotes. Or do you? If you are working closely with […]
Since 2000, SageCircle has helped analyst relations teams to focus on business value by encouraging innovative thinking that leverages insights and drives revenue.
This oft-attributed quote to Mark Twain might sum up how the Motorola AR teams feels about a quote by an analyst in Motorola CMO out: Tried to save Razr, got cut saying that the entire AR team has left Motorola. “Wow!” I thought, “That is absolutely amazing!” Just to double check, I dropped the Motorola AR folks an e-mail. The response was quick and no, the AR team was still there. I’m sure the analyst is now thinking “Oops!” More importantly, I hope the reporter is a little red faced as well. […]
Since 2000, SageCircle has helped analyst relations teams to focus on business value by encouraging innovative thinking that leverages insights and drives revenue.